13 ms·

LOL just got kicked out of @ycombinator

1041 points by bqe 5y ago

benreesman 5y ago
Personalities and personas and misdeeds of participants (real or imagined) and feuds and every other human-interest story have always been a part of the technology world. But those things do seem to be growing rapidly as a fraction of overall mind share.
thinkingemote 5y ago
"First do no harm" is what the doctor would say.
tyingq 5y ago
Another person tweeting on being kicked out for criticizing a founder, though for a different topic. https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146 https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146
nt2h9uh238h 5y ago
So you got accepted. Then tell everybody in YC that they're shitty. Then you get kicked and wonder why.
- whoknew1122 5y ago
  Wait, who's shitty? A.) The person posting about how to lie to jump the vaccine queue B.) The second person posting about how to lie to jump the vaccine queue C.) The moderators of the forum who allow posts to exist that describe how to like to jump the vaccine queue D.) The person bringing this behavior to light Pretty sure it's not D...
captainredbeard 5y ago
The “cover your ass” culture in the US is getting out of hand. Since when did we expect church lady behavior from everyone? I object.
agentofoblivion 5y ago
Good. LOL.
Giorgi 5y ago
ycombinator is useless - always has been, avoid it at all costs.
redis_mlc 5y ago
For those in SF, I'm not aware of a queue or even appointments needed as of this week. Just go to a CVS store, etc.
arkitaip 5y ago
They are so thin-skinned and cancellation happy when it comes to their own reputation.
jollybean 5y ago
They should have asked him to take it down, or re-phrase it to be more polite about it. Booting someone over that seems kafkaesque, like there's a lot to hide. Especially if he was being factual, there's an element of legit whistle-blowing there, it's a bad look, YC.
pokstad 5y ago
I’m also surprised how many people bragged about jumping ahead in line when elderly people with much higher mortality rates were still waiting for theirs. At least keep it to yourself.
- MarkSweep 5y ago
  I was also surprised at some people I know going to great lengths to get the vaccine earlier. Maybe they have some risk factor I don’t know about, but as young stay at home workers, the risk of the virus is not high. I just waited till it was generally available and the local website had appointments available. Added bonus is by waiting the vaccine trials run that much longer so you have more data that it is safe. I’m the type of guy how likes to go to mediocre restaurants to avoid waiting in line for good ones, so maybe I’m just weird.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  Agreed. When eligibility opened up, we drove 100 miles just to avoid potentially taking doses from people at risk in the metro area. Seemed like a good excuse to get out of the house for a road trip, as well as being the right thing to do. We were able to schedule immediate appointments in an adjacent county populated by hardcore Trumpers. Upon arriving at the drive-through vaccination site, there was only one other car in the lot. No danger of cutting the line in that county.
  - istorical 5y ago
    We don't have full information about this story though. It may well be the case that the YC founder called out for lying about his qualifications for the vaccine was at a vaccination location where there were zero lines and poor community uptake of the vaccine. Idle doses sitting around doing nothing. At this point, the US has so many extra doses that it is shipping millions overseas. Depending on the location and timing of the founder who lied, he may be ethically doing a moral good by reducing his own potential to transmit the virus amidst a population of people who refuse to get inoculated anyway. My point is only, it's sometimes dangerous to throw stones without asking questions or getting the full picture first. Taking doses when you aren't qualified for them is overall a bad thing I think we can all agree.
kumarski 5y ago
Bookface posts are confidential by design.
- H8crilA 5y ago
  By "design" of human nature the only really confidential communication is 1:1 verbal. And even that can be easily recorded. Kinda funny to see people not understand this simple fact over and over again.
version_five 5y ago
The behavior he's calling out is obviously abhorrent. But isn't this more due to him airing dirty laundry in public? If this is his last recourse after consulting internally to try and deal with this, then I get it. But there is definitely a trend (maybe not by him) of people running to social media with their complaints before discussing them with those involved. If that is the case i would understand his being sanctioned.
- harzhar 5y ago
  Whatever - every fucking person in SF that wanted a vaccine went and got one already. You didn't need to cheat either. They're already taking down the mass vaccination sites. This is all more liberal drama. I wish someone would drop a nuke on SF.
- jollybean 5y ago
  From the information available publicly, it's obvious the issue was him airing his grievance publicly. But being banned from YC is a fairly extreme measure - especially for an activity that has a hint of moral impetus. Both 'skipping vaccine lines' and 'immediately naming and shaming private conversations to the entire world' are kind of selfish and toxic signals. If I were the King of YC I would have had condescending words with both of them and told them to grow up and then that would be the end of it. Note however, we don't really know what happened behind the scenes.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > 'immediately naming and shaming private conversations to the entire world' I don't know if it was immediate, but I'm pretty sure there was no naming.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  Given that the people in question lack apparently any sort of civic virtue or else they wouldn't be engaging in this behaviour in the first place, where else do you propose one exposes dirty laundry other than in the public? This is exactly why people in positions of power are afraid of transparency and why there is such a anti-media bias in the tech industry.
nostromo 5y ago
Kicked out today for a tweet from March? Why such a long delay?
