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'Stupid,' 'shameful:' Tech workers on Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan's rant

tempestn
103 replies
9h4m

I'm a little bit aghast at all the comments saying this is normal or no big deal. Maybe it is normal (or at least common), but it shouldn't be. If you believe it's no big deal, I can't agree. I can see this kind of behaviour from adolescents, but adults should understand that words are meaningful and have consequences, and that even if you disagree with someone, they're still a human being who deserves some modicum of respect, or at least decency. Wishing a slow death on someone, even rhetorically, shows neither, to put it mildly.

tedk-42
26 replies
8h42m

He's paraphrased 2pac is his alcohol fuelled moment

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

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

littlestymaar
10 replies
8h17m

It's immature and poor judgement

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

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

dspillett
5 replies
7h59m

To put it in a bit more context: this was out-of-hours, and those Walmart cashiers shouldn't be sacked for immaturity and poor judgement in their personal lives if their work is life is up to scratch.

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

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

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

littlestymaar
4 replies
7h52m

this was out-of-hours

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

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

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

dspillett
1 replies
7h13m

> There's no out-of-hours for CEO.

Unless his contract specifically says that, bull.

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

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

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

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

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

--

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

theshackleford
0 replies
2h28m

He’s right. Source: was executive, CEO adjacent, and id still have been let go for such behaviour. At that level, you’re a very different representation of the org and you’re held to a higher standard in such cases where your actions regardless of when or where they took place reflect upon the org.

cqqxo4zV46cp
1 replies
7h47m

I agree that this guy is a tosser. I’m always first in line to give a fatcat tech bro what for. But you’re completely barking up the wrong tree with this tribalist argument. You’re holding him to a standard that you at least in part don’t believe in, but are simply saying “an eye for an eye!” when he wasn’t even the one responsible for taking the first eye. Chill.

foldr
0 replies
6h45m

They may think that it's reasonable to hold tech CEOs to higher standards in this respect than Walmart cashiers. So I don't think there's necessarily any inconsistency here.

refurb
2 replies
6h51m

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

Thats a ridiculous position to say he’s unfit.

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

chomskyole
0 replies
6h34m

From grandparent:

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

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

USA, USA????

MomoXenosaga
0 replies
5h52m

Yes it's politics and working with computers and man-children all day is poor training. Stick to your lane tech billionaires you couldn't win an election if you were the last person alive.

chiefalchemist
0 replies
7h44m

Note: This is a general comment and not intended forgive or incriminate anyone.

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

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

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

rsynnott
6 replies
7h4m

but he's apologised for it so I don't think it's fair to drag him down.

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

refurb
4 replies
6h53m

Yes, when people apologize for things we generally move on since the person acknowledge their error.

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

chomskyole
3 replies
6h37m

A death threat by one of the richest persons = A small transgression when they apologise after the fact

Seriously?

framapotari
2 replies
6h6m

If I say to you "die slow", would you read it as me threatening to murder you?

westhanover
0 replies
4h24m

Why don't you give me your home address and tell me what school your children go to. Then I will tweet at you to "die slow" and we will see exactly how threatened you feel.

kyleamazza
0 replies
5h44m

Are you implying that it's not a threat of any kind? Regardless of how it's enacted? I would certainly rather be threatened with a nice day.

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

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

everforward
0 replies
3h20m

I'm genuinely curious; this, on the face of it, makes no sense to me at all. Is it because he's rich? I don't get it.

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

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

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

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

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

Brian_K_White
2 replies
6h32m

Somehow in all my many alcohol fuelled moments, I never said anything like that.

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

zoklet-enjoyer
1 replies
6h19m

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

I think what you mean to say was:

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

Sam Altman, fuck you too.

mindcrime
0 replies
2h49m

The birth of a new musical genre - "VC rap" - is happening right in front of our eyes!

jwmoz
1 replies
7h28m

Heinous cringe.

Cthulhu_
0 replies
3h44m

The cringe is the real crime here.

hef19898
1 replies
7h30m

The higher up you are, and the more you represent an organisation, the less immature behavior or poor judgement you cannafford orbare entitled to. USN nuclear sub commanders get replaced for DUIs, because poor judgement is not acceptable. Creating public outrage with drunk rantabon social media falling back on an employer is nothing a normal employee woild get waway woth, let alone a CEO.

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

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

hindsightbias
0 replies
2h23m

Think about the industry and the people you'd want to be managing an AGI. These people aren't Chuck Forbin.

JohnFen
0 replies
2h20m

That he was drunk makes it very likely that he was expressing what he really thinks. It's not a matter of "dragging him down" as much as "when someone shows you who they are, believe them."

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

s_dev
26 replies
7h53m

but adults should understand that words are meaningful and have consequences

What consequences should Gary face?

otikik
10 replies
5h39m

I am not a lawyer, but if some deranged individual who follows him takes his comment and face value and murders someone, he will face many consequences.

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

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

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

Amezarak
5 replies
4h56m

Lawyers and judges have already been consulted and concluded that no crime was committed.

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

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

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

paulryanrogers
3 replies
4h46m

When powerful or influential people use stochastic terrorism to get their way, they should suffer consequences. Trump seems to be normalizing this.

Amezarak
2 replies
4h31m

The US has a long history of "stochastic terrorism", which seems to be at a relative low compared to the violence of the early 1900s, the 1960s, and several other periods etc. I have faith in its institutional ability to handle and restrain actual violence.

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

paulryanrogers
1 replies
1h21m

Because things were worse before doesn't mean we need to stop trying to be better in the future.

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

Amezarak
0 replies
49m

Unfortunately, discussing this too much more runs the risk of becoming too politicized for HN. I'll point out only that as deadly riots go, January 6 ranks at the near the bottom of American riots (lots tied with one fatality.) As protests or even attacks on or in government buildings go, it is not particularly notable. If that's what we're worried about, I'm not worried. It will be forgotten like the 50s Puerto Rican attack in the Capitol and it will have had less effect. If there'd been a stronger police response/presence as there was during the BLM White House protests or some earlier Capitol protests, you'd not even be hearing about it today. But for that accident (or conspiracy if you're so inclined, or deliberate underestimation of the threat of Trump supporters, or whatever) it would have been forgotten on January 7th.

Kye
0 replies
4h6m

A good video from an actual lawyer on where the legal lines are when it comes to incitement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwqAInN9HWI

rayiner
2 replies
4h56m

He wouldn’t be prosecuted. Wishing death on political figures is a cherished American tradition, and well protected under the first amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_president_of_t...

JohnFen
1 replies
2h29m

Wishing death on political figures is a cherished American tradition

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

ilikehurdles
0 replies
1h41m

There’s a link in the comment you’re replying citing a 1969 Supreme Court case about this very type of situation.

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

slibhb
0 replies
4h0m

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

That's very clear!

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

tempestn
6 replies
7h35m

The main consequence to him so far has been a lot of people thinking less of him. It was also consequential for the subjects of the tweet, and to a much lesser extent, to all of us who've been exposed to it.

s_dev
5 replies
7h17m

Okay sounds like he faced those exact consequences and a bunch of people are acting like victims because they chose to take him too literally. I don't think Gary really cares what you or some others think. He's developed a thick skin for this sort of stuff maybe others should too.

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

nonrandomstring
3 replies
6h43m

A lot of people could do with hardening up a bit.

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

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

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

s_dev
2 replies
6h26m

Pursuing intellectual curiosity involves tolerating ideas or language or phrasing you don't like. The world is messy. Gary hasn't bullied or abused anyone. That is where the line is.

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

nonrandomstring
0 replies
4h33m

Gary hasn't bullied or abused anyone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please find some nicer friends."

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

kyleamazza
0 replies
5h49m

There's a real leap in the phrasing of "die slow" as "I do not approve of your policies and hope that others are elected to improve the city".

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

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

jzb
0 replies
5h37m

A lot of people could do with learning more empathy. People shouldn’t have to be hard. People, especially over-privileged people like this, should learn how to behave like decent humans.

hef19898
5 replies
7h0m

Two fold: Legal consequences if some of the people threatened by him want to sue or have him indicted about it. And whatever YC as his employer sees fit for the resulted harm on the reputation of the company.

