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

https://missionlocal.org/2024/01/y-combinator-ceo-garry-tans-online-rant-spurs-threat-to-supe-police-reports/

by etc-hosts • 2 years ago

523 588 2 years ago

It's fascinating to me the extent to which executives don't consider themselves "public figures" when it comes to potential downsides, but they do in terms of upsides.

It feels so obvious to me that the CEO of such a high-profile org should at the very least quickly check public-facing social media posts against someone sensible, if not laundering them all through the experts at their org. But somehow they keep making these mistakes over and over again.

bloopernova• 2 years ago

The battlecry of the executive: "Rules for thee but none for me"

bko2• 2 years ago

Isn't it the reverse though? If a not notable person tweeted this stuff, it would have blown over and no one would have cared. But since he is notable it becomes a story

I think that was the point of the parents "public figures" comment

roughly2• 2 years ago

No, see, tech CEOs are all brilliant brain geniuses, and any attempt or notion to run their ideas or behavior past experienced professionals is nothing but a sop to outdated traditions which risks not just slowing them down, but by extension slowing all of humanity down and condemning literally uncountable future generations to darkness and death! Is that what you’re advocating for? The premature deaths of uncounted billions? You monster.

lainga• 2 years ago

“We believe any deceleration of my tweeting will cost lives. Deaths that were preventable by the tweet that was prevented from existing is a form of murder.”

(with no apology and copious reference of Arkell v. Pressdram to Mr. Andreessen)

zozbot2343• 2 years ago

Not sure if serious or just "e/acc"...

ativzzz• 2 years ago

Many CEOs are regular people who happen to be overtly charismatic to a fault. It just so happens that overtly charismatic people tend to be rewarded greatly by our social structures

These CEOs aren't doing anything different in these situations - they're being themselves and doing what they did to get their position. Other people generally don't call them out on their BS because it's an uphill battle fighting overtly charismatic people, and it's much easier to accept their flaws for the benefit of riding their coattails to the top

This is why they can't differentiate between upsides/downsides - people let them get away with things that other people can't, and to them it is all the same

mvdtnz5• 2 years ago

I've never heard of Garry Tan before just now, but he didn't strike me as "overtly charismatic" in the linked article. He struck me as incredibly unhinged and unlikeable.

KaiserPro3• 2 years ago

Many CEOs are regular people

Agreed

who happen to be overtly charismatic to a fault.

Not so much.

they're being themselves and doing what they did to get their position.

yes, there is a way of talking in industry that allows people to rise through the ranks. Its very rare that you get to the top by being an odious prick all the time.

However, people on the inside don't tend call out CEOs, because they need something from them. If you are frank with your CEO and they don't like it, you're out on your arse, to be replaced by a yes man. (not always, but its surprisingly common)

It is very easy to become a CEO as a normal person, only to develop into an horrid shit later.

rsanek• 2 years ago

I might be convinced that founders tend to be charismatic (they convinced a bunch of people to build their dream when it was just a dream, after all), but your run-of-the-mill CEO certainly isn't.

crote• 2 years ago

Many CEOs are regular people who happen to be overtly charismatic to a fault.

It's quite common for them to appear overtly charismatic at first glance. Narcissism and psychopathy are extremely common at that level. It's why you should always be weary of CEOs who seem a little bit too happy to have a very high-profile public presence.

mgh2• 2 years ago

Money and fame corrupts, alcohol disinhibits that corruption.

rchaud3• 2 years ago

It's the new spin on "I want the President to be someone I can have a beer with."

Quoting 2Pac lyrics is just comical. Even more out of touch than Ben Horowitz (of Andreessen Horowitz) starting every chapter of his ultra-corporate startup book with Jay-Z lyrics.

dboreham• 2 years ago

Ben is a long-time (life long?) rap lyric afficionado and in that respect actually quite "in-touch".

etc-hosts9• 2 years ago

Ben Horowitz is a pretty interesting guy

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/technology/one-family-man...

qzw• 2 years ago

But Jay-Z is also ultra-corporate, so it fits?

specialist3• 2 years ago

Heh. I look forward to If Books Could Kill's review. Failing that, I imagine this review properly captures the gist:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RFZJKA736UBAH/ref...

I'll reserve judgement until we see how a16z's "digital asset class" thing pans out. Some might even say blockchains are eating the world.

wolverine876• 2 years ago

Maybe they don't care at all whether they are in or out of touch. That is a preoccupation of people at a certain age.

tshaddox• 2 years ago

I suppose I can't disagree with the advise you're providing, although I'm a little troubled by the implication that the problem here is simply that he didn't send this vile rant to his social media team to proofread before he posted it.

zozbot2343• 2 years ago

He's literally the CEO of YC, and news.yc is social-media adjacent at least. What he posted would not pass mustard here.

dgfitz• 2 years ago

I think the point was more that sending it to a team would have hopefully resulted in it not being posted at all.

BobaFloutist3• 2 years ago

It's not to proof-read it, it's to make sure it's not going to damage the company.

Everyone has opinions that would get them cancelled on Twitter. Most of us are sensible enough to keep them to ourselves, or, at least, off Twitter, without even having the responsibility to maintain the image of a business. He has a duty to his employees, his clients, and his investors that goes far beyond the standard duty of "Don't be an asshole on Twitter."

Political hyperbole is also kind of the norm on Twitter (which is one of many reasons I don't spend much time there), so it's entirely possible he thought he was being humorous, and that it was abundantly obvious that he shouldn't be taken literally. Which might even be true. But CEOs are at extra risk of getting taken out of context and willfully misinterpreted, and they should fucking Tweet like it.

I disagree with what he said, but I'm more insulted that the people are allowed such insane levels of power and responsibility and are given such disproportionate compensation have the common sense of a middle-schooler.

duxup2• 2 years ago

I've worked for several big companies where the CEO wanted people to ask tough questions at big meetings from the rank and file and so on. Front line managers had to prompt employees to ask question so it wasn't just awkward silence.

It's telling executives would think people would just ask tough questions on demand. It of course costs the CEO nothing to provide everyone else at the company tough questions / feedback, employees though need to consider their words carefully depending on who at a company is listening as there can be real consequences.

It's one of those things that I'm sure seems like it makes the executive look "open", but rather it just shows their ignorance / are out of touch with the life of a rando worker.

Not a surprise that kind of unawareness leaks out of the workplace as they operate in a space where they are often relatively free to speak their mind.

BobaFloutist3• 2 years ago

The other thing is, there's no guarantee that a CEO that genuinely wants the rank and file to ask tough questions still won't instantly fire someone for the wrong tough question. Some CEOs are all about wanting to be challenged and pushed back by their employees until someone accidentally hits a nerve on a bad day, and there's very little recourse for most employees in the US if they get fired because they pissed off the executives.

skeeter20204• 2 years ago

My Boss (the CTO at a mid-sized company) says he really appreciates my candor and ability to ask challenging questions, but based on his reactions when I do so I'm pretty sure what he actually really likes the IDEA of being an executive who invites diverse and dissenting input, more than having people do it.

berniedurfee2• 2 years ago

I was at a big company where this happened. I also knew of a person behind the scenes with admin access making sure softball questions were voted to the top.

Then they dropped voting when the questions got too real.

Then they lit up the staff by saying, “If you don’t like being here, then leave!”

Then they stopped taking questions and went back to fireside chat monologs that offered no real information.

One of the many Dilbertian experiences in my career.

I once accused a VP of creating an environment of “opaque transparency” in a large staff meeting… nobody laughed, though I got lots of private kudos after the meeting.

Much of the corporate world is smoke and mirrors. That’s the nature of the game unfortunately.

treflop• 2 years ago

Humans run the gamut.

Sure there are humans that stickerbomb a tie die hatchback or go on Joe Rogan but then you got your human that lives a private life and drives a gray crossover.

bilbo0s3• 2 years ago

Ever notice how most of them never even joke about certain things?

Like, say, death threats?

I'd be willing to bet that a lot of humans go their entire lives without joking about death threats.

jnovek• 2 years ago

I'm a YC alum and it's an important bullet point on my resume.

I would rather YC leadership kept their political positions to themselves as much as is reasonably possible. It dilutes the value of that bullet point -- I want it to communicate things about my work ethic and competency. I don't want it to imply _anything_ about my political opinions.

I don't have a problem with tech leaders holding political positions, nor do I have a problem with them making personal donations based on those opinions. Quietly.

throwawaymaths4• 2 years ago

Why the double standard? Why should or shouldn't it be couth for someone to talk about their political positions? Everyone is a human, and you don't get anything done in politics unless there is mass action, which means we must have conversations, public AND private, about politics.

I'm sorry, if you are like "I'm glad they gave me the money and the label" and can't take it when someone associated makes an embarassing human moment, you are just trying to have your cake and eat it too. Do better.

petesergeant• 2 years ago

I want it to communicate things about my work ethic and competency

Doesn't it just communicate that you got in to YC?

PeterStuer2• 2 years ago

I'd rather they do it publicly than secretly tbh. At least you know where they stand.

As for companies, judge their actions, not their words.

crowcroft2• 2 years ago

They want the power, but not the responsibility.

not2b2• 2 years ago

He said he was drunk when he posted the rant calling for slow death of most of the San Francisco city council, so of course he didn't send it to corporate PR to check. This kind of behavior shouldn't be acceptable for the head of a respectable corporation, even if his tweet hadn't led others to follow up with death threats. He should resign or be dismissed and YC should replace him with a responsible adult. This isn't a minor offense, it is grotesque. If he remains, it reflects very badly on YC.

shiroiuma4• 2 years ago

Obviously, YC is not a "respectable organization", since they picked this fruitcake as their leader. This also explains why a portion of the readership of this site is so obviously unhinged.

