Anyone who knows Gary knows he’s a (relatively) gentle human being. I can’t imagine him hurting a fly.

His tweets seem totally out of character compared to the Gary Tan I personally knew. Maybe he has changed?

I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Post Elon acquisition, many influential tech figures have discovered that being a provocateur on Twitter/X is more consistently successful at building an audience than genuine insight.

I thought the idea that timeline sorting order on social media sites is deterministic or scrutable to the viewer is long dead by now - it's not been the case for at least a good decade now!

The players and ordering has changed only.

Eh? Trump was never there post Elon acquisition. I don’t think that timing makes sense. The tone of Twitter has been like this for years if not the beginning.

It's human nature. People are social creatures and they love to join some fight as long as they have their own comrades with them.

My wife spent years on Twitter embroiled in a very long running and bitter political / rights issue. She was always thoughtful, insightful etc. She'd spend 10 minutes rewording a single tweet to make sure it got the real point across in a way that wasn't inflammatory, and that had a good chance of being persuasive. With 5k followers, I think her most popular tweets might get a few hundred likes. The one time she got drunk and angry, she got thousands of supportive reactions, and her followers increased by a large % overnight. And that scared her. She saw the way "the crowd" was pushing her. Rewarding her for the smell of blood in the water.

Audience capture is real. Chronically online people with polarised followers will play to their crowd. Inch by inch, day by day, as social creatures, we automatically and subliminally seek approval from our social group. I've seen this type of dynamic push people into the extremes.

My wife got out. First she asked me to block twitter on all of her devices. A month of cold turkey later, she quit for good ,and she's far happier for it.

I know that was the case for me. I spent hundreds of hours of reading blog posts by intelligent, optimistic, philosophically transgressive at times but not actually rude or crass folks, all trying to grapple with how to live best in this world. I think this reshaped me to be a much better person in a whole bunch of ways. Very happy for it.

Natural responses to this would be "I don't like drama" and I would say the same, unfortunately this isn't the case for most of humans.

Should Gary Tan quit over this? Of course not. I think the fact that people put others on a pedestal is a mistake in the first place.

"State subjective perspective as objective fact. Cast shame upon the OP for not pre-aligning with said belief. Put the responsibility on the OP to prove that they are not deserving of shame."

I grew up in an environment where this kind communication was sort of the default, hence why I was curious and wanted to drill down a bit and give it some thought. Of course, many people agree that Twitter is more unhealthy than healthy. But that's not entirely the point here, I think.

A lot of people say they never thought their neighbor could hurt someone, after the fact.

In literally the next sentence:

> the level of avoidable human misery caused by the dysfunction of politics [...] sickening [...] utterly enraged [...] there's a piece of your soul missing

So you'll deploy extreme emotional hyperbole, but not "violent rhetoric"? Seems like those are two rather nearby points on the same spectrum, no? Tan just slipped a bit off the edge. If you're going to deny someone's soul, it's not that big a leap to wish them dead.

I don't think so, no. Those two things are miles apart.

It's just that Tan forgot the rules in the heat of the moment. And so would the grandparent poster after a few drinks, I suspect.

To wit: cool the fuck down, everyone. Shitposting on the internet is a slippery slope to an accidental death threat.

Or they can just agree with Gary that correlation is never causation.

This is the kind of shitpost most people would be able to get away with, but Tan is now too important -- and will have to curate his communications more. Especially if he's going to take such a strong position against incumbent politicians cautious of their own images.

It also feels like a smart political play by his targets to discredit him. They were probably waiting for him to slip up and say something like this.

Anyways, his position is a sympathetic one - the city is not well managed. I say this as someone who frequently disagrees with Tan.

How is he important? Would a person on the street know who he is?

I guess this goes with the idea that he can wish death on people and be an asshole but that’s ok, as long as it’s hidden.

Assuming he is so critical or important should the public then know better what his thoughts or attitudes are?

“Gosh, wish someone handed him a twitter account earlier so we know before signing a contract or something…”

On the other hand one can take a more compassionate view and say maybe he had a mental breakdown or some trauma. Not knowing or caring about his importance, I’d default to that, as I would most strangers in that situation.

The fact it’s a Tupac lyric is not like common knowledge. I doubt a random poll of Twitter users would show most people would know the reference immediately.

It’s an election year. People will use the tweet as they see fit. Voters will ultimately decide whether it matters or not concerning candidates who have received money from Tan. But I don’t think this is the last we’ll hear about it.

This is a touch paranoid.

it was misinterpreted, he thought people would get a reference that they clearly did not

As a general matter, people should spend more time saying what they mean instead of engaging in meta-discourse of quoting cool references to each other for vibes. It's an unhealthy way to communicate; online discourse is totally irony-poisoned and (imho) this is partly why there's such a breakdown of social trust.

And really, don't you think throwing out lines like 'die slow motherfuckers' in public for cool points is a little...juvenile?

I'm vaguely aware of him, and his name and how he died are fairly well known, but I couldn't name a single track if my life dependent on it.

But even with artists "everyone" listens to, most people's listening is limited enough that assuming people know their lyrics would be stupid.

Vile and disgusting? Yes. Shocking? Absolutely not. Sorry that your buddy lacks empathy.

It’s a bit rich

They wouldn’t rant like that in real life on a bus with a captive audience.

If anything this is healthy.

Having not used twitter, is this easy one-click thing that takes no time nor thought, or is he having to switch screens and spend time on doing this?

(Technically I became a twit yesterday because nitter stopped working and there is just one person's posts that I like to check up on, so I ended up giving in and logging in... :( But I still don't know the UI well enough to answer my own question :) )

An earlier report from the same news site describes the candidates that he is supporting as 'moderate': https://missionlocal.org/2024/01/y-combinator-ceo-garry-tans...

I'm a little surprised though that a tech person of Asian ethnicity would be interested in boxing, good for him for going against all the ingrained stereotypes.

I always judged people based on how they act when drunk. Always stick with people who are happy drunk never angry/violent drunk

All of those things tend to reveal truths about ourselves that we normally don't expose.

OR

like you said, maybe he is on some behavioral or cognitive decline. Another Lee Holloway situation [1]

[1] https://www.wired.com/story/lee-holloway-devastating-decline...

Ah, so if it's a quote, it doesn't matter, because even though you've decided when to use them, they're not "your words"

Thanks, going to publish press releases with Cannibal Corpse lyrics going forward.

SF politics is a clown show on all sides - Garry has lost serious credibility that he could play some part in cleaning it up. I think he knows that.

Whether people in the US are extremely oversenstive to tweets and words, or that the tweets and words have the power to suddenly make regular people hateful and violent - neither of those states are normal.

Either that, or the country really is a few Twitter sparks away from civil war, which again would... not be a normal state of things.

If the other side said it, oh dear. We'd best remove them from their job, their payroll, shun them forever, and make sure they never have power again.

I think the correct approach is to have a conversation, to seek an apology, and to hold the party to being better. Strike one; it's water under the bridge.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

Some of us have enough principles to complain even when "our" side does horrible stuff. When a friend does it, I might be more inclined to talk to them in private rather than blast them in public, but that's a mix of "I am more likely to change their mind if I don't antagonize them by making this public" and "I have absolutely no social media presence, so me calling someone out doesn't really make a difference."

> If the other side said it, oh dear. We'd best remove them from their job, their payroll, shun them forever, and make sure they never have power again.

Care to share some examples?

Go ahead and post it yourself, it seems reasonable, yes?

Are we sure about that? There are politicians who have coordinated/enabled things with consequences that would justify capital punishment if someone believes in that as an option. For example, from a raw moral perspective a reasonable person could support executing the entire congressional Aye vote for the US sending the army into Afghanistan.

That would be a terrible mistake, because the incentives don't check out, politics would become a bloodbath when people make honest mistakes, bloody vengeance helps no-one and there is a plausible question around whether the person voting is making a personal decision or just trying to channel their voters. But since it is a superficially reasonable position I assume people would say that sort of thing regularly. To argue it out and learn why it is a bad idea, if nothing else.

