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Most Cities Would Welcome a Tech Billionaire, But Peter Thiel? (bloomberg.com)
Sarah McBride, writing for Bloomberg: Tech billionaire Peter Thiel is moving to Los Angeles from San Francisco, adding another dose of legitimacy to a burgeoning startup scene in Southern California -- along with some controversy. The co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, Thiel runs Founders Fund, one of the more-respected venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. He comes with a little baggage, though, including his staunch support for President Donald Trump, his secretive funding of the legal battle between Hulk Hogan and Gawker.com, and comments some people say have been derogatory toward women. "I'm not sure why Peter Thiel believes he'll receive a warmer reception on the L.A. tech scene than he's had in Silicon Valley," said Tracy DiNunzio, chief executive officer of Tradesy, a fashion-reselling company based in Santa Monica, California. "Our venture and startup ecosystem is fairly left-leaning."
Guy's a Trump troll who also bankrolled lawsuits against media whose main crime was breaking the law.
Fixed that for you.
If you're a startup and you need funding and you've got a demonstrably astute tech investor with a deep rolodex and sacks of money to invest, why do you care who he votes for?
I certainly wouldn't.
This politicization of every aspect of life is way out of hand.
Why do conservatives insist on coming to California if it's such a shithole? It's the most liberal state in the country and SF and Silicon Valley are much further to the left and have been that way for the last century. Just make your own tech companies in the podunk flyover states you come from.
Stop trying to leech off our companies and our success. You aren't welcome here and, to be quite honest, you can't compete here. Be gracious that we subsidize your podunk state and stay out.
The real reason why he wants to move out of Silicon Valley is that he can't afford housing in this area. All others are just excuses.
If Sadat, used commas, they way you, do I'd say, it was, justified.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
in LA money is king, no matter what your views.
In SF money is also king, but you don't have to like it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You subsidize them? Who builds your cars, grows your food, makes your clothes? Here's a hint - it's not f'ing you. Skipping over the fact that third world countries subsidize most of the developed world, in terms of actual tangible work, the "podunk" states you so despise do much more to maintain your standard of living than you think. Try heating your home or feeding your family with HTML5, AI, blockchain, or whatever it is you clowns rave about these days. Fact is most of the crap coming out of silicon valley is less than useless, distracting the rest of the world with constant noise while reducing their productivity and ability to solve problems themselves, and turning future generations' brains to mush. That's not economic value creation, it's destruction, and the world is finally starting to come around to that realization. So get off your high horse and wake up to the fact that it is you that is subsidized by actual hard working people, and their views matter as much as yours.
Cities dwellers aren't nerds, there's too many distractions. You wastes of space are marketing and sales people.
Who?
What?
Yeah, I'm sure he like totally cares what she thinks.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'd prefer that NOBODY bribes our politicians.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Because you can be a "nerd" without being involved in "relevant" development, or even development at all. Fuck off, you needlessly elitist piece of shit.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Personally I wouldn't choose to live the lifestyle that working for Google etc forces on you, no matter what they paid me.
Apart from anything else, being surrounded by the obligatory bunch of neckbearded hipster millennials who all think they're "alternative" yet all look, dress, speak, think and act exactly the same, and all march lock-step according to extreme peecee liberal brainwashing, would drive me nuts.
POTUS is not the government. He is one elected official at the head of three co-equal branches. Supporting him is not synonymous with supporting the government, just like supporting the government doesn't not necessarily mean one supports Trump.
people need to stop suppressing the beliefs of others simply because you disagree with them.
The problem is that so many Leftists adamantly believe in an ideological/political structure that cannot hold up to logical, intellectually-honest debate or comparisons with others. If such were widely allowed in public discourse, they would not gain adherents and would lose nearly all support.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Extremely well said and concise. Bringing into how we relate to people because of their personal politics (conservative vs liberal vs progressive vs socialist) is extremely toxic. If we cannot talk or do business with people that hold differing political views - the civility of society will only continue to decline.
"If Sadat, used commas, they way you, do I'd say, it was, justified."
Alas, you have, a point. :-)
A bunch of retarded hicks that are easy to manipulate. Thanks Cleetus.
And the Committee to Re-elect Trump fires off their favorite line, which will ensure his victory in 2020.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Since when is supporting the government "baggage"?
Since that part of our government is a piece of shit, that's since when.
I don't respond to AC's.
Is always welcoming to entrepreneurs and has no state sales tax.
To hell with California, come to a free country where you can do just about anything you want.