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

slibhb
4 replies
4h2m

There is zero chance he could be indicted for a threat based on that tweet. No responsible prosecutor would try.

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

PH95VuimJjqBqy
2 replies
2h49m

to clarify, in the US, "I will kill you" may or may not be considered a threat. It depends on whether or not it's actionable. If it's a tweet, it's probably not going to be considered actionable.

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

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

0cf8612b2e1e
1 replies
2h7m

Is there a legal distinction for public figures? If Jodie Foster says, “I will kill you” does that change the calculus at all?

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

PH95VuimJjqBqy
0 replies
52m

In the US it does but generally that's when it's directed AT a public figure. I doubt there's any specific rules when it comes FROM a public figure.

hef19898
0 replies
3h46m

Good for him I guess. Leaves civil lotigation, or not, IANAL after all. As I said, nothing happening to him is a possible outcome as well.

lwkl
0 replies
4h20m

The consequences are a hit to your reputation (I think they call this "being canceled" nowadays). I guess you can get to a point of wealth where this doesn't really matter. But at least for 99% of people this is really harmful and takes a lot of effort to rectify.

JohnFen
0 replies
2h32m

I'd say he should face the consequences that he is facing: heavy social condemnation, maybe with a touch of shunning.

mcv
17 replies
8h38m

Yeah, apparently it was a pop reference, and that makes it okay?

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

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

zoklet-enjoyer
12 replies
6h10m

This is not a death threat. I can say that I hope you die slow but not that I will make you die slow. If he had said that his .44 makes sure that their kids don't grow, then yeah, that's a death threat, but he didn't take it that far

Edit: I've been rate limited, so here's my reply to the guy below me

This is a local politics issue. I live 1700 miles away, so I don't know what the local politics is like in San Francisco. What I do know is that if any of the local business owners in my city, like the big real estate developers or the billionaire biotech founders, tweeted something like this nobody here would take it seriously. There would be something on the local news. They'd apologize. And that would probably be about it.

this_steve_j
9 replies
6h0m

If his rapper persona had tweeted the lyrics to a diss track but clarified the theatrical kayfabe by breaking the fourth wall, that arguably could be less of a threat but still demonstrate questionable judgment, so I agree with you there.

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

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

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

Amezarak
8 replies
5h3m

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

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

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

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

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

Cthulhu_
4 replies
3h49m

"Legally allowed" doesn't mean it's protected from consequences.

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

Amezarak
3 replies
3h38m

The grandparent post is centered around the idea that it wasn't free speech, which is what I was responding to, not the idea that there can't be social consequences.

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

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

this_steve_j
2 replies
2h28m

Apparently there is plenty of room for debate on this subject, and Brandenburg v Ohio — involving a KKK leader whose conviction under a state law for making threatening and racist remarks was overturned by a divided court — is still being hashed out by constitutional experts to this day.

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

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

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

Amezarak
1 replies
1h23m

Apparently there is plenty of room for debate on this subject, and Brandenburg v Ohio — involving a KKK leader whose conviction under a state law for making threatening and racist remarks was overturned by a divided court — is still being hashed out by constitutional experts to this day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

this_steve_j
0 replies
3m

You have thoroughly demolished the straw man here who said the CEO’s tweets should be regulated by the government. I think we agree that what is legal and what is normal are different, which was my original point.

paulryanrogers
2 replies
4h51m

Even a supreme court can be wrong sometimes. In the US that's been happening more often of late.

rayiner
1 replies
4h13m

Can you give an example?

blackguardx
0 replies
2h51m

They call judicial output opinions for a reason.

davidcbc
0 replies
46m
Cthulhu_
0 replies
3h51m

Whether it fits any legal definition of a death threat or not is... kind of moot, you can be a dick to someone else without violating the law. Society isn't built on laws, but on decency and respect, and wishing anything negative on someone else isn't it. A few days ago the CoC of an online community was posted, and "slow death" threats wouldn't pass their "be kind" rules either (https://www.improbableisland.com/coc.php, via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39135779).

alpaca128
1 replies
7h21m

It's not uncommon to add a minimal amount of plausible deniability to a toxic comment/threat (by calling it a joke or reference, following it up with "in Minecraft" etc), but imho that's intentional abuse of other people's good will and should be treated as such.

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

noobermin
0 replies
1h11m

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

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

Kye
0 replies
4h52m

I called someone a nerd once, but it turned out they didn't feel it had been "reclaimed" like a lot of people do. I apologized, and we had a nice chat about the paths language takes. It was nice. More situations like this should go like that, but it seems like doubling down, making excuses, or going on the attack is too easy.

Cthulhu_
0 replies
3h55m

Yeah there's too much insensitivity being brushed off as "it's a reference", "it's a joke", "it's a meme", or with things like "you can't say anything anymore without anyone getting offended". That's not accepting responsibility for what you said. As is "I / he was drunk"; again, shifting blame. It's an explanation, not an excuse, and if you "become" an unpleasant person when drunk, you're an unpleasant person full stop. Stop drinking then.

nonrandomstring
7 replies
6h59m

Reading this article by Rebecca Solnit [0] posted on HN here [1] absolutely helped me make sense of the Garry Tan story, and what is going on in Californian politics.

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

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

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

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

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

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

dandanua
3 replies
2h59m

Tech billionaires often seem more interested in surviving the apocalypse than preventing it.

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

JohnFen
2 replies
2h24m

I find it interesting that you added "despite tech advancements". I don't see how the level of technological advancement enters into this equation at all.

nonrandomstring
0 replies
1h59m

Maybe the connection dandanua is alluding to is that mythology from the beginning of the "Information Age" (circa 1980) that technology would "bring us all together in a giant conversation of humankind". As if. Now, here we are having this conversation on a platform owned and run by those same "bunker men" who probably bought the laws that destroyed the peered Internet that was our hope. We're still stuck in 1980, holding out that "technology will save us".

dandanua
0 replies
1h57m

tech advancements = improvements of life for the whole humanity, and thus overall happiness. But it seems this naive thinking doesn't work in this world.

2devnull
1 replies
1h16m

The wiki article is incoherent or at least not easy to sustain motivation enough to finish reading. I think the California ideology they seem to be hinting at can be better thought of as “luxury beliefs” the sort of which Ron Henderson writes a lot about. California is resource rich, historically. Historically this leads to growth and what I would call “messy progress.” It’s definitely gotten messier as growth surged in recent decades due largely to selfish policies that result from its very open (for better and surely for worse) political system.

nonrandomstring
0 replies
46m

Yes it's a bit undercooked on the Wiki.

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

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

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

cafard
0 replies
52m

Isn't it a little harsh to include Sam Bankman-Fried in an article about San Francisco?

ChildOfChaos
5 replies
7h15m

But you would say this kinda thing to friends, people joke around all the time, it’s good to show that strength of emotion about something instead of having to PR speak your entire live.

willis936
0 replies
7h11m

You can be professional and be genuine (distinct from PR speak). Sure, you're not fraternizing with your subordinates as much as you could, but you're doing your job better and your subordinates will be happier.

tom_
0 replies
7h11m

It maybe isn't on Twitter though! It is a public place, of a sort, which should always be borne in mind.

chomskyole
0 replies
6h42m

Mate, no I don't say this to my friends, but even if I take your point: if I say it to my friends there won't be any impact on anyone's life. Gary's rant absolutely has a potential to impact lives. So you chose your words to the occasion, no?

bashinator
0 replies
44m

Yikes, talk about normalizing violence in political discourse.

JohnFen
0 replies
2h15m

But you would say this kinda thing to friends

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

syndacks
3 replies
5h12m

He was only quoting Tupac…

ZeroGravitas
1 replies
4h57m

Not totally sure if this comment is ironic or not but wanted to expand on this thought either way.

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

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

JohnFen
0 replies
2h21m

There are two related aspects to this that fascinate me the most.

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

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

Cthulhu_
0 replies
3h44m

And? Was he giving a recital of Tupac's lyrics / reading it out loud, or was it pulled out of that context and aimed at someone specific?

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

rayiner
3 replies
5h3m

We can debate about whether it should be normal, but clearly it is, right? For example we have the Darwin Award, where we mock people who actually died (not just rhetorically). I’m not the least bit edgy as far as millennials go, and I’ve made the joke that “the best thing Trump could do for the GOP is to get assassinated.” It always gets a laugh.

