Over the weekend, San Francisco's tech workers tweeted after Gary Tan went on an apparently alcohol-fueled rant, writing on social media that the city's seven progressive directors should “die a slow death.” chose the word “disgraceful” to describe Y Combinator's CEO. “You're really stupid.” “You're really stupid.”
“He shouldn't have done that. He should go for a while. He shouldn't represent technology anymore,” said Kevin Baragona, co-founder and CEO of text and image generation company DeepAI. Ta.
“It's a shame,” added the Y Combinator alumnus, who like others declined to give his name for fear of professional retaliation. He said he checks Combinator's internal Slack and monitors daily email updates, but has “not heard anything” from the company.
“If the CEO of Boeing or Coca-Cola said, “I hope Joe Biden dies a slow death,'' someone would think, “Oh come on, that can't be true,'' he says. . “It would be a PR nightmare, but we haven't gotten any approval yet.”
Y Combinator's bulletin board, Hacker News, which is owned by the company but is open to the public, has received hundreds of comments on the topic, including the wisdom of the alleged drunken rant and whether Tan should resign now. We debated what to do.
“This kind of behavior should not be tolerated as the head of a respectable company…He should resign or be fired, and YC should replace him with a responsible adult.” “This is not a minor crime, it's grotesque. If he stays, it will reflect very badly on YC.”
“I’m a YC graduate,” someone else began. “I have no problem with technology leaders holding political positions, and I have no problem with them making personal donations based on their opinions. Quietly.”
But some in the tech industry argued that the incident was a “manufactured crisis” and that city regulators were working on the case to score political points.
“Do you think it's really stupid for the supervisors to file a restraining order or a police report against Garry Tan? I mean, come on, dude. They really don't know how many Garry Tan Do we hire a guy and expect him to drive by and shoot us?'' asked another tech founder. “No, of course not.”
Still, even those who were less critical had doubts about Tan's judgment.
Stephen Gibson, founder of an early-stage AI startup, added: “I personally wouldn't cancel him because I think this was a drunken mistake,” but added, “I don't want to cancel him personally.” “It was naive,” he admitted.
Y Combinator has not responded to multiple requests for comment on the incident, even after Tan's online rants had very real-world consequences. On Tuesday, three of the supervisors named in his post received identical postcards at their homes wishing harm to them and others. family.
“Garry Tan is right!” read a postcard addressed to supervisors Aaron Peskin, Dean Preston and Myrna Melgar. “I wish you and your loved ones a slow and painful death.”
The postcards were placed in envelopes with Tan's face on them and individually addressed to each supervisor. The postcard ended with the following note: “This email was sent to convey a political opinion. It was not intended to be a threat.”
San Francisco police announced Wednesday that they are investigating the mail carrier. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who is hosting Mr. Tan at his Mission District home, said in order to avoid conflicts of interest, he would not be involved in any litigation involving Mr. Tan and would refer it to the California attorney general. Stated.
Tan issued an apology over the weekend, pointing out that his post was a reference to Tupac Shakur's lyrics. Although he initially dismissed the comment as a joke, he took the incident more seriously and wrote, “There is no place, excuse, or reason for this kind of speech,” hours after his initial post. He has yet to acknowledge the letter sent to the supervisor's home.
Joking or not, Tan's tweet was born out of genuine anger.
Supervisors appointed by Tan responded quickly to the riot, filing a police report and consulting with the city prosecutor's office.
At least two supervisory candidates supported by Tan, Marjan Fillhour and Trevor Chandler, said they did not condone Tan's language.
Deva Hazarika, a fellow San Francisco tech founder, said Tan's comments were “a stupid thing to tweet, especially for a famous person, but many people make ill-advised tweets after a few too many drinks.” “I'm working on it,” he said.
And Hazarika later said the threat was the fault of the anonymous emailer, not Tan. “If some idiots take that as some basis for intimidation or harassment, I think that's on them, not him.”
Tan and Y Combinator may not be household names, but they are very well known in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Tan from the top of Y Combinator, the most popular incubator for startups and the de facto golden ticket for founders. Companies strive to achieve multi-billion dollar success every year.
DoorDash, Cruise, Reddit, Coinbase and thousands of other companies are using the program, which is now worth a combined $600 billion, according to Y Combinator.
Mr. Tan has also used his position to implore San Francisco's tech workers and executives to get involved in local politics. He has become a flashpoint among anti-progressive political forces in the city, taking on campaigns and groups aimed at ousting progressive supervisors from their seats.
He frequently criticizes progressives.political organization” calls for taking back San Francisco from what he terms left-wing excesses. He used partisan and apocalyptic language, calling his opponents “entourage,””Corrupt,” or “Doom Loop Accelerator” and “want to destroy public safety.”Ruin” City.
He is also a source of misinformation, misunderstanding how the city's police commission works, for example.
Therefore, even though Mr. Tan claimed that the riot was a joke, it fell within the category of his particular hostility.
“We weren't born yesterday. I know this is all-consuming for you, but this wasn't just a joke,” the Y Combinator alum said. “He’s kind of trying to laugh it off, claiming he’s a Twitter troll, but it’s like, no, you’re not, don’t ignore the consistent attacks over the years. It’s like, don’t try to wash everything away.”
Despite the anger, many agree with Tan's policies
If Tan isn't the face of San Francisco's tech community, then who is? Baragona mentioned Emmett Shear, co-founder of streaming platform Twitch, who he thinks is “very reasonable.”
However, he added that he generally agreed with Mr Tan's views. And he explained those views. “Garry Tan was basically in favor of making San Francisco safer, building more housing, and having moderate politics. I think those are good things.”
“I think technology leaders and business leaders have a responsibility to cities and communities to contribute to both, through politics and other means…But by making such statements, Tan… I think I probably need to learn more about the politics side of things. You can’t just vent like that,” Gibson said.
Several others agreed that Tan “really cares deeply” about the city but approaches politics in a naive way.
Anthony Janso, founder of the Accelerate SF organization, said he was “surprised” to read Tan's post, but said Tan “deserves more credit for his commitment to making San Francisco the best city in the world.” ” he said.
added Evan Conrad, co-founder of. san francisco computingin a text message to Mission Local, said, “Garry Tan is a generally good person who genuinely cares about San Francisco.”
The engineer, who requested anonymity, spoke about the patch created by Tan. “They have something bigger in mind with this. They're trying to create some kind of political enemy that everyone hates. I think it's fueling even more hatred and resentment against the tech people… Garry I'm a little annoyed that Tan is giving them ammunition for that.”