- lupire 5y ago
  Because it's not true?
- seppin 5y ago
  Because it was most likely a number of things that led to it, not just a "tweet"
minimaxir 5y ago
The person who the original tweet was referring to (it's not private; they admitted it), just tweeted a GIF about "witnessing karma". https://twitter.com/Prafulfillment/status/1400934024680415235 https://twitter.com/Prafulfillment/status/140093402468041523... EDIT: Reply on HN by the author: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27400221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27400221
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Nice to see that everyone involved are definitely fully grown adults.
- angry_octet 5y ago
  It has a real "snitches get stiches" vibe to it. You have no expectation of privacy if you announce (let alone advocate for, or instruct how-to) behaviour against public health policy _during_a_pandemic_. The contrast with people who have been working hard to match people with appointments couldn't be more stark.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    It does indeed have that vibe, and irrespective of what actually happened - it makes him look bad. If he was indeed talking about inappropriately skipping the line, then this guy is a bad actor. But I should point out that we don't have any idea - the situation could have been very misrepresented - and he could have done nothing wrong. But given the public information ... this Tweet is going to come of 'Snitches Get Stitches' in a 'lacking in self awareness' kind of way, as opposed to the 'I was slandered and misrepresented publicly, and that can be very damaging, I'm glad this issue is behind us" kind of way. Why are adults in the US using Twitter/GIF memes instead of finding thoughtful and mature ways of communicating this stuff? I don't like this evolution.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - nine_k 5y ago
worik 5y ago
Does speak to a sense of entitlement some people have.
TigeriusKirk 5y ago
We're about to see the Streisand Effect in action.
- rvz 5y ago
  If he gives screenshots, we're about to see Y Combinator and HN play a long game of whack-a-mole with those who repost the screenshot. We know who always loses when the Streisand Effect becomes in action.
- smcl 5y ago
  I agree that it’ll get more attention than it otherwise would, but I think that is a desirable outcome for YC. The more people who see the message “if you publicly badmouth us, you will be punished” the better for them.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    The message that I'm getting is mostly "YC is full of assholes like Praful Mathur".
pton-throw 5y ago
When did public denunciations become popular in the US? I know they've been a part of the Chinese internet since the early days. It wasn't always so intense in the US.
- H8crilA 5y ago
  This is getting off-topic, but the US is like the motherland of telling other people how they should behave. Look up any of the "public freakout" videos, they're 80% each side trying to explain why what the other side did was wrong, all the while not realizing that pretty much nobody cares about their opinion and is just there to watch the drama for a few minutes. Every single "Karen" video is full of self-righteousness, that's what makes them so hilarious (until you get bored, which happens rather quickly).
  - pton-throw 5y ago
    That's all true. But US internet culture has changed dramatically in the past few years. And it's not just "eternal September". I miss the early years. There are still vestiges left. Some public intellectuals still respond to unsolicited email from strangers.
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      > Some public intellectuals still respond to unsolicited email from strangers. Fauci is on that list, isn't he? I was kinda surprised to learn that from the email dump. I figured his email would be thoroughly filtered. Of course, whether he actually qualifies as an intellectual seems up for debate these days.
      - rootusrootus 5y ago
        Wow, the political partisans are out in force today. I wish HN could be above the fray, but alas...
    - ska 5y ago
      > I miss the early years. Whatever else was true of the early years, when internet use was a niche thing it wasn't representative of broader US culture sort of by definition. Now it is, or at least much more so.
deleted 5y ago
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rafaelero 5y ago
It's a bit distressing how organizations try so hard to keep a good reputation all the time. I mean, is it really that bad to publically admit that you are composed of people with questionable morals? For example, in the first company I used to work, I was always bitching about how things could improve. I got fired because I was "bringing the moral down" and was "working against the company". I could see why they would think that, but in my mind this kind of loyalty that is required is very immature: very good things arise from conflict, why would you keep that from coming? Or maybe I am being naive and a good reputation is much more important than everything else. I don't know.
- antipaul 5y ago
  Critique is good but depends on whether it is constructive or not constructive. And that’s a bit of a subjective call
  - ezekg 5y ago
    Maybe I have a minority opinion, but critique does not always need to be constructive.
    - chain-- 5y ago
      What would you say the purpose or goal is of unconstructive critique?
      - ezekg 5y ago
        Introspection.
      - vharuck 5y ago
        One example would be a food critic. They give an honest description of a restaurant so readers can decide if they want to go there. The article doesn't need to be helpful for the restaurant. But I can't think of an example where a company keeps unconstructive critics on the payroll.
saltedonion 5y ago
I’m confused. So YC kicked out the guy who complained about it on Twitter and not the people who advocated for lying to skip lines? Wtf?