JohnFen
2 replies
2h27m

We can debate about whether it should be normal, but clearly it is, right?

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

rayiner
1 replies
2h22m

The firestorm is entirely because Tan is rich and Asian. There’s always been a taboo on “punching down,” but in recent years in certain circles politicians have moved positions in the hierarchy.

11101010001100
0 replies
3m

I thought the firestorm was because some who is ostensibly smart did something objectively not smart.

jacobriis
3 replies
8h25m

Are you also aghast about Tupac?

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

And Gary isn’t a rap artist anyway!

Well isn’t he?

asahiliker1
1 replies
7h24m

Are you also aghast about Tupac?

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

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

Deeper, Freddie (+ Madlib, ofc)

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

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

mlrtime
0 replies
4h53m

The interesting thing about 2Pac is he grew up intelligent and was taught to respect women. Some of his earliest lyrics were very pro-women.

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

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

alpaca128
0 replies
7h10m

Nobody quotes art without a reason behind it.

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

ZeroGravitas
1 replies
5h10m

I saw a clip from a popular right wing podcaster recently in which he was annoyed that his guests kept wishing death on people.

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

edit: link to short version of the clip I saw

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

Cthulhu_
0 replies
3h47m

Love to see it; free speech absolutionists until it costs them money.

nightwing
0 replies
3h47m

Wishing slow death is indeed extremely disturbing and stupid. Politicians that way have time to do so much more harm.

ignoramous
0 replies
5h16m

normal

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

no big deal

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

words are meaningful and have consequences

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

adolescents, but adults

Are we being too sensitive, vindictive, projecting remorse? One look at tech Twitter (and deleted tweets) and we'd want to cancel them all. What good is that going to bring, other than create an inescapable and ever shrinking echo chamber?

some modicum of respect, or at least decency

Politics gets dirty from time to time.

Wishing a slow death on someone, even rhetorically

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

Cthulhu_
0 replies
3h41m

There's a big discussion going on on whether this was good or bad, or whatever, but the point remains that he represents a company, he made a public statement that puts himself in a bad light, which in turn makes the customers of said customer lose trust and respect, which in turn causes the company harm. A lot of harm. And you can't have a CEO that causes the company harm through his public behaviour.

cj
71 replies
15h49m

As a YC alum who worked with Gary Tan directly, this is… odd.

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

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

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

minimaxir
18 replies
15h41m

It's more the state of modern social media.

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

nojs
9 replies
15h36m

Post Elon acquisition? I mean Twitter has always been this.

EasyMark
6 replies
14h58m

In a way, but now you can make sure your bot's racist post makes it to the top for $8 a month

tourmalinetaco
5 replies
14h46m

True; before that you simply had to be “notable”, whatever that meant.

sehansen
3 replies
9h10m

No, before Elon the blue tick was just a blue tick next to your name. Now posts by blue ticks are also sorted before other posts in the interface.

TeMPOraL
2 replies
8h41m

Before Elon, posts on Twitter were sorted and hidden at the whim of engagement-maximizing algorithm. After Elon, the same is the case, maybe with the same tweak to the algorithm.

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

rsynnott
1 replies
7h1m

While that's true, the thing where ~all bluetick replies are promoted above ~all normal replies is a post-Musk 'innovation'. Stupid idea; there's 25 years of experience showing that pay-for-attention is corrosive to social sites (dating/hookup sites have been trying to make it work basically forever, and have generally ended up having to ration it).

mlrtime
0 replies
4h46m

The point remains that Pre and Post Musk Twitter are NO different when it comes to inflammatory tweets.

The players and ordering has changed only.

TeMPOraL
0 replies
12h41m

Spending $10 one time with one of many companies that sold likes, follows, retweets, etc. for peanuts.

juped
1 replies
14h52m

Many influential commenters have discovered that sniping at Elon Musk is more consistently successful at garnering upvotes than genuine insight

tourmalinetaco
0 replies
14h45m

And many have also noticed that few if any care what they have to say outside of that.

raffraffraff
4 replies
12h12m

This was the case pre Elon too.

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

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

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

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

asddubs
2 replies
10h28m

thoughtful posts are boring, especially if you already agree with them. but people love a good spectacle

mlrtime
0 replies
4h50m

100% Agree, humans love drama. Especially when they aren't in it.

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

hiAndrewQuinn
0 replies
9h54m

At the same time, a thoughtful post today can change the entire life direction of a ten years younger you and end up providing far more value to the world overall.

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

mwigdahl
0 replies
1h36m

Your wife sounds wise. That's a level of self-awareness and discipline that is not common.

tarsinge
0 replies
11h42m

But which audience? It seems like with social media nowadays only the absolute numbers count. Influencers are very happy to have an army of dumb followers. I guess it’s easier to well influence them.

epcoa
0 replies
13h8m

Post Elon acquisition

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

ekms
0 replies
15h26m

implying that wasn't the case always on twitter?
tempsy
9 replies
14h6m

I’m not sure how anyone can say this when he’s notorious for blocking thousands and thousands of people on Twitter/X for the smallest perceived critique, including people who have never interacted with him at all because they engaged with some tweet he didn’t like

The only kind of person who’d ever go that far is someone with a very fragile ego

willvarfar
2 replies
10h42m

So he sees someone interacting with some other tweet in a way he doesn't like, and then blocks them from following him?

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

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

iSnow
0 replies
7h51m

It's like two clicks/taps. But still, it is telling if you block most everyone who engages in a way you don't approve

StackRanker3000
0 replies
6h19m

There are also tools that allow you to block everyone who’s liked a tweet, everyone who follows a particular person, etc. I don’t know if Garry Tan uses such a tool, but maybe he does.

jncfhnb
2 replies
13h53m

Why? What’s wrong with blocking strangers you deem annoying?

tempsy
1 replies
13h50m

He expects everyone else to take heat from him but can’t handle the tiniest bit of criticism direct at him

It’s a bit rich

HKH2
0 replies
7h38m

So block him?

darkwizard42
2 replies
13h50m

I’ll never get this. He doesn’t owe those people anything. Just because you start talking doesn’t give everyone the right to listen, just because someone is talking doesn’t require you to listen…

If anything this is healthy.

watwut
0 replies
7h5m

They are pointing out his hypocrisy.

tempsy
0 replies
13h47m

We’re not talking about “the right to listen”. We’re talking about someone who can’t handle perceived slights directed at him.

arcticbull
9 replies
14h17m

The reaction feels like pearl-clutching to be honest.

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

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

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

tempsy
7 replies
13h52m

Threatening to kill someone isn’t a “shitpost”.

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

arcticbull
2 replies
13h46m

Sure, and that was the misstep here. He clearly wasn't threatening to kill anyone, it was misinterpreted, he thought people would get a reference that they clearly did not. He's apologized, it's time to move on. There's better things to spend our outrage budget on IMO than someone who cares a little too much about city politics and has probably learned not to overestimate his audience's knowledge of Tupac.

tempsy
0 replies
13h24m

I’m not sure who is supposed to “move on”.

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

anigbrowl
0 replies
13h14m

They were probably waiting for him to slip up and say something like this.

This is a touch paranoid.

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

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

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

MetalGuru
1 replies
13h33m

To be fair, who doesn't listen to Tupac?

vidarh
0 replies
9h57m

Most people. That applies to far more well known artists than him too.

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

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

financltravsty
0 replies
3h28m

This entire comments section is a poignant example of the spiritual dichotomy present in our society: those who have ever been immersed in 4chan-and-adjacent culture, and the bitchless and cringe.

JamesBarney
0 replies
11h10m

He did not threaten to kill anyone anymore than anyone saying they hope Trump has a heart attack is threatening to kill him. He made a twitter post in poor taste and apologized.

rdtsc
0 replies
13h12m

Tan is now too important

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

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

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

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

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

jdietrich
4 replies
13h41m

I'm not sure what Tan's specific beef is, I could never endorse violent rhetoric in politics, but the level of avoidable human misery caused by the dysfunction of politics in San Francisco is sickening. If you can walk through the Tenderloin without becoming utterly enraged at the people responsible, there's a piece of your soul missing.

ajross
1 replies
12h41m

I could never endorse violent rhetoric in politics

In literally the next sentence:

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

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

JohnFen
0 replies
1h58m

Seems like those are two rather nearby points on the same spectrum, no?