While I'd argue for a normal person that posting something like that would just fly under the radar and disappear into the aether of the internet, the same does not apply to someone who heads a large publicly visible company, and who posts publicly on an account associated (implicitly) with that company.

1. Votes come at the end of a process starting with someone calling for action. Has to be a first person to bring the idea up; and Twitter is as good a place for public debate as we have. (If only people could master the longform paragraph, or even essay-length debate and move to somewhere a bit more nuanced.)

2. Reflecting on the "Die slow motherfuckers" for a little while - Tan didn't actually make a call for action. Exactly what that means is ambiguous, and it is without a doubt poor form.

> someone who heads a large publicly visible company

If the board wants to sack him I could certainly see that happening. Although as a practical matter, I don't think this is a sustainable standard. A good CEO is worth their weight in gold, sacking them over being a Twitter troll from time to time seems like a bad call. Musk is an example; both a troll and also a pretty amazing CEO. The right thing to do might be to tolerate the situation unless the pressure gets overwhelming.

On that point we've been tolerating outward displays of political speech from corporations for a while. I'm against it both on principle and because it is typically left-wing-aligned but since it happens I don't see why this sort of political diatribe is needs to be stepped on. Dude has political opinions. We all do.

One benefit I see of it is normalizing the presence of historical out-groups (racial minorities, gender minorities, etc.) that have always existed in society.

But, in practice, the "support" can be paper-thin and the chasing of support from out-groups simply as a means to push profit margins is sometimes obvious and thinly-veiled enough to the point of growing discontent towards the groups that they're ostensibly supporting.

This sort of critique (even if I can't guarantee its accuracy) is a bit more nuanced and feels a little bit less cargo-culty than just left/right.

There exist people who see benefits of any political stances. That is why the stance is taken. Arguing about whether it is a benefit is at the core of politics. For example, Mr Tan probably sees benefit from certain SF supervisors resigning immediately and is frustrated that they don't.

But it is better to keep businesses out of that, I believe we're better off if they are relatively neutral and thoughtless engines to achieve highly specific goals.

> But, in practice, the "support" can be paper-thin ...

1) This situation is also paper thin. I'd bet money that Tan doesn't do anything that would cause the supervisors to die a slow death. Most attack on politicians are.

2) I've had it made quite clear to me in companies I've worked at that if there was a candidate with different skin colour or gender to me they'd be before me in the line for hiring and promotions. That is paper thin support, but it is due to political ideology and I still don't like it. I would like companies to promote equal treatment and be scrupulously neutral on politics.

It's literally illegal to give death threats (not that I think this qualifies as a particularly serious one). But that's the difference between this and your argument with politicians rattling sabres. (Just to make it clear, I don't feel so strongly about the whole situation, but I do think making false equivalences is misleading)

Can we all just like I dunno chill out a bit? Who cares, and how does this affect me?

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/trump-pinata-school/

https://am870theanswer.com/all/la-antifa-group-hangs-trump-i...

https://wpde.com/news/nation-world/donald-trump-effigy-hangs...

https://www.coloradoan.com/picture-gallery/news/2021/01/01/f...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3500960/I-hate-Trum...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fibonacciblue/31620818443

https://www.newsweek.com/protest-trump-doll-guillotine-outsi...

And that's just the last president. If you search, you'll find plenty of similar examples for Obama and Bush too. Going further back than that will probably be harder to find records for, but yeah we have a long tradition of wishing death on our politicians and expressing that quite loudly. And almost all the time, it's certainly legal, whether or not the local community is keen on it varies.

Funny. That makes it sound like USA is the USSR from the childhood jokes about the difference between USA and the USSR.

Your comment would be just fine without that bit.

A while back somebody put up some stickers with his face on an octopus and the tentacles holding his various assets. The Twitter mafia went all out saying this was clearly racist and totally unacceptable in civil society, because of some prior art where an asian individual was offensively caricaturized atop an octopus. I tired to point out that the octopus has been used as a symbol of a many faceted organization since forever, and the racist aspect of the prior art wasn’t the octopus but rather the ridiculous caricaturization. The picture of Gary used in his octopus was a totally normal photo, so the racist prior art was of no consequence. Gary somehow saw my comment and decided to launch a tweet thread telling his hundreds of thousands of followers what a terrible racist horrible idiotic person I am, which resulted in a huge hacking campaign being launched against various little personal projects I had posted on my Twitter.

Ugh.

I don’t use Twitter anymore.

Elsewhere in the world, only retroactively - in retellings, in legends, in K12 history lessons. The nice, patriotic fiction of good person saying something, galvanizing the population, and then large changes happening.

> It's actually a cultural and historical norm.

It's not. Broadcast media are barely 100 years old. The ability for any rando to broadcast thoughts outside their direct social circles exist for less than two decades.

Randos telling other randos within their social circles that they want bad things to happen to public personas - that is a cultural and historical norm. Nothing ever coming out of it, except maybe said randos landing in shit if the word reaches the public personas - that too is the cultural and historical norm. For such talk to be an actual danger to anyone else, and especially the subject of discussion? That is a very recent historical and geographical aberration (or rather, I suspect believing such talk to be dangerous is the aberration).

We're pretty much there, yup.

But stochastic terrosism[1] isn't a new or unique thing.

Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated after similar remarks were said by Netanyahu[2], which was arguably a pivoting point towards the war in Gaza we have today.

Public figures talking about specific people dying should always be treated seriously. It's not disturbing that we do.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_terrorism

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin...

If you can't tell the difference, you don't belong in public spaces or forums.

If "XXX of party YYY is a disgusting piece of human garbage" than I don't think that should be called terrorism.

Specific example that I linked:

>Rallies organized by Likud and other right-wing groups featured depictions of Rabin in the crosshairs of a gun. In July 1995, Netanyahu led a mock funeral procession featuring a coffin and hangman's noose at an anti-Rabin rally where protesters chanted, "Death to Rabin".

>Netanyahu denied any intention to incite violence

Rabin was subsequently shot dead.

The definition in Wikipedia says:

>Stochastic terrorism refers to political or media figures publicly demonizing a person or group in such a way that it inspires supporters of the figures to commit a violent act against the target of the speech.

Of course, direct "kill this person" language is not a requirement for that. "Won't someone rid me of this meddlesome priest?"[1] is a famous example from the 12th century.

>If "XXX of party YYY is a disgusting piece of human garbage" than I don't think that should be called terrorism.

By itself, it wouldn't be. However, if XXX of party YYY subsequently starts getting death threats or other harrassment as a result of this statement being made, there is a problem.

Which language a public person uses to indicate a target to their followers highly depends on the context and history of the particular public person and the group they are addressing.

Hopefully, you understand why doxxing[2] is problematic. There are real-life consequences for the person being doxxed. However, the language is perfectly benign; after all, there is no explicit call to action in an address, a phone number, a name.

Stochastic terrorism similarly leverages context and publicity to highlight targets. It's not about how you would interpret the message; it's about how the target audience interprets it.

In Tran's case, both the message (die slowly) and the target audience's interpretation (a call to harrasment) indicate that there was no miscommunicaiton.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_tur...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing

How can you control that, though? Are people responsible for the mental state of all their followers? Or do they have to ensure that every utterance is so milquetoast that no action would ever come of it?

I'd have less of an issue if these rules were to be applied in a politically neutral fashion, but we know they never will be.

No. There is an extent, however, to which leaders are responsible for the actions of their followers.

They know what audience they're speaking to.

>Or do they have to ensure that every utterance is so milquetoast that no action would ever come of it?

False dichotomy.

They have to not encourage their followers to commit violence against others.

The entire point of someone engaging in this would be plausible deniability; the ambiguity is a part of it.

>I'd have less of an issue if these rules

Which rules? It's not like we're discussing legislation here.

We're discussing a concept.

>a politically neutral fashion

Oh, how curious. Do you seem to imply that certain political groups are more likely to be accused of inciting violence against individuals or groups?

Perhaps with a documented track record of spikes in violence following public statements?