- cryptoz 5y ago
  I'm also confused. But it seems like the tweet in question is a false story that could be libel/defamation or something? He later issues a 'correction' (why not delete the original wrong tweet?) that says that the story about "advocating for lying to skip lines" is false. [1] I don't have any part of this and I'm confused and don't know what's going on here. But it does not seem like the tweet everyone is focusing on was even true. So the story becomes possibly, that YC kicked someone out for spreading lies about people in their internal community? I don't know. [1] "I was incorrect in saying the 2nd founder lied, and would like to apologize." https://twitter.com/paulbiggar/status/1370144350861135881 https://twitter.com/paulbiggar/status/1370144350861135881
  - ivanbakel 5y ago
    >But it does not seem like the tweet everyone is focusing on was even true. So the story becomes possibly, that YC kicked someone out for spreading lies about people in their internal community? I don't know. It's still partially true - the allegation of lying was wrong, but the allegation of instructing others how to lie is still being made. This is clarified by the tweet that you linked.
    - chris11 5y ago
      I didn't quite read it that way. The accusation is that both told other people how to skip the line. My assumption is that the both founders told other people how they could get the vaccine. A more charitable observation would be that the second founder told people how they could get it without waiting in line or lying. The accusation still sounds gross. Though vaccine rollout wasn't great in the bay area. I got an email from my doctor about appointments being available. The ones in the bay area were taken really quickly. Availability was much better in other counties. There were also a couple other replies. One mentioned you could get vaccinated for volunteering for 4 hours. Another mentioned some sites were doing first come first serve.
deleted 5y ago
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plusbryan 5y ago
This is really distressing, especially considering the ongoing public behavior of the original founder. Kicking out Paul seems like the opposite reaction for YC to have. It would be helpful to hear a public comment from them about this situation.
- nailer 5y ago
  He seems to have not advocated lying though just showing up: https://www.reddit.com/r/oakland/comments/m4bqx9/comment/gqugnna https://www.reddit.com/r/oakland/comments/m4bqx9/comment/gqu...
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    I'm not going to necessarily trust that reddit comment, especially when I know there were plenty instances of people lying about eligibility, and I think it is largely unlikely that most YC founders would have been eligible for this mobile clinic in west Oakland in mid-March.
    - Hamuko 5y ago
      Might be a letter of the law vs. spirit of the law sort of a situation. AFAIK, the FEMA mobile clinics were meant to boost vaccinations in underserved communities. So they go to one of those communities, set up shop and then jam the needle in as many arms as they can find. I don't know but it's completely possible that as long as you are there and you are 18+, you will be eligible for it. However, since it's meant to vaccinate underserved communities, you were probably not supposed to be there if you live somewhere else.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        Eligibility was determined by zipcode in those areas, even for mobile clinics, that's the "letter" of the law.
    - scrollaway 5y ago
      Let's make three things very clear: - Lying to jump the queue, ahead of people who need it more is trashy, selfish, should be not just discouraged but heavily reprimanded. - A lot of the vaccine distribution is awful and disorganized. This often leads to vaccines being thrown away. - SHOTS IN ARMS. A vaccine in someone is better than a vaccine thrown away, even if it's not optimally distributed. "Just showing up" is a thing here in Belgium as well, and I expect many countries. Here in Brussels for example for a while the major vaccination center had time and stock for 1000 shots a day, and so would plan for 1000 shots distributed per day and invite … 1000 people for that day, not one more. Over snail mail or SMS depending on where you lived. And 75% were going unused, and they were wondering why. So yeah, we can spend time talking about how they should know better, overbook, etc but in the mean time vaccines were being thrown away and the distribution was slowing down. So people just showing up speeds that up, and is a net gain. And yet, people complain and are outraged, claim the people showing up are skipping the queue, and I frankly wish they'd shut the fuck up about it. If indeed Paul was denouncing someone who was bragging about jumping the queue or encouraging people to do so by revealing how they're Hacking Society™, that's just absolute trash and it's completely disgusting. If he's complaining about an instance of someone saying "There's unused vaccines in centers, show up at the end of the day and you can get one", then have at it. I'm not in YC / the forum in question, I've no idea, can't form an opinion. But yeah, needinfo.
ipaddr 5y ago
People have been kicked out of other important things for less. I wish they put a warning label on social media... don't post unless you want your words used against you in a future you haven't envisioned. It may be too late but I would advise anyone to delete anything you wrote under your real name now. In 10 years you are going to get buried for what is normal today. They are coming for you. What he did was wrong but in the 80s the info would have passed on to a small group at a pool party.
SamReidHughes 5y ago
What are the rules for YC's private forum? Is it more restrictive than Chatham House rules? Is it permitted to leak internal conversations and denounce other YC members on Twitter?
float4 5y ago
That tweet is three months old. No way YC bans someone over a three month old tweet (unless they only discovered the tweet recently, which I doubt). I'm betting there's more to this story.
