that depends on how far along the political spectrum you are. I'm a classical liberal (free market, free speech, pro-equality of opportunity etc) and I have read enough to believe that my political beliefs would not be welcome at many Silicon Valley companies. The particular politics of the California startup scene are pretty far left, to the point that people who would have been considered left wing less than 20 years ago would be seen as hardline conservative in that space. Christopher Hitchens, Stephen Fry or Sam Harris would likely have a hard time getting in.

There is fundamentally a difference between criticising diversity policies (aka affirmative action) and being anti-diversity or one of the various -isms.

> People who choose to keep their opinions to themselves can still thrive, but dissidents and activists have trouble. It was ever thus.

from the comment I was replying to:

> You may be surprised, but having a diversity of ideas and backgrounds really could improve a network protocol.

These two positions are contradictory, and that was exactly my point. Retric was suggesting that the political policy of SV is one of promoting diversity of ideas, and I pointed out (and seemingly you agree) that it is actually about enforcing and advancing a singular political belief.

Silicon Valley startups cover a wide range. They are thousands of independent actors covering a huge range of political views. Even if you want to restrict things to well funded startups, Uber and Google for example started as very different places.

So, I am really not talking about SV startups directly when I talk about the benefits of diversity. I am mostly focused on someone injecting a comment in a design meeting that saves the team weeks of work.