Hmmm.

Yes, like Maxine Waters committing "stochastic terrorism" against the Supreme Court.

Or maybe you're talking about BLM?

Garry Tan should know better. As an earlier article mentioned [1], he was previously quoted as saying "this kind of stuff should have zero place in San Francisco politics," referring to an activist's taunt that millionaires and landlords should be guillotined.

[1] https://missionlocal.org/2024/01/garry-tan-death-wish-sf-sup...

But him saying <specific, named people> should "die slow" shuold be taken as just a joke, bro.

Hmmm.

It should absolutely be unacceptable behavior for any CEO to do something like this. If I can get fired for it, they damn well should too.

At the very least, tweeting bat shit crazy stuff while drunk is nothing a CEO should be excused for, at the very least it is a sign of aerious self-control and judgement issues. Regardless of what politicak side said CEO, or anyone else really, is on.

Also, the name of a great song by Wang Chung. I had never heard it until asking Google to play To Live And Die in LA and it played the Wang Chung song instead of Tupac.

Reflects poorly on YC as well. Aparently their president didn't read the PG essay on keeping a low profile, especially online.

Good thing so, nowadays everybody openly shows you who they are and where they stand. Back the days, people hid their dark sides a lot better.

Can't wait to be blameless for the lyrics for Necropedophile showing up in an email to the CEO.

Whatever, it's not intended to mean killing someone. But you have to be a colossal dumbfuck to say it like that to a bunch of people wise in the ways of the street political machine.

The problem isn't referencing something or someone, but doing so expecting those on the receiving end to know the reference and not take it at face value.

One, without context, is just a face. The other, without context, promotes murder. Context matters of course, but so does the actual quote itself without the context.

What a load of bullshit. He put names of specific people in his tweet who have subsequently received threatening letters in paper mail.

The intended audience heard the message loud and clear.

I wonder if you took that message the same way if Tran said "Die slow, Rene Wiltord" and you received personal paper mail afterwards that said "Tran was right. Die, Rene."

Pretty much the only part left intact was "die slowly".

This isn't a quote, this is an allusion.

There might be a reason the Tupac reference didn't exactly come through.

Perhaps because he replaced all the people Tupac wished dead in his rap song with the names of SF politicians.

In the spirit of Tran's excuse, I only wish that his words were taken as seriously as Tupac's when it comes to consequences for saying them.

this song played an important part in the public exchange that concluded with both artists dead from fatal gunshot wounds.

the seemingly out of place "as a record label" portion of Tan's quote probably should have engendered some pause in the discerning reader.

A discerning reader would discern that the word record was missing from Tran's allusion to Tupac's song.

Here's the full quote, in its entirety:

>Fuck Chan Peskin Preston Walton Melgar Ronen Safai Chan as a label and motherfucking crew

>And if you are down with Peskin Preston Walton Melgar Ronen Safai Chan as a crew fuck you too

>Die slow motherfuckers

Compare and contrast with Tupac's lyrics:

>Fuck Mobb Deep, fuck Biggie

>Fuck Bad Boy as a staff, record label and as a motherfuckin' crew

>And if you want to be down with Bad Bo, then fuck you too*

>Chino XL, fuck you too

>All you motherfuckers, fuck you too (take money, take money)

>All of y'all motherfuckers, fuck you, die slow, motherfucker

The only part that was left intact is "die slow".

Which is hardly a quote. More of a violent, incoherent ramble.

What they don’t know is they could just have a file on their computer named “is this offensive (open when drunk).txt” with contents that read “yes”.

Doubly so if you try to uninstall it.

I think it no longer works, or, well, I grew up.

[0] https://gmail.googleblog.com/2008/10/new-in-labs-stop-sendin...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39210947

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39172045

If you or anyone read those and have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.

Edit: I've turned off both the flags and flamewar detector on this article now, in keeping with the first rule of HN moderation, which is (I'm repeating myself but it's probably worth repeating) that we moderate HN less, not more, when YC or a YC-funded startup is part of a story (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). Please note: that doesn't mean we don't moderate at all; what it means is that whatever we would normally do, we do less of it in such cases.

Normally we would never late a ragestorm like this stay on the front page—there's zero intellectual curiosity here, as the comments demonstrate. This kind of thing is obviously off topic for HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If it weren't, the site would consist of little else. Equally obvious is that this is why HN users are flagging the story. They're not doing anything different than they normally would.

All this goes double when a story has already had extensive discussion, and 10x when the article is sourcing its content from Hacker News itself, as this one is. That's absurd. But I'm willing to take the hit because the first rule of HN moderation is more important.

With that said, it is a shame that in cases like this, you may not even know about a post with hundreds of comments unless someone sends you a link. Have you thought about implementing a view that ignores the flamewar detection? This could even be a historical view, like https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2024-01-31 . The post in question was one of the highest upvoted submissions of the day and yet it's not on the first page of this link.

I fully agree with you that in the majority of cases these comments are not encouraging intellectual curiosity, I still do like reading the comments because I do find some interesting stuff there sometimes.

Yes. That exists in https://news.ycombinator.com/active, which is listed in https://news.ycombinator.com/lists, which is linked in the footer.

I also missed original post but I would flag it as I’m against internet dramas of any kind. And I get it that many people are interested in this kind of politics but I don’t think they recognize that there are many who couldn’t care less.

This is the response I’d personally expect and moderation context and how it unfolds is the interesting part to me.

I have stopped thinking about HN's algorithms and just let it do its job.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

There are plenty of unmoderated, or less moderated, places for if we want that chaos. Both have their place.

> In 2022, Preston proposed a ballot measure to tax vacant housing in San Francisco.

I think I might just love the guy. Thanks for the awareness campaign Garry!

i’ve seen an unusual number of multifamily properties listed all over SF last few months.

This idea that rising property values is a God-given right needs to stop.

Capitalism is supposed to work BOTH directions--up and down.

market has demonstrated plenty it can lower rents as is

there’s plenty of half empty apartments all over soma and mission bay

If it’s set where it’s cheaper to hang onto the vacancy until rents rise again and finish the build then, it’s a problem.

i tend to favor vacancy tax, but this won't fix the problem with developers. SF needs to reform their review process. this is TLDR but there was a big study about this: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/us/san-francisco-housing....

it's already incredibly expensive for a developer to even go through the review process for a development, let alone build it. a vacancy tax would further deter developers from building in SF (as it's already happening due to the terrible review process)

Many landlords are bad at math from what I've found. If you're asking for $2400 and no one is biting, it makes more sense to drop to $2200 than hold out for a month to try and get $2400, because at $2400 it will take a year to catch up.

Rent control incentivizes empty housing during bear markets.

Eh? I mean, conversely, allowing the property industry to leave properties vacant unfairly punishes ~all other industries, along with the general public. What's special about the property industry here?

"We should leave people without anywhere to live, and harm the economy in general, to facilitate a small part of the economy" is a pretty weird argument.

(I do think that possibly some individual property investors believe that, rather than running a rather complex and highly regulated business, they are buying into a passive investment magical money machine. These people should probably consider just buying shares in a REIT, instead.)

It's not just that. It's the way property owners in renter-majority jurisdictions buy off just enough of the renters to keep other measures to raise housing costs on the books, which both erases the benefit of rent control even for the people who have it and screws over anyone without a rent controlled apartment twice.

Individuals and small landlords raise or lower rents in response to market conditions as they prioritize cash flow--it's very difficult to make up for lost rent. It's the private equity financed stuff that is artifically keeping rents too high as they have enough cash to ride across an empty property almost indefinitely.

Vacancy taxes stop the idiocy and force the private equity financed stuff to be market responsive as well.

Citation?

> They make for great tag lines to pull support in and NOTHING changes.

Two questions, independent

* Is that the fault of those advocating for change? Are they failing to introduce legislation or is their legislation not making out of committee or whatever due to opposition? Sincere question

* Is there a candidate which would walk the walk better on actually implementing the popular policies which Dan advocates for?