- ed405 5y ago
  oh yes. they ban founders all the time. myself included. https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146?s=21 https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146?s=21
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - havocsupreme 5y ago
    Not sure if you're allowed to say, but who was the misogynist/what was the context of her defense?
etc-hosts 5y ago
I hope Paul Graham takes a principled stand and tweets his support for Biggar. https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Apaulg%20%22cancel%20culture%22&f=live https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Apaulg%20%22cancel%20cult...
- version_five 5y ago
  Is Paul B getting kicked out the same thing as "cancel culture"? It seems like he's violated a rule of a voluntary group he was in, and was kicked out of that group. I know its subjective, but I don't think that's "being cancelled" in the sense that it's usually used. Its more like if you lost your diving license for speeding.
  - brown9-2 5y ago
    The only consistent way “cancel culture” is used is criticize people you don’t like
    - api 5y ago
      It's also not new at all: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/dixie-chicks-were-cancelled-criticizing-130039511.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/dixie-chicks-were-cancelled-...
      - Fnoord 5y ago
        Article mentions various music artists such as The Beatles being cancelled in 1966 and Sinéad O’Connor in 1992 (both in conflict with the mighty Catholic Church) and The Dixie Chicks in 2003. More examples here [1]. Pre-internet, it's as old as Rome^H^H^H^HAthens. Paul Graham claims the person who popularized the term in the USA is anything but a rightist. According to their Wikipedia page they see themselves as centrist. It doesn't matter who popularized the term though. The phenomenon pre-internet is older, and you arguing it is good or evil or neutral or whatever is like a discussion on ethics. Or politics. Ie. opinionated, without a clear (scientific) answer to it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture#Origins
choppaface 5y ago
I have worked for YC founders that have shared far more disturbing things from the YC forum to non-members. If the banning is for violating privacy or public mocking (no matter how small of a “public” it might be), the YC moderation here is pretty biased. The internal forum is pretty huge now, I guess they’re Doing Things That Don’t Scale (TM).
ible 5y ago
What an excellent demonstration of what values/norms a group really cares about. Biggar violated the all time favourite in-group rule: Don't talk out of school. Don't talk about fight club. Don't snitch. The other founders violated a norm against pushing yourself ahead and taking advantage of others that doesn't even seem to hold in many groups, especially upper class/wealthy ones.
- dalbasal 5y ago
  Here's an analogy. You can get fired for always being late to work, but not get fired for bad behaviour (even crime) outside of work... say drunk driving. This doesn't mean that being late to work is worse than drunk driving, or that person A is worse than person B. Not everything is a general judgement on worth or character.
  - ible 5y ago
    I don't think that analogy applies. Both parties in this story did things in a 'work' context. If I go on a work forum and describe my bad behaviour, behaviour that is harmful to others, and advocate for others to do it, I'm going to get in trouble, and possibly fired. If I publicly discuss private work information, I'll definitely get fired. If I mention the bad behaviour of someone at work publicly, without naming names, I might get a talking to, but probably won't be fired. How a group reacts to those different things over time defines the norms and culture of the group.
    - ible 5y ago
      Though based on dasickis comment, it seems there may not have been bad behaviour in the first place.
    - paxys 5y ago
      I have yet to see an actual source for this "bad behaviour, behaviour that is harmful to others, and advocate for others to do it" part.
    - dalbasal 5y ago
courtf 5y ago
I waited until I was eligible, which was about a month ago. Anyone could have lied about their eligibility and gotten shots early, and although I wasn't comfortable doing so, I also don't begrudge people who did. Frankly, the vaccine should have been distributed more widely from the beginning. It was disheartening to watch the politics play out where only the "most deserving" people were granted vaccine, which quickly turned into "hospital executives, their families, & high ranking admin" before they got around to the most deserving. I certainly wouldn't have encouraged a group of wealthy or soon-to-be wealthy tech founders to lie for vaccine. "Hacking the system" has always implied a sort of robinhood ethos, at least to me, not just greed purely for its own sake. I guess it's easy to be confused when you were raised inside the bubble and everything is monopoly money.
- blisterpeanuts 5y ago
  Actually at least in Massachusetts there was some rhyme and reason to vaccine priorities: the elderly and immune-compromised, frontline health workers, first responders, food service, teachers. I thought it was pretty much the same in most states. Anyway, the vaccine is pretty much generally available today, comparable to getting a flu shot. In some places, you don't even need an appointment; just walk in.
  - courtf 5y ago
    Yes in Oregon it was ultimately very similar. I was just perhaps a little too close and saw the sausage being made behind the scenes.
anm89 5y ago
Good for YC. I don't understand why someone would assume that publicly causing drama for the company that is supporting them would be tolerated. People think that because some opinion of theirs is justified, all consequences related to any public behavior based of that opinion should be nullified. Well, reality seems to frequently think otherwise.
- devmunchies 5y ago
  > I don't understand why someone would assume that publicly causing drama for the company that is supporting them would be tolerated. his YC company is defunct so his risk tolerance is higher. getting social media points was probably the last bit of value he was able to extract from his YC association.
koolba 5y ago
Snitches get stitches. I’d immediately sack anyone leaking private conversations like this. This isn’t whistle blowing. It’s violating the norms of communication like sharing things said in confidence as gossip.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  Are you advocating illegally assaulting people for merely words?
