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On Y Combinator’s Defense of Peter Thiel
Yesterday news broke that Peter Thiel had pledged $1.25MM to support Republican nominee Donald Trump. Since Mr. Thiel himself isn’t active on social media, social media went after both Paul Graham and Sam Altman of Y Combinator—a startup accelerator that lists Mr. Thiel as a part-time partner.
Mr. Altman wrote about 10 tweets summing up his personal response last night. This one stuck with me.
The concern expressed by both Mr. Graham and Mr. Altman was around setting a precedent by firing someone for political beliefs—something clearly dangerous and un-American.
That being said, the false equivalence here is striking, and to me patently ridiculous. Peter is a billionaire. A billionaire. Sam has no ability to cut off his viewpoint even if he wanted to.