His office is accessible and he very clearly cares about the work he is doing. I often see him walking to work and talking to constituents along the way.

The demonization of the man is shocking…

Ever met a Tupac fan? They do seem to think this, yes.

It's bizarre to see the level of outrage against Tan quoting Tupac compared the the veneration you usually find of Tupac.

No one cares when the village idiot threatens to blow up China but when the President does it suddenly it's a problem? /s

Tupac wasn’t kidding or putting on a show. He was killed by the people he refers to there not long after. Tupac meant those words literally.

That's not how people quote things though. That's how you get drunk and let the world know how you really feel about some people lol.

I have half a dozen of these in my closet to get me through the month; is this supposed to be exorbitant? What's the point of talking about his reasonably modest stash we've been shown? Weird.

$24.99 on sale y'all.

Off the shelf Macallan and Balvenie bottles from his photo is what some Eastern European owner of chain of car repair shops would buy in duty free airport store when going to his annual Turkey or Egypt vacation, definitely not a "super fancy whisky" and a bad value for money.

But they're great quality whisky.

It's essential to engage in constructive discourse and have a clear action plan that will kill corruption. For example, he has money and he can support investigative journalism to investigate corruption in building/renovation permit system, to investigate San Francisco SAFE corruption/fraud scandal, etc.

But you should not tweet like this.

Rich people buying journalism is how SF got to be what it is today.

The situation with journalism, particularly in the context of investigating significant issues like the SF SAFE fraud scandal, presents a complex paradox that indeed feels disheartening at times.

On one hand, the reluctance to financially support news outlets has led to a scarcity of resources for journalists, limiting their ability to conduct in-depth investigations. This trend compromises the quality of journalism, as reporters are pressed for time and resources, often resulting in superficial coverage of complex issues.

On the other hand, the alternative – journalism funded by wealthy individuals or entities – raises concerns about bias and influence. When the financial backers of journalism have vested interests, there's a risk that the news could be slanted to serve those interests, potentially undermining the integrity and objectivity that are foundational to the profession.

'Added District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan: “I will waive rent for living in his head.”' Absolutely savage clapback.

Whether it should be or not, this is basically par for the course for modern political discourse. What a weird line for the article.

I see a lot of declarations that it is bad, inexcusable, disgusting, ect. What I dont see is what people think the implications or consequences of that determination are. When someone says that, what do they want to happen?

Do they just want other people to acknowledge it was bad, and then everyone goes on with their life? Do the police make them wear a scarlet letter or send them out into the wilderness. Does it mean that people should unfollow them on twitter?

he should lose his job

I just hope everyone outraged analyzes their own speech. I hold a lot of opinions outside the bounds of cocktail conversation, but I was having cocktails with my (blue city, professional) friends and they made a joke about someone needing to assassinate a certain right wing presidential candidate and everyone laughed really hard. The way she said it was funny and I laughed along but it’s easy to have outrage when you want it.

I have seen this a lot lately in online discussions of homelessness and people accused of crime. It's very unsettling.

That is the context of why Mr Tan wrote that -- there's a popular narrative that specific individuals are complicit in crime and homelessness in San Francisco. This leads to lots of ad hominem and in my view rises to the level of conspiracy theory in many -- it's not like every problem is the fault of a single office holder or even a "cabal" of them. Voting against someone or supporting different candidates is one thing. Calling them solely responsible for all that you consider evil, escalating to the level of death threats, is quite another.

And that's just politicians. It's also routine to see people call for violence on homeless people or people accused of crime.

Let's not forget, there is a multi-dimensional spectrum in between, nobody is consistent across the spectrum, it is possible and often beneficial to speculate non-seriously, plenty of ~good people support intentional killing by our military if it has a well crafted (by literal professional thought shapers), just-so story to accompany it, and so forth and so on.

Optimal gameplay is difficult. Even aspiring to it is difficult.

What he said won’t cause someone to kill any of those people. Thats just nonsense.

However, ranting drunk and incoherent publicly as the CEO of company shows terrible character.

Then we are still left with an adult (who happens to be a CEO) who thought that it would be a rational thing to tweet that and couldn't predict the outcome of it.

I would have expected that to be almost worse to people here. And no, alcohol is not an excuse for that. Drinking enough not to be able to rationally think about whether that is a good idea anymore is a confirmation of it.

"Deep-pocketed donor to moderate politics" is the most milquetoast attempt at an insult I've ever read in print.

It's getting old anyhow. Shouldn't the outrage crowd have found something new by now?

Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's online rant spurs threats to supes, police reports

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39205676

The current thread, however, ended up spending 8 hours on the front page, far more than we'd ever normally allow for this class of story.

Here are the explanations I've posted about this so far:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39231365

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39224560

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39210947

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39172045

If anyone reads those and still has a question which isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.

If these things are true, it sounds like the problem goes a lot deeper than just the person at the top. Even putting aside any moral implications, it's strange to see a company of this caliber not immediately go into damage control mode orchestrated by PR professionals.

We can disagree on politics, but calling for the death of politicians publicly — especially as an influential member of an already regionally important company — is disgusting.

This behavior cannot be tolerated. I don’t care how inebriated someone is.

I say this as someone who worked for a YC company (that is still in business) for almost a decade.

How famous does someone have to be joke about a politician dying before it’s a problem? Tan is less famous than Charlie Sheen or Johnny Depp, who have joked about Trump dying.

Also, from Wikipedia: “Tan supported the 2022 recall campaign against progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin. Tan donated at least $100,000 to the effort. Tan blamed Boudin for physical attacks on Asians.”

There’s a fair argument that Tan is joking about violence against people whose policies are facilitating actual violence.

There’s a fair argument that Tan is joking about violence against people whose policies are facilitating actual violence.

Were that so, why would there be a rise in crime targeted at Asians across the the US in recent years?

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-year-after-atlanta-and...

Instead of oddly defending them maybe you should follow his lead and not act like saying someone should die slowly is a joke.

Especially in this world where politicians have been subjected to credible death threats.

I doubt he meant it particularly literally, but there’s little question it was written with malice.

And remember Comedy equals tragedy plus time…

Apart from the ending how was the show mrs. Lincoln?

However, after acknowledging that Tan shouldn't have done this, it doesn't look serious. Drunken rants on Twitter are not important in and of themselves.

This sort of childish behaviour is not just dragging YC down but the startup community as a whole.

They might not know much about where Tan is coming from, but they know they work in a building where Moscone and Milk were assassinated.

What he wrote was more or less the limit to what you can say before it becomes a serious crime.

It wouldn’t be the marginally funded that’s for sure.

More likely the hottest startups with multiple offers.

What he said was bad, and wrong. But he just needs a scolding and some minor punishment and to then learn and not do it again. If it becomes a pattern then sure, that's a different thing.

You cannot remain CEO if you do.

This is not a controversial position to have.

Regardless, death threats are not protected under the first amendment, so you're even wrong under your idiotic assumptions of how the law works.

This is unironically the kind of shit that authoritarians love to say about journalists.

"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" –King Henry VII

"he's dead now so that's that" –Microsoft founder

The corruption is now so deeply rooted and endemic throughout all of society, government and media it’s impossible to know where rooting it out could ever start and end. So probably the only way to turn the tide is for everyday hard working people to start rejecting it and rejecting to support it in any way, shape or form, everyday throughout their own lives. No single person or group can fix this and any claiming to be able to is both a liar and a fraud.

The doers are checking out, entire system designed to discriminate against talent.

No DA is going to waste their time pursing this, it's a guaranteed loss, especially against elected government officials. The body of First Amendment caselaw is vast and every law student knows you can say far far worse things which are protected speech.

This is nothing more than activist journalists hating successful people for leading a stand against a self-destructive ideology ruining lives.

These folks are the enemy of the people and I sincerely hope the worst for them.

There's plenty of people in this very thread who profess a sympathy for Tan's causes but think his drunken remarks are deplorable and reflect poorly on him, even if not legally actionable. I'm among them.

Wagon-circling is a sad pathology of politics. Nobility requires that we rise above it.