  - koolba 5y ago
    Not assaulted but they will face repercussions. The expression is a common one for American native English speakers. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snitches_get_stitches https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snitches_get_stitches
    - encryptluks2 5y ago
      It literally means that people that tell, even if they report a rape or something truly disgusting, will get stitches (beat to the point of needing stitches) for telling on someone else.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      This expression comes from the getto's of America and it means anyone who tells the police anything will get hurt badly or their family hurt or killed. Anyone who airs dirty laundry is called a gossip not a snitch.
  - blisterpeanuts 5y ago
    in a way, he's saying snitches deserve to have their wounds properly sewn up.
    - nodoodles 5y ago
      in countries with free healthcare, everyone gets stitches when they need them, not only snitches..
temp8964 5y ago
As a total outsider, I don't know 1) whether he was really kicked out over that tweet 2) whether what he said in that tweet was true
jxf 5y ago
No doubt YC will be furious about this out-of-control cancel culture!
toomanyducks 5y ago
Can we not read so much into a literal tweet? It's what, 240 characters max? We've written more words speculating on what happened than was originally said. It's a tweet. Also would like to point out: I'm not defending anyone - my initial reactions largely agree with the sentiment here, but it's 240 or 180 characters at most. It's not a news story or a comprehensive view. Let's take a moment to step back and acknowledge that before we devolve into the wars we seem to be criticizing so strongly.
user_01 5y ago
it's not skipping the line, it's hacking the line
hardwaregeek 5y ago
I really hate what I've learned about my friends and acquaintances over this pandemic. I hate that I've learned who's willing to ignore public health guidelines, who's okay with cheating to skip the line, who's okay with pressuring family to do the same. It's just so...grubby. Especially since my social bubble is so very privileged. Let's face it. The majority of us are in good health with cushy jobs. We can afford to stay home. We can afford to wear high quality medical masks. We could afford to wait the extra month for a vaccine. Besides, a month or two is nothing compared to how long many countries are going to be waiting. I can somewhat understand why people act this way, especially if they're pushing their loved ones to skip the line. But I can't help but feel it's this view of "I get mine" that is so ugly. And for what? A little more freedom a couple weeks early? What's the point?
- devmunchies 5y ago
  > I've learned who's willing to ignore public health guidelines do you ignore the DMV safety guidelines to check your tires everytime you before you drive? there's thousands of govt health and safety guidelines.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
molbioguy 5y ago
Though it makes YC look very weak and thin-skinned, I bet the same thing would have happened at a lot of companies if an employee tweeted critical comments about the CEO, owner, etc.
- fdschoeneman 5y ago
  Was the tweet directed at the CEO of ycombinator?
sulam 5y ago
I think it's telling that Atherton and Piedmont were above 80% vaccinated well before vaccinations were open to the general public. "Wait your turn" is not how they became members of their respective clubs.
- fdschoeneman 5y ago
  Interesting statistic. Do you have a citation?
  - sulam 5y ago
    Sorry, I was too hard on Piedmont. Here’s the interesting article: https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Bay-Area-vaccination-rates-vary-widely-by-city-16058150.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Bay-Area-vaccinati... Scroll down for the delta between vaccination eligibility and actual rates.
blisterpeanuts 5y ago
I wonder how many jobs have been lost and reputations sullied by posting thoughtless comments on Twitter. 20 years ago, you really needed to make an effort to get a thought out to the world: create a website, write an op-ed in the NY Times, get interviewed on CNN. Now, it takes 5 seconds to ruin your life. There's a lesson in here somewhere.
Igelau 5y ago
TL;DR guy gets asked to leave exclusive party. Kind of dumb to be raising a stink over the issue anyhow. Just get shots in arms. After front-line medical workers it doesn't matter whose. Prioritizing the elderly was baloney. Hell, smokers were a priority group. How much more obvious does an intentional backdoor have to be? This guy probably shames people who bluff in Poker.
- fdschoeneman 5y ago
  I don't know if your analysis about either front line workers needing to be first in line or the impracticality of triaging anyone after that is correct, but your analysis seems just as valid as any coming from California's political class. So yeah, dude probably does shame people for bluffing at poker. Probably drinks appletinis too.
paxys 5y ago
Don't leak internal forum discussions on Twitter. If you want to criticize someone, use their name rather than "YC founder" multiple times. If your Tweet contains misleading info, delete it rather than post a different threaded Tweet (which no one will see) with a clarification. If the rest of your YC class now has doubts about whether what they discuss is really confidential, it's pretty clear that you have to go.
deleted 5y ago
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hooande 5y ago
Seems like he lost his access to the internal forum and wasn't "kicked out" of ycombinator. The actual ycombinator program lasts for months and involves funding. Access to a website is different and involves following terms of service, whatever they might be. Bit of a sensationalist post title
- KyleBerezin 5y ago
  The exact text of the linked tweet is "lol just got kicked out of @ycombinator"
deleted 5y ago
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pratik661 5y ago
I didn’t skip the line, but I don’t fault anyone who did (in the US) after the vaccination criteria was expanded beyond the elderly and a the immunocompromised. The vaccine hesitancy rates in some communities were absurdly high. The justifications given for not vaccinating were equally ridiculous and uninformed. In that environment it’s completely morally justified to jump ahead.
