Project Include Drops Y Combinator As Peter Thiel Pledges $1.25 Million To Trump (theverge.com)

Peter Thiel's support for U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has given Silicon Valley a headache. This past weekend, Thiel donated $1.25 million to his campaign, which is driving away partners from Thiel's Silicon Valley accelerator, Y Combinator. Today, Project Include, a community for building meaningful, enduring diversity and inclusion into tech companies, said that it would no longer work with Y Combinator startups. "Thiel's actions are in direct conflict with our values at Project Include," the group's co-founder, Ellen Pao, wrote in a Medium post. "Because of this continued connection to YC, we are compelled to break off our relationship with YC." The Verge reports: Founded in 2005, Y Combinator has incubated some of the biggest tech companies of the past decade, including Airbnb, Dropbox, and Stripe. It faced a barrage of criticism over the weekend for refusing to dissociate itself from Thiel, who took an advisory role with the organization in 2015. In a series of tweets, YC's president stood by Thiel. "Cutting off opposing viewpoints leads to extremism and will not get us the country we want," Sam Altman wrote. "Diversity of opinion is painful but critical to the health of a democratic society. We can't start purging people for political support." In her post, Pao rejected the idea that Thiel's donation could be dismissed as political speech. "We agree that people shouldn't be fired for their political views, but this isn't a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating hatred and violence," she wrote. "Giving more power to someone whose ascension and behavior strike fear into so many people is unacceptable. His attacks on black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim, and Jewish people, on women, and on others are more than just political speech; fueled by hate and encouraging violence, they make each of us feel unsafe."

Comments

He isn't really gay

[Anonymous Coward]

He does have sex with men, but he isn't part of the culture. It's disingenuous to call him gay.

Re:"Gay Culture" is blind devotion then?

[PopeRatzo]

Vote Trump for more sex.

I'm not sure sex with Trump is going to sway a lot of voters. I mean, isn't that part of the reason he's so far behind?

Re:Ellen Pao

[roman_mir]

100%.

By the way, while I realize that Trump cannot be pinned on any of the issues and does not really deliver on promises much, I still would vote for him over Hillary ( or any of the Clintons, who I see as war criminals and basically murderers for all of the military conflicts they started or have been voting/working for).

Trump, on the other hand, mentioned he might nominate Thiel for SCOTUS and might actually go through an honest default on the USA debt. This is totally enough to get my vote (if I was voting).

Of-course there is also Gary Johnson in the race, so I would vote for him instead.

Re:Why have ademocracy at all?

[AmiMoJo]

Sorry, the Republicans screwed themselves on this one. They screwed you too, by selecting Trump as their candidate.

By selecting a demagogue who panders to the more extreme elements in the GOP and on the far right, they have created this situation where opposition goes beyond politics. Between that and the attacks on Clinton the country is now hopelessly divided, and I'm afraid you are on the minority side.

Same thing happened in the UK with Brexit. Now watch as the UK tears itself apart, literally. The Union's days are numbered. I just hope it doesn't get too violent in the US.