If Garry or anyone else had posted that on HN, users would certainly have flagged it, and we wouldn't override that.

200 years ago these same people may have been dueling in the streets to reach mutual satisfaction. The fact that everybody is so concerned about a quoted song lyric from a rap diss track from 20 years ago shows how soft society has become.

Of course, that wasn't public and Michael wasn't a CEO. Whoops.

Only real valuable piece of information that I can glean from any of this is further evidence of the amount of vultures in this community who will publicly lambast another for the crime of "going off" (drunk or not) and calling for them to resign. History shows these types to be narcissists; I for one hope whatever is going on with Garry, that he can get some help and continue on doing what he does best, and I don't care what he said if he was really drunk, the content doesn't really matter too much when you are hammered.

If the reference to Biden is the unacceptable one, I see President Biden daily expressing his thoughts on other world leaders, calling them names, saying who must die and who not, who is a good guy, who is a bad one. Is that Free Speech done right?

But then, my criticism of the people's criticism of Tan's free speech is also criticized. And then we only get criticism of criticism and no actual productive dialogue. Or so it seems. Looks complicated. Where does it end?

You can violate free speech all day every day in full view of the world and them having taken very articulate notes on your violations and not see a single day in court or jail.

Can you technically say whatever you want? Yes.

Do you have an obligation to be aware that your position amplifies the words you choose? YES.

I don't think the description of him as a "moderate" is accurate.

What's the point of being triggered by a phrase which is usually an idiom for venting about someone you don't agree with.

Should we expect our CEOs to be robots?

The problem with references is that not everybody gets the reference, and without that (and possibly even with) this is a death threat. And with today's highly polarized and volatile political situation, you need to be really careful with that.

I've come to expect this sort of behaviour from random internet trolls, but a CEO really should know better. I think this counts as a disqualifying lapse of judgement.

Either way knowing how to communicate responsibly is part of a CEO's job, that's one of the reasons they get paid so much.

Dealing with people in management positions disabuses you of this notion.

But violent rhetoric certainly increases the likelihood that others will escalate violence against the target, and so the risk (threat) of death and harm very much does increase as seen in many unfortunate cases.

That is how asymmetric information warfare has a chilling effect on democracy and infringes others’ fundamental liberties (life, pursuit of happiness), and is different from “free speech”.

It doesn’t require sophisticated thinking to discern the difference, but X is where discourse goes to die.

> Half a dozen lawyers and judges told Mission Local that, however ill-advised, Tan’s comments do not rise to the legal definition of a death threat.

Your interpretation involves a large change to how free speech has been legally defined in America for a long time.

You may be interested in this case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

Where the Supreme Court clarified that even more disgusting speech tinged with violence-encouraging rhetoric was, in fact, legally free speech. (Please, let's not call rhetoric itself violence.)

If Citizens United has gone the other way, the Trump administration would have been able, for example, to order Facebook to suppress posts about COVID death tolls near the election.

Call someone a dick and you're protected under free speech, but you can still get punched in the face. And a judge won't be very amenable to a possible consequent assault case if the victim was goaded.

> And a judge won't be very amenable to a possible consequent assault case if the victim was goaded.

This is incorrect and fairly disturbing. The idea of "fighting words" (which are not protected speech) is extremely circumscribed; it applies basically only to the case of someone standing in front of you and saying something with the intent to provoke an "immediate instinctive reaction." (Ginsburg's words.) It absolutely does not justify punching someone you see in the street for a Tweet they made yesterday and you will go to jail for this. You will not get sympathy from a judge. Unfortunately, this is one of the very sorts of ideas that disintegrates free societies - "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" is true, but it doesn't justify violence legally or morally, and saying so undermines free and fair societies.

It doesn’t invalidate the central idea that free speech is different from inflammatory speech “condoning” violence (wink wink) when it is amplified by technology to have an asymmetrical effect on the target of that speech.

And in any case, we are discussing the use of telecommunications systems for harassment and not someone shouting in a park behind a police barricade. I don’t do either of these things, so I’m admittedly not well-informed about the constitutional and case law in the US that might apply.

If I were a C-level executive I would probably aspire to higher level of online citizenry and behavior, perhaps, than a KKK leader, and hire someone else to do the tweeting.

There's always room for debate on anything, but nobody but a tiny minority of legal experts are "hashing out" the case. It's been settled, quiet law for decades. It's also important to note that it came out of a much more restless time in American history, and a time when violence was very regularly politically or racially motivated violence driven by speech and the spread of ideas.

> And in any case, we are discussing the use of telecommunications systems for harassment and not someone shouting in a park behind a police barricade. I don’t do either of these things, so I’m admittedly not well-informed about the constitutional and case law in the US that might apply.

Harassment is another thing that has a specific legal definition. It's become common over time to use stronger words than are justified colloquially because it makes a more persuasive argument. For example, we might describe an accidental death as a "murder". But I don't think it's very productive in coming to understandings or deciding how we should set norms and make laws.

> It doesn’t invalidate the central idea that free speech is different from inflammatory speech “condoning” violence (wink wink) when it is amplified by technology to have an asymmetrical effect on the target of that speech.

In what sense is it asymmetrical? It's been my observation that many people making arguments like this seem to believe that 21st century social media technology has changed everything. Rather, historically speaking - at least in the modern era - it's more akin to returning to the norm, rather than the closely gatekept broadcast media era. This sort of thing is obviously gross, but it is not beyond the historical pale. It has seemed to me that many people would prefer to return to the brief period we did have asymmetry, where the wrong people saying ugly things were kept out of what was regarded as the place of public discourse, which discourse could then target people not blessed with access and leave them no way to publicly respond or defend themselves.

But in this case we're talking about a tweet made about a politicians and public figures. (It's worth mentioning that in the US, anything related to political speech is given even more leeway.) Twitter is available to both their proponents and their detractors. Any politician has themselves an enormous platform. Nothing about this case is asymmetrical, unless the argument is that the politician(s) has acquired more vitriolic haters than defenders. Well, that's the nature of social life. I would hope that the police would seriously investigate any actual threats and keep a close eye on the neighborhood they live in.

As for inflammatory - well, yes, inflammatory speech has been held to be protected over and over and over again. I also don't think it's fruitful to go down the road of "this speech is secretly condoning violence" (which is also not illegal or the "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences folks advocating for the enemy du jour to be assaulted in the streets would be in trouble.) Even if it is secretly condoning violence, it's very obvious that criminalizing "coded" speech is a wide open road to serious abuses of rights.

> If I were a C-level executive I would probably aspire to higher level of online citizenry and behavior, perhaps, than a KKK leader, and hire someone else to do the tweeting.

No argument there. I do not know Gary Tan or anything about him other than what was in this reporting but it's obvious the tweet is trashy and unprofessional and the world would be better off without it. Nothing in my posts should be construed as an endorsement or agreement with it or Gary Tan.

https://missionloca.s3.amazonaws.com/mission/wp-content/uplo...

It isn't normal for anyone else, of course. As for Garry, he is heavily invested in SF politics.

> no big deal

It is a big deal only if Garry was consistently inflammatory. Otherwise, it can be safely relegated to a careless jibe by a drunkard.

> words are meaningful and have consequences

True, but one is allowed to retract, excuse, apologize. One incident unto drastic consequences will result in heavy handedness leading up to it being weaponized against anyone standing upto establishment or established norms (which is quite contrary to what either the left or the right would want, in the context of political discourse).

> adolescents, but adults

Are we too being sensitive, vindictive, projecting remorse? One look at tech Twitter (and deleted Tweets) and we'd want to cancel them all. What good is that going to be?

> some modicum of respect, or at least decency

Politics gets dirty from time to time.

> Wishing a slow death on someone, even rhetorically

There is probably a socio-political climate in which such statements could be considered incitement, but in this case, lunatics using Garry's words to threaten and scare their victims is exactly that... a work of an opportunist lunatic who probably thinks highly of themself. That isn't on Garry.

It's simply nonsensical to think that there are two extremes of discourse, "echo chamber" and "people can feel free to voice threats," which are in opposition.