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

hindsightbias
0 replies
2h4m

Many were enraged with by the soulless tech gentrification of the city. But they couldn't compete so they had to move. Some don't have the means to move. It must be sickening for many to have to deal with the externalities.

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

archagon
0 replies
12h43m

“Those responsible” is a rather nebulous group in this case.

honeybadger1
3 replies
15h3m

A tweet is a thought with cheap delivery, therefore offers no insight at all. It's just like an anecdote from executive leadership to get something over the line to meet a goal. That person has absolutely forgot they said it the next day.

stevenAthompson
1 replies
14h6m

Twitter is bad. Failing to grok that is also bad. What is your point?

tysam_and
0 replies
12h59m

This message confused me on a few dimensions, so I translated it a bit:

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

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

EasyMark
0 replies
14h59m

You can string tweets together or if you're a blue check you can just write a treatise, so you aren't really limited to 140/280 chars any longer.

lawgimenez
2 replies
8h59m

Not sure but I remembered he said fuck Mayweather before: https://x.com/garrytan/status/594730377702297601?s=20

paganel
1 replies
8h53m

That's just par for the course when it comes to sports commenting.

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

lawgimenez
0 replies
8h45m

I'm just saying since parent comment says he's a gentle human being but he's been always a foul mouth on Twitter.

iSnow
2 replies
7h52m

Alcohol disinhibits and makes people show sides they usually suppress. He probably has pent-up anger and let it all out in that tweet. I guess he's neither fully the person you know nor the person from that tweet, but both are part of the "real him"

me_me_me
1 replies
3h26m

Alcohol disinhibits and makes people show sides they usually suppress

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

JohnFen
0 replies
2h5m

Me too! I can't say I really know who someone is unless I've seen them drunk, experience heaven, or experience hell.

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

dylanhassinger
1 replies
14h18m

I followed Garry since the old days of Posterous. Seems like 5 years ago he took a turn and got obsessed with edge lordy SF politics. Finally I had to unfollow. Too much money has corrupted all the original startup role models

shiroiuma
0 replies
9h32m

It's not just SF; America in general is a miserable place to socialize because nearly everyone has gotten obsessed with toxic politics there.

deadbabe
1 replies
15h44m

There’s a lot of “gentle human beings” who have turned out to be horrific monsters in the end.

DonsDiscountGas
0 replies
14h26m

True in general, although tweeting a shitty thing once does not make a person a horrific monster, nor is the current moment "the end".

AlexandrB
1 replies
13h35m

I think the failing here is using Twitter at all - or at least without an intermediary like an editor. Twitter is almost purpose made for stripping context. Tweets are, traditionally, short and pithy and so are easy to misinterpret or misrepresent. If you're even a semi public figure, Tweeting a lot is a huge liability.

TeMPOraL
0 replies
12h35m

That's the conundrum of being a modern tech CEO - you're supposed to forever pretend you're the high school buddy with everyone, even if the "startup" you're running is a billion dollar+ multinational corporation, and you yourself are wealthier than anyone except the world leaders and other corporate... er startup CEOs.

xyst
0 replies
4h12m

It was supposedly a drunken rant. Usually when you are intoxicated that really shows who you are. Maybe he kept up the facade really well.

OR

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

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

wildpeaks
0 replies
6h16m

In vino veritas, as the saying goes.

mrcwinn
0 replies
14h2m

Alcohol.

junon
0 replies
5h49m

It was a song lyric. Dumb, cringe tweet for sure. But not violent. People are so inclined to look for reasons to be mad. They all must be perfectly well-adjusted, down to earth, basically flawless people themselves. Clearly.

fortran77
0 replies
13h44m

A man who said he wants “7 elected officials to die slow” you call “gentle”. I’d hate to hear who you consider aggressive.

figassis
0 replies
12h21m

Most personalities are carefully curated/maintained. People can sometimes slip when overly stressed.

dilawar
0 replies
3h21m

People gets intoxicated by their ideas when they find then having a large appeal. Social media accelerates it.

booleandilemma
0 replies
4h14m

I guess we saw the inner Gary Tan.

bane
0 replies
13h2m

With some people, there's a big difference between their outside voice and their inner monologue.

asveikau
0 replies
15h21m

I haven't met him, but as someone who reads and engages in online discussion about SF quality of life issues, this is NOT shocking at all, there are a LOT of people openly wishing violence on politicians, homeless people, and people accused of petty crime.

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

apapapa
0 replies
13h18m

I can’t imagine him hurting a fly.

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

badrequest
55 replies
15h48m

Tan, for his part, apologized over the weekend, noting that his post was a reference to a Tupac Shakur lyric

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

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

bhawks
40 replies
14h52m

The fact that it is a quote (which I didn't know) moves it out of the extremely disturbing category and into the extremely cringe & very disappointing category.

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

TeMPOraL
38 replies
12h17m

To me, it's extremely disturbing that someone would consider this whole thing as extremely disturbing in the first place.

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

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

Arainach
13 replies
11h43m

Posting that you want a group of city councilors to die is not normal behavior. It's not normal when sober, it's not normal on alcohol, it's not normal for any functioning member of society. Anyone saying these things is disturbing. The fact that someone who a number of people believe is intelligent and worth listening to would say such things is extremely disturbing.

roenxi
4 replies
7h56m

... not normal behavior ...

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

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

kyleamazza
3 replies
5h31m

In the situation you posit, that sort of action would come from a vote, not a single person's vigilante call for action. That is the difference.

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

roenxi
1 replies
5h13m

Well,

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

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

someone who heads a large publicly visible company

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

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

kyleamazza
0 replies
4h46m

To your last point, it might be more constructive to point out the specifics of why you are against corporate political speech as opposed to a somewhat-binary left/right of the political spectrum.

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

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

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

zoklet-enjoyer
0 replies
2h50m

Politicians call for the death of their opponents all the time. See Lyndsey Graham's recent tweet calling for an attack on Iran.

echelon
2 replies
9h13m

If one's own side of the horeshoe [1] had made the gaffe, it's sticks and stones. We're a bunch of evolved apes. Sometimes we say things we don't mean. They'll get over it.

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

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

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

sofixa
0 replies
8h18m

If one's own side of the horeshoe [1] had made the gaffe, it's sticks and stones. We're a bunch of evolved apes. Sometimes we say things we don't mean. They'll get over it.

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

Care to share some examples?

handoflixue
0 replies
8h38m

If one's own side of the horeshoe [1] had made the gaffe, it's sticks and stones.

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

anonymoushn
1 replies
9h9m

When a group of people routinely cause harm to other people that is in aggregate much greater than the harm involved in them dying, I think it's understandable for the thought to come to mind.

kyleamazza
0 replies
5h34m

The thought, yes, but a public post as the public head of a very publicly visible company?...

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

HeWhoLurksLate
1 replies
7h26m

Is it just me, or does nobody here remember the random baloney they did or said when they were in high school or college? People being frustrated and saying things that aren't quite acceptable is fairly common, seemingly especially when alcohol is involved.

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

alpaca128
0 replies
6h59m

Did you also share that random baloney on a public account with your company logo on it? Probably not. And alcohol is not an excuse just because it happens to be legal compared to other drugs.

rayiner
0 replies
3h56m

What are you talking about? Political effigies are a whole thing, and not just in America: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/giant-trump-e...

romwell
5 replies
9h41m

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

We're pretty much there, yup.

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

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

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

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

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

gadders
4 replies
9h37m

"Stochastic Terrorism" sounds like a great way for politicians to prevent criticism.

romwell
3 replies
9h24m

There's criticism, and there's saying "<specific person> should die".

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

gadders
2 replies
9h22m

If that's the dividing line, I'm OK with it.

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

romwell
1 replies
5h35m

Yes, that's the dividing line.

Specific example that I linked:

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

Netanyahu denied any intention to incite violence

Rabin was subsequently shot dead.

The definition in Wikipedia says:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

gadders
0 replies
4h48m

>However, if XXX of party YYY subsequently starts getting death threats or other harrassment as a result of this statement being made, there is a problem.