HumblyTossed2• 2 years ago

It's fascinating to me the extent to which executives don't consider themselves "public figures" when it comes to potential downsides, but they do in terms of upsides.

Really? Because they are all about upsides.

"My initiatives led to 1,500,000 new bank accounts opened in the last 3 quarters!"

Vs.

"I didn't have any knowledge that the 1,450,000 new bank accounts were opened fraudulently!"

spacemadness• 2 years ago

That’s what most business “leaders” do. When the money is rolling in they are visionaries, when the money is threatened it’s the economy and time for layoffs. So anything good is their doing, anything bad and it’s time to deflect.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 2 years ago

Based on that tweet, this person does not fit any definition of "executive" that I would subscribe to.

andrejguran• 2 years ago

“Garry Tan is right!” the letter sent to Peskin, Preston and, perhaps, others read. “I wish a slow and painful death for you and your loved ones.” Bizarrely, the letter to Preston and Peskin concluded: “This mail was sent to communicate a political opinion. No threats were intended.”

intelligencesec• 2 years ago

Does anyone honestly believe that this was sent by a supporter of Garry Tan?

bhouston• 2 years ago

I think the tweet from Garry is bad enough.

roughly2• 2 years ago

Yyyyyyyes?

First day on the internet?

mlyle3• 2 years ago

Is that required? If you're prominent and write something like this, you shouldn't be surprised when people who hate the same people will weaponize it with glee and use it to feel justified in their actions, even if they didn't follow you before.

UberFly• 2 years ago

Fact is nobody but the sender knows. Easily could have been sent for many reasons.

k8svet• 2 years ago

Your brain is broken.

benmmurphy• 2 years ago

probably written by someone who just wants to stir shit and it looks like they succeeded. they got attention from a newspaper, frightened the supe and brought negative attention to Garry Tan.

idlewords2• 2 years ago

This is why it's important to hold a drink in each hand—so you can't tweet.

jeffbee4• 2 years ago

This is polymelia erasure.

idlewords2• 2 years ago

Give polymelia a hand!

shuckles13• 2 years ago

Startup bros tried doing that the last decade and got fleeced by Benioff and every nonprofit outfit in town.

amadeuspagel5• 2 years ago

Maybe Benioff is just slightly smarter about politics then getting drunk and posting unhinged rants on twitter.

gowld2• 2 years ago

Also need a straw in your mouth to block voice to text.

But once Neuralink arrives, we're lost.

Terr_• 2 years ago

He forgot the primary rule of then Inebriati! The hidden rulers must stay slightly-under two drinks.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmp_--Oow5o

Invictus0• 2 years ago

If the letter wished them a rapid death, would it still be a threat? What if it merely wished them a death of unspecified speed, itself being the natural and ordinary consequence of being alive?

Edit: to be clear, this comment was not asking a serious question

ozmodiar• 2 years ago

I think context matters. I can say "it would be a shame if something happened to you" and that could be pretty clear threat in some contexts and a genuine expression of concern in others. Same for something like "we all die eventually." In the context of a random letter? Yeah just don't, unless you mean to threaten.

Amezarak• 2 years ago

It's mentioned in the article that several lawyers were contacted and they all agreed it plainly did not constitute a threat.

But tying this potential legislation to the message Tan communicated to his 408,000 Twitter followers would appear to be a serious legal challenge: 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.

Which makes sense. Wishing someone a slow death is akin to saying "go to hell." It is a terrible thing to say and can be said with hate and malice and make you feel very worried but it is not the same thing as "I'm going to kill you."

cjensen2• 2 years ago

In law, there is a concept of a "True Threat" [1][2]. Political hyperbole is not a true threat; sending a threatening letter whose only purpose is intimidation may be. So Tan's foolish statements are plainly protected speech, and it is sensible for the recipients of the letters to contact police.

[1] https://uwm.edu/free-speech-rights-responsibilities/faqs/wha...

[2] https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/true-threats/

seattle_spring• 2 years ago

Yup. Source: I was suspended from high school for “wishing a rapid death” to one of my teachers.

hipadev23• 2 years ago

They all filed police reports because they felt threatened but have no issue with everyday citizens and tourists in SF enduring far worse than inebriated vitriol.

squegles• 2 years ago

Not sure why you are downvoted. This is correct. Ordinary citizens have had to put up with so much worse in their day to day lives in SF due to the lack of these supes doing their jobs. I can attest, I have lived in SF over the last 7 years and have seen its decline.

seadan832• 2 years ago

Downvote be cause it is an unsubstantiated claim, speaks to a state of mind (which implies the ability to mind read, short of that ot is casting a stereotype/assumption), finally, the criticism is "what-about-ism"

From a Seattle perspective, the "seattle is dying narrative" has been going on for a decade, despite the city having thr most cranes on its skyline and being a boom city for that time. Which is to say, confirmation bias is a bitch.

cjensen2• 2 years ago

The problem is that this argument is a logical fallacy. Threats to civic leaders are wrong. Whether or not they are good leaders does not change the wrongness of the threats.

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

zug_zug• 2 years ago

Probably downvoted for "Two wrongs make a right" fallacy. Basically if A does something bad, an irrational/tribal behavior is to disregard the problem by bringing up an unrelated bad behavior of another party. Two wrongs make two wrongs.

JackFr• 2 years ago

Tan's tweet was reprehensible, but I doubt it rises to the level of criminality. With respect to his inebriiation, as my elementary school teacher used to say, " While it explains, it does not excuse."

But I think a sincere mea culpa should end the incident.

deburo• 2 years ago

Drunk texting is never good.

Waterluvian• 2 years ago

“This mail was sent to communicate a political opinion. No threats were intended.”

When I was a kid I formed a core memory when I said “no offence, but…” and then said something incredibly offensive and was subsequently and rightfully lit right up by the person. “But I said no offence!” was my response, completely misunderstanding how that phrase even worked.

I feel like this is the adult version of that.

duxup2• 2 years ago

I think we're all children, over time we just pickup the desire / will to just use different words sometimes.

LudwigNagasena5• 2 years ago

It reminds me of the "in Minecraft" meme (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-minecraft). Note, the law doesn't work like that: https://kotaku.com/minecraft-death-threat-4chan-pol-shooter-...

riffic2• 2 years ago

there are really strong federal laws about what you can send through the mail.

zozbot2343• 2 years ago

This was discussed already https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39162499 and there's no real news since. It's a dupe.

dgacmu• 2 years ago

The new part of this article is the physical letters that were sent to some of the people mentioned in the tweet. That hadn't happened when the previously-discussed article was written.

(Edited to add: However, an article discussed yesterday in a now-flagged discussion did have the letters: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39199703 )

015a3• 2 years ago

The board’s five Jewish members — Peskin, Ronen, Melgar, Preston and Rafael Mandelman — in October received antisemitic postcards at their homes. Peskin said multiple supervisors have received as many as four more antisemitic letters or postcards since then.

Is this recent incident with Garry connected at all with the antisemetic postcards delivered last year? I haven't been following this and thus don't know what Garry's issue with the supervisors is.

If not: This is scummy writing to connect his admittedly poor-taste comments to something worse.

soneca3• 2 years ago

Did you stop reading there? It later explains that it has same wording of ”not a threat” used in the letter with Tan’s face. This is how it connects

015a3• 2 years ago

I did not stop reading. The antisemetic postcards from October are different than the ones the supervisors received with Garry's face and the "this is not a threat" line.

Its not clear to me that the ones with Garry's face are anti-semetic; unless they are, due to the nature of his extreme concern with the supervisory board, and that's what I'm trying to zero-in on. Its also naturally possible that the motivations of Garry and the person who sent the postcard are different, but again: I think its scummy to then prescribe antisemetic intent to Garry by connecting the two without elaborating within-the-article on why Garry is so drunkenly distraught.

I am not justifying or trivializing how Garry behaved. Its not ok to say what he said. But, its possible for both sides of this to be scummy and horrible; and that possibility is what I want to understand better.

whatwhaaaaat5• 2 years ago

What does being Jewish have to do with any of this and why was it brought up in the article?

Being Jewish isn’t some sort of shield that gives you special rights over anyone else.

mlyle3• 2 years ago

Because if you write something that gives nazis glee and they weaponize it against their Jewish opponents, it should give you pause.

It was brought up because they are receiving explicitly antisemitic content from the same people who loved and weaponized Tan's tweet.

smolder• 2 years ago

It simply says the Jewish members received antisemitic letters. Those things are related.

pierat• 2 years ago

No, but we have over 2000 years of cited, verified, and documented hate and horrific actions towards Jews because they are Jews.

This does have to be included as a possible contributing factor to this death threat.

(There's 2 types of bigots: one type will plainly use terrible language up front to let everyone know what they think. The other type will couch their hate in plausible deniable language so you're really not 100% sure.)

mvdtnz5• 2 years ago

What does being Jewish have to do with receiving antisemitic hate mail shortly after October 7, a brutal antisemitic atrocity committed against Jews? Are you asking that in good faith?

paulette4492• 2 years ago

There are many things I appreciate about YC News but being certain that this report will not be censored here is something I truly appreciate about this forum. Thanks @Dang et al.

jeffbee4• 2 years ago

This exact story was already flagged by the community. The HN groupthink is way more powerful than the moderator.

paulette4492• 2 years ago

Indeed. Well, not to take away from the moderation team.

etc-hosts9• 2 years ago

well to be fair, the Mission Local story from 3 days ago about Tan tweeting Tupac lyrics, was posted 3 days ago and flagged 3 days ago.

This story's lede is several San Francisco Board Of Supervisors members receiving post cards quoting Garry Tan's words.

Different story.

ecf• 2 years ago

In a lot of ways censorship here is worse than other places due to the weirdly attributed trust given towards HN members who think of themselves as enlightened intellectuals.