Thiel would not be a good fit for Los Angeles. He should come to Arizona, where we love his politics and where he would appreciate the lower rents and cost of housing for workers. The Phoenix area is a burgeoning tech scene that has grown up around Arizona State, Intel, Honeywell, and a host of newer and smaller tech enterprises. Hardly a Silicon Valley yet, but he can help make it one.
In the end I expect it will, because most people that have or want power or money use "decency" only for virtue signalling, but do not actually believe in it. Thiel may just be more honest in his evil than others. Which, paradoxically, makes him a little less evil.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
... that they are intolerant of any views other than their own.
The politics in LA, San Francisco and a few other coastal enclaves are about the same, although SF may lean even farther than the rest. Except for that, the rest of the state tends to be conservative. The reason most people don't know that is that the left coast enclaves have the majority of the population, and run the state for their benefit and ignore the rest of us.
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You snowflakes are so funny.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Supporting Trump is not supporting the government, it is supporting a mentally unstable narcissist that cares for nothing but himself, and that reflects on Thiel, at least in the part of the community with brains.
Why would there be an article like this?
"Our venture and startup ecosystem is fairly left-leaning."
So intolerant then. If Peter Thiel wouldn't be welcomed because he's not like you, what does that make you? I guess it has finally become obvious to everyone how intolerant and exclusionary "left-leaning" cultures are.
So he should stay in SF and not contribute to LA tax base?
Ken
Who builds your cars, grows your food, makes your clothes?
Last time I checked it was...Japan, Mexico, Vietnam.
You've had fun living on the industrial legacy of your state's early innovators, but it's not going to be easy to live like the Jetsons when today's California requires ten years of impact studies and a hundred-lawyer HR staff before you can back your Prius out of your own driveway.
It's an example, of the the use of the so called Shatnerian, comma. Indicates a pause, for dramatic, purposes.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Of my investors. Ever read the history of the Commodore Amiga? Jack Tramiel basically backed the engineers into a corner that let him take everything until Commodore road in and saved the day. Tech investors have a long history of screwing over start up. So yeah, I'd care who the guy voted for. Maybe I'd still risk it. But I'd be aware of the risk...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
is another woman's badge of honor
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
IIRC, Mr. Thiel went to Stanford which is where it hooked up with some friends or acquaintances and together built a company that got him that fortune. So he's not exactly a new import into Silicon Valley.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The California House Congressional delegation is 39 Democrats to 14 Republicans. There are two Democratic Senators from CA. There are no Republicans elected statewide to any governing posts, Governor down to State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Cheeto lost statewide in California, 61.73% to 31.62%. California is a deeply blue state.
Peter Thiel is a New Zealand citizen.
I didn't vote for him... :)
And yet Gawker lost their court case.
Its weird how a not breaking the law gets a court to find against you.
Oh wait, you're wrong.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
If you'll look at a map of California's counties, you'll see that the coast is strongly Democrat and the inland counties are Republican. However, if you look at a map of the population, you'll see that most of the voters live on or near the coast, and outnumber the comparatively thinly-populated inland. Thus, by population, California is a blue state, even though most of its area is red. Guess which one matters in an election.
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we're already here and have been all along.
California is the state of Ronald Reagan, Bob Dornan, etc.
The left was only able to hijack the state and make it one-party-rule by super-majorities in the state house by importing millions of immigrants from leftist countries. Now we have the highest gas taxes in the nation, while our trasportation infrastructure crumbles. We now have some of the highest income taxes in the nation, while we hae the worst income inequality. We now have some of the highest business taxes and regulations, while our manufacturing businesses flee the state (SpaceX and Tesla do NOT offset all the other losses). We now have the highest levels of homelessness and poverty and the highest rates of welfare consumption in the nation.
The very same progressives who try to hush all this stuff up by claiming California is a "net maker" and other states are "net takers" are outraged that Trump just partly unmasked that lie by taking away PART of the SALT federal tax deduction that Democrats in places like New York and California have for decades used to hide the true impact of their tax-and-spend policies. California lawmakers are currently trying to re-classify California taxes as "charitable deductions" to try to thwart this and keep hiding the effects of their policies. As a general rule, if you think you need to be that dishonest in your lawmaking, you are almost certainly in the wrong.
