Y Combinator is extremely influential in tech startups and startup culture.
Peter Thiel, an investor who often participates in Y Combinator, is donating $1.25 million to Donald Trump’s political efforts, which has incited outrage among the tech community with many calling for Y Combinator to sever ties with Thiel.
Y Combinator has apparently decided not to. President Sam Altman defended this position in a blog post, framed as a Clinton endorsement, that begins with a partial overview of how reprehensible and dangerous Trump is, but ends with a defense of continuing Thiel’s involvement in Y Combinator that’s effectively framed as a free-speech or tolerance issue.
I completely agree with Arment.
One thing doesn’t sit entirely right with me about this, though. Y Combinator is getting a decent amount of flack for this, and rightly so – a sexual assaulter like Trump should be in prison, not in the White House. However, where’s all the outrage about Tim Cook organising fundraisers for Donald Trump’s political party? Why is that fact almost silently swept under the rug and brushed aside, but Y Combinator gets skewered for doing the same thing? Why is Tim Cook supporting Donald Trump okay, but Y Combinator not cutting ties with someone supporting Donald Trump not okay?
Is it, perhaps, because Apple and Tim Cook get graded on a curve, to use a phrase popular in the Apple blogosphere?
It’s almost as inconsistent as iOS. I guess that runs deeper than I thought.
I don’t endorse any of the two candidates, besides I’m not american.
But there is no more decency to defend Trump or Clinton.
The vast majority of the western media focuses on Trump’s faults but “forget” all the crimes committed by Clinton …
She is a Real War Criminial that destroyed a whole country, Lybia and transformed that once rich country into a failed state… Worse she bragged about it, NO remorses.
At least Trump has not (yet) blood on his hands…
absolutely spot on correct. Thom’s claims that Trump should be in jail are pure ignorance.
Inappropriate sure, but far less inappropriate than Trump’s campaign promise that Clinton go to jail…
Trump confessed he sexually assaults women. So yeah, I think he should be in jail for that. I don’t think that’s a very controversial thing to say, but maybe in Trump’s America, sexually assaulting people is just fine and a-okay.
You are wrong. This is consensual:
“I’ve gotta use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her,†Trump says. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.â€
“And when you’re a star they let you do it,†Trump says. “You can do anything.â€
Do you even now what “consent” means? “I don’t even wait.” – how can you know there’s consent if you just kiss a women without first establishing she wants to be kissed?
Not denying that Trump is a piece of shit of a human being. But consensual sex between two (or more) adults, regardless of how unromantic and unappealing to your sensitivities it may have been, is still in no way shape or form at the same level as destabilizing a sovereign country and have it descend into a state of chaos that has cost thousands of people’s lives.
Also, publicly shaming and chastising people for their electoral choices rubs off as somewhat authoritarian in nature…
That’s a pretty good description of the majority of the left wing and its associated collective feminism. I consider myself lucky that (at least some of them) philadelphian anarcha-feminists are wiser than that.
Really? So people that vote for racists and sexists can’t be called out because it’s their “electoral choice”? That’s just as dumb as saying that critizing someone’s speech is an attack to free speech…
Both Trump and Clinton are shitty people. It’s a moot election, either party is unpalatable from the standpoint of basic human decency, or anything remotely relatable to the interests of the vast majority of the citizens they want to govern.
If you’re focusing on the sins of one, while doing all you can to ignore the awful deeds of the other. Then that’s a clear indication of the lengths you are willing to go in order to preserve your cognitive dissonance.
In this case you’re passing Trump’s inane misogynist metaphor with the literal, while doing all you can to deflect from Clinton’s literal death toll. It’s quite telling.
PS. Other than the obvious need for clickbait I fail to see what politics has to do with the supposed intent of this site.
Edited 2016-10-20 19:38 UTC
The intent of this site is whatever the owner and main operator of this site wants. And when politics and tech intersect, this site reports on it.
Thanks for proving my point; you’re focusing on the possible future speculative shitty deeds of the guy you don’t like, while going out of your way to either ignore or gloss over the past recorded shitty actual deeds of the gal you root for, in order to preserve your cognitive dissonance.
They both suck as human beings. You can try all you want to debate what part of a shit smells better, but at the end of the day it is just that; shit.
You really don’t know what that means, do you?