For example, try to post something pro Apple, or even try to play devils advocate. Your comment will be flagged within minutes.

ijhuygft776• 2 years ago

There's a lot of censoring here, not sure how you can be so certain. I think that the admins outsource most of the censoring to "senior" users though by giving more weight to their flagging.

the_only_law2• 2 years ago

I think that the admins outsource most of the censoring to "senior" users though by giving more weight to their flagging.

Nah even easier, it’s mostly outsourced to groupthink. Doesn’t involve anything nefarious, just inaction and delegation.

edanm3• 2 years ago

If you have a system that relies on voting, and people vote against some things appearing, that's not called censoring! That's just the system working as intended.

hn_throwaway_99• 2 years ago

Lol, yes, shadowy "admins" (there really is primarily just one, dang), and "senior" users, as if there is some hidden way to become senior. This isn't Reddit, and it doesn't work that way.

The behavior of who gets downvote and flagging rights is clearly spelled out. It's available to anyone who's been on the site long enough (and it's not that long, at all). I see this all the time where people complain about "being censored", where the reality is the community has heard what you have to say, we just think it sucks. That's not censorship, that's pretty politely stating we would prefer HN not become the cesspool of online discourse that pervades nearly all other online forums.

tekla• 2 years ago

being certain that this report will not be censored here

Why? HN censors shit all the time, and its all invisible unless you go looking for it.

IshKebab2• 2 years ago

Looks to me like they've applied some kind of heavy weighting penalty so it's already down to page 7.

I wonder how hard it would be to reverse engineer the penalty. You can easily poll to get points/time for stories and then probably use that to figure out the algorithm and any penalties/boosts (an old version seems to be documented).

dang• 2 years ago

We didn't touch the post. It set off the flamewar detector, and rightly so. However, because of the principle I described recently at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39172045*, I'm going to turn that off now.

* and past explanations over the years: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

ceejayoz4• 2 years ago

Bizarrely, the letter to Preston and Peskin concluded: “This mail was sent to communicate a political opinion. No threats were intended.”

Reminds me of the YouTube videos with "no copyright infringement intended" disclaimers.

ryandrake3• 2 years ago

Yea, this is a pretty cool hack. I think I'm going to go get a bumper sticker for my car that says "No speeding intended."

lapetitejort• 2 years ago

This is not financial advice

I am not a lawyer

I'm sorry you were offended

jprete• 2 years ago

The first two are at least going to be on reasonable communications.

giantrobot• 2 years ago

...in Minecraft.[0]

[0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-minecraft

solfox2• 2 years ago

Being drunk is not an excuse for abuse, so why are we allowing Tan to step away from this because he was drunk? Clearly, Tan would benefit from some introspection and perhaps therapy. We need to hold our leaders to a higher standard of mental health.

gowld2• 2 years ago

Obviously the problem is the technology that makes it too easy for a drunk person to be publicly intoxicated and causing trouble.

But ignore the fact that most people on this board work for companies that build this technology.

iancmceachern7• 2 years ago

I dont agree.

So because some un-self-aware rich a hole says something offensive we should censor, restrict the free speech of the general populous?

It's not the enablement of communication that's the problem here. It's a simple case of fault. He is as fault for his actions, not social media.

Zak2• 2 years ago

I have my objects to Twitter, but that isn't one of them. Here, someone in a position of power demonstrated poor judgment and self-control in a way that damages his reputation and that of his company, but does not harm anyone beyond that.

at_a_remove• 2 years ago

I wouldn't mind making him endure those cringy pre-recorded videos HR makes you sit through every X number of years about professionalism in the workplace, filled with staged and stock photography, amateur hour voice-overs, and fourth grade level personal interaction.

andrew_2• 2 years ago

quite the leap from a few too many drinks, directly to therapy and mental health issues. if that's your take from someone being drunk and saying something ridiculous then I'd question your judgement.

maxbond• 2 years ago

I think you can hold people to a standard of behavior, but I don't think you can hold anyone to a standard of mental health.

rsynnott• 2 years ago

Perhaps Twitter needs a breathalyser option for the more excitable executive.

JohnFen12• 2 years ago

why are we allowing Tan to step away from this because he was drunk?

I'm not. Being drunk excuses nothing. If anything, it makes it more poignant because drunk people are more likely to say out loud those thoughts that they would otherwise prefer keep to themselves. "In vino veritas".

infamouscow3• 2 years ago

A local resident is exercising their First Amendment right against the elected government officials. The government has no leg to stand on here. What was said is 100% legally protected under the First Amendment.

muglug• 2 years ago

If I did this I'd be out of a job.

gmerc• 2 years ago

Every lower level employee in a company would be out of a job

concordDance9• 2 years ago

Is that actually how it works these days? That any unhinged social media rant results in a firing?

iancmceachern7• 2 years ago

Yes. Ive had several corporate trainings from several big big companies where they explicitly say so.

I had one training even state outright that if you were seen on social media wearing company swag and doing something like flipping the bird or anything even mildly offensive that was grounds for dismissal.

akavi2• 2 years ago

If I did this, I wouldn't be out of a job.

Which of us is right? Maybe both (corporate culture can be pretty heterogeneous). Hard to say, regardless

infamouscow3• 2 years ago

I work for an anarcho-capitalist. If anything, I'd be shamed for not being more vituperative. These snakes don't deserve anything except your maximum contempt.

kmlx• 2 years ago

“San Francisco supervisors”,

in case anyone else wonders what’s a “supervisor”:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Board_of_Super...

ajb• 2 years ago

Thanks! So they are the legislature of San Francisco city/county, and there are only 11 of them, so it's quite a significant position.

iancmceachern7• 2 years ago

Yes, and they also are famously in silos. They each advocate for their own districts only, and so it's often a battle between districts for resources, etc. It's actually a pretty dysfunctional system from what I've seen attending local government meetings and trying to get basic simple things done in my community

etc-hosts9• 2 years ago

Over 95 percent of San Francisco's budget is directly controlled by the Mayor's office. The Mayor's office in San Francisco is incredibly powerful.

Supervisors mostly sit through the monthly televised Board Of Supervisors meeting, where concerned citizens and community activists along with the utterly deranged voice their concerns.

kjkjadksj4• 2 years ago

Representation is surprisingly even worse in LA county. 5 supervisors for 10 million people. Californian government systems really weren’t designed for the populations they currently represent.

IshKebab2• 2 years ago

Yeah this story is missing all context - what "supervisors" are, what his beef with them was, etc.

averageRoyalty• 2 years ago

Thank you, I've read three articles so far and none have explained this. Supervisor is such a generic term, it's difficult to research without knowing what it is.

So basically, he said fuck the council and he hopes they die a slow death. Not very nice, but also not usually a contraversial opinion? Lots of people dislike their councils.

timr8• 2 years ago

This article is emblematic of everything wrong with "journalism" today. Regardless of what Garry wrote on Twitter (which I'm not defending), he didn't send the letters in question, which are the core of the incident. So some lunatic prints out a tweet and mails it to politicians at their home addresses, and the "journalist" spends a couple thousand words focusing on the tweet, and how the guy who wrote the tweet is rich.

Also, featuring the price of his liquor bottles (prominent in the first article about this by the same writer) is indicative of the level of pettiness involved. Maybe there's an actual story here, but this isn't it, and it's not clear that the story is more than "someone said something regrettable on Twitter".

Tarragon3• 2 years ago

"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_tur...

Stochastic terrorism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_terrorism

concordDance9• 2 years ago

I doubt this CEO had any intent to actually cause harm to these people, which is often what's implied by stochastic terrorism.

lupusreal8• 2 years ago

"Stochastic terrorism" is just an excuse to crack down on free speech by conflating harsh criticism with violence because deranged idiots exist who might take any criticism of anybody as divine inspiration to commit crimes.

The standard for free speech in America is that if you're not calling for imminent and specific violence, then you're in the clear. The stochastic in stochastic terrorism does away with both the imminence and specificity; with a large enough population you'll have enough nuts that some of them may take even the most mellow criticism as a call to action.

LudwigNagasena5• 2 years ago

Stochastic terrorism is such a dangerous and nebulous concept. It itself can be considered stochastic terrorism. People become afraid of stochastic terrorism and start to terrorize people whom they don't like. Or can't we say that Garry Tan wrote his tweet only because of what the politicians had done? Aren't they also stochastic terrorists if he is?

noelwelsh2• 2 years ago

No.

When people with power stay things, other people take it as permission to do things that are said or implied in that speech. For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_no_one_rid_me_of_this_tur...

timr8• 2 years ago

This is a fairly standard and boring way of dressing up censorship as something high-minded.

It's nice that you're familiar with a story from England in 1170, but no, you don't just get automatically blamed in the US when crazy people do things in response to dumb things you said on Twitter.

Regardless, even if you did get blamed, missionlocal is not the impartial jury who gets to decide whether or not quoting 2pac is incitement to violence.

Arthanos• 2 years ago

This comment is everything wrong with media literacy. It's absolutely worthwhile to cover highly public calls to violence of government officials by respected individuals with lots of power and the article makes it clear he personally did not send the letters. But denying that public calls to violence spurs actual violence is denial of basic cause and effect.

timr8• 2 years ago

It's absolutely worthwhile to cover highly public calls to violence of government officials by respected individuals with lots of power

I mean, sure...who are you arguing with? I didn't say nobody should cover this. I said this article is terrible.

But denying that public calls to violence spurs actual violence is denial of basic cause and effect.

Yeah, except we have laws around this concept, and even if what you're saying were true in the US (it isn't, thankfully), it doesn't magicaly make hack journalism good.

Said differently, "incitement to violence" doesn't mean that missionlocal is high-minded and mature for spending two articles talking about the price of his liquor.

softwaredoug2• 2 years ago

I think the point is when prominent figures say these things, whack-jobs feel emboldened.