The sad truth about morons like you is that the "tech workers" who are the most liberal are the ones working on phones, and tablets, and web sites, whereas those of us who work in aerospace, defense, and other areas that actually matter and where lives are on the line tend (Musk and some of his people being outliers) to be on the political right - and plenty of us are still here but finding the place increasingly fascistic and jack-booted. Right wingers in tech tend to keep their views to themselves, not having that National Socialist tendency to demand that others listen to their views and agree with them, so you might well have right wingers working around you who would surprise you. You guys on the left, however, lack the self-control to shut up and just do the work; the rest of us are all forced to notice you, so we know who you are. California may well be currently in the death-grip of you Marxist-leaning loons with your propaganda and speech codes and intrusive bloated totalitarian government worship, but things that connot be sustained won't..... and we'll be here to pick up the bits and pieces when your drug addled fantasies collapse .... we like the weather.
But in Arizona, you can be a libertarian who golfs and hikes year round.
That's my point. I called them "enclaves" because they're fairly small, geographically, but they're heavily populated, mostly with liberals. Most of the state is much more conservative, but the population density is fairly low, so the the liberals in LA, SF and a few other places can control the state.
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It's, possible, to, overdo, it, though.
I, ,m,e,a,n, ,r,e,a,l,l,y,
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You keep using that word. It doesn't mean what you think it means.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Ignoring a judge's order to take down a sex tape isn't a very good idea
http://gawker.com/a-judge-told...
It's also hypocritical given they'd earlier criticised people for not taking down Jennifer Lawrence's nudes. Jezebel and Gawker were both owned by Gawker Media.
https://imgur.com/a/ULIA4
Gawker pissed of Thiel by running this
http://gawker.com/335894/peter...
Apparently they outed him when he was on a business trip to Saudi Arabia.
So Thiel backed Hogan's lawsuit, and that bankrupted Gawker media.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
So the lesson here is people living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones at people who own hail makers.
academic excellence does not necessarily mean you are smart at anything else other than those subjects.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
It's bitztream the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, Musk-hating, Qualcomm-hating, Firefox tabs-hating, Slashdot editors-hating Slashdot troll!
The actions of his that I have noticed do not signify someone who's trying to get rid of or minimize the state, but rather someone who's trying to use it to his own advantage.
I may well claim to be a libertarian, I haven't read anything he's written, but that's not what the actions of his that I have notices show. What actions has he taken that cause you to believe he is trying to eliminate or minimize the state rather than to use it to his own advantage?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Not:
I may well claim to be a libertarian (I used to, but now I'm a minarchist),
but rather:
He may well claim to be a libertarian
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Yeah; free national health car is one of the things that your so-called left brings us.
Our right wing party (National) is to the left of the Democrats in many ways but Thiel still wanted citizenship here.
Any foreigners allowed in your 'burb or do you just shoot them?
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
He's a supporter of Donald Trump, who wants a military parade, like the ones the French have, to celebrate the day when the 99% began cutting off the heads of the 1%. Sadat was also fond of military parades, until the day, when a couple of the tens of thousands of armed people walking by, shot him dead. Perhaps Peter can stand beside him during the parade.
He is? I read that he was one of the people potentially backing Steve Bannon after the Mercers withdrew their support to the latter. That would put him at odds w/ the president, not endear him to the White House or for that matter, the mainstream GOP
Thiel still wanted citizenship here.
Yes, in very dubious circumstances.
How much did he "donate" to the National party to be granted citizenship in New Zealand despite having been here for a total of 12 whole days, then never returning or investing the money he said he would.
I imagine there was a payoff to the Labour party as well, because I can't imagine why there has never been an inquiry about the whole matter.
Not that it's an isolated incident, no-one is really sure what this criminal is called, but the minister of immigration gave him citizenship as well, against the advice of officials.
As an engineer turned marketing, I think you're off base. The company I work for now, has people with backgrounds in theater and dance. The kind of creative energy that comes between us is really amazing. I sometimes thing like a engineer, and they approach problems different from me. I feed them the tech and community input and then we together create a story.
What a laughable argument. Ever been to a left of center rally? It's an amazingly positive vibe. it's because the left is a highly diverse set of people with different views that we try to accept. A right of center (if such a thing exists these days) doesn't have the diversity seen in the left and suffers from group think. Since they are mostly fighting for something they can't have, it is a pit of rage and hostility.
You do realize that California by itself has an economy bigger than most countries, right? Agriculture is one of it's biggest exports. The entire west coast is filled with agriculture as well as a burgeoning tech culture. It is well documented that a number of red states (san places like Texas and Florida) take more than they give when it comes to federal dollars. Blue states tend to have to pay more to make up for shitty economic policies of red states or whatever they call conservatism. In the war of ideas, conservative ideas have failed time and time again - see Kansas and Oklahoma. Ask yourself, why doesn't Peter Thiel not go to Kansas? It's because assholes have tried trickle down economics to the point that they can't even fund 5 days of school. If you're a startup, do you think that's a good place to setup shop. Nobody is going to go there where there are poor resources.