LOL. Is that your way of asking for help to understand a concept you don’t know?
OK, let me spell it out then; Your brain is working overtime trying to justify how a bad person (in this case Hillary) is somehow a better choice than another bad person (Trump). Aka, you’re trying to have it both ways. I.e. that a bad person is somehow acceptable, while another bad person somehow ain’t.
Which is why you focus on Trump’s possible future misdeeds, while doing all you can to deflect from Hillary’s actual past misdeeds by either ignoring them, or projecting your way out of them.
In reality, both Clinton and Trump are awful people and choices and should not be supported.
Riiight. Nice to know what I think, and what my brain does. Strawmanning much? Let me spell it for you: I disagree with you that Hillary is “bad”. She’s not the best choice (I personally would’ve liked Sanders better), she has her faults, she made mistakes, but I prefer her over Trump. You are saying that the only viable position is that they are equally bad (or that Trump is less bad, I forgot, doesn’t matter). You are wrong. Even if it’s a choice between two bads, you can have a preference between one bad or the other. I prefer big capital Benghazi rapist attorney bad over sexist racist ignorant religious fundamentalist-pandering bad. You don’t, fine. But don’t tell me suffer from cognitive disonance.
So you deny your cognitive dissonance by illustrating your cognitive dissonance. Good luck with that buckaroo…
The “tolerant left” has become more fascist and less for freedom of speech than ever before. Let’s punish those that disagree with us, is the new motto. It seems the old saying is true “opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and most of them stink”.
I for one would love to see less opinion on OSnews and more technology stuff.
Thom, you are OK with a pedophile in the white house? Ever hear of the Lolita Express and Bill Clinton’s travels to rape underage girls? (Bill is Hillary’s husband.)
Trump is a crude, rich bastard. But he has not admitted sexual assault, nor implied such an admission. It is a neo-liberal (in the US-sense) feminist misrepresentation. He merely said that succesful, confident men were so attractive,they’d* consent to anything. And while his version was crudely worded, he is right, after all.
His views on mexicans and free speech are deplorable. But admitting to sexual assault, he did not.
* “they” are the women** of course.
** I am referring to the sex (biological gender) and not the neo-marxist theory of social gender.
Edited 2016-10-20 02:40 UTC
dylansmriones,
Why assume that? He might be into assaulting male cross-dressers…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8
While just an act, it’s oddly relevant to his predicament.
Edited 2016-10-20 03:27 UTC
Well, he did say women (one can strictly speaking not cross dress, seeing there are no such thing as manly/male or womanly/female clothes). And what he said you could do to them does not constitute sexual assault.
dylansmriones,
Just to make sure we are on the same page, here is what he said:
“You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful. I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss, I don’t even wait. And when your a star, they let you do it, you can do anything, grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Whether you choose to believe Trump or his accusers is up to you, but it’s incredibly awkward to defend from accusations by women stating he did exactly what he said he was doing.
“they’d let you do it” <- consent, therefore not sexual assault.
Well, no. Confessing to and actually having performed the act are two different things.
Luckily, it is not your job, neither that of any media to convict him of anything. It’s for the judge/jury (depending on the legal system) to decide whether he actually assaulted anyone, in a proper court of law, not the court of public opinion.
Edited 2016-10-20 04:35 UTC
As an American, all I can do is apologize for my countries crappy 2 party system, and the very very seriously delinquent result of this broken primary system. I did my part and supported neither candidate in the primary, but alas, in a first past the post election system, those efforts yielded absolutely nothing at all.
This is embarrassing, and not in any way fun. What a terrible election.
I wasn’t aware that Trump had been found guilty of sexual assault in a court of law. Did I miss something?
Edited 2016-10-19 21:31 UTC
Yeah, I was surprised too with this “sexual assaulter” wording (or claim ?).
Looks like euro-male (too-sensitive male ?) Thom would rather complain about Trump’s “verbals” than Bill Clinton’s physical indiscretions. It’s as if Trump’s “verbals” trump, pardon the pun, Hillary’s war crimes.
Hillary represents a player in the establishment that has maintained a blow-back impaired (driven ?) foreign policy setup. This is the establishment that found it okay to be complicit in the starvation/murder of ~500,000 Iraqi childen during the sanctions imposed on Saddam back in 1990’s (remember the Madeline Albright interview at around 1999 where she implied to the journalist that “yes” it was worth the risk to have those “casualties” in an attempt to topple Saddam).