It happened with Trump, who more or less seemed to know he was provoking something dark. Other public figures ought to have more care with their language.

tootie2• 2 years ago

The article is perfectly clear about what happened.

jakewins• 2 years ago

If you are a leader in some capacity, you have degrees of responsibility for things that happen because you rile up your followers.

Clearly Garry’s fans are threatening violence here as a direct consequence of Garry’s intentional targeting and signalling here. I don’t follow at all how the journalistic angle is problematic

klyrs3• 2 years ago

I don’t follow at all how the journalistic angle is problematic

People of a certain political bent are eager to throw journalists under every available bus, even if that means denying history and common sense.

theGnuMe2• 2 years ago

I mean this is what is being litigated in court wrt Trump.

elpakal2• 2 years ago

Came here to voice my frustration about the muddying of the waters and the quality of this article. Took me a few minutes of cynical reading to understand that he did not send the letters, someone else did.

hobs3• 2 years ago

If your very public words can be mailed to someone and mistaken as a fairly death threat to them do you A) Rethink your life or B) Retreat to how this is not technically a death threat and you did not technically send it to them?

rozap• 2 years ago

And Donald Trump didn't storm the capitol, someone else did.

He still incited it.

ahahahahah• 2 years ago

Yeah, it sure wasn't obvious from the very first thing on the page where it says the letter started with "Garry Tan was right", I'm surprised you were able to figure it out after just a few minutes.

p_j_w2• 2 years ago

Took me a few minutes of cynical reading to understand that he did not send the letters

It didn't take me that. I knew it within moments of reading the article and it seems the vast majority of readers didn't have this problem.

COGlory3• 2 years ago

What part of the article isn't factual?

jacobolus10• 2 years ago

everything wrong with "journalism" today

Mission Local is one of the best sources of local San Francisco news, especially anything directly relevant to the Mission District.

If rich jerks don't want to be called out by local journalists, they shouldn't post unhinged public death threats, even as a "joke" or "song reference".

lupusreal8• 2 years ago

If local politicians don't want jerks (rich or otherwise) talking shit about them, they picked the wrong profession in the wrong country.

timr8• 2 years ago

Mission Local is one of the best sources of local San Francisco news

OK. Maybe their coverage of potholes is fantastic, but this article is a terrible, obviously partisan hack job. Both things can be true.

bdcravens2• 2 years ago

I'm not certain that Twitter is an exempt place when it comes to threatening statements. You don't have to send it to the person in question in many cases.

LeifCarrotson• 2 years ago

Society and the victims are lucky that the letters are the core of the incident. Tan incited some lunatic to send IRL mail with a printout of the tweet to their home address, we're fortunate that he didn't incite some lunatic to send IRL bullets to the home address.

A wealthy, powerful, influential celebrity figure saying something 'regrettable' on Twitter often has real-world consequences. If he'd posted a tweet that read something like "Upload a picture of you assassinating so-and-so and a Bitcoin address and I will send you $100k" and someone followed those instructions, that would be conspiracy to commit murder. If he'd posted "I feel that so-and-so's politics are misguided" that's totally reasonable free speech.

There's also a question of scale or exposure. We legally define rights by qualitative analyses. I feel strongly that as technology increases the power of an individual that quantitative analyses are relevant too. If someone's speech will be broadcasted to 400,000 or 40,000,000 followers, that's one thing, if it's said privately to 4 friends that's completely different.

Somewhere in the middle of these things there's a line between right and wrong. I'm quite confident that telling an audience of 400,000 that you want a few named people to "Die slow motherfuckers" is on the wrong side of that line.

pompino• 2 years ago

I'm quite confident that telling an audience of 400,000 that you want a few named people to "Die slow motherfuckers" is on the wrong side of that line.

Then why are we trusting the person to make a rational choice? By that logic, X should simply disallow using certain words when your audience is > 400,000. Because anyone can get incited for violence when they read certain words as you claim.

KaiserPro3• 2 years ago

I would kindly suggest that this is at best wrong, at worst deliberately misleading

The job of journalists is to report news worth events, and provide extra context with some level of verification.

When the CEO quotes rap lyrics which implies that someone should kill them selves, that is news worthy.

The CEO, who is in a position of both power and responsibility, should really not be saying stupid shit. Why? because the job of the CEO is to make sure a company's image isn't tarnished. (see Gerald Ratner).

Tan should frankly grow the fuck up and do what CEOs normally do, which is pay local politics to change.

worksonmine5• 2 years ago

which implies that someone should kill them selves

How does the sentence "die slow motherfuckers" even remotely imply someone should kill themselves? Do you see the irony of misquoting him in a comment about misleading journalism?

Necessary disclaimer: I do not support the tweet and it has nothing to do with my comment, so breathe and understand my point before hitting that down-vote.

jrflowers2• 2 years ago

it's not clear that the story is more than "someone said something regrettable on Twitter".

This is a good point. Who is to say if there is a difference between receiving hateful letters to one’s home and not receiving hateful letters to one’s home?

This is bad journalism because it is a report of events that happened, good journalism would have been a levelheaded piece about how Tan is probably a good guy and we should probably agree with his politics

tech_ken• 2 years ago

None of your criticisms make sense to me, this is some of the best local journalism I've seen in a while. The headline is a tl;dr of the entire piece and the first several paragraphs are the facts directly related to the incident and providing essential context. Nothing is sensationalized, there's no sob angle, and they even corrected a minor inaccuracy. The way you describe it is like it's a tabloid covering some nothingburger, but this is a clean summary of an important event: people are threatening SF supervisors, and it's a result of a drunken Twitter rant by Gary Tan. This is what is happening, and this is what the article describes in clear and direct language.

What else could you even want from this article? That they just elide the liquor angle? That they don't cover it at all or spend the entire article analyzing the person who sent the threats? A person in power wished death on a political figure, and people acted on that wish. This is absolutely news worthy of an article in a local blog, whose beat overlaps with the political jurisdiction of the threatened politicians.

andy993• 2 years ago

I was happy to see the story caught that it was Tupac song lyrics, which I see also was picked up in the previous HN discussion. While it's not really laudable behavior, quoting some lyrics that in almost 30 years hindsight are pretty silly is not quite as threatening as people make out. Probably better to stay off social media when drinking all the same.

ryandrake3• 2 years ago

I don't understand why the fact that his words happen to be song lyrics somehow softens the blow. If I wrote to my government representative "go hang yourself with a barbed wire" I'd expect it to be taken seriously as a threat. It doesn't matter that the Gravediggaz originally wrote the lyric.

andy993• 2 years ago

If you said "I'm the Rza-rector, be my sacrifice" though?

I think the fact that it's lyrics can make a big difference to the assumed intent. It's a young guy quoting an angry poem vs an actual threat.

bcrosby95• 2 years ago

That's obviously not a threat. Just like saying "go fuck yourself" isn't a threat of rape.

"Die slow" is pretty ambiguous though.

__derek__• 2 years ago

There's a Key and Peele sketch in this vein: Rap Album Confessions.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14WE3A0PwVs

andrew_2• 2 years ago

because this only matters if you somehow benefit from it; either with virtue points on the internet, or political points in the media.

colechristensen2• 2 years ago

30 years ago those lyrics were threatening, written by, and targeting violent people. They weren't innocent, it wasn't some fantasy, these were people making music about their lives.

tptacek8• 2 years ago

This post isn't going to get flagged (or at least not as quickly) because it mentions YC itself, and YC is kid-gloves about moderating posts about YC.

But this is a deeply stupid story with a lede that basically says "I'm unfamiliar with even the most most famous 90s hip-hop". Tan, like many, many, many Internet commenters before him, was quoting Tupac's Hit 'Em Up, which, unless you think Tupac was literally calling out hits on Chino XL, was not intended to be a true threat at the time, and certainly couldn't reasonably be taken as one today.

People come up with all sorts of cringey rationalizations for how this is anything more than someone on Twitter faceplanting a dad joke (sorry, but 2Pac is now dad music, I don't make the rules). That's because the rationalizations are more narratively interesting, which is a pretentious way of saying "fun", and fun beats reason every single time.

EFfective local politics? Definitely not. But then, if you oppose what Tan is about in SF, that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

This is an off-topic dupe story and by rights it shouldn't be on the front page, but, whatever.

zht• 2 years ago

sorry what?

you think given the context between Biggie and Tupac, where both artists were later violently murdered, Hit'em up, which was one of the rap beef songs of all time, did not include any genuine threats of violence?

I'm not saying that Garry Tan was threatening to, as in the original song, shoot up the supes with AKs, or shoot them in the back with the Mac, or cut their young ass up, leave them in pieces, or snatch their ugly ass off the streets, or get their caps peeled, but I think it would be very strange to rationalize that particular Tupac song as one that was not threatening murder

tptacek8• 2 years ago

That is correct.

bambax• 2 years ago

(For the record, I'm not American but frequent HN often; I have never heard of this song and while the name "Tupac" rings a distant bell, I didn't know if it was a person or a place.)

rideontime3• 2 years ago

I dunno, most dad jokes don't read as death threats to the majority of the population. Suggesting it's everyone else's fault for not being familiar with "the most famous 90s hip-hop" isn't very convincing.

tptacek8• 2 years ago

Listen to Ken White's podcast or read his blog to learn that threats are evaluated in the context they're delivered in. "Die slowly" is a meme. In fact: this has been a running joke since at least nineteen ninety-nine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XASNM1XEQPs

Like I said, this "online rant, threat of harm" stuff (to paraphrase the story) is pretty supremely cringey.