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

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

andy99
3 replies
8h37m

I wish I could find the clip, I think it's another Tupac song, where it plays a news clip of a stressed sounding woman saying "he says he wants to see his rivals deceased" (roughly) in response to what I assume is a line in "Can't C me". Anyway, it's funny because that clip was making fun, but sounds a lot like all the "calling for someone to die is never ok" feigned pearl clutching I've seen here. The tweet was dumb, insisting on taking it literally in spite of all evidence, for the purpose of outrage is worse.

zoklet-enjoyer
0 replies
5h59m

That's the intro to To Live and Die in LA

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

hef19898
0 replies
7h14m

I can quote all kinda of people to make very disturbing, threatening statements. Unless I am writting fiction, quote or not, it is still a threat.

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

TheCoelacanth
0 replies
4h14m

Perhaps the CEO of a major VC firm and a rapper should be held to different standards in their communications.

timmytokyo
2 replies
10h17m

Your comment seems to suggest that you're viewing this event from outside the US. If so, perhaps you're unaware of the dangerous and recent rise in violent political rhetoric here. Garry Tan is a prominent and powerful person in the tech industry, and his words carry weight. When he rips violent lyrics out of a hip-hop song and refashions them into a political rant, he's pouring more fuel on a fire that's starting to burn out of control.

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

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

hackideiomat
1 replies
10h5m

Well if you attack his friends, it's not okay, but if you go which death upon 'the leftists' he wouldn't say a thing, I bet

romwell
0 replies
9h39m

As the article says, a single leftist saying "millionaires should be guillotined" should be taken very seriously.

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

Hmmm.

explaininjs
2 replies
10h23m

While on one hand I agree that getting this worked up over speech is weird, Gary is a (not so) unique case in that when he is able to incite the Twitter activist mob mentality on his side, against other people’s speech, he will happily do so with no hesitation whatsoever.

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

Ugh.

I don’t use Twitter anymore.

zoklet-enjoyer
0 replies
6h6m

Wow. Gary Tan sounds like a fucking idiot

lawgimenez
0 replies
9h25m

As an Asian person, I don't see any racism on your part. If that were rice instead of octopus, then there might be some issues.

publius_0xf3
1 replies
10h14m

Where or what do you consider normal? The United States is far from the only place where harsh words provoke outrage, rightly or wrongly. It's actually a cultural and historical norm.

TeMPOraL
0 replies
8h32m

The United States is far from the only place where harsh words provoke outrage, rightly or wrongly

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

It's actually a cultural and historical norm.

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

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

hackideiomat
1 replies
10h7m

Dude can move so many millions around I'd shit my pants if he tells me to die slow.

TeMPOraL
0 replies
9h7m

In such case, my pants would be in laundry too, but I (perhaps mistakenly) assume writing angry comments about politicians - up to and including even worse kind of violent wishes - are kind of normal since forever, and nothing ever comes of it. Maybe I'm misjudging the power/prominence of Garry Tan (of whom I never heard of before today) relative to SV politicians?

rsanek
0 replies
8h29m

I agree; I probably wouldn't go as far as "extremely disturbing." But at minimum it's pretty lame and cringe. I want our leaders to be held to a higher bar, and the head of YC should be above this stuff. The sad thing is that it feels fairly in character with what I've seen from Tan in the past.

mcv
0 replies
8h33m

It's nothing new that words have power. Death threats have the power to silence or coerce people just as much as blackmail does. There's a good reason these are both forms of illegal, punishable speech. Because they can hurt others, even if you don't actually execute the threat.

gadders
0 replies
9h39m

Words are literally violence. Haven't the last few years taught you anything? /sarcasm

fzeroracer
0 replies
9h53m

If I as an employee emailed or tweeted at my CEO telling them to die slowly I would be fired immediately and for good reason.

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

hef19898
0 replies
7h20m

Every quote or in this case paraphrasing, lives in context. And in this context, yeah, it is still pretty disturbing.

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

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

renewiltord
5 replies
15h27m

You know, like a Che T-shirt doesn't mean you're endorsing the killing of political prisoners and stuff. Or that a George Washington statue endorses slavery. It's like a "you came at me but I'm going to beat you" lyric, not literally as Tupac meant it.

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

vidarh
1 replies
10h26m

Most people who see a Che t-shirt don't know who he was, only that his face shows up a lot.

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

mcv
0 replies
9h53m

Yeah, I think there's a big difference between wearing Che's face, and posting a quote of Che where he ordered people to kill someone.

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

alpaca128
1 replies
6h49m

These discussions here wouldn't exist if he'd just posted Tupac's portrait on Twitter. But he specifically quoted a sentence with a very clear and unambiguous meaning.

romwell
0 replies
5h33m

Not just that, he modified the sentence by replacing most of it with the names of SF politicians.

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

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

romwell
0 replies
9h31m

You know, like a Che T-shirt doesn't mean you're endorsing the killing of political prisoners and stuff. Or that a George Washington statue endorses slavery.

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

The intended audience heard the message loud and clear.

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

Cornbilly
2 replies
14h3m

Going to take your idea and take a step further. Random Cannibal Corpse lyrics in my email signature.

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

TeMPOraL
1 replies
12h8m

I heard Cradle of Filth had mixed success in the UK tech industry executive sphere.

progre
0 replies
10h10m

They got me through some pretty bleak times, try track 4 "Coffin fodder".

ugh123
1 replies
10h14m

So, he "re-tweeted" Tupac but does not endorse it? :)

romwell
0 replies
9h37m

So, he "re-tweeted" Tupac but does not endorse it? :)

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

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

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

khimaros
1 replies
8h46m

can confirm this is taken almost word for word from "Hit 'em up", 2Pac's infamous and apparently (at least partially) sincere response to B.I.G.'s "Who shot ya?"

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

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

romwell
0 replies
5h27m

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

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

Here's the full quote, in its entirety:

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

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

Die slow motherfuckers

Compare and contrast with Tupac's lyrics:

Fuck Mobb Deep, fuck Biggie

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

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

Chino XL, fuck you too

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

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

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

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

artyom
0 replies
15h33m

That sounds actually interesting

hughesjj
22 replies
15h44m

I had no idea who Dan Preston was until Tan complained about him, but given

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

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

onepointsixC
17 replies
13h35m

Perhaps I could interest you in some rent control too.

Sabinus
15 replies
13h31m

Ruins market mechanisms too much. Taxing vacancies doesn't ruin the supply and demand equations.

tempsy
13 replies
13h15m

it unfairly punishes property owners in soft rental markets like the one we have now.

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

bsder
7 replies
13h4m

So? Then they need to lower the damn rent.

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

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

tempsy
6 replies
12h55m

not sure what you’re talking about but rents in SF are still very much down vs 2019

market has demonstrated plenty it can lower rents as is

dymk
4 replies
12h36m

Don’t pretend it’s anywhere near a free market as is. It’s nigh impossible to build new or denser inventory there.

tempsy
3 replies
12h28m

Yeah that’s not true

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

vlovich123
2 replies
10h26m

And a vacancy tax would force developers to finish projects or abandon them completely so someone else can at a lower price.

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

greenie_beans
1 replies
4h32m

And a vacancy tax would force developers to finish projects or abandon them completely so someone else can at a lower price.

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

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

vlovich123
0 replies
1h11m

That story is a bit dated. The California laws are forcing municipalities like SF to fix the review process and in fact a new plan was submitted in December and initially rejected before an updated plan was submitted at the end of December. The hope is that this fixes things and if it doesn’t SF is at risk of losing its zoning powers wholesale which may not be such a bad idea.

rsynnott
0 replies
6h44m

Clearly not enough, if there are still vacancies.

rsynnott
0 replies
6h47m

it unfairly punishes property owners in soft rental markets like the one we have now.

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

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

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

mcv
0 replies
8h23m

It punishes property owners for creating artificial scarcity through excessive rent.

jedberg
0 replies
8h40m

There's no such thing as a property that can't find a renter, only a property whose rent is too high.

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

greenie_beans
0 replies
4h35m

as a lifelong tenant, i think it's time that the property owners got punished instead of renters. those poor property owners, what happens if we don't look after them?

anigbrowl
0 replies
13h12m

The market is sending a price signal, wouldn't you say?