How about the “Benghazi” coverup ?
How about the downing of Libya ?
If Trump represents a fracture from this establishment leading to avoidance of irresponsible conflict/blowback, servicing of the US debt, and other “good” things ….. then I think Trump’s past faults concerning his lady-talk-lingo would be the least of our worries.
OTOH, we have the alpha-male Trump in the USA and the lack of a broad presence of alpha-males in the european-country-prime-minister category in addition to the many problems Europe is facing now.
Hmmmm … get’s you thinking.
Do you really think Trump’s past “verbals” warrants
an attack from practically the whole mainstream media establishment (MME) ? Bill Clinton did worse.
I believe the MME and their government/etc. friends, powers-that-be (PTB), are worried about the “unknown”-ness of a Trump presidency.
Will Trump be a game changer or will Trump be the same as the “system” that has existed during the preceding decades ?
Such a “dilemma” for the PTB.
Time till tell ……
Can we create a new internet law by which anyone saying “Benghazi” in a political discussion has lost that discussion instantly?
The difference between Thiel vs Cook is that Thiel donated money to an absolutely reprehensible man to help him get elected, while Cook’s donation was merely to the Republican party.
Cooks’ contributions are to the party platform, while Thiel is to Trump.
Not that this both are completely different from the situation with the Mozilla CEO that was outed after people learned of his political contributions – nobody cared about his donations to candidates that had restriction LGBT rights as part of his platform, but they took exception to his donating to a California proposition that saught to deny rights to LGBT people. At least with a party platform, or a candidate’s platform, you sometimes have to take the bad with the good. Not so when you donate to a single-issue initiative.
Trump is boorish, but Bill Clinton is a Rapist.
Amazing that Liberals don’t care how many women get raped by white men predators on the left (Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy), or the problem with the refugees from the middle east raping women in the street.
The reason no one cares what Trump did is because Bill Clinton is ten times worse, and no one even mentions much less condemns him (or most recently Anthony Weiner). And Hillary shielded her husband and harassed his victims. I think I understand why you don’t care about lots of rapes but are really concerned about mere misconduct, but I can find no good in that double standard.
And what about the accusations against Julian Assange who is under house arrest? Obviously an evil predator since WikiLeaks is revealing dirt on Hillary. If he were revealing things on Trump he’s be a hero and saint.
Tim Cook also just hosted a huge fundraiser for Clinton. Google has been advising her campaign. Zuckerberg is tilting his results. Twitter is shadowbanning and censoring in Clinton’s favor.
Tech now spends twice as much on corrupt crony lobbying than Wall street. Do you think they care about women, or about power?
Julian Assange is a despicable human being who should be tried for rape.
There is no moral distinction between supporting Trump and supporting Clinton. None.
You have Whitewater, Trump University, Benghazi, Trump’s 4 bankruptcies, email scandal, there is no point in going on – both candidates have a rap sheet a mile long of controversies, legal entanglements, shady financial dealings, etc. They are both documented liars (multiple times over). They are both horrible people and will both make horrible Presidents.
Literally the only thing that Hillary has over Trump is she has enough intelligence to keep her mouth shut when she should (usually). Trump is just an idiot, which is refreshing in a way because at least with him you know exactly what your getting straight out of the horses mouth.
No. I’m not going to call for pitchforks over some guy like this supporting Trump – what about the other 90% of the tech sector firmly supporting Clinton? May as well burn the whole country down if we are going to start doing that…
I’m probably just going to vote for Gary Johnson, even if realistically he cannot win. He has some pretty stupid policy ideas I don’t agree with, but they are slightly less stupid than Jill Stein’s. I don’t think he would really make a good president, but at least he seems to have the correct number of chromosomes and I don’t think he would kill little children to save his own career.
Ill sleep better knowing I didn’t help to elect either one of these degenerates.
Edited 2016-10-19 21:54 UTC
Well said.
It may be refreshing, the actual things coming out of his mouth should be bad enough for anyone not to vote for him.
> that’s effectively framed as a free-speech or tolerance issue.
So, we don’t want free speech or something?