HumblyTossed2• 2 years ago

"I didn't really mean it, I was quoting someone from several decades ago that everyone should have known about as long as they were alive then, interested in the person originally quoted and happened to also know about the quote!"

lawgimenez3• 2 years ago

Hiphop fan here, Tupac has maybe dozens of diss or “threat” tracks in his discography. Maybe CEO shouldn’t be quoting Tupac lyrics in the first place since I am pretty sure hit em up has probably influenced a lot of murders, not just Biggie.

tptacek8• 2 years ago

And yet somehow Chino XL still draws breath, and sickle cell is what took out Prodigy.

etc-hosts9• 2 years ago

I'm pretty immersed in American media and pop culture and history. Originally I did not make the connection that Tan was tweeting Tupac lyrics.

I'm just not a huge rap listener, though I can tell you all about Tupac's family's amazing history.

burningChrome• 2 years ago

> unless you think Tupac was literally calling out hits on Chino XL, was not intended to be a true threat at the time, and certainly couldn't reasonably be taken as one today.

Huh?

There were whole articles written about the song and the context of the time in which it was written. Tupac lived a notoriously violent life and saw himself as a legit street gangster despite the actual reality of the opposite.

From 2017:

That opening line—that egregious, confrontational, hate-filled opening line—was one of the most unforgettable utterances ever committed to wax by the late Tupac Shakur. It’s been 20 years since the release of 2Pac’s scathingly brutal diss track “Hit ’Em Up,” a song that came to embody the venom behind the Death Row/Bad Boy beef of the mid-’90s and an easy reference for the antagonistic figure many saw 2Pac as in his final months on this earth.

There was a palpable sense of dread hanging over hip-hop in mid-’96.

The final paragraph of the article sums it up:

In the wake of Shakur’s murder, “Hit ’Em Up” would become a chilling epitaph for a feud that seemed to spiral out of control—even more so after the Notorious B.I.G. met a similar fate in March 1997. Taken on its own merit, it’s one of the greatest diss records in hip-hop history; but attached to the moment, it was a lot more than that. Something more volatile. Something more dangerous.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/tupacs-hit-em-up-the-most-sava...

tptacek8• 2 years ago

No, to all of this. No, this is an unserious argument about an unserious event. If he'd quoted Fairport Convention singing about murdering dudes with beaten swords, I insist that we would be having an isomorphic argument right now. About, like, drive-by swordings in the middle ages, and the implied threats thereof. No, I shan't have it.

Rapzid• 2 years ago

Paragraph three which mentions the 2Pac reference was pretty good.

I enjoyed learning about Tan's political history in relation to the supervisors.

The quote from the Berkeley School of Law dean added a good legal perspective.

fzeroracer• 2 years ago

As a resident dad joke expert: Can you explain what exactly is a 'dad joke' about quoting a line about wishing someone to die slowly? Where's the joke or the funny? Where's the cringe pun?

clpmsf• 2 years ago

Seems like whenever tech people get rich enough they become completely obsessed with politics.

solfox2• 2 years ago

Feels very egoic to me.

WhyCause• 2 years ago

I think it's more that once you get rich, the political machine becomes obsessed with you and your donations. That attention can be kind of addictive.

micromacrofoot6• 2 years ago

They're like dragons guarding their piles of gold

mjmsmith• 2 years ago

That ladder isn't going to pull itself up.

concordDance9• 2 years ago

No, just the ones you are likely to hear about on the news. Take a look at the top 10 richest Americans, most spend very little time on politics and you'll often struggle to even find out their opinions of the issues of the day.

theGnuMe2• 2 years ago

Ha! That is so not true. Musk, Koch, Griffin, Bloomberg, Gates.

iancmceachern7• 2 years ago

It's an ego thing

willvarfar2• 2 years ago

favoring moderate causes and candidates and targeting progressives

for us non-americans, can someone please explain what general political aims the 'moderate' and 'progressive' parties represent? And where are they on the republican democrat spectrum?

nostromo• 2 years ago

For the US:

Moderate: between Republican and Democrat.

Progressive: left of Democrat

mathgradthrow2• 2 years ago

No one knows what you mean by left and right.

brokensegue• 2 years ago

Progressive = left = democrat (very roughly)

habitue2• 2 years ago

The article goes out of its way to avoid naming the cause which is: housing! More affordable homes! Valuing people over historic buildings and neighborhood character! You know, the kind of stuff that actually should be considered progressive

willvarfar2• 2 years ago

so the progressives want more affordable homes, and the moderates don't?

amadeuspagel5• 2 years ago

The cause of what?

miriam_catira• 2 years ago

Usually moderates can be either party, the ones willing to work together from both sides, so in the center. Progressives are generally considered to be the left-leaning democrats. I could be mistaken though, I've been trying to avoid politics recently....

jacobolus10• 2 years ago

In San Francisco the Republican Party is marginal (and broadly despised by the electorate), so you can think of the "progressives" vs. "moderates" as sort of the local version of two parties, mostly within the Democratic party.

bilbo0s3• 2 years ago

In US terms.

Progressive is Left. Their pet terrorist loot the school, the Target, or the Walmart.

Despite what the article says, we have no moderates.

Conservative is right. Their pet terrorists take guns and shoot up the school, the Target, or the Walmart. (And occasionally, a church here or there).

That's US politics in a nutshell.

networkchad• 2 years ago

Ridiculous and deranged take. No one on the right will endorse mass-shooters. You have plenty of people on the left willing to make excuses for their looters because "muh socioeconomic factors".

drewdevault5• 2 years ago

There are no "moderate" nor "progressive" parties. There's just Democrats and Republicans, which in a global context are respectively center/center-right and right. In a US context, both terms are more likely to refer to Democrats, and definitely not to Republicans. There are some other parties but they are of next-to-no consequence in US politics.

It's pretty hard to say what the terms "progressive" and "moderate" mean in a US context, but I would say that both terms exclude the American far right and populist movements, and are vague as to what they include otherwise. The Overton window has shifted hard to the right in the United States, so it's probably somewhat right of what you may expect from, say, a European perspective. A moderate will probably be sympathetic to limiting immigration, for example, a progressive is likely more in support of immigration. Both groups probably support minority rights (e.g. LGBTQ, Muslim, etc), but moderates less so.

In terms of economics, both terms and parties generally describe liberal capitalist economic policy, which is dogmatically entrenched across the US political spectrum, to the point where most Americans cannot conceptualize economic systems other than liberal capitalism. The main difference in political economic values across the US political spectrum fixate mainly on who pays how much taxes, and subsidies for liberal capitalist businesses. Progressives may be more pro-union, whereas most moderates are generally not.

Moderate and progressive groups can overlap, particularly in a politician who wants to appeal to both, usually by contrasting themselves with the right.

Disclosing my biases: I am an American leftist (or social democrat, if you prefer) living abroad, and I generally have quite a lot of disdain for moderates, particularly in the United States. I'm definitely holding my punches for this comment, though, for what it's worth.

reducesuffering2• 2 years ago

You must be purely talking economics if you think the Democrats are globally center-right.

If you have a few minutes of thought to the ~200 countries that 8 billion people are living under, like China, India, Russia, Japan, Iran, Nigeria, Indonesia, Poland, Phillipines, Turkey, and their policies on immigration, LGBT, drug use, freedom of speech/press, you would quickly be disabused of any idea the US democrats are center-right.

What I think is that steeped in a Western European leftist bubble, 95% of the world is right wing to you, and you’re confused on where America stands in that spectrum, forgetting about who’s currently been elected in the rest of Europe like Sweden, UK, Poland, Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Serbia, etc.

concordDance9• 2 years ago

The Overton window has shifted hard to the right in the United States,

Economically or socially and over what sort of time scale?

janosett• 2 years ago

Counterproductive, and makes Garry Tan look like a real asshole. Now people will have sympathy for the Supervisors whereas a thoughtful criticism could have put real problems with their leadership on display.

gerash2• 2 years ago

Garry Tan is already doing the "thoughtful criticism" https://growsf.org/

Ranting on Twitter should not be a crime IMO

Apocryphon3• 2 years ago

There are legal crimes, and then there are social faux pas that gets one convicted in the court of public opinion.

KingOfCoders2• 2 years ago

Standing on a podium shouting "A,B and C should die!" to your audience should be a crime, and luckily is in many countries.

jjulius• 2 years ago

Garry Tan is already doing the "thoughtful criticism" https://growsf.org/

The act of providing "thoughtful criticism" doesn't make it OK to tell people you wish them dead.

Ranting on Twitter should not be a crime IMO

I don't really see anyone saying that it should be. People are welcome to rant on Twitter, just as people are welcome to take issue with said rant, and then form an opinion of that person based on the words they chose to post.

fundad• 2 years ago

Yes, he is in politics. His rant is more in line with today’s politicial speech than that PR website.

peddling-brink• 2 years ago

Makes it look like, or makes it clear that?

concordDance9• 2 years ago

Thoughtless perhaps, but I don't think this is enough to indicate arseholery. People often get very emotional about things and rant about people while still doing good things and behaving in an exemplary fashion most of the time.

etc-hosts9• 2 years ago

I'm Blocked By Garry Tan, but Tan appears to actively focus on convincing his enemies that he is a real asshole.

habitue2• 2 years ago

Clearly this was reprehensible behavior by Tan, but this article is a mess. It's conflating unrelated white supremacist threats and Tan's comments, and doesn't really go into why Tan doesn't like Preston, leaving the reader to conclude "maybe it's something to do with racism? Or maybe because he's a socialist and it's discrimination?"

(Hint: Dean Preston is notorious for blocking new housing, while being nominally progressive)

This doesn't excuse Tan's comments in any way, but it seemed like the author just threw the kitchen sink into the article

benzible• 2 years ago

The threat cited Tan's threatening tweet - certainly not "unrelated".

