
Peter Thiel’s Warning to the Valley - jonbaer
https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiels-warning-to-the-valley-1518740558
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tomlock
The crux of this though is he's moving from a place he deems too "politically
correct" to a place that's uhhhhh, how should I put this? A place with a
better environment for innovation. A place with better free speech provisions.

To put it simply he's moving to a place that's politically correct. Difference
is, it's his kind of political correctness - its more safe and comfortable and
familiar for him.

~~~
fwip
A place where people won't be mean to him, just because he wants to harvest
the blood of the young, like he's some kind of cartoon villain.

( [https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/08/peter-thiel-wants-
to...](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/08/peter-thiel-wants-to-inject-
himself-with-young-peoples-blood) )

~~~
lostmsu
I am not defending him, but does not wasting human time on ads (as Facebook
and Google do en masse) have the same or potentially even worse downstream
effect on life?

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koboll
>Americans who once thought of Silicon Valley as a jewel of U.S. innovation
are likely to turn against these companies if they see them as relentless
political enemies.

This is evidently false, since everyone knows the West Coast's political
biases and everyone uses its tech products anyway.

~~~
duxup
"everyone uses its tech products anyway"

Is there another option? Simply... not?

~~~
thundergolfer
No there's not really another option for conservatives if they don't want
their everyday tech built by left and centre-left people. But the article says
"turn against them".

"turn against them" !== "stop using their products"

~~~
duxup
That would be kinda like opting out of the internet for the most part I would
think.

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traviswingo
> “that’s when you get into trouble politically, when you’re all on one side.”

Actually, no. Political trouble reigns from the notion of “sides.” I
understand that sides make it easier for people to “choose a side,” but it
severely reduces the number of people who have any idea what they’re actually
on the side of.

We honestly need to rethink the notion of having political parties, because
it’s breeding bandwagon voters who no longer feel the need to look at the
details, and will openly vote against something they are personally in favor
of because that’s what their “side” is doing, like it’s some sort of necessary
compromise.

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moonka
Is LA that politically different than SF?

~~~
dvt
The short answer is that yes it's very different (contrary to other opinions).
Although still liberal (by Harvard/Yale standards), UCLA/Caltech don't even
_compare_ to Stanford/Berkeley. LA is also much more cosmopolitan, so you'll
naturally get a more varied distribution of ideas on the political spectrum.

~~~
threatofrain
I would argue that for the most salient issues of our time, UCLA, Berkeley,
Stanford, Hopkins, et al, will all support sufficiently liberal social and
political policies that from the outside perspective all look the same. Sure,
a few colleges may _really_ demonstrate its history of activism.

But which top college wouldn't culturally or administratively have a positive
atmosphere towards immigrants, financially disadvantaged, Muslims, gays,
sexual equality, or gender issues? Basically the salient topics of our time.

Peter Thiel might simply want to take advantage of the less-crowded LA tech
scene, or I suspect he might've tried Austin, but even then, I don't think
it's that much different in atmosphere.

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pbiggar
> "That’s when you get in trouble politically in our society, when you’re all
> in one side"

Funny they don't mention that Thiel is all-in on the other side. He's a
massively regressive conservative. The dude hangs out with (grandfather of the
alt-right) Curtis Yarvis ffs.

Thanks for the warning WSJ, we'll take it from here.

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batbomb
None of this actually matters. It’s not like he wasn’t traveling all over the
nation/world all the time anyway. Frankly, it’s naive at best, petty at worst.

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curuinor
he's going from the most politically correct place in america to the fourth
most politically correct place in america?

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dirtcooker
Y'all come on down to Texas. We're pro business, pro freedom, and culturally
diverse.

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mc32
Does that mean Thiel Capital is moving down to the LA area with him, or will
that remain the Presidio?

~~~
halflings
It is. [0]

"The billionaire is severing ties with Silicon Valley over its left-leaning
politics, and moving his home and operations of his venture fund Thiel Capital
to Los Angeles"

[0] [https://qz.com/1208584/libertarian-peter-thiel-is-
escaping-s...](https://qz.com/1208584/libertarian-peter-thiel-is-escaping-
silicon-valley-liberals-by-moving-to-los-angeles/)

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kylnew
My personal experience with LA, currently working in Santa Monica, is that
it’s a pretty laid back place with nowhere near the hustle or talent pool of
SV or even Toronto’s tech community (where I’m from originally) so I’m curious
how this will work out.

~~~
colordrops
In aerospace the area around LAX and JPL in Pasadena the talent pool is
ridiculously skilled and experienced.

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Animats
The city of Los Angeles, or somewhere more conservative such as Orange County?

~~~
prostoalex
Their previous article on the move mentioned “home overlooking the Sunset
Strip that he bought six years ago”.

He probably wants to be near a major airport.

~~~
trevyn
I don’t know what kind of jet Thiel uses, but SNA should be plenty big; I
doubt proximity to a larger airport is part of his equation.

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nerfhammer
How could an industry largely composed of highly educated immigrants ever be
stupid and xenophobic enough to support Trump era clown college nativist
conservatism?

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majestik
I’m glad he’s moving to LA.

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colordrops
L.A. is pretty damn politically correct.

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atarian
Non-paywalled link: [http://archive.is/yAPYC](http://archive.is/yAPYC)

~~~
vixen99
Thank you!

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fbdjskajxb
The launch of _Yass_ not going as planned?

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purplezooey
Sorry that guy has no more credibility.

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doubt_me
Mods shouldn't allow pay walled links to be submitted.

Flagged

~~~
tptacek
You can do this, but all you're going to get is your flagging privileges
revoked. They're not going to tell you, and you're not going to notice.
They'll let you keep clicking that button like something's actually happening.
But it won't be. Because it's a longstanding rule of the site: paywalled sites
are fine as long as there's some workaround. It's right there in the FAQ.

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debt
The makeup of the Valley is changing and trending towards immigrants so it’s
not shocking that Thiel would have a tougher time here after being such a
vocal supporter of Trump.

~~~
i_am_nomad
It’s important to make a distinction between Trump’s stands on legal and
illegal immigration.

~~~
debt
Maybe what he says and does are different, but he was been very _vocally_
against both forms of immigration.