AnthonyMouse
0 replies
8h59m

Ruins market mechanisms too much.

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

bsder
0 replies
13h11m

Taxing vacancies breaks the rent logjam caused by financing agreements that allow you to tack missing rent onto the end but require recapitalization for lower rent.

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

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

frinxor
1 replies
10h32m
dandare
0 replies
7h51m

This is a campaign website done very well! I wish more websites were this informative.

mlrtime
0 replies
4h37m

Dan Preston is a NIMBY dressed in wolves clothes. Like most progressive agendas in SF they do very little to actually secure more housing. They make for great tag lines to pull support in and NOTHING changes.

650REDHAIR
0 replies
4h29m

Preston used to represent me before redistricting happened.

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

The demonization of the man is shocking…

janalsncm
16 replies
14h36m

I have a pitch for a new LLM that will read your tweet before you send it and warn you if it is offensive. $1000/month, half off if you’re a CEO.

throwup238
7 replies
14h25m

Why would you charge a drunk CEO less?

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF
5 replies
13h58m

Nobody’s buying at $1000/month but “giving them half off” makes them think they’re getting a deal.

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

riffraff
1 replies
12h33m

I have fond memories of Gmail's "no emailing drunk" feature and I swear it saved me a couple times.

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

telotortium
0 replies
9h25m

Mail Goggles - apparently released in 2008[0]. I can't find it, so I don't think it exists anymore.

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

hnaccount_rng
1 replies
13h21m

Um… there are liters lawyers and PR professionals that make their living with that kind of service. And for a certain personality type… I don’t see the 1k$/month being the relevant factor. I’d bet there would be buyers for that service. Though: Probably not enough to actually sustain the liability insurance that you’d need to deal with the complaints of a faulty product

bbarnett
0 replies
10h12m

It's OK. If the client tries to write a nasty tweet about you, or email a lawyer about you, it will "help" the client, by telling them this is offensive and blocking the action.

Doubly so if you try to uninstall it.

sofixa
0 replies
8h13m

You sound extremely business savvy, looking for business partners?

meepmorp
0 replies
14h12m

Right? That's where you make the revenue in your freemium pricing model.

nostrademons
4 replies
14h5m

Don't need an LLM for that (except maybe to get funding), a plain old classifier would work fine at a fraction of the training & inference costs.

bryanrasmussen
2 replies
8h47m

Well you're not going to be able to charge them a lot of money without claiming LLM and you won't get funding, so gotta think about the big picture.

dns_snek
1 replies
7h40m

Don't worry, you can say something vague like "it's powered by LLM" which could reasonably mean that the LLM was used during the training phase of your own classifier.

nostrademons
0 replies
1h30m

Or that you asked ChatGPT how to write scikit-learn code.

vidarh
0 replies
9h53m

Yeah, but why would you make that effort when all you'd need is the thinnest veneer over ChatGPT, and given the proposed pricing would leave plenty of margin?

theGnuMe
0 replies
14h22m

This is not a bad idea. Another one is to have it make you solve some complicated math problem or also not let you tweet when you know you are going out.. sort of like not driving to the bar. You could do that with screen time settings though.

mlsu
0 replies
12h13m

As we navigate the complexities of San Francisco Bay Area politics, it's important to recognize that not all partnerships and collaborations meet our expectations or align with my values and vision. While we strive for unity and mutual success within the San Francisco Bay, there are occasions when differences in approach and strategy with specific individuals or groups, such as with Chan, Peskin, Preston, Walton, Melgar, Ronen, and Safai, can lead to a reevaluation of certain relationships. Our focus remains steadfast on innovation, integrity, and delivering value to our constituents and neighbors. We appreciate the efforts of all who are putting forth an honest effort to improve the Bay Area, including those mentioned, but moving forward, we will be redirecting our energies and resources toward partnerships that better align with our mission and contribute positively to our collective goals.

astrobe_
0 replies
5h40m

Won't work for people who write under "altered state of mind" conditions. You'll have to show them a fake page featuring the post, store the actual post in some sort of draft box and ask them if they really want to post it 24 hours later.

gfodor
13 replies
16h7m

You'd never guess that this was a Tupac quote by the media coverage and wave after wave of forced outrage. The whole thing is so embarassing.

arduanika
2 replies
13h18m

Oh. In that case it's no biggie.

fzeroracer
1 replies
9h59m

Well of course it's no Biggie. They just said it was Tupac.

arduanika
0 replies
24m

You got my joke! Yay! :)

davesque
1 replies
15h53m

I don't see how it makes it any better that it was a quote. The quote still had words in it. Does Garry Tan think the entire world listens to Tupac? And what wisdom does Tupac really have to offer in this case?

Our_Benefactors
0 replies
15h27m

Does Garry Tan think the entire world listens to Tupac?

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

tempsy
0 replies
15h52m

He was literally murdered though

publius_0xf3
0 replies
13h35m

If Tan's enemies had quoted Tupac's death-wish songs with his name in it, would Tan not have pointed to it as evidence of their vitriol and toxicity?

ekimehtor
0 replies
15h57m

Thank goodness it wasn't a quote from the song W.A.P.:-)!

colechristensen
0 replies
16h0m

“Die slow motherfuckers”

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

bnralt
0 replies
15h47m

It's also strange because I've seen Tupac Shakur glamorized in popular culture (for example, hagiographic discussions about him on NPR). But Shakur was rapping about killing people, while those people were being targeted and killed by associates of his, and he himself shot people. A 6 year old was even shot in the head and killed with his gun in one of the fights he got into (he claimed he dropped the gun and someone else fired it during the fight).

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

archagon
0 replies
11h54m

How are you able to determine whether outrage was “forced” or genuine?

Rapzid
0 replies
10h6m

It's a Tupac quote when you're quoting Tupac.

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

AlexandrB
0 replies
13h19m

Does it really matter? It's terrible judgement to post something whose intended meaning hinges on whether you know an American rap song from ~30 years ago to a public venue like Twitter. There are plenty of voters who weren't even born when Tupac was still alive.

chrisbolt
12 replies
16h6m
gurchik
11 replies
16h4m

I read HN probably more than I should, and I was pretty surprised to see this has over 500 comments and I didn't see it at all. Turns out it was only on the frontpage for 1 hr. https://hnrankings.info/39205676/

dang
3 replies
15h10m

I was offline for a few hours and am just getting to this thread now. Here are the explanations I posted in the previous threads:

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

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

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

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

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

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

gurchik
1 replies
13h34m

Thanks Dan. When I wrote my comment I thought most people would already know that it was most likely an automated system that downranked the post. The next time I talk about this topic I'll make it extra clear I'm not insinuating any manual censorship.

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

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

dang
0 replies
11h0m

a view that ignores the flamewar detection?

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

xlii
0 replies
10h40m

I’m grateful that this resurfaced.

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

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

Macha
3 replies
16h0m

The way HN is set up, having 500 comments would have contributed to that. The "flamewar detector" the mods sometimes mention seems to take comments/votes and comments/time into consideration then penalises threads.

throwawaaarrgh
1 replies
15h47m

Yep. The HN users see is highly curated. Mostly by algorithms, sometimes by humans.

dang
0 replies
15h3m

You're right. Here's 10 years' worth of me explaining that:

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

Brajeshwar
0 replies
15h29m

Yes, this is correct from my observation, too. The comment-to-vote ratios go fast; up south, they will likely be out of the pages quickly. One might think that a post that falls off the homepage would linger on page 2 for a while, but it can be out of even the first 100 posts fast.

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

bun_terminator
2 replies
13h33m

The only reasonable HN interface is hckrnews.com. The vanilla site is "moderated"

vidarh
0 replies
9h50m

A lot of us come here because it is moderated.

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

archagon
0 replies
12h40m

I always go to news.ycombinator.com/active. That’s the “real” front page as far as I’m concerned.

mjhay
11 replies
15h57m

IMO, it is bad to threaten people with painful deaths. Apparently that is a controversial opinion within this community.

monero-xmr
3 replies
15h49m

It isn’t illegal to say what he said but it’s not the right tone for his position. The slow drop into political violence begins with speech normalizing calling for death and murder.

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

mistermann
0 replies
13h47m

On the other hand, where does the path we're on lead?