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. Unlike incitement to terrorism, this is accomplished by using indirect, vague, or coded language that allows the instigator to plausibly disclaim responsibility for the resulting violence. Global trends point to increasing violent rhetoric and political violence, including more evidence of stochastic terrorism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_terrorism

m3kw92• 2 years ago

It smells like someone that hates Gary Tan who is sorta savvy want to reverse uno his arse by doing this, can tell by being so obvious by even going lengths to picture the tweet.

sangnoir• 2 years ago

Owning Gary Tan by commiting federal mail crime? Whoever did this is not the sharpest tool in the shed.

m3kw92• 2 years ago

These crazy left right extremists fits the bill

thiago_fm2• 2 years ago

Y... ikes!

It's about time Y Combinator has executives who aren't so busy with politics. It gives the whole incubator, startup scene, etc, a bad name.

The good ol' days are over. I still have in my mind Y Combinator of Paul Graham (a man wise with his words), but given that we've already had even Sam Altman in control of it.

I'm guessing YC nowadays is not that different from private equity/VCs like A16z, which enjoy having their fingers on everything. Typically, it is stuff they don't know much about and look plain stupid.

I hope PG can bring the good ol' days back someday, when it was about entrepreneurship, having people laser-focused on building disruptive companies.

tootie2• 2 years ago

The actual tweet was a few days ago. I can't believe he wasn't instantly fired. I know firing a CEO is a bit complicated, but this should have warranted a quick response. Has YC even issued a statement? Has Tan apologized?

thiago_fm2• 2 years ago

No idea, I have a similar thought. But I'm not from America, where people are free to say whatever stupid thing they want, no matter how high stakes their job is.

maeil• 2 years ago

No repercussions for violent threats to innocent people when made by higherups in SV tech is par for the course nowadays.

Take OpenAI's Head of Research (quite the public role given they're a research company) openly calling for genocide in Gaza, asking to "finish them", "More! No mercy!" including civilians, over a series of 80 deranged tweets. [1] Zero repercussions, still happily heading research at a company whose supposed objective is developing AGI for the benefit of mankind.

Also very quickly scrubbed off of HN [2].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39124666

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20231226171217/https://news.ycom...

tim3333• 2 years ago

Tan has apologized:

“I apologize to the Board of Supervisors for my comments late last night in a post,” Tan wrote. “There is no place, no excuse and no reason for this type of speech and charged language in discourse. I am sorry for my words and regret my poor decision. I love San Francisco. I know the community will hold me accountable and keep focused on our true mission: making San Francisco a vibrant, prosperous and safe place.”

Having seen him talk on video he seems like a decent guy who is not very good at dealing with conficts. See eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4yMc99fpfY&t=630s

amadeuspagel5• 2 years ago

GRAHAM: No, no, no, politics. The problems with San Francisco are entirely due to a small number of terrible politicians. It’s all because Ed Lee died. The mayor, Ed Lee, was a reasonable person. Up till the point where Ed Lee died, San Francisco seemed like a utopia. It was like when Gates left Microsoft, and things rapidly reverted to the mean. Although in San Francisco’s case, way below the mean, and so it’s not that it didn’t take that much to ruin San Francisco. It’s really, if you just replaced about five supervisors, San Francisco would be instantly a fabulously better city.
COWEN: Isn’t it the voters you need to replace? Those people got elected, reelected.
GRAHAM: Well, the reason San Francisco fundamentally is so broken is that the supervisors have so much power, and supervisor elections, you can win by a couple hundred votes. All you need to do is have this hard core of crazy left-wing supporters who will absolutely support you, no matter what, and turn out to vote.
Everybody else is like, “Oh, local election doesn’t matter. I’m not going to bother.” [laughs] It’s a uniquely weird situation that wasn’t really visible. It was always there, but it wasn’t visible until Ed Lee died. Now, we’ve reverted to what that situation produces, which is a disaster.

https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/paul-graham/

micromacrofoot6• 2 years ago

the sage wisdom of "the problem with politics is that the people who get the most votes win"

blendo• 2 years ago

   GRAHAM> … It’s all because Ed Lee died

To believe that Ed Lee is some kind of political white knight instead of merely a Willie Brown/Gavin Newsom/London Breed/Kamala Harris machine politician seems historically naive, if not blindly ignorant.

Similar to Garry Tan in that.

tim3333• 2 years ago

Seems Graham and Tan had similar views of the problem, just Graham is diplomatic about it and doesn't go on drunk rants.

etc-hosts9• 2 years ago

Capitalism runs every aspect of our lives.

It's impossible for commentary from a person who controls a vast amount of capital to not be political.

startupsfail• 2 years ago

It is admirable that Gary Tan loves his home in SF so much. And that he is engaged into making SF better. But SF, getting wasted, engaging into politics is not SV.

Wish we could disentangle flies from sausages and move YC office back to Mountain View, where it belongs.

JohnFen12• 2 years ago

It gives the whole incubator, startup scene, etc, a bad name.

And that scene already has a bad name. And let's not forget that he's also an EA acolyte. Every time I think that the image of SV couldn't get much worse, it does.

ajmurmann2• 2 years ago

I always hear people use EA as a negative term now. Is there actual philosophical criticism of EA or is this just because SBF subscribed to it?

sidibe• 2 years ago

As if PG isn't doing the same things on Twitter. I notice both of them are always grovelling to Musk trying to get his retweets or quotes

ajmurmann2• 2 years ago

"If those techies don't like SF politics, maybe they should get involved in their local community!"

"No! Not like that!"

7622362• 2 years ago

They don't want to be involved with politics. But they're the type of people that have agency, and San Francisco is in horrible shape, so they feel compelled to help turn the city around.

EasyMark2• 2 years ago

San Fran could be turned around in a few years if they cracked down on crime, especially low level crime, homelessness, and revamped zoning laws and regulations to be advantageous to builders instead of NIMBYs.

softwaredoug2• 2 years ago

From

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

He hasn’t liked it when the threats were the other way:

In the past, Tan has not been receptive to jokes about him: When commenting on San Francisco community organizer Julian La Rosa, who had said that “millionaires and landlords should be guillotined,” Tan seemed to take the jest deadly seriously.
“This is not a joke,” he posted. “This guy wants to guillotine people.”
“This kind of stuff should have zero place in San Francisco politics,” he later said.

p_j_w2• 2 years ago

Rich techbros being hypocrites? I'm utterly shocked!

shuckles13• 2 years ago

Julian never apologized for his tweet whereas Garry did, so it’s kind of a false equivalence.

sh34r• 2 years ago

I'm more inclined to think Garry Tan is a sadist, not a hypocrite. He said "die slow." There's few methods of killing that are faster than the guillotine. Garry clearly believes only ISIS-approved execution methods belong in SF politics.

ramesh31• 2 years ago

Is anyone helping Garry? He's very obviously going through something.

riffic2• 2 years ago

is this the dude that is known for blocking a lot of randos on Twitter?

edit: ah yeah he is lol:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32641557

laidoffamazon• 2 years ago

I love Hit 'em Up, and I really dislike the supervisors in question.

But man, doing this is at best cringe, and at worst extremely unprofessional

ilamont• 2 years ago

The deleted tweet is really bad, and can't be brushed off with "sorry, the booze made me do it."

"If you are with [progressive supes] then FU too" makes me wonder how employees, YC applicants, and others are treated if they are so aligned or appear to be. A laptop sticker or T-shirt with one of these names on it would be noticed, not to mention social media posts or "following" status.

YC portrays itself as a meritocracy and striving to find the right or the best founders. If the top officer is filled with such resentment, I don't see how that doesn't cloud the YC environment and the types of founders who are invited to participate.

because_789• 2 years ago

“Drunken words are sober thoughts.”

malermeister4• 2 years ago

In vino veritas.

pyb• 2 years ago

YC shouldn't become a no-go zone for anyone who leans "progressive".

tw042• 2 years ago

The number of people trying to defend what is, at best, extremely childish behavior is fascinating to me. Would you really go up to your city counselor in real life and tell them you wish death on them and their family, and pretend it's OK because it's an obscure reference to 90s rap (mind you the rap song WAS an actual death threat)? Do you think you'd be met with laughter? Do you actually consider that socially acceptable behavior?

If you dislike their politics, so be it - donate to campaigns or personally run against them. Write a letter explaining how you'd like them to vote.. But the amount of absolute crass behavior people allow "because it's the internet" is mind boggling.

iancmceachern7• 2 years ago

It certainly doesn't help his case.

I agree. We need to bring civility and basic respect, for the institution, back into our public discourse.

pera• 2 years ago

Unfortunately social media doesn't recompensate those using a measured tone to communicate with others, civility seems to be ineffective nowadays if your objective is to produce any political impact because outrage (as a conduit for discourse) spreads more easily.

VoodooJuJu• 2 years ago

Yesterday, I read someone mock HN as "Corporate Apologism News". Quite accurate in this case.

sjwhevvvvvsj4• 2 years ago

Silicon Valley is fun that way - tons of smart people who’s eyes slowly shift out of focus and minds slip into a stupor when confronted with their participation in helping the most horrible people alive ruin the world.

shuckles13• 2 years ago

I’ve received death threats from representatives of local non profits for advocating to build more houses in San Francisco. It’s not that surprising when people observe that the outrage over this incident is arguably insincere, even if the original tweet was inappropriate.

ceejayoz4• 2 years ago

Surely the takeaway here is "death threats bad", not "death threats good"?

dheera4• 2 years ago

This is the main reason I'm not currently registered to vote. The f-ers at the voting offices leaked my address without my permission, and then I de-registered and moved.

I don't currently have anything worthy of a death threat but if I ever do in the future, I'd prefer the public not know where I sleep.

Also, f all forms of KYC. Half of those companies end up getting hacked or leaking data at some point in the future.

zeroCalories2• 2 years ago

This isn't your neighbor, you don't owe politicians any kindness.

bdcravens2• 2 years ago

Yes, but death threats are a crime, so we owe it to everyone, including ourselves, to not stoop to that level.

freejazz2• 2 years ago

Local politicians are neighbors

dheera4• 2 years ago

donate to campaigns or personally run against them

Neither of these do much, honestly. The government already steals enough of my money, I'm not handing them more. And as a silicon valley nerd I'm not going to attract votes by personally running.

