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Welcome Home, Garry Tan

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251–260 of 293 posts

Re: Welcome Home, Garry Tan

#251
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine to want the erosion of the nation-state, but Thiel specifically wants to replace it with a monarch, not a free society

He does? Where has he said that?

He is smarter than saying those words but read https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/07/blake-masters-p...

Re: Welcome Home, Garry Tan

#253
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based only on your comment, I'm guessing you're unaware of Palantir's work with intelligence agencies even when Tan was there. Also, Thiel's mission from the start was this kind of work. I served in the Marine Corps. I've had some exposure to Palantir's 'offerings'. It's a fucking nightmare of a company, morally and ethically, and it always has been.

I've studied Thiel, he's just not mainstream left. If you want to listen to him with good faith, I enjoyed this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM9f0W2KD5s Doesn't come across evil to me unless by evil you mean just not mainstream left, which might be the correct in the valley.

A counterpoint to consider: "The Enigma of Peter Thiel": https://johnganz.substack.com/p/the-enigma-of-peter-thiel

Re: Welcome Home, Garry Tan

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see what’s wrong about it. They are probably on some blocklist of low value reply guys.

No, I think he blocks anyone who likes a tweet that disagrees with him. Not necessarily people who are replying to him.

I really don't think he's that petty. Also, Twitter can be toxic as hell. He should block a lot of people if he wants to stay sane while using it.

Re: Welcome Home, Garry Tan

#255
post #69
post #47

“Garry Tan is a moral canary in a coal mine. When people hate on Garry Tan, they out themselves as either evil or stupid, because in fact Garry is as close to a 100% good guy as you get”. —Paul Graham https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1460931338131890180 ———— Congratulations Garry! Your blogs were my inspirations when I was running my startup. I always remember this line: “The ideal startup team involves really two ma…

> The extreme left in SF politics (which in SF = the Establishment). ??? kind off topic, but I am curious what other people in SF think about this statement. I don't live there, but I find it surprising and dubious that the extreme anything is also "the establishment", not saying it's not possible but seems unlikely to me.

20 years in SF, and I can promise you that the extreme left is not the establishment here. As an example, we had a relatively progressive prosecutor who tried occasionally to hold cops to account. After an acrimonious campaign, he was just recalled with extensive support from a chunk of the establishment. His replacement, selected by the mayor, volunteered as an active proponent in the recall. Except that it came out later that she received $100k in "consulting" fees from a billionaire via a sister organization to the recall campaign: https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/reports-sf-da-brooke-jen...

San Francisco gets a lot of press as being radical, but the government strikes me as pretty middle-of-the-road and wealth-focused. i can't think of a policy here that would be out of place in any other sensibly run city in the US. And we're definitely to the right of places like Copenhagen and Amsterdam. And that goes back a long way; CA's current governor was a centrist mayor here back in the day.

Re: Welcome Home, Garry Tan

#256

(Throwaway because it’s a small world) This is disappointing. YC needs a fresh perspective. Recycling older members is not a positive sign for continued innovation. I wouldn’t point to “HODL diamond hands” crypto hype (suddenly disappeared..) and personal brand-building content creation as the type of leadership YC needs at this stage. Specifically in this, someone who has been running a large VC fund for the past ha…

I didn't realize Garry was so crypto-y. Now as the President and CEO of YC where everyone constantly says "Make something people want", "Solve a real problem", I'm curious for him to chime in to the 'What's a real use-case for crypto?' debate.

>I didn't realize Garry was so crypto-y. Now as the President and CEO of YC where everyone constantly says "Make something people want", "Solve a real problem", I'm curious for him to chime in to the 'What's a real use-case for crypto?' debate.

That's why I think YC under Garry will pivot to something like: "Catch the next big thing" even if the next big thing is a scam and an environmental disaster.

I look forward to YC becoming full-time crypto shills and pump and dump scams.

Re: Welcome Home, Garry Tan

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeing many people say you've blocked them without ever having interacted with you. Many have jumped to the conclusion that you simply block people who disagree with your politics. I don't tweet about SF politics, but after I tweeted this, you replied tell me it's funny but wrong, and then blocked me: https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1491167231467999236 Which is fine. I block plenty of people. I also mute peo…

I'm in the blocked club and have no idea why. Here's the one tweet I ever sent @garrytan, responding to his reply to me: https://twitter.com/nelson/status/1185919273065041925 . (I'm happy to report that business reopened with new owners and the rumor was the old owners just went broke.) I agree blocking people is fine and should be stigma free. But Mr. Tan's framing of his reasons for blocking seems at odds with the…

I don't think I ever interacted with him on Twitter, but I do from time to time press the "like" button on tweets in favor of criminal justice reform, in favor of the tax measure that voters passed in San Francisco to support homeless services (and that Stripe and its investors, YC included, loathe), and some similarly "progressive" issues in the Bay Area. FWIW, I also press "like" on some number of tweets that are considered "moderate" (to use the wacko language of San Francisco politics) but that's neither here nor there.

I don't particularly care that I triggered his Twitter blocking scripts. But I do take it as a sign that he wants to send a signal to founders looking to raise from his firm that they'd do well to support his political views or stay quiet on social media.

Re: Welcome Home, Garry Tan

#258
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the blocked club and have no idea why. Here's the one tweet I ever sent @garrytan, responding to his reply to me: https://twitter.com/nelson/status/1185919273065041925 . (I'm happy to report that business reopened with new owners and the rumor was the old owners just went broke.) I agree blocking people is fine and should be stigma free. But Mr. Tan's framing of his reasons for blocking seems at odds with the…

I don't think I ever interacted with him on Twitter, but I do from time to time press the "like" button on tweets in favor of criminal justice reform, in favor of the tax measure that voters passed in San Francisco to support homeless services (and that Stripe and its investors, YC included, loathe), and some similarly "progressive" issues in the Bay Area. FWIW, I also press "like" on some number of tweets that are c…

> ... in favor of the tax measure that voters passed in San Francisco to support homeless services ...

Ok come on, a tax on gross receipts is asinine. Of course low margin businesses with high volumes left. Square left, Stripe left, PayPal left. That cuts into the tax base which in turn means less revenue to help the homeless.

Regardless of whether you think what they did with it was good, the actual calculus of who has to pay how much makes zero sense.

Then of course there's the fact that money went to putting the hobos under highway overpasses in tent cities instead of building more houses.

I'm with Garry on this one.

Re: Welcome Home, Garry Tan

#260
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the blocked club and have never interacted with him!

Same. It's clear there is a connected graph of follow edges all of whom were blocked by this guy. Seems he can't live outside his filter bubble. Perfect for the leader of YC, honestly.

It is very imperfect, I would say
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