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

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

asveikau
0 replies
15h40m

The slow drop into political violence begins with speech normalizing calling for death and murder.

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

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

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

andsoitis
0 replies
15h42m

Assuming the report of what he wrote is true…

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

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

s1artibartfast
2 replies
15h43m

I don't think it is very controversial and haven't seen anyone actively saying it is a good thing. I think all division and debate is around if and how much anyone should care.

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

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

willsmith72
0 replies
14h45m

he's a public figure for a mega company with a huge profile and professional responsibility.

he should lose his job

cocacola1
0 replies
15h25m

In most cases, it may be wise for them to simply not comment and let the involved parties work it out.

sureglymop
0 replies
7h43m

Also: even if we completely left out the actual contents of this tweet.

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

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

justin66
0 replies
15h52m

You're not heterodox enough, apparently.

fortran77
0 replies
13h38m

You’re just realizing that Hacker News isn’t a healthy community?

blast
0 replies
14h42m

The controversy is whether that's an accurate description of what he did.

rayiner
9 replies
16h12m

Tan, for his part, apologized over the weekend, noting that his post was a reference to a Tupac Shakur lyric

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

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

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

threeseed
4 replies
15h50m

Tan said he was drunk and apologised for his statements.

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

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

rayiner
3 replies
15h11m

People joke about people they hate dying all the time.

jrussino
2 replies
14h15m

This shouldn't be a normal thing. Don't encourage it.

rayiner
0 replies
6h7m

And yet it is normal. Have you ever been around people?

mistermann
0 replies
13h41m

So too with double standards, hypocrisy, etc.

roenxi
0 replies
15h53m

Not famous at all, really. It'd be reasonable (and good) to have a standard where people don't wish violence on their political opponents. Possibly even where cooperating with people they don't like is an option. Opponents of Trump please take note.

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

ekimehtor
0 replies
16h1m

Well I'm not famous but I will tell a joke about it politician.

And remember Comedy equals tragedy plus time…

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

colechristensen
0 replies
15h57m

It wasn’t a joke, I don’t believe anyone can read it and think he was trying to be funny.

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

anigbrowl
0 replies
13h1m

Tan blamed Boudin for physical attacks on Asians.”

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

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

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

threeseed
7 replies
16h12m

I hope YC quickly moves on from Garry Tan.

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

minimaxir
2 replies
15h47m

I wonder how many startup founders nowadays refuse to join an accelerator/take VC money due of the people leading it.

infamouscow
0 replies
15h18m

I suspect a lot more founders will apply to YC because they know the CEO has a heart, also a spine.

WhitneyLand
0 replies
15h37m

It happens occasionally. I think an interesting question is when would it be most likely to happen?

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

More likely the hottest startups with multiple offers.

justin66
1 replies
16h0m

It's worse than childish. The people called out in that bizarre tweet would probably have a conversation with their staff or the police about whether they or their families are in any kind of danger from this apparently popular guy wishing death upon them from the internet, or perhaps from one of his idiot followers.

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

colechristensen
0 replies
15h36m

They would be perfectly reasonable to hire private security and sue Tan for damages to pay for that and whatever other measures that seem prudent for their own protection along with the pain and suffering that goes along with the very reasonable fear this tweet and its effects caused.

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

pm90
0 replies
16h1m

Agreed. SF politics is profoundly broken, and many of the Supervisors are sclerotic and out of touch. But wishing death on them publicly is very very serious.

im3w1l
0 replies
15h13m

I think this modern internet trend of saying that every mistake is inexcusable and should lead to a breakup is super weird and destructive.

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

cdchn
5 replies
15h57m

That plaque on his Chinatown VIP club liquor cabinet really is pretty cringe.

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

tpmoney
4 replies
15h23m

Doesn’t the phrase “living rent free in your head” refer to someone being preoccupied with another individual with whom they have a disagreement to an unhealthy degree? You can’t waive rent if you’re the one doing the living, and by definition if someone is letting someone else “live rent free” in their head, the rent is already waived. Without any commentary on the rest of this (because I have no idea what’s actually going on), unless this is referring to something other than the common idiom, no this is actually a lousy clapback because it completely misunderstands the idiom.

cdchn
2 replies
15h11m

They were riffing on the idiom. You're taking the idiom too literally.

card_zero
1 replies
12h33m

Like when Biff Tannen says "why don't you make like a tree and get outta here?", that kind of riffing on the idiom, riffing on it like that.

Rapzid
0 replies
9h45m

Too clever by 50%

OJFord
0 replies
8h9m

I suppose if they're thinking like if any third party wants to get in his head, they will declare rent is not due (waive seems wrong not just if you're living but in general if you're not the landlord) - which kind of works because of their position I think (but I'm not from the US so I don't really understand or want to bother looking into it), but yeah we've probably both thought about it too much and more than they did before posting as a quick joke at this point.

ShamelessC
4 replies
16h7m

This sort of discourse would be flagged, moderated and possibly result in a ban here on HN. His actions seem to undermine a lot of what this community is meant to be about.

zzzeek
0 replies
15h29m

Well unless you tell the mods you were drunk, apparently. Then they shrug and say "well what can you do! It was the alcohol talking, not them "

minimaxir
0 replies
15h52m

Hacker News has been pretty insulated from Y Combinator as an institution over the years. Nowadays, I'm impressed by that.

infotainment
0 replies
15h50m

Sure, and that would be the system working as intended. I choose to post everything under random dictionary word pseudonyms just in case one of my hot takes is slightly too spicy. His real mistake was posting under his real name IMO.

cdchn
0 replies
15h59m

Rules for thee, not for me.

sublinear
3 replies
5h53m

Tan “should not have done any of that. He should go for a while. He should not represent tech anymore,”

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

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

suslik
1 replies
5h18m

Does he actually "represents tech"? I am really not sure about that.

JohnFen
0 replies
1h57m

He doesn't represent "tech". He is one of the major figures who represents SV/SF tech culture, though.

VikingCoder
0 replies
5h42m

We are all human, yes.

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

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

mp05
3 replies
15h34m

"...two $32 bottles of Roederer Estate sparkling wine"

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

$24.99 on sale y'all.

smugma
2 replies
15h24m

I felt like they were trolling… super fancy whiskey and then sparkling white wine that you pick up at Lucky on sale.

mp05
0 replies
14h18m

Maybe? Savvy shoppers know that Roederer Estate is about the best bang for the buck sparkling wine on the entire planet. One thing is for sure is Mr Tan has good taste in booze and doesn't waste money on Veuve any other overpriced shit from Champagne.

caskstrength
0 replies
11h25m

super fancy whiskey and then sparkling white wine that you pick up at Lucky on sale.

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

molteanu
3 replies
12h27m

I thought the US was the land of Free Speech. And yet, when a guy speaks his mind he's burned at the stake. Of what use is that freedom, then? Or do you have to be poor and uninteresting to exercise it? Or only in front of your own mirror? So many paradoxes.

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

lxgr
2 replies
12h24m

Freedom of speech in the US protects you from government prosecution for speech, not from the criticism of people that don’t agree with your speech.

molteanu
0 replies
12h10m

If the government abstains from prosecution, maybe the people should abstain from the practice too, then.

latency-guy2
0 replies
8h39m

That's not what free speech is. It is a concept that lives far beyond what's written in a document.

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

lxe
3 replies
15h45m

This is more of a classic lesson in what effect can alcohol have on one's life and career.

jojobas
1 replies
5h55m

What effect? He's got fuck you money and can afford to do a Notch if he wanted.

reasonabl_human
0 replies
15m

What’s a Notch?

arduanika
0 replies
13h21m

Yeah. This is the most boring take on the story, but also probably the most correct, and definitely the most actionable for the rest of us.

whoswho
2 replies
15h32m

Not to sound snarky but who is mission local and why should a reader of HN care for their opinion? Have they done a noteworthy op-ed? If so, which one?

usea
1 replies
15h29m

Is that how you judge others' words? By what accomplishments they have?

latency-guy2
0 replies
8h35m

Yes? I definitely don't plan on treating someone's opinion on how to handle fleets of server racks worth $15k/unit equivalent to mine when they're a 19 year old underachiever who has written basic calculator apps for 2 years.

tlogan
2 replies
15h28m

The level of corruption in California and San Francisco is astonishing and there is so many things to be fixed.