But yeah, wishing death is immature.

EGG_CREAM• 2 years ago

It seems like you’re implying that donating to a campaign somehow goes to the government?

codegeek• 2 years ago

I am conflicted on this because I like to speak my mind. Having said that, I am a nobody so usually no one cares. My wife always tells me "It's not the what but the how you say it". Gary being such a popular figure probably should have worded it better. However, I do worry that there is too much criticism these days when someone speaks their mind.

EDIT: I see people making a fair point about "too much criticism" as it sort of contradicts what I said about "speak my mind". I guess my worry is not about free speech or other people just criticizing but more of the woke crowd that just wants to cancel you because they disagree. I should have clarified that in initial comment.

derstander• 2 years ago

I am conflicted on this because I like to speak my mind.
However, I do worry that there is too much criticism these days when someone speaks their mind.

You don’t need to feel conflicted. Just think of that “too much criticism” as people who disagree with the initial take as speaking their mind in response.

sjwhevvvvvsj4• 2 years ago

Getting drunk and posting death threats on a social media platform beloved by unhinged bigots isn’t “speaking your mind”, it’s incitement.

WrongAssumption• 2 years ago

I don’t understand your premise. Criticism is other people speaking their mind. It sounds like you want to speak your mind and dislike when others do in response. What is your thought process exactly?

bee_rider2• 2 years ago

I like to speak my mind as well, but I haven’t ever listed a bunch of colleagues names and then wished death on them. Actually I’m not sure he could have worded it better: what’s the good way to deliver that message?

JohnFen12• 2 years ago

His comment was beyond the pale and inexcusable. Not because of his political position, but because expressing the wish for a slow death of people because you disagree with them is never OK, regardless of what your politics are.

klyrs3• 2 years ago

I guess my worry is not about free speech or other people just criticizing but more of the woke crowd that just wants to cancel you because they disagree.

What's wrong with the "woke crowd?" Is that not merely a nebulous group of people who have political opinions with which you disagree? What's wrong with them wanting to "cancel" you? Is that not an exercise of free speech and free association? Freedom of speech has never meant freedom from consequences. "Cancellation" just a social consequence, is it not?

Behind each of these question marks is nuance: I like Ken White's treatment of the topic: https://popehat.substack.com/p/our-fundamental-right-to-sham...

ethbr112• 2 years ago

General rule of thumb -- if you're tempted to say anything that references "Hit Em Up" [0], don't do it on main.

Or, you know, just be drunk off of Twitter?

Elon barely gets away with it, and everyone else isn't that rich.

[0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ugD3_yt756w (goes without saying, but NSFW)

actualwitch6• 2 years ago

Elon getting away with it is the problem. Broken windows theory and all that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

andy993• 2 years ago

I think people downplaying it is better than trying to make more out of it than it is, or being part of an online pile-on. It's not great behavior but it's in the realm of "did something dumb", not more.

mise_en_place3• 2 years ago

Freedom of speech entails allowing for speech you dislike and find abhorrent. Just be honest and say you are against freedom of speech, and you are in favor of compelled speech. SV types have this weird politeness shtick.

iinnPP• 2 years ago

Death threats are not free speech.

tw042• 2 years ago

You completely missed the point, in its entirety.

A. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences.

B. Just because you CAN say anything you want doesn't mean you SHOULD. Part of living in society is acting... civilized.

Suggesting you should treat others with respect is now equated with hating freedom of speech? I guess our country really is in trouble...

CydeWeys• 2 years ago

Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequences. You can't say whatever assholish thing you want and then claim freedom of speech as a shield when it inevitably pisses people off.

This is not a freedom of speech issue, it's a "CEOs shouldn't be idiots" issue.

ethbr112• 2 years ago

Absolutely.

But freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences of that speech.

Like people judging what you say.

I'm a free speech absolutionist, but I still think neo Nazis are assholes. I think they should be allowed to say it (absent violence), but anyone who chooses to say it is going to drastically change the way I think of them.

ryandrake3• 2 years ago

If you dislike their politics, so be it - donate to campaigns or personally run against them. Write a letter explaining how you'd like them to vote.. But the amount of absolute crass behavior people allow "because it's the internet" is mind boggling.

I don't even think it's "because it's the internet." "In Real Life" political discourse has been getting significantly more and more crass and more and more belligerent in the last 10-15 years. Go over to YouTube and bring up some Reagan-Mondale or Clinton-Bush debates and compare their tone and temperament to what we see today. People still felt strongly about the issues back then, but we weren't so constantly hurling threats and potty-mouth insults all over the place like today.

ceejayoz4• 2 years ago

Go over to YouTube and bring up some Reagan-Mondale or Clinton-Bush debates and compare their tone and temperament to what we see today.

Reminded me of a fascinating video I recall; Bush and Reagan debate illegal immigration in 1980's primary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmgPp_nlok

They sound more liberal than half of today's Democrats.

dfxm12• 2 years ago

"In Real Life" political discourse has been getting significantly more and more crass and more and more belligerent in the last 10-15 years.

Just ask Paul Pelosi. IANAL, I don't know what the legal definition of a credible threat is, but I completely empathize with these politicians who might be wary of what someone with the resources of Tan may do directly or incite.

nebula88048• 2 years ago

When the center repeatedly fails to deliver meaningful reform, the extremes will attempt to fill the void.

somenameforme2• 2 years ago

We've had things like a sitting vice president kill a secretary of the treasury (and Founding Father) in a duel, over political insults. I make two points with this. The first is that obviously the past was far from some era of restrained gentleman, but the second is that I think words used to have a lot more meaning.

And that's because in modern times we've been rapidly diluting the meaning of basically everything by endlessly resorting to inappropriate hyperbole. This makes it difficult to express things and practically impossible to express an extreme feeling without resorting to the sort of hyperbole that makes hyperbole look restrained, which is what this thread is ultimately about.

It'd be nice if we returned to the era of words having meaning, but the era of the internet probably makes that impossible.

caesil• 2 years ago

imo the biggest issue was not the content of the tweet itself but the getting really mad and drunk tweeting. neither particularly professional nor politically wise for someone who is the head of a major institution in the startup world and a figurehead for (much-needed) political reform in sf. the actual words having crossed the line is sort of downstream of firing tweets from the hip while mad and drunk.

he basically needs to step down from the podium now or he's going to hurt the cause of making sf better, which is really unfortunate.

colechristensen2• 2 years ago

I disagree, it's the content. While I don't think many would interpret as a legitimate death threat... it is adjacent, and quoting what was more or less a death threat which contributed to murder.

Altering consciousness is a human trait which I support in the end. Doing unreasonable things while in altered states is a consequence, and likewise fine as long as things as nobody really gets hurt.

Saying strange things or stirring up controversy by having unpopular opinions or hurting someone's feelings a little... not a big problem. Apologize and move on.

What happened here is pretty far across the line, though.

It was pretty close to a death threat and served to encourage others to get even closer. I'm not quite sure if it should be illegal, but it should get a public figure fired.

hintymad• 2 years ago

I don't understand the rant either. Tan already has a platform. If he wants to "hurt" someone, wouldn't cold facts and logic work the best? What's the point of ranting some nonsense?

jrflowers2• 2 years ago

The number of people trying to defend what is, at best, extremely childish behavior is fascinating to me.

While I am not going to say that there is a phenomenon akin to sycophant Olympics performed for the benefit of an audience of a single dunce king going on here,

StayTrue• 2 years ago

Any statement from the YC partnership?

sgt• 2 years ago

Garry Tan needs to go. This is not CEO behavior.

danans2• 2 years ago

This is not CEO behavior

Prescriptively, you are right, but descriptively, for a particular subset of Silicon Valley CEOs, it seems pretty on-character.

gerash2• 2 years ago

Are these "journalist" being paid by our tax dollars from these corrupt/insane officials?

etc-hosts9• 2 years ago

Gathering money to hire people to write the news in San Francisco is pretty hard.

Mission Local is a non profit org in SF that has done really great work.

Many of their articles focus on corruption in the city government, for example https://missionlocal.org/2022/08/nuru-sentenced/

You can see their funders here: https://missionlocal.org/our-donors/

justinzollars• 2 years ago

I recently lost another friend to Fentanyl. The policy of SF sups actually kills people, like my friend. The policy of Leftist supervisors who defend huge open air drug markets can be directly linked to thousands of deaths in San Francisco and tens of thousands in the Bay Area.

This is an example of caring more about what people say than what people actually do.

For a generation who is so proud of itself, Millennials, your results suck. Where are your accomplishments?

danso2• 2 years ago

Virtually every supervisor on the current board appears to be Gen X

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Board_of_Super...

tru3_power• 2 years ago

Lmao someone was listening to too much 2pac and drinking. Literally right out of “Hit Em Up”. Don’t think he was being serious, but still not a good look for a CEO.

micromacrofoot6• 2 years ago

If you wouldn't say it to someone's face, don't post it on social media.

BWStearns• 2 years ago

To quote the late great Norm Macdonald, this might strike some viewers as harsh...

zeroCalories2• 2 years ago

Yeah man, housing advocates are totally known for being violent extremists, unlike the sups in SF. These people are snakes.

hoistbypetard• 2 years ago

When I saw "supes" in the headline I thought it meant superintendants, as in people in charge of a school system.

