News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by vincentjiang on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @03:56PM (#46980823)
hate to see that tech leaders getting into politics
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by diggyhole on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:10PM (#46981020)
Or do you hate that their politics don't align with yours?
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by shimman on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:14PM (#46981080)
Everyone should hate people that believe in undemocratic principles.
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by CamperBob2 on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:40PM (#46981479)
Hot take: what has democracy done for us lately? Besides re-electing Donald Trump?

If something can't go on forever, it will eventually stop. That applies to any system that gives stupid people the same political voice as the rest of the electorate. I mean, it seems kind of obvious, doesn't it?

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by amarcheschi on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:45PM (#46981557)
Ask yourself which class can gain something by having trump as president rather than any other democrat

(it's not the working class)

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by CamperBob2 on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @05:12PM (#46981930)
Exactly. So why'd the "working class" vote for him?
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by amarcheschi on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @05:22PM (#46982067)
Because the ones owning social medias, newspapers (and whatnot) pushed heavily for it
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by CamperBob2 on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @05:26PM (#46982116)
And why did they give up their agency to these shadowy media oligarchs...?

Answer: because they're stupid.

The ones who weren't stupid were impossible to herd to the polls, or at least a lot more difficult. As a result they were outnumbered. Any system that removes the influences you cite will leave the same stupid voters in place, ready to fall for the next con man who comes along.

The problem isn't the money. The problem is the power. I'm tired of giving stupid people so much power over my life.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by johnnyanmac on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @08:55PM (#46983967)
>why did they give up their agency to these shadowy media oligarchs

decades tearing down education is paying its dues. Once again, from the people who are making you feel like democracy isn't working.

>I'm tired of giving stupid people so much power over my life.

If power is money, boomers still have a lot of power. And they leveraged politics their whole lives to benefit them (even if destruction of the younger generation is a side effect)

If power is votes, then millenials should be the bloc in charge now... but we still had worse turnout than boomers. That really says something.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by CamperBob2 on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @10:41PM (#46984651)
I disagree that education had any meaningful part to play. It's true that less-educated people were more inclined to vote for Trump, but it's also true that we got all the "education" about Trump between 2016 and 2020 that anyone should have needed.

You can fix ignorance with education, but you can't fix stupidity.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by johnnyanmac on Thursday February 12, 2026 @12:04AM (#46985076)
>we got all the "education" about Trump between 2016 and 2020 that anyone should have needed.

Well the "real" cause is economy. Trump had a strong economy in term 1 until COVID. If you weren't affected by the China trade war (and many in the red states arent), you could ignore the day to day politics and think "yeah Trump is great!"

But "economy" is too generic, and I feel that phenomenon is more attributed to "ignorance".And the comfortability to remain ignorant and fall for the spin telling you "things are good". That all feels to stem from education.

Is ignorance stupidity? Sometimes. They go hand in hand.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by CamperBob2 on Thursday February 12, 2026 @12:01PM (#46991350)
If you weren't affected by the China trade war

Thinking that you won't be affected by a trade war with China, or that you will somehow come out ahead in the bargain, is as good a symptom of stupidity as any.

Either the tariffs were going to be an act of economic suicide, if implemented as originally promised by Trump, or they were going to be yet another shameless grift, designed to bring industry leaders to his door bowing and scraping and bearing gifts. Regardless, the people who voted for him won't get what they were promised, and the rest of us will be stuck with the long-term costs.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by johnnyanmac on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @08:51PM (#46983932)
>what has democracy done for us lately? Besides re-electing Donald Trump?

You have the order backwards. This is their exact strategy; spend decades breaking government then have the breakers say "see? government is broken!". Lack of functioning democracy got us Donald Trump.

Why do you think this year they are so gung ho on trying to disenfranchise voters for a midterm? Because they know they are cooked if democracy starts to work again. If nothing else, Mamdami's 6 weeks show exactly how a "government that works for its people" can work. Let's keep pushing for that.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by estearum on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:12PM (#46981045)
Nah, I don't even know what Garry's politics are. I hate that there's so much money in politics in general.
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by diggyhole on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:49PM (#46981607)
Fair enough.
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by saubeidl on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:33PM (#46981385)
Their very existence doesn't align with my politics, or any decent person's politics for that matter.
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by pbreit on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:36PM (#46981417)
Smart, successful people offering products and services that lots of people want does not align with your politics? What are your politics?
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by saubeidl on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:41PM (#46981492)
People extracting value from labor to enrich themselves at the expense of society and then using those riches to further corrupt society, to the point where a few dudes own most of the country does not align with my politics.

That's why I'm a socialist and I would invite anyone who thinks things might not be going in the right direction to consider that as well.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by johnnyanmac on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @08:57PM (#46983979)
>What are your politics?

how about not protecting child diddlers as a bare bones start? That's not even the "on the ground" bare minimum; we're still stuck in the hole.

But let's try to meet 1% of the way first and take baby steps, okay?

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by micromacrofoot on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:37PM (#46981435)
it's that their money buys outsized influence and erodes the concept of democracy
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by johnnyanmac on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @08:49PM (#46983910)
I hate that their politic's explicit goal is to make my, yours, and everyone else's lives actively worse. Government is not a business.

We're not getting better healthcare, more and better jobs, more efficient transportation, better city infrastructure, nor more houses. We aren't even getting the cool things shown in cyberpunk dystopias. Hell, we can't even ask for them to follow the law these days.

Why would I want to support them getting into politics? There's a difference betweeen them having different thoughts on how fund, say, self drving cars (which I'm not a fan of) and then all of that above.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by ajross on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:00PM (#46980876)
I'd prefer to see more of them do so, personally. That said, to watch Tan wading into a local fistfight about school curriculum and housing zoning and whatnot in the age of ICE abduction, targetted political prosecution and wanton macroeconomic regulatory chaos seems... frustrating.

I mean, I kinda agree with him about most of the centrist stuff. But really, Gary? This is what you need to be spending your money and time on?

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by bhouston on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:01PM (#46980888)
Garry seems motivated by being against a wealth tax and this is also likely the reason other ultra rich people will donate to his dark money fund:

https://finviz.com/news/277038/y-combinators-garry-tan-warns...

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by awnird on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:53PM (#46981660)
Garry is chummy with musk and trump. His motivation here is to protect the pedophile class.
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by johnnyanmac on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @09:00PM (#46983997)
I wouldn't even be surprised at this point. Seems like the files will unironically unravel 90% of the elite class at this rate.

What an absolute pathetic hill to die on. You have the riches to fund entire industries, explore the whole world or even beyond, to please any hedonistic pleasure you have... but many chose to do one of the 3 unthinkable things in modern humanity.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by terminalshort on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:35PM (#46981406)
Wow. So it's not even good enough that he agrees with you. You demand that he also prioritizes in the same order as you?
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by ajross on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @05:44PM (#46982293)
I dunno about "demand". But sure, I think most of us would prefer people prioritize like we do. And in particular many of us would view this kind of hobby project as tone deaf and tell people about that in public.

My freedom to tell Tan (or you) that he's being an idiot stems from the same place as his freedom to spend his own money on what he wants.

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by spicymaki on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:30PM (#46981337)
Well on the bright side it's a complete mask off moment for the tech community. I think it is good for these people to expose themselves to the public. They will show you who they really are if you let them.

“If the broad light of day could be let in upon men’s actions, it would purify them as the sun disinfects”. -- Louis Brandeis

Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by skybrian on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:37PM (#46981445)
For one person in the tech community. And apparently he was already "out?" (The article goes into his history in supporting political causes.)
Re:Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to i... by pbreit on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:34PM (#46981397)
Why is that?