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

But you should not tweet like this.

jeffbee
1 replies
14h38m

"I will simply solve this corruption with money", said no successful civic reformer, ever.

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

tlogan
0 replies
14h10m

We are doomed :(

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

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

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

casercaramel144
2 replies
9h27m

Surely this is fine yes? I haven't met a single person that hasn't ever wished death upon someone. Emotionality is fine, we just have some ridiculous high standards for Garry since he's YC CEO.

swiftcoder
0 replies
9h24m

Given that this sort of public outburst would be grounds for firing an employee at pretty much every tech firm, it only seems right to hold the CEO to the same standard of behaviour

devnonymous
0 replies
9h17m

It would be fine if it wasn't just a teensy bit hypocritical https://x.com/garrytan/status/1515225506450272256?s=20

subarctic
1 replies
15h59m

What's the best way to go read the actual tweets, rather than an article about them? I'm guessing he's deleted them by now.

mcintyre1994
0 replies
13h51m
srackey
1 replies
3h32m

Who knew Garry Tan was this based!

replwoacause
0 replies
2h38m

Not based. Foolhardy.

spacebacon
1 replies
5h54m

Technically we are all dying slow. If we are going to take his statement literally then we should consider how literal the entire statement is.

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

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

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

spacebacon
0 replies
5h31m

I take no side here in this factual statement yet welcome even more down votes from anyone that can’t regulate their emotional response beyond a down vote to a reasonable and objective analysis of his statement. Carry on with the downvoting. You are doing great!

quadhome
1 replies
13h29m

Can we separate the art from the artist?

chris_wot
0 replies
13h27m

He's an artist now, is he?

gibsonf1
1 replies
6h11m

As an SF resident, its incredibly painful to watch the policy based destruction of such a great city (and state).

bakchodi
0 replies
1h15m

Please don’t criticize our perfect and above reproach Progressives

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

ChrisArchitect
1 replies
15h35m

Related yesterday discussion:

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

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

650REDHAIR
0 replies
4h23m

That thread was nuked from the front page after ~1 hour.

23B1
1 replies
15h40m

You can't get drunk and tweet dumb shit as a CEO.

You cannot remain CEO if you do.

This is not a controversial position to have.

srpablo
0 replies
15h22m

I happen to agree with you, but I'll note one _very_ celebrated CEO loved tweeting-while-inebriated so much he bought Twitter

wannacboatmovie
0 replies
14h40m

Garry and Elon. We have to get these two together.

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

tpmoney
0 replies
15h18m

He employs partisan and apocalyptic language, calling opponents “cronies,” “corrupt” or “doom loop accelerationists,” and claiming they want to “destroy public safety” and “ruin” or “destroy” the city.

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

tonymet
0 replies
13h56m

I’m happy because every time this happens, more people move to private conversations, and soon we will be back where we started.

stodor89
0 replies
9h28m

There's plenty of things to be outraged about in our timeline. An immature "fuck you" tweet is not one of these.

replwoacause
0 replies
2h43m

I don’t know much about YC lore, but pg seemed like a pretty “buttoned up” person, and then came Altman and Tan, more freewheeling loose cannon types. Is that right?Is that just the new ilk for this generation of tech leaders?

qgin
0 replies
1h25m

Note to everyone making death threats: just make sure to quote music, film, or theater in your threats. You’ll be protected from prosecution but your recipient will still get the message.

pg_bot
0 replies
15h55m

Typical ten ply article. Every level of politics comes with strong feelings from all sides, get over it.

paganel
0 replies
8h55m

“If the CEO of Boeing or Coca-Cola said, ‘I hope Joe Biden dies a slow death,’ someone would be like, ‘Oh, whoops, that wasn’t supposed to happen,’” he said.

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

p-e-w
0 replies
15h25m

“It’s shameful,” added a Y Combinator alumnus who, like others, declined to be named for fear of professional retaliation. He has been checking the Y Combinator internal Slack and monitoring their daily email updates, but there has been “no communication” from the company, he said.

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

oneepic
0 replies
10h23m

Of course he's probably getting kicked out of YC for this, but I still feel that most politicians (and tech leaders too, actually) say the same worthless points and don't really do much good in the world. In some ways, I'm more interested in Tan.

nohat
0 replies
45m

It was a stupid and shameful tweet. The thing that elevates this above a drunk tweet though are the "real life" postcards. Should we ignore the fact that the postcards seem very much a false flag?

m3kw9
0 replies
13h10m

These CEO coming out asking for Gary’s head is what cancel culture, woke culture, virtue signalling looks like all rolled in one.

lucubratory
0 replies
12h15m

Isn't this the same guy who is constantly whining about guillotine jokes on the left without reference to specific people being "deadly serious" calls to violence? And he's tweeting a list of 5+ politicians with "die slow motherfuckers"?

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

jwmoz
0 replies
7h28m

When a nerd tries to reference Tupac.

jongjong
0 replies
7h8m

What I've heard about Garry Tan so far suggests he is childish and out of touch.

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

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

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

j4yav
0 replies
6h40m

Does social media attract people with brain worms or does it cause the brain worms?

iainctduncan
0 replies
2h59m

Whether he should have said it on moral grounds is one question, and whether it is indicative of handling part of the CEO's job very poorly is another. The CEO is the public face of a company - that is literally part of the job. He did this abysmally, and in many, many companies, it would be enough for a board to sack him. The CEO doesn't get a firewall between their personal life and work, or a pass for off work behaviour. They get paid to live it.

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

hyperliner
0 replies
6h5m

There are way too many people here that can’t pass the opportunity to exercise selective outrage.

And yes, the culture of decency died a long time ago.

hackideiomat
0 replies
10h13m

oh man I didn't know I'd hate this guy :D

greenie_beans
0 replies
4h48m

one time i was on twitter and some asshole was tweeting mean, stupid stuff and i was like who is this asshole? what is e/acc? and then i realized he was the president of YC and it made me sad. and then i learned more about e/acc and i decided how dumb that shit is

gogogo_allday
0 replies
15h48m

I’m sorry but WTF?

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

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

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

gardenhedge
0 replies
7h7m

I honestly couldn't care less. Outrage from people with nothing better to do.

fooker
0 replies
9h19m

So what?

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

Should we expect our CEOs to be robots?

electrondood
0 replies
12h24m

These idiot child CEOs need to Google "noblesse oblige."

Can you technically say whatever you want? Yes.

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

ekimehtor
0 replies
16h10m

"these tech Bros should die a slow death" –venture capitalist

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

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

crest
0 replies
5h58m

I wonder if he accepts the same conduct targeted at him for example from those on his staff e.g. "Fuck my life. The CEO came in drunk again. I wish his liver would finally give out and make space for a CEO who deserves the title instead of this useless motherfucker." Would he consider that normal social media use or would he see it in a different light when its about him or done by gasp an underling?

chmod775
0 replies
15h17m

The tweet is to be taken about as literally as "fuck you", but unsurprisingly that fact is being gleefully ignored.

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

anonZ3PbJ8FR7Xg
0 replies
6h47m

Yeah sure housing is unaffordable and there are open air drug markets and criminals breaking into cars and shitting on the streets but whoa hold on now buddy you can't just go around saying mean things.

SLWW
0 replies
12h41m

I can't imagine why anyone cares what a CEO says in a few tweets? I was under the understanding that people actually work in this industry instead of playing these cliquey games of reputation or scraping through social media. (which is meaningless)

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

RVuRnvbM2e
0 replies
12h46m

This situation reminds me of the opening scene in office space where Michael is rapping in his car but turns the music down and pauses when the guy selling flowers walks past.

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

ChildOfChaos
0 replies
7h17m

The world has gone mad.

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

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

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

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

BSDobelix
0 replies
8h11m

CEOs, politicians and anyone under the age of 16 should not be allowed to use social media.

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

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

AtNightWeCode
0 replies
8h51m

It was a bad tweet and some people should have an alcohol lock on their social media accounts. But to call it a death threat is just silly.

Animats
0 replies
14h9m

We need drug testing for CEOs. Seriously. This is a duty of the board.

762236
0 replies
16h5m

I can find lots of tech workers that would tell Garry to keep up the good work.