Here it means members of the county board of supervisors. If you live in a place where that's not a thing, it's very similar to a city council or county commissioners in many other US places.

jeffbee4• 2 years ago

The City and County of San Francisco has a unique unitary government, where the citizens in my experience think of the supervisors as city supervisors, not county supervisors, even if both or either might be technically accurate.

sdsd• 2 years ago

Funny, I thought of superheroes, because they're called "supes" in The Boys. I was confused whether this was a joke announcing a new season of The Boys. I clicked the article just to clarify what supes meant lol

jackmott42• 2 years ago

What a terrible human being, why would anyone want to be involved with Y Combinator or any of their companies that would put up with this sort of behavior?

LgLasagnaModel• 2 years ago

For Christ’s sake, the guy spells Garry with two ‘r’s, did y’all expect that he would NOT turn out to be a lunatic???

crowcroft2• 2 years ago

Regardless of whether you agree/disagree/whatever is this the kind of volatility you want on the cap table?

KingOfCoders2• 2 years ago

Do you want to work for a company where this kind of volatility is an investor?

romafirst3• 2 years ago

Well at least he’s not promoting genocide in Gaza …oh

ashconnor• 2 years ago

Did anyone else get blocked on Twitter by Garry for liking a tweet critical of his San Francisco housing policies?

throwawaymaths4• 2 years ago

First tell me you've never wished a person dead aloud, not even once.

I've probably done it two or three times. I've wished people dead quietly, maybe about 10 times. Never actually killed anyone. One person I wished dead, did die (of leukemia), probably, unfortunately, slow and painfully.

Here's someone I would right now, wish a slow and painful death, publically. Vladimir Putin.

come after me with an accusation of a death threat.

rideontime3• 2 years ago

I’ve never wished a person dead aloud, not even once :)

throwawaymaths4• 2 years ago

easy to start. Wish vladimir putin dead.

lookitsnicholas• 2 years ago

have never had that wish at all personally, tbh

idle_zealot• 2 years ago

What am I missing here? "Die slow" is certainly in poor taste, but it is not a death threat nor is it a call for violence. It seems clear to me that it expresses a wish for the target to die slowly (and presumably painfully or uncomfortably) when they do end up dying. It's childish and mean spirited, but it's clearly not a threat. I'm more afraid of the chilling effect that punishing this sort of harmless speech has than I am of allowing it to continue through inaction.

kvonhorn• 2 years ago

The "die slow" in this case is a reference to an actual death threat made in a song from the 90s.

it's clearly not a threat

No, it's not a threat, it just _references_ a famous death threat, one that Tan regrets that we didn't get when he initially tweeted it.

buildsjets• 2 years ago

Lock him up.

COGlory3• 2 years ago

I can't believe the lengths people here are going to trying to defend his behavior. There's a reason influential people shouldn't be publicly calling for others to die in pain. Coincidental rap lyrics or not. Someone might just take you up on it. It's extremely irresponsible and dangerous.

pfannkuchen3• 2 years ago

Are rappers not influential people?

chrishare• 2 years ago

They are, and they do get criticism. As they should, and as Tan should. No excuses for that kind of comment or judgement.

COGlory3• 2 years ago

Yes but there's added context of performance art Tan clearly does not benefit from.

If I punch someone in a boxing ring, I don't go to jail.

daveguy• 2 years ago

Why would Y Combinator keep an employee on board -- any employee -- who posted desires on Twitter for a group of people to die a slow death? The politics of it are irrelevant.

Glyptodon• 2 years ago

It should be unacceptable for someone in a leadership position to act so dangerously juvenile, but it is the era of Trump. Speaking your mind can be done in ways that aren't basically death wishes.

tsol• 2 years ago

He's always been a very strange person. Blocks everyone who disagree, insults freely. I'm surprised it's taken this long honestly

caskstrength• 2 years ago

He is fabulously wealthy and his private stash is... Macallan 18?! It seems no amount of money can substitute nonexistent personality and improve poor taste...

galacticstone• 2 years ago

WTF? That's the CEO of Hacker News?

refurb2• 2 years ago

This is a tech VC going up against season politicians.

Did you notice the article tries to mix up Tan’s letter with “antisemitic” letters also received? Those are irrelevant, but very politically savvy to try and equate the two.

Gary stepped on his own dick with this move. If you want to beat them, you need to play the game better than they do.

ynx• 2 years ago

I feel like if I said "die slow, motherfuckers" here, that'd be justified grounds for a ban.

It's really, really fucking stupid to do this, and even worse as a leader of an influential and impactful organization.

Also - is Hacker News independent from Garry Tan's influence? If so, what assurances of that are there? If not, what can be done to ensure he never touches HN?

P_I_Staker• 2 years ago

It is not free of influence. This site is incredibly biased in it's moderation. I will be surprised if this comment doesn't get flagged and taken down.

protocolture• 2 years ago

Whats a supervisor in this context?

etc-hosts9• 2 years ago

"San Francisco" is simultaneously a county and city. San Francisco Supervisors are members of the San Francisco Board Of Supervisors. same thing as a city council.

https://sfbos.org/

thelock85• 2 years ago

The wildest part of this is that Tan mimicked a lyric from a diss song (Hit Em Up), ostensibly in jest. Never mind that the release of that song was part of a conflict that ended with two rappers (2Pac & Biggie) dead.

Of all the diss tracks, he picks the one with allegations of sleeping with someone’s wife, making fun of someone’s health conditions, demeaning women, and of course repeated threats of death that eventually manifested in real-life murders.

Lammy• 2 years ago

ok but he's right though https://old.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/hthfgb/aaron_peski...

replwoacause2• 2 years ago

Wow, how is this guy in charge of anything? He seems so puerile.

iamleppert• 2 years ago

He should be charged with inciting those death threat letters. If I would post something like that on social media to my 5k followers, and one of them was inspired to commit a crime soon afterwards, I’d be facing criminal charges.

San Francisco DA should look into charges and hold Mr. Tan accountable for his behavior.

pfannkuchen3• 2 years ago

Does this make Garry Tan “the supe Nazi”?

(I’ll show myself out)

devwastaken• 2 years ago

Garry is lost in the rat race of politics and is clearly crushing himself under the pressure of his own ego. I would not trust the future of ycombinator to someone who cannot articulate in a disagreement. What things is he saying behind closed doors that will be revealed?

"When asked if she felt personally threatened by Tan’s behavior, Chan responded “Seeing what my colleague[s] received in the mail? Yes, absolutely. I have a 10-year-old. I do not tell people where my child attends school.”"

alecco2• 2 years ago

For context, Peskin himself is known to verbally harass public officials while intoxicated:

Verbal harassment
Peskin has been known to make inappropriate late night phone calls to public officials and private citizens.[9] For example, he called the Port of San Francisco director Monique Moyer several times about cutting their funding over disagreements concerning waterfront building height limits. Mayor Newsom told the San Francisco Chronicle that people around city hall had been complaining about Peskin's behavior for years.[49] However, former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos has said Peskin's alleged behavior falls "well within the boundaries of the system" and that it's "not unusual in politics at any level of government."[49]
In 2018, at the scene of the St. Patrick's Day fire in North Beach, Peskin was reportedly intoxicated while he verbally berated then-Deputy Fire Chief of Operations Mark Gonzalez. Peskin has denied being intoxicated at the time but has apologized for his behavior.[50]
In June 2021, Peskin announced in a statement that he would be entering into alcohol treatment.[51] Peskin apologized for behavior that he attributed to his alcohol problem, but also announced that he planned to remain in office while in treatment.[52]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Peskin#Verbal_harassment

trust_bt_verify3• 2 years ago

Didn’t see any death threats listed, is this relevant?

alecco2• 2 years ago

He is a bully.

latentcall• 2 years ago

The manchildren share inherit the Earth.

SilverBirch• 2 years ago

Can someone explain to me what the dynamic is in San Franciso? I honestly don't get this situation where practically every rich VC/Software/Tech person in silicon valley bithces and moans about San Francisco. But it's like... rich tech guys have been hanging around silicon valley for decades now, they're billionaires. They could literally fund candidates for every single government position down to highly politically motivated garbage collectors. How come it seems like they have no political power at all?

Surely they should just... put some people into power who'll do what they want? Like I'm not even saying "Why haven't they solved the problem", I'm saying "Why haven't the rich tech guys not just spent money to put people they like in power?" And I'm not just saying Garry personally, I'm saying it seems an almost universal view that rich silicon valley people want different people in charge, so... go... do it?

Or do they actually have a load of political power and just don't want to fess up to the fact it's their own dumb politics causing the problems in the first place?

NoobSaibot135• 2 years ago

I’m a big fan of YC, HN, and Garry Tan.

I’d love to support Garry politically to get SF back to its roots and to put math back in schools.

Unfortunately Garry has blocked me on X for no good reason that I can think of?

StackRanker3000• 2 years ago

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32639125

weare138• 2 years ago

What the hell is going on in Silicon Valley? You all ok over there?

phendrenad2• 2 years ago

A case of "you had one job". It should be possible to criticize people without wishing death on them (or saying something that can be construed as wishing death on them). But oh no, that's too much for some people I guess.

coldtea• 2 years ago

Would this CEO have gotten the same backlash if he said similar things about, say, Trump, or some adjacent S.F. supervisor?

Not asking whether they would have gotten _some_ backlash (of course they would), but whether they would have gotten the same backlash, from the same media and people giving it to Gerry now, and whether it would be as effective to get them getting some board discipline and/or have them relieved from their positions.

It's ok to say "but those are bad people and would have deserved it, while the ones Tan targetted are good". It comes off as a little strong, but at least it's an understandable and cohesive political stance.

It's also fine to say "No, saying such things is a no-no, no matter which is the target, period.".

But it's a little hypocritical when people who claim the latter in this case, to ignore or even applaud similar comments when they're in line with their politics.

aagha• 2 years ago

More than anything, it's surprising more aren't calling for him to step down.

silexia• 2 years ago

Tan is right... The SF supervisors policies and voting has literally resulted in many deaths.

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

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