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

Re:More examples

[TheGratefulNet]

bread-bart???

seriously? you are not going to get any respect quoting that horse's ass of a website.

might as well quote faux news, for that matter.

Re: "Gay Culture" is blind devotion then?

[dunkelfalke]

There is no real difference between xenophobia and racism.

Re:"Gay Culture" is blind devotion then?

[AmiMoJo]

Yiannopoulos's support isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of Trump for most gay people. Aside from anything else, a lot of people find his comments about not choosing to be gay given the choice and his language (like calling himself a "dangerous faggot") quite offensive.

Having been on the receiving end of oppression and prejudice, many in the LGBT community are somewhat sympathetic to the plight of other minority groups. The minority groups that Trump attacks, like immigrants and Muslims. And many are sympathetic to women's issues too, having experienced many of the same historic issues. Not all of them of course, but Trump isn't going to get much support from that group.

Re:Ellen Pao

[TroII]

Dramatic Undercover Footage Shows Clinton Operatives Admit To Inciting "Anarchy" At Trump Rallies

From the same guy, James O'Keefe, who brought us "Undercover Footage Shows Planned Parenthood Operatives Selling Baby Parts." Give me a break. The guy has made a career of faking videos, has been sued over his fake videos and lost, has been convicted of attempting to wiretap a politician. His name removes any credibility the video might have had.