> It is a big deal only if Garry was consistently inflammatory. Otherwise, it can be safely relegated to careless jibe by a drunkard.

People on the business end of a threat certainly have a different perspective on what can be "safely relegated" to the "don't worry" category. There's nothing wrong with taking into account the perspective of those being threatened when determining whether something like this is a "big deal," as the parent poster presumably did, and as the law does.

> It isn't normal for anyone else, of course. As for Garry, he is heavily invested in SF politics.

How unique he is. It's hard to imagine a reality where lots of people are heavily invested in politics and behave foolishly because of it. That would be an alternate reality that is difficult to imagine.

He was mostly annoyed it seemed because this meant he got demonitized or had to pull some content which cost him money. And that people didn't listen to his specific pre-show instruction to not call for death. And that some of his viewers got angry at him about this (I didn't quite follow why, they weren't angry about the death threats but somehow thought his removal of episodes made him a part of the deep state or something).

edit: link to short version of the clip I saw

https://twitter.com/majorityfm/status/1752833975851049108

I don't think it's even close to being normal. If it were, then this wouldn't have raised the firestorm it did.

I don't think the firestorm is because of either of those things. I think it's mostly because Tan is a powerful figure in the SV tech scene.

What consequences should Gary face?

So, in the end, it can be everything from nothing to a criminal charge and conviction with loosing his job somewhere in the middle.

Even if you take "die slow motherfucker" literally, it's not a threat. A wish that someone dies is not a threat. "I will kill you" is a threat.

People talk shit all the time, a lot of people in this post need to calm down and stop being so quick to be offended.

Should have said it? Probably not. Does that make him a danger to anyone? Not by itself it doesn't.

Or of course, “Won’t someone do something about this troublesome priest”

Saying "die motherfucker" makes it less obvious. Since the other extreme of "this person should die" is crude, but not a threat (lest Twitter would be shut down overnight). So it'd come down to the judge and how they interpret the phrase to get any headway

>People talk shit all the time

And that isn't right as a concept. "Shit talking" is almost never necessary in modern discourse. But the US has strong libel laws so "talking shit" won't lead to much legal consequence.

https://quinnanlaw.com/criminal-defense/elements-of-criminal...

It isn't polite speech that needs to be protected and the tests for whether something is an actual threat or not is well understood, there's no excuse for you not knowing them unless you don't live in the US.

I'm not a lawyer but I'm just saying that I can see it being argued based on the phrasing and how far the subjects wanted to escalate this. Whether or not it would be effective or viable is another question.

One of the reasons for this precedent is to prevent exactly what you're attempting to do here, which is to curb someone's freedom of expression using the law.

The answer is they wouldn't because there's nothing immediately actionable.

"Someone standing in front of you with a knife who says they're going to stab you would be considered a threat! therefore ... something something something ... a tweat by a politician should be punished!".

As I said before, you're not the first to try and curb someone's freedom of expression using the law.

>to clarify, in the US, "I will kill you" may or may not be considered a threat

This is all I'm responding to. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not going to assert that you absolutely can or cannot consider it a threat. But it's not black and white like you're implied, and are currently implying.

Please don't accuse someone of derailing a discussion if you forgot the context. I've been patient but you've been incindiary in every response. That's not illegal but it is not in the spirit of HN rules.

>As I said before, you're not the first to try and curb someone's freedom of expression using the law.

You're not the first person to pretend you can threaten to end lives and "be oppressed" when the authorities come.

I'll remind you once more that we're talking about a theory here, since Tan did not literally say "I will kill you". Is Tan's literal words a threat? My mind hasn't changed in this discussion so I'll repeat my point and end it here before it devolves into a flame war:

>it will depend on the interpretation of the judge in question who is reading the quotes.

Reflect on this conversation for next time, others would be less hesitant to flag your comments.

Firstly, he would be involved on murder. That's not a great experience to have, for most people.

He would at least be on trial. I don't exactly know how incitement to murder is treated in the US.

It could even be considered domestic terrorism (an assassination made to intimidate a group based on an ideological agenda/government policy). Then, I don't know what would happen, exactly. The FBI would probably get involved?

It's a strange sort of "cherished American tradition" that is so subtle that I, as a native American more than a half-century old, have never even heard of it being a tradition before.

Yes Americans have cherished a very liberal/free definition of free speech rights.

Absolutely. That wasn't what I was questioning. What I'm questioning is the proposition that wishing death on people is a "cherished American tradition". I don't think it is.

The American tradition is to be very permissive about how far speech can go before it becomes illegal. That's a very different thing.

https://missionlocal.org/2024/01/y-combinator-ceo-garry-tans...

This would not change ex post facto because of someone else's actions.

In the US, what he did said is disgusting but legally protected free speech. It's conceivable that he could be opened up to a civil lawsuit, but that's about it.

I am much more concerned about the normalization of the idea that we should restrict free speech. I suppose this isn't too shocking - the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed after what we would now call many instances of "stochastic terrorism" in the newspapers - but I'd hoped we'd learned our lesson and permanently repudiated these ideas.

After January 6th, I don't share your assessment of the present or recent past. Free speech seems excessively protected today, even for veiled threats; moreso if one is rich or popular.

That's very clear!

In no way is "die slow motherfucker" incitement to murder, whether or not the person is question is actually murdered.

I think more of him though. Sort of like when a polite old woman tells someone to fuck off and they're literally shook. A lot of people could do with hardening up a bit.

How often have I heard that from bullies who shit themselves, whine and go running to mommy as soon as they get a little of what they give?

You actually mean "shut up, roll over and passively accept abuse." Anyone who hardened-up, as in speaking their honest feeling and the truth about this sort of bully would be banned from here in 5 seconds!

We don't have the option to "harden up", because we value civility and intellectual curiosity, and all know it would make this forum a much worse place.

The real answer is here is Gary could have phrased his words better and he would have been more effective in communicating his message. That's it.

Simply passing that off as "bad wording" is reductive and gives leeway to others who test the waters with extremism and turtle back into the shell of "I didn't mean it that way" when they get pushback.

It's not that Garry literally means he wants them to die, it's that it's irresponsible for a leader to infer that idea and to normalize (unintentionally, as I would give him the benefit of the doubt here) the same type of actions as actual extremists.

Let's say he hasn't. So what's at issue? Because this bothers me if I am to continue to participate in HN.

Pursuing intellectual curiosity involves tolerance, yes, and forgiveness. And seeing a little of the other in yourself, and you in them.

You know, I wouldn't presume to say anything about a person I don't know, or to psychologise too much on an individual. There's a parallel universe where I'd meet Mr Tan and enjoy some beers, we'd talk about tech, and maybe after a few we'd get all 'blokey' start comparing our lists of people who should die horribly. That's all human enough. And I come from a background that makes me not ashamed to be in touch with my own disdain, violence, unacceptable sides and masculine toxicity.

We all say cringe things we wish we could take back from time to time. Shame is a good teacher if we don't leave that unexamined etc.

I'm not "outraged" (the only emotion 21st century people feel) at Tan for slipping up and going a bit gangsta, channelling his inner 2Pac or whatever. Who doesn't? I've no doubt some of those Californian politicians are infuriating and cut from the same cloth as the poor shower we have over here.

I'm disappointed because of how that reflects on me, on other hackers and the real tech community - you know, us grunts who actually think up and build all the stuff.

He's not quite young enough to be my son. But if he were, I'd have to say "Gary, why are you hanging out with these losers? People who claim to represent utopian technological ideas, but are massively stunted as human beings? Tech billionaire trash who are actually a lot less smart and well educated than they think. They're insecure, inauthentic, cloistered, frightened of dying, doing far more drugs than is good for anyone, and hell-bent on imposing technological terror upon the world we haven't seen since the Third Reich.

Please find some nicer friends."

And what I'd hope to hear is like; "Yes I'm sorry to let the community down. I feel a lot of anger and frustration at the world. I realise my worldview is parochial. I see that I'm in a group whose ideas are not universal, whatever our "progressive" good intentions. Maybe I can temper myself in a way that's more congruent with the money, power and consequent responsibility to others' I carry."