MangoCoffee 5y ago
lol. i don't get why people think y combinator is some high moral/honest company. they are just like any VC.
0xbadcafebee 5y ago
If there is ever a place that I will listen to unsubstantiated rumors without evidence from, it won't be Twitter.
dasickis 5y ago
I'm the person this original tweet was about. None of you know any of the internal details but what I can state is that Paul has no idea what he's talking about and later admits to the fact I wasn't lying. Here's the order of events: 1. I went to a neighborhood clinic in Oakland, CA that's literally next door to my house, I can see the church from my window. Paul lives in NYC which is on the opposite end of the country. 2. I asked them about eligibility and told them I don't clear CA guidelines. They told me it's first come, first served with an ID showing I am 18+. 3. I showed up the next day, waited in line for 4 hours then got jabbed. 4. Posted it in an internal forum for other founders. 5. A few people had issues so raised them which I addressed but YC still took down the post within the day. 6. I appealed but YC still held their decision as final. Outcome: YC founder came with his aunt, uncle, and mom all over 65 to get jabbed who didn't know about the vaccine site. --- Paul ends up tweeting about it and making a huge deal around something he has no idea about. He gets a bunch of people on Twitter upset about something they don't know about. Outcome: Internet rage.
- throwkeep 5y ago
  > Paul ends up tweeting about it and making a huge deal around something he has no idea about. He gets a bunch of people on Twitter upset about something they don't know about. I gave him the benefit of doubt, but should have been more skeptical upon seeing pronouns in bio. It's a curiously predictive heuristic. For whatever reason, pronoun people tend to be particularly good at generating internet drama.
  - dcra 5y ago
    Yeah, or we want to be treated like humans. Find a better heuristic.
    - throwkeep 5y ago
      That exaggerated oppression claim only reinforces the heuristic. In reality, approximately 99% of the time people use the correct pronouns based on name and appearance. The remaining rare cases consist of honest mistakes (that can be politely corrected) or bullies (who the rest of us already denounce).
deleted 5y ago
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DevKoala 5y ago
“Oh no no, not the Y Combinator Founderinos.” These things happen when you don’t practice what you preach, inconsistencies create drama.
duxup 5y ago
This is one of those cases where it seems like everyone made bad choices.
argonaut 5y ago
I view most of the outrage over skipping the vaccine line as misplaced. The (American) system was very clearly made easy to game in the first place. The government criteria was unnecessarily complicated and had many vague carveouts that were easily gamed. For example, smokers were eligible early on as having a pre-existing condition - this is trivial to game without technically lying! Indeed, many people early on advocated doing the criteria strictly by age (after healthcare workers), but the government decided to create carveouts largely for social equity reasons (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-11/COVID-04-Dooling.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-...). It got to the point where, in February/March, the only people I knew were vaccinated were a bunch of young people who got vaccinated because they were in med school (or other medical affiliated school), even though they were studying remotely. And in many cases you didn't even need to "lie" to skip the line because nobody even checked for proof you were eligible.
- ixacto 5y ago
  Just donate to the hospital or be on the board to get your COVID shot back in January. $$$ talks.
truetraveller 5y ago
On a similar note: This does not give me confidence in startups and "accelerators". Some (many?) startups will do questionable things for growth. They will upvote one another. They will give fake five-star reviews for one another. And they will call it growth hacking. I remember Reddit's "fake user" growth hacking. The depressing thing is: Founders who want to play by ethical rules, will ask. "May be I too should engage in this behaviour, just to level the playing field".
lupire 5y ago
Title is not substantiate by any content.
throw7 5y ago
“This is how we know we’re a real family here.”
zanethomas 5y ago
et tu ycombinator?
- dang 5y ago
  Not a comment on this story, but FWIW there has always been a (small) number of founders removed by YC for different reasons. It's not related to recent cultural trends.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
frakkingcylons 5y ago
As a NYC resident, I'm surprised to hear that it's not easy for healthy people to get a COVID vaccine in the Bay Area. I thought that the entire US was at the stage where they've got more than enough vaccines, at least that's the impression I got from the news. EDIT: Nevermind, I guess this was all something that happened back in March. Interesting that this controversy arose now.
nomdep 5y ago
So Paul Graham is now the new DHH for the next couple of weeks
slownews45 5y ago
I'm in Oakland, I drove someone to a clinic. It was a day of pouring rain. We got there end of day. I didn't meet whatever high priority groups were getting vaccinated (though I do have a breathing related health condition). They had extra shots, they said come get a shot, their form didn't have a spot for leftover shots being used, so the women said I'll put you down as X (which I wasn't). This whole thing of trying to criminalize and be outraged at folks in this space seems way out of whack. So good on ycombinator! Same thing with masks, no one allowed to wear N95's but health care folks. I had masks from the fires and my breathing issue. I wore the same mask for a few weeks against the rules. Got flak from folks saying a) masks don't work and b) I should have saved it for health care folks. Not only is that contradictory it's dumb.