> a sexual assaulter like Trump should be in prison
Last I heard, he has not been found guilty or even formally accused of anything like this. If you want to throw around informal crap, well Hillary actually threatened rape victims. Also, Hillary should actually be in prison as she has committed numerous actual crimes: perjury, mishandling of classified info, etc. Not to mention getting many Americans murdered.
> It’s almost as inconsistent as iOS.
What.. the fuck?
This article is so full of false information and stupidity. Thom, this is embarrassing for you.
That’s how they do it in The Netherlands apparently:
Thom: a sexual assaulter like Trump should be in prison
If he did commit such assaults, yes obviously. But in the case he did commit that (nobody has even gone the police yet), he may be able to use the Hillary defence: he didn’t intent to commit sexual assault. That’ll do.
I’m just too lazy to refer to all the posts your wrote about Julian Assange, but that’ll only embarrass you further. And please, can citizens of other countries stop reporting on the US election? I’m utterly sick of it.
^ OMG this must be one of the most laughable comments I have ever seen on this site.
Yeah, you’re right, you know, it’s not as if the USA’s economic and foreign policy has a direct impact on the whole world and the well being or even the lives of many people outside America depend on the choices of its governemnt. So it’s not like reporters from other countries should care about your fucking elections – they’re just your business, ain’t they?
Oh wait…
Next time think twice please.
The only common sense thing to do is to keep politics out of the work place. Insanity will ensue if businesses become aligned with political parties and start catering to only Rep or Demo customers. What is next? A test on whether you are Rep or Demo before you can get hired? This is just insane.
Really? If one political party wants rights for straight white men only, and another party is inclusive of everyone else, *automatically* a business will become anti-aligned with the former if it proclaims humanistic values. Politics should be about everything that does not follow from humanistic values, instead of 90% about racism, sexism, misogynism and science denial as it is currently.
Hilarious seeing the statement that Trump should be in jail for sexually assaulting, but being oblivious to the irony of him supporting the candidate who savaged not only a 12-year-old rape victim in court, but savaged her “husband” Bill’s sexual assault victims. BTW, I’m NOT voting for Trump.
Also fascinating to see the VERY common desire by leftists to see their political opponents ostracized entirely (slam at Tim Cook for daring to not do 100% of his fundraising for Democrats) or silenced entirely.
“Tolerant” “open-minded” lefties are so confident of their views that they prefer seeing opposing views shut down.
It’s so nice and refreshing to know that supporters of the Democrats are being called “lefties”, as if there was anything leftist in most areas of Dem policies.
Call me confused: so Tim Cook is a fundraiser for the Republican party and still considered as a potential vice-president for by the Democratic party?
Despite what Thom said, Cook held ONE fundraiser this year for a Republican: House Speaker Paul Ryan (hardly an enthusiastic Trump supporter). On the other hand, Cook held a fundraiser specifically for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. In addition, Apple provided resources for the Democratic National Convention, but didn’t do so for the Republican National Convention.
That’s not good enough for Thom, apparently.
It would be only fair, Tom, if you could understand and acknowledge that Hillary is a f–ked up candidate aswell. No matter how awful Trump might seem, some might rather choose anyone but Hillary. Trump happens to be the only alternative and that’s nobody’s fault really.
Edited 2016-10-20 09:27 UTC
You can also *not* vote, if both candidates are bad. But any decent human being would avoid voting for a racist, sexist, narcisist and alround idiot.
Edited 2016-10-20 15:10 UTC
That would be both candidates then.
Riiiight… Hillary is racist and sexist…
Sandnigger? Her slurs against Bills victims? Her abuse of a 12 year old rape victim?
Not to mention all the other shit. Both candidates are fucktards unworthy of the presidency. Neither is better than the other. Both are evil in a way that cannot be graded.
I’ll take the evil that has a decade long record for fighting for women’s rights over the evil that has a decade long record for abusing women.
She’s a joke in regard to women’s rights. All words, but her actions are contrary to those words. Trump has no record, no matter how stupid he is or how crude his comments are.
You do however raise an important question. Should we hope for the known evil or the unknown evil? The latter has a better chance of being a disaster, paving the road for a long overdue armed rebellion by the People. From a scandinavian and baltic perspective Hillary Clinton will be preferable. I’m inclined to believe she will be better for the NATO alliance than Donald Trump. But both are monsters.