What in a movie you once saw? Give us the details tell us what it was like when it happened or is it just a cliche rotting in the basement of your mind?

“The first person to tell their opponent ‘you shouldn’t be so sensitive’ forfeits the debate.”

There are of course exceptions. But obnoxious people think that every time they say something offensive or awful, the onus is on others to make allowances.

I believe my rule prevents more bad arguments.

But I’m not actually trying to engineer a debate ruleset, I’m mostly pointing out how people try to get away with being assholes.

Using a reference with threatening language in it that is potentially unknown by the people recieving it, makes a death threat even more sinister as it feels like you're building in plausible deniability and trying to have your cake and eat it.

It's basically admitting "if I just said this it would cross a line, but if I quote it instead then it'll not cross a line for people who know it's a quote, but still cross the line for the people I'm threatening. So I get to make the threat and disclaim any intent at the same time.

The first is that Tan seems to have thought that people who were upset by the statement were unaware that it was a song lyric.

The second is that some people think that because it's a song lyric, it somehow doesn't count.

I can call your mother a hamster and that your father smelt of elderberries; just because it's a quote from Monty Python doesn't mean it wouldn't be insulting to you.

Alright, that does it. Pistols at dawn.

It's well worth reading, but is a long and initially tedious article bemoaning the passing of a gentler, humane culture.

Then about halfway through it grew some balls and teeth, and frankly I found it shocking. I had no idea California was this degenerate. And for those too close to it, no, this isn't just how every country's politics is. It reads like Chicago in the 1920/30's, or perhaps more like Mexico or El Salvator, with billionaires instead of drug lords.

Read alongside "The Californian Ideology" [2] it's eye opening and paints a great picture of the slow trajectory of San Francisco and California from a left-liberal counter-culture to extremist far-right billionaire technofascism.

[0] https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n03/rebecca-solnit/in-th...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39226296

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology

- pretty much sums everything we observe today. And it's only getting worse, despite tech advancements. Great article.

Yes, that equation is inaccurate. Tech advancements mean more powerful tools. Tools that can be used to improve things or can just as easily be used to make things worse.

The entire history of mankind indicates that it will always end up being a mix of both.

Unless you want to argue that the lion's share of tech advancements instead doomed humanity.

FWIW here's a PDF (bitmap scan) I verified [0].

It's also lengthy and hard work, and took me three or four reads to fully grok. Suggest starting at p.61 Cyborg Masters and Robot Slaves for the wrap-up. Thanks for the Henderson tip.

[0] https://monoskop.org/images/d/dc/Barbrook_Richard_Cameron_An...

Pure clout chasing by a clueless white feminist.

Solnit has no clue what she’s talking about. She writes as if San Francisco was a bohemian paradise in 1980 when she moved there when in fact it was already considered very expensive (the NYT would write that it was a city for childless yuppies a few years after she arrived), the gays were displacing blacks and Latinos in the Filmore and elsewhere (it was losing more of black residents then than anytime in the 21st century), and it was the financial capital of the west coast.

Most importantly: all the so-called billionaires that clueless progressives think live in San Francisco and influence its politics actually live in Atherton and couldn’t care less. You wouldn’t get clowns like Hallinan and Daly winning elections if there was any meaningful moderate faction in local politics. Which is why they so greatly fear the establishment of one in recent years.

"Fuck Mobb Deep, fuck Biggie Fuck Bad Boy as a staff, record label and as a motherfuckin' crew And if you want to be down with Bad Bo, then fuck you too Chino XL, fuck you too All you motherfuckers, fuck you too (take money, take money) All of y'all motherfuckers, fuck you, die slow, motherfucker"

It's immature and poor judgement but he's apologised for it so I don't think it's fair to drag him down.

So, the way this works is, he can say whatever he likes, but people shouldn't say mean things about him? How does this work? I'm genuinely curious; this, on the face of it, makes no sense to me at all. Is it because he's rich? I don't get it.

Let’s be honest, it’s blowing up because the California political machine is threatened by this guy, and tearing him down for a small transgression means they’ll hold onto the reins of power even longer.

Seriously?

Especially in this climate, where the tip of a hat causes anonymous people to pile on and send threats via mail, it wouldn't be as simple as brushing it off.

The worst part isn't usually the initial threat, it's the piling on afterwards that can last for months and years afterwards.

But if you’re a politician, it makes sense to claim you “fear for your life”.

Like I said, they want to get rid of this guy since he’s a political opponent.

For me, it's because I can remember many times when I've done something wrong or stupid and others have forgiven me. Nothing as public as this, but that's frankly more due to lack of an audience than a difference in character.

I can see a part of myself reflected back, the same part that's been a little too honest during a long happy hour, and I can empathize with how he probably feels.

I don't see myself as different at the human level, and I'd rather live in a world where we both deserve forgiveness than neither of us.

He seems genuinely remorseful. He knows he fucked up. He knows he fucked up bad. I don't see the point in beating a dead horse.

He'll probably lose his job. That's fair enough to me, you reap what you sow. Can't have that public or a role with outbursts like that. I don't see a reason to hang this around his neck for forever, though.

But in a world where everyone seems to think they are Elon Musk, and not Steve Jobs anymore, it is no surprise this behavior is shickingly common.

No, CEO and other public figures from a company should be held to even higher standards than the rank and file.

Which is enough to make him unfit for the position at YC and justifies his resignation.

Walmart cashiers are being fired everyday for things like immaturity and poor judgment, why should YC CEO be held under lower behavior standards than blue collar workers?!

I know it is more complicated than that when your actions have wider reach, especially for someone as high up as a CEO, but for all of us these days with ubiquitous social media potentially giving us all more reach, as what you do in your off-time can negatively impact the company, and your position can lead to your stupid moments having far more impact on people generally.

Even a grade A class 1 drunken cockup, in personal time, shouldn't result in a firing unless it is part of a larger or repeating pattern.

IMO: he has taken ownership of his actions, accepted that they were stupid, apologies for causing office (and not in the “sorry you found it offensive” non-apology sort of way), etc, so : ridicule him by all means, but sacking seems OTT at this point. And if he does it, or something else similarly foolish, again, then we break out the pitchforks.

There's no out-of-hours for CEO. He was using is official Twitter account to make a public statement, that's a work-related mistake. (It's not like he used some anonymous account to troll on some subreddit)

> Walmart cashiers shouldn't be sacked for immaturity and poor judgement in their personal lives if their work is life is up to scratch.

I don't know if they should, but they definitely are. Musk's obsession with his employees drug use out of work is an example (and also an example of double standards between CEOs and blue collar workers).

Unless his contract specifically says that, bull.

If his contract foes specifically say that, then I doubt it is legally enforceable anyway.

> He was using is official Twitter account to make a public statement, that's a work-related mistake.

If he used an official work account, then yes that paints a different picture and is a more clear-cut case of abusing resources and directly bringing the company into disrepute. But @GarryTan doesn't sound like a company account to me (I'm assuming the 陈嘉兴 in the account display name “Garry Tan 陈嘉兴” is also personal name information, not company affiliation, please correct me if I'm wrong).

> I don't know if they should, but they definitely are.

Calling for the bad side of a double-standard to apply to all is not the way I'd choose to fix the situation.

--

Of course the people threatened by the ill-advised quotes, which might indicate overly string views, are well within their rights to pursue legal action against as they see fit, but at this point I'd say it isn't a sacking matter for the company.

I imagined he's not paid hourly. I have to deal with off work bad behavior so I don't see how holding someone accountable on an official social media account is too far.

>But @GarryTan doesn't sound like a company account to me (I'm assuming the 陈嘉兴 in the account display name “Garry Tan 陈嘉兴” is also personal name information, not company affiliation, please correct me if I'm wrong).

that is indeed where things get muddy and where we gotta look closer.