- tyre 5y ago
  Your case is a bit different. If you hadn’t taken the shots, they would have been wasted because half-filled vials are disposed of at the end of the day. So in your case it was either vaccinate someone or vaccinate no one. It’s not the same as the accusation of someone skipping the line.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    Can you explain exactly what the "skipping the line" accusation is then? I don't see any evidence that is not what happened in this case.
mrandish 5y ago
I can understand the apparent moral disparity but from a "rule-administering" POV it may just be case of * Action A occurs which is widely agreed to be misguided and reprehensible by YC and other forum members. However, Action A was not explicitly against any existing rule at the time, it was just super-dickish. Action A was probably immediately widely (if not universally) condemned by community members and YC. YC tells the person, don't do that ever again because now it's against the rules. Maybe they spanked that person in other ways, I don't know. I'm confident the idiot was the recipient of overwhelmingly negative social consequences from members of the private community. * Another person is very angry about Action A and commits Action B by taking private forum events onto public social media. Action B is clearly, explicitly against an existing, very simple rule. Perhaps others have already been banned for violating this rule. Despite our intuitions to the contrary, the stupidity and gross awfulness of Action A doesn't somehow offset the fact Action B is against an existing rule and Action A wasn't at the time it was committed. It's not wrong that YC enforced the clear rule against Action B. YC may even have had very mixed feelings about it. To me, in the absence of further factual context, it seems uncharitable to reflexively pillory YC - even though I admit I feel tempted to do exactly that.
- deleted 5y ago
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- deleted 5y ago
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dang 5y ago
The submitted title was "Y Combinator kicks out Paul Biggar over a tweet". That is inaccurate, so in keeping with the HN guidelines ("Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), I've replaced the title with the tweet text. That's the standard thing we do with titles, when people post Twitter links. Much as I'd love to, it's not my place to say why the original title was inaccurate, so I'll just remind you all that there are two or more sides to every story and not everything on Twitter is true. In keeping with the rule that we moderate HN less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is involved (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20%22not%20more%22%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...), I'm not doing anything else to the submission. Normally, of course, we'd downweight this sort of petty drama.
- FemmeAndroid 5y ago
  Honest question, since I’ve seen the situation come up before: Would you be willing to modify the title of any post to be ‘accurate’ based on non-public information, without making that information public? If so, how does one make that request, and what would the process look like? There have been a few titles I knew to be extremely misleading or false, but never thought there was a way to rectify it without publicly providing information I wasn’t able to share openly.
  - dang 5y ago
    It would depend on the specific circumstances, but I can imagine doing that, or perhaps there would be something else we could do that was better; it's hard to say in general, because cases like that are always very specific. We'd want to explain as much to the community as we could without harmful side-effects, but if someone's safety or privacy is at risk, I'm comfortable telling the community so, and I'm confident that the bulk of this community would respect that. In such situations the thing to do is email hn@ycombinator.com.
    - 5y ago
arduinomancer 5y ago
Looks like this prompted another founder to post that they were kicked out 2 weeks ago for a different incident: https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146 https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146
- smashah 5y ago
  Very concerning thread. Maybe worse are the replies defending YC e.g https://twitter.com/figputt/status/1401050235141558274?s=19 https://twitter.com/figputt/status/1401050235141558274?s=19 Hopefully YC doesn't pull a coinbase/Basecamp after this. Just because you have an private internal forum doesn't mean people should need to treat it like fight club, or be concerned about their place in the club for calling out bad behaviour.
- lenova 5y ago
  That accusation is far more serious...
- FemmeAndroid 5y ago
  To me this is a far more serious and concerning issue. As a woman, I’m always skeptical of institutions like YC, and I take these kinds of comments very seriously. It’s really sad for me, to be honest. I used to really aspire to VC. But I’ve accepted I can only bootstrap at this point because of the treatment I’ve heard of others experiencing. I don’t think I could handle it emotionally.
jamesbfb 5y ago
Not sure what the deal is in the US, but in Melbourne, Australia (a week prior to our current lockdown) I managed to get my Pfizer jab as a walk in, even though I do not meet the eligibility criteria. At that point, some vaccination centres were allowing all walk ins due to the lack of (eligible) people wanting the vaccine here. Obviously lockdown 4.0 has changed that, and now everyone wants a jab.v
basicplus2 5y ago
Sounds like it is in Australia, there are some sites that are vaccinating only those based on an eligbility criteria, and there are mass vaccination sites for anyone who wants the vaccination. Some people are getting upset about people skipping the elegibility criteria. Its a story about poor Governement communication to the masses.