Well, this is so crude, and so far detached from reality, that I don’t think dicussing with you has any merit. You might want to do a reality check though.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3729466/Child-rape-victim-c…
Call it a fantasy again. You make a mockery out of genuine women’s right advocates.
All the “genuine” women’s right advocates I know are pro Hillary, and anti Trump.
I’m of course one of the non-voters but many sheeple seem to think that they have to vote for something or they are basically heretics.
Gary Johnson, a third party candidate and former Republican, is on the ballot in all 50 states, which is unprecedented in modern American dual-party politics.
So no, Trump isn’t the only alternative, and if everyone who is only voting for Trump because they don’t want Hillary would instead vote for Johnson, then Johnson would stand a chance against Hillary. He probably wouldn’t win, but it would bring the Libertarian party into the forefront and give American politics the shake-up it needs.
What’s worse, is that Facebook / Mark Z. has defended Peter Tiel: http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/19/13334608/mark-zuckerberg-peter-t…
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you?
He’s a board member, he doesn’t feed Facebook.
https://marco.org/2016/10/17/shame-on-y-combinator
Never mind – I see it now.
At first I wanted to delete this site from my bookmarks after reading what the author has said regarding Trump.
But then I decided not to do so, because it would make me just as ignorant and bigotry as democrats and Killary’s electorate are.
How extremely nice of you!
Really?! I mean come on.
I’ve been following OSNews for some 10+ years, but I’m calling it quits. There have been other stories here that were bordering on insane, but had some small semblance of reason in them, however misguided they were. This is now just pure and unblemished hate coupled with the level of smugness and intolerance which has just become, well, intolerable.
OSNews it was nice knowing you. However, it is time you join Mozilla and some other companies up in the great green progressive echo chamber in the sky.
Edit:
This. 1000 times this.
Edited 2016-10-20 12:49 UTC
Good ridance!
What should Thom do when all non-Dems / non-lefties have jumped ship & ad revenue falls to a non-sustainable level? Should he ask for US taxpayer “donations” a la “nonpartisan” “public” broadcasting’s NPR & PBS?
We must really live in a post-ideological world, if we’re at a point where people who identify themselves with the “left” are not only supporting but identifying themselves with Hillary Clinton’s platform and party.
Some random idiots on the internet attack Y Combinator’s investor on the grounds of his electoral choice, and Y Combinator not only fails to support his right to make whatever electoral choice he feels appropriate, but also tentatively distantiate itself from him. That is an unethical action that only someone with no concept of moral agency may commit.
Oh wait, we are speaking of legal entity which has no moral agency by definition.
Yeah, it’s so unethical to call out someone who donates over a million bucks to a man that likes to “grab women in the pussy”.
Yes, it is unethical to call out someone whom you owe, even if they do something wrong. It is entirely OK to donate money to whatever entity donator deems appropriate. And there is nothing wrong with “grab[bing] women in the pussy” if that happens between concenting adults.
Edited 2016-10-20 15:15 UTC
Stretching the definition of “consent” by a mile…
Not really. Unless femenist usage is concerned, the word “consent” is rather well defined and stable in its definition: http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/nph-cent2jpg.php?&vol…
With the feminist usage you mean “consent” as in “the woman also has a say in it”?
Sorry to upset you, but women have had a say in it at least since the I century AD. Ironically, that were men who only got a say recently. Please do your research next time.
Femenist usage I am talking of is redefinition of consent from
I fail to see the difference between the two. And I even more fail to understand how anyone could have anything against the second definition. #rapeculture
Oh, it is easy: all you need is to use your brain. It might be difficult, especially for the first time, but you might succeed eventually.
And don’t expect people to not call you an idiot when you pretend so hard to be one.
…and from snark to insult in one sentence. Well done! Who’s the idiot here?
Let me see: You called reality “fantasy world” and admitted inability to comprehend difference between entirely different definitions. I called you out for that. And you apparently failed to comprehend that as well.
Sorry dude, but the answer is clear: you are an idiot, or at least you pretend very hard to be one.
Sure, keep on living in your make-believe world. With a bit of luck, you’ll die before the truth comes knocking on your door…
… but enough about yourself.
That’s blatant sophistry on your part, as can be expected when talking about gender issues.
Oh, poor men, so weak and subdued throughout all history!