In this case, this isn't just some small personal account for maintaining contacts. his Bio has a banner that reads

```President and CEO Y Combinator (insert social contacts on the right)```

and his bio reads

```President & CEO @ycombinator —Founder @Initialized —PM/designer/engineer who helps founders—YouTuber—San Franciscan—technology brother—Accelerate human abundance```

Other workers who mix these in their bio would at least say "Opinions are my own", which is a dubious defense for someone like a CEO, but one that was not taken anyway.

>Calling for the bad side of a double-standard to apply to all is not the way I'd choose to fix the situation.

well we've tried the good side for decades, and headway isn't made. You gotta change your approach if you want empathy.

"It was after work hours" isn't an excuse.

In part. but CEOs have a lot more money and PR on the line than some WalMart worker who may not even be recognized by regular shoppers at that store.

And yes, some of it is spite. We're in a period of time where the economy is crashing and such C level execs will drop thousands of jobs at the drop of a hat, for people who did nothing wrong and probably made the company millions, billions. I don't really sympathize when suddenly they screw up on their own volition and may be given the sack themselves.

Perhaps. The thing is, if we only look for leaders who have never erred (read: never fallen and gotten up) we end up with (for example) our "representatives" in Washington DC. That is, generally spineless, middle of the road, etc. The word beige comes to mind. That is, we end up with "leaders" without the toolbox of experiences necessary for effective leadership.

Humans? Humans *by definition* make mistakes. Sure some are worse than others. Some demand some mistakes be paid for (in a number of socially acceptable ways). That said, one (rant) is not a pattern.

The question is: What are our collective priorities? Human leaders capable of leading humans? Or perfection which effectively translates to no edges, risk adverse, and ultimately flacid and unfollowable?

Sure, I'd take humans leading humans. Probably is we're in an era of humans trying to exploit other humans to appeal to semi-human stock market dynamics (likely funded by rich humans who have much better financial security).

I want empathy, and representation of the people's needs. Not some infeasible goal to keep growing profits even amidst a potential recession. I don't know Tan that well, but nothing in the conversation I've read over the past few days has even mentioned him being like that.

I don't necessarily have any vested interests here, but I definitely don't have sympathy.

We see this time and again. And yet every election cycle we go back for - and/or are only given - more of the same.

It has nothing to do with being perfect. It's a disgrace, and he should not be able to get away with it, that's it.

(Also, I don't know where you get that representatives are somehow “perfect but spineless”, this is an absolutely hilarious statement especially today when there's Marjorie Taylor Greene in the House right now)

So you agree. Leadership in other industries is shite? Spineless. Greedy. Most / all tend to follow conventional wisdom, Etc. The point is, title (e.g., CEO) !== leader / leadership.

By definition, true leleaders are human. Empathy is their superpower. Instead, what we have now is far too many ppl - with fancy titles - in *leadership positions* that aren't capable of leading." *This* is what legit (read: by definition) leadership looks like, and yet *one on* is on a witch hurt? Because mediocre has been normalized??

While you over focus on a single rant, I'll give you any example to ponder... Over the last X weeks we've seen wave after wave of layoffs, and yet not a single "leader" has stepped up and said, "Yes, we're laying off Y% of our ppl. I can't stop that. But it's on me. Effectively immediately, I resign.

Again, one rant does not a pattern make. And zero resignations is 100x worse than one rant.

You know I don't. This is poor sophism and you know it as well.

Do better if you want people to read what you're writing (I'm not going past this sentence).

Thats a ridiculous position to say he’s unfit.

But I get it. He’s threading the political establishment so they’ll make hay with this to tear down an opponent. It’s politics.

> Walmart cashiers are being fired everyday for things like immaturity and poor judgment, why should YC CEO be held under lower behavior standards than blue collar workers?!

Parent: >> If being immature and showing poor judgement means you can run a VC fund 100% of VC funds would be firing their CEOs.

USA, USA????

Fuck this odious turd and anyone who would try to excuse him.

I think what you mean to say was:

Fuck Y Combinator as a staff, message board, and as a mother fucking VC group. And if you want to be down with Y Combinator, then fuck you too.

Sam Altman, fuck you too.

Apologizing is great, but it can't make people unlearn something they learned about the person.

No, I wouldn't. I have never said anything like that to my friends (nor have my friends ever said anything like that to me), and I can't imagine ever doing so.

Oh my this rapping is outrageous! Mr. Tupac pull up your pants and clean up your language young man!

And Gary isn’t a rap artist anyway!

Well isn’t he?

Tupac was a gangster who'd been convicted of sexual assault. Personally I try to separate the artist from the human because humans are consistently awful creatures, and otherwise we'd never be able to enjoy any art ever. But I wouldn't be in support of Tupac running Y Combinator, or to be the CEO of pretty much any company, ever.

I like Freddie Gibbs and Danny Brown. Both release music that is extremely misogynistic.

Deeper, Freddie (+ Madlib, ofc)

> Slammin', half a thang of heroin in the bathroom > Keep an AK and the backup in the backroom > Cook a meal clean and she suck me like a vacuum

If I tweet at a woman I disagree with that she should be in the kitchen cooking me a meal clean and then sucking me like a vacuum, that's okay right? Because I'm just aping my favourite popular rapper?

He changed his tone later in life as he was betrayed many times.

“Since we all came from a women, got our name from a women, and our game from a women. I wonder why we take from women, why we rape our women, do we hate our women? I think its time we killed for our women, be real to our women, try to heal our women, cus if we dont we'll have a race of babies that will hate the ladies, who make the babies. And since a man can't make one he has no right to tell a women when and where to create one”

He either quoted Tupac because he agreed with the sentiment or he couldn't act responsibly, and both are not acceptable for a CEO.

No, they just their customers dead, one way or another.

However, for politicians, CEO's and other "public figures" I would argue for an intermediary, let's call it the Ministry of Truth, to clean, revise and fact check all interactions with the public.

With this, damage to stakeholders (of companies and political parties) can be done in a controlled manner, and an artist's public perception can be adjusted.

Why such nonsense over a tweet. People can’t say anything anymore.

There doesn’t need to be a response, people need to get on with there lives instead of what someone said while angry/drunk.

Maybe it hasn’t been addressed because it doesn’t need too? Too much crap happens because of public pressure but it doesn’t exists, just ignore the idiots and get on with life.

This is why the world is becoming so boring and mundane, nobody can have an opinion or say anything anymore, everything has to be ‘nice’ or PR speak so we can never have people actually be human beings.

- He blocks random people on Twitter over the slightest disagreement.

- He capriciously refused a once-in-ten-thousand-lifetimes offer from Peter Thiel for the safety of a steady paycheck at Microsoft. Someone who is that risk-averse really shouldn't be role-playing as Tupac.

How can he be a role-model to the thousands of founders who typically take massive personal risks with no backup plan?

Wouldn’t want to have to write a hit piece about you, too :)

We all “should die slow” as that is inherit to the human condition. Each breath we inhale is slowly oxidizing us from the inside out. If he said they should die fast I would be more concerned.

If he said they should all die on x date at y place by z method then that is definitely more of a real threat than drunken word play for attention.

“They should” also implies he has no intent of a threat. A threat would be more like “I will”.

I'd argue that anyone who cares this much should "go for a while".

For over at least a decade now it's made no sense that we hold people in certain roles to a higher standard than anyone else. These high standards are a form of power transfer that hurts those who believe in them. Can't we just admit we're all human?

And when there's a leadership role, there are multiple people who are qualified.

It's okay to express your preference that the leadership role be filled by someone who doesn't go on a public, drunken, life-threatening rant.

I work in diligence on medium stage companies and the acquirer wondering if they have to ditch some of the current exectutive is very common. (I know nothing about the ownership of YC mind you.)

Michael Seibel, Geoff Ralston, and Sam Altman were all very apolitical CEOs. Sam was the most, but usually it was only general/presidential election stuff. YC also does some lobbying with investors like Ron Conway, who in the past has supported gun control policy.

Garry Tan is the only YC CEO with insanely thin skin.

It's high time we do recognize this as unacceptable speech.