Ask HN: Is YC entangled with Trump’s rich supporters?
Given all the endorsements from Silicon Valley billionaires that are courting Trump, does this put YC in a situation where they have to look the other way at what is happening and play ball so that their startups will be the next Valley/VC darlings?
Will startups that share the vision in some way with these billionaires who are endorsing Trump gain preferential treatment as a means of securing funding rounds or difficult contracts?
Related is the rebranding of Palmer Luckey from a Trump supporter to a liberator of Ukraine, as well as the over all anti-Trump sentiment post-2016 election that was permeating through the start up world (SV in particular).
Edit: Thank you to the poster who brought this pg comment to light: https://x.com/paulg/status/1814805327210291551
Shame this question is flagged.
21 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 64.9 ms ] threadI'm going to go so far as to say it us unamerican to mix business with politics to the level that you are suggesting here.
The rhetoric in the US about one against the other is quite ridiculous. Families are worried or even unable to celebrate Thanksgiving dinner because not everyone can agree on their political affiliations.
We should identify in our belief in something, not against, and a belief in a party or an individual is just asking for trouble.
Let me ask you this. If you had a life threatening illness, would you ask your doctor what party they are going to vote for? That's kinda what you're asking here. You're asking if YC is involved in who the founders they invest in are going to vote for. Ignoring the fact that many of the founders are in the US on a visa, and probably don't care one way or another.
Can't Palmer be both a Trump supporter and liberator of Ukraine?
So boycotts become an alternative avenue to change, or at least another place to vent frustration.
It flip flops every few years though, like with the diversity and equity stuff that was so popular a few years ago and now getting shut down.
The average person here has zero power to affect anything at all in Washington, so yelling at companies is all we can do lol. Wall St is somewhat more responsive than our elected officials. Kinda sad, but that's the country for ya.
https://x.com/paulg/status/1814805327210291551
One of my major concerns with HN specifically has been its overt status quo bias. Where the status quo stands to go stridently fascist, and the founder of the company and founder don't actively oppose this ... I have extreme reservations.
I've similar concerns about other VC firms (e.g., a16z), and quite frankly the VC / tech startup ecosystem as a whole. Xoogler Vic Gundotra's own revelation as a Trumpist a few years back only cemented my own initial sentiments about him. (I'd been an active participant in G+, and what I saw of him there ... stank badly.)
Once you're rich enough, Dems vs Reps don't really matter. But more radical movements that threaten the status quo certainly would endanger their wealth.
Capital is more fungible than ideologies, I guess. Shrug.
We the community have every ability to make another forum with different biases, but well, this one is their free service, and this one is where the discussions are at. They don't owe us anything. If anything, they're probably more tolerant of opposing commentary than an anti-capitalist forum would be of their participation.
The stakes were larger than German industrialists realised. And I suspect are now for present-day VC, amongst others.
And reconsider my engagement with HN / YC.
That said, the "how to deal with Nazis in the bar" story comes strongly to mind:
<https://old.reddit.com/r/bartenders/comments/j7y3cu/how_to_d...>
I remember when YC had some group with PT on it. What I remember is that rather than kick PT out, the group itself was dissolved ... and then reformulated, with the prior members sans PT. That seemed to me at the time an elegant solution. Reading what pg had written, and is writing now, makes me strongly doubt my previous rationalisation.
I've written on this ... sometime, somewhere, though apparently not on HN at least by Algolia's search. The story itself is mentioned by BuzzFeeed News <https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/y-combinator-cu...> and Business Insider <https://www.businessinsider.com/y-combinator-billionaire-ven...>, both on 17 November 2017.
As for PT: he's told us enough times who he is. I'm taking the well-founded advice to believe him.
As for pg's recent comments: whether or not he's on YC's board (I can't find confirmation either way, though he's listed as a founder: <https://www.ycombinator.com/people>, snapshot: <https://web.archive.org/web/20240723223830/https://www.ycomb...>), his essays are featured on YC's homepage (<https://www.ycombinator.com/>, snapshot <https://web.archive.org/web/20240723223921/https://www.ycomb...>), and he's making comments clearly indicated as guidance for both YC and other firms.
My own goal isn't persuading pg so much as YC's present leadership, and that of other firms (incubators, VC, or commercial enterprises). Opposition to populists has generally been "fringe", until it wasn't, or until all possible hope of opposition is lost.
There are other examples of notable organisations distancing themselves from founders. EFF and John Gilmore come to mind: <https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/10/john-gilmore-leaves-ef...>
Fair enough. If it's not going to happen, I don't have a problem with people recognizing that it's not going to happen, like Graham did, and I don't see why we'd keep chasing performative measures.
I disagree, though how and why specifically is hard to articulate. Regardless, I'd asked for a clarification and not an argument. I got that first.
As for your question: I'm not privy to insider discussions but have been around YC a lot and can tell you I've never heard anything of this nature. From my perspective YC is focused on finding good founders and that's about it. Just speaking for myself here though.