You mean like debating evolution versus creationism? Or climate change versus sticking your head in the sand?
Yeah, that's why despite all that Trump is reputedly still calls Bannon for advice. ::eye roll:: The mainstream GOP doesn't give a shit about anything as long as they can pass more tax cuts. That's the only ideas they have.
As an engineer turned marketing, I think you're off base.
You literally proved my point AND attempted to refute it in the same sentence. Then you even expounded upon it. Honestly can't tell if this is an expert troll or a mentally deficient city dweller, well played.
None of which was false.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yeah; free national health car is one of the things that your so-called left brings us.
TANSTAAFL
Nothing is free (as in beer). Not even free beer. They just shuffle things around so you don't notice (over)paying for it. And if it's run by the government, it's wasting your people's money, time, and resources to do a barely-passable at best job of it.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I'm not sure what point you were trying to make other than "marketing and sales people" are wastes of space. Which makes absolutely no sense in a business. You need all parts to succeed. Your condescending tone and arrogance is amusing though. Not that your opinion matters much to me. My comment wasn't directed at you anyways as much for others reading this thread.
How's life in the hypocrite lane?
The point was that city dwellers are marketing and sales people. "Wastes of space" wasn't even used as a modifier but a qualifier.
Imagine all you like, there is no indication of anything improper for Mr Thiel's citizenship application. We do not have a history of bribery here of public officials esp. political parties.
That said you don't need money if you just play to the vanities of politicians.
Yeah Bill Yan is also a dody s**t and that was under Labour in 2001 (?). So a decade between drinks.
The Immigration Minister made the call for Thiel who was recommended I beleive but with no real information and apparently does not recall the incident.
Seems Thiel just schmoozed with the senior National Party figures and blew smoke up their ass
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
Umm I know you are right wing enough not to be running on oxygen however our Governments balanced budget is paid from general taxation.
Can you spell b-a-l-a-n-c-e-d 'Merkins?
We could privatise it and then pay twice as much - once again 'Merkins show the way.
That is what tax is for to pay for things the private sector cannot/ will not provide.
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
You're right, we do not have a history of bribery here in NZ, but there is at least one incident which springs to mind, involving Mr. John Banks and Kim Dotcom's $50,000 donation to his mayoral campaign.
Although Mr. Banks was found not guilty on appeal, the circumstances of the new evidence were extremely odd, and it also cost Mr. Banks his marriage.
You are probably correct about Mr. Thiel's ability to charm which just raises a whole host of further questions about various senior National party people's judgment really.
Yep, them dumb country boys don't make phone apps. They make something stupid like rockets to mars. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/m...
NRRPT/RCT
If I recall correctly Our Fat German was found to be an unreliable witness regarding Banks being asked to spit the donation into 2 x $25,000 cheques. Last time that he trusted the Tories I am sure!
And Banks did not help out Dotcom after he got arrested; with the recent paternity suit Banks lost it puts a new light on the law 'n' order scumbag that Banks traded on with National as Minister of Police (and talkback radio).
NZ does not suffer from bribery so much as ' a mate doing a favour for a mate' and, of course, nepotism.
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
You mean like...the only people to ever get to the moon?
If we had more resources dedicated to rednecks we'd be raping and pillaging alien civilizations by now as payback for all the anal probes.
You subsidize them? Who builds your cars, grows your food, makes your clothes?
China?
Apart from anything else, being surrounded by the obligatory bunch of neckbearded hipster millennials who all think they're "alternative" yet all look, dress, speak, think and act exactly the same, and all march lock-step according to extreme peecee liberal brainwashing, would drive me nuts.
Like most older generations, you misconstrue what "alternative" means. They don't mean alternative to each other, they mean alternative to you. They've seen what you are like, what you have done with the world, and have decided, collectively as a group, it was all a mistake and needs to be changed.
> what you have done with the world
Don;t blame me. I didn't do anything with it.
> what you have done with the world
Don;t blame me. I didn't do anything with it.
And like every generation tells the one before, "Your failure to do anything is why it is crap."
I look forward to your response when kids start telling you this.
And if L.A. wasn't constantly trying to play Keep Up With San Francisco, it wouldn't be nearly as liberal as it is. I've had the thought that we might all be better off (especially Californians) if S.F. was split off and became functionally the American Hong Kong.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?