ed405 5y ago
I got kicked out of YC too. https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146?s=21 https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146?s=21
- CRConrad 5y ago
  "This account owner limits who can view their Tweets."
fdschoeneman 5y ago
None of the rules around vaccination make sense to me -- nor do I have faith in the politicians who came up with them -- so I find it difficult to judge the person accused of skipping the line. But I do find it easy to judge the person who shamed him. And that judgment is that he's annoying and should mind his own business.
jfoster 5y ago
All of the energy going into this should instead be directed toward "how do we vaccinate most efficiently in future?" I think it makes a lot of sense to vary eligibility criteria by vaccination site, and allow for anyone to be vaccinated at some of the sites. That way, anyone who meets special criteria can go to a site where the wait will be shorter, and anyone who doesn't meet any particular criteria still have a place where they can go to get it provided they are willing to endure the potentially long wait. As the rollout progresses, if some of the "special criteria" sites are not too busy, they can change to become "anyone" sites. Overall, the problem of "too many people want the vaccine ASAP" is a great problem to have.
lamontcg 5y ago
Sounds like he violated a confidentiality agreement. If you read something on a private discussion forum and then blast it out publicly on twitter, don't be shocked when you get kicked out of that forum. It sorta doesn't matter how righteous your cause was, it is just going to be automatic. I know people that have been fired from the company they work for over a similar kind of offense. If you've signed a confidentiality agreement then you do not have the right of freedom to tweet without repercussions.
sjg007 5y ago
I don't get it.. the vaccine is available to everyone 12 and up now. You can make an appointment or find a walk in clinic. https://myturn.ca.gov https://myturn.ca.gov The governor opened up vaccines for everyone on April 15. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/04/15/all-californians-16-now-eligible-for-covid-19-vaccines/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/04/15/all-californians-16-now-el...
- etxm 5y ago
  Original tweet is from March
AzzieElbab 5y ago
well, lol
oblib 5y ago
Hmmm.... personally I never saw any ambiguity in who qualified when and where for that vaccine so it's pretty hard for me to buy into anyone using that for an excuse to jump in a line they didn't belong in. This is a moral character issue. I try to avoid those who don't have it and doing that is more than proof enough for me they don't.
eplanit 5y ago
Steve Jobs used his means to game the system to make a liver transplant available for himself; his wait time for an organ was much shorter than less wealthy and connected people. I recall no moral outrage over that[1]. A CEO who's smart enough to get their vaccine early should be acknowledged for their cleverness -- wouldn't you want that kind of smarts running a company?? I guess he would have been safer by refusing the vaccine -- oh, wait -- there's a different scarlet letter for that, right? [1] http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/24/liver.transplant.priority.lists/ http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/24/liver.transplant.priori...
towergratis 5y ago
His defense was: > 1. I went to a neighborhood clinic in Oakland, CA that's literally next door to my house, I can see the church from my window. Paul lives in NYC which is on the opposite end of the country. > 2. I asked them about eligibility and told them I don't clear CA guidelines. They told me it's first come, first served with an ID showing I am 18+. I am not buying this. Why would they even go and ask for eligibility when they know very well they are not eligible? The only reason would be to hope to find a loophole. The whole vaccine situation in CA was an excellent test of character. They failed it. Not surprised that a YC founder thinks that rules apply only to others and not themselves. The antisocial gene is strong in this one.
Wanker_News 5y ago
My heartfelt message to Paul Graham: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * / \ \ / \ * *| | \ | | * *| `. | | : * *` | | \| | * * \ | / / \\\ ____ \\ : * * \ \/ ___~~ ~____| \ | * * \ \__~ ~__\ | * * \_ \ _.______ .______\| | * * \ \______// _ ___ _ (_(__> \ | * * \ . C ___) ______ (_(____> | / * * /\ | C ____)/ \ (_____> |_/ * * / /\| C_____) | (___> / \ * * | ( _C_____)\______/ // _/ / \ * * | \ |__ \\_________// (__/ | * * | \ \____) `____ ___' | * * | \_ ___\ /_ _/ | * * | / | | \ | * * | | / \ \ | * * | / / | | \ |* * | / / \__/\___/ | |* * | / | | | |* * | | | | | |* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
pmiller2 5y ago
Guess what? It can happen to you, too, if you dare criticize a celebrity CEO. I got flagged & chastised for “breaking the guidelines” over a comment that stated facts about a certain CEO whose initials are TK. Remember when y’all kept saying there’s no free speech on Facebook or Twitter? Well, it’s worse here, because if you don’t toe that line and bend the knee, you might get your user privileges limited. Edit: here it is. +3 points and flagged. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26914977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26914977 Edit 2: and here's the dressing down I got: > Regardless of how wrong or badly-behaved other people (be they HN users, celebrity CEOs, or imperialist bullies) are or you feel they are, you owe this community better if you're participating in it. Other people doing bad things is a poor non-excuse for setting this place on fire. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26938019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26938019 See? Don't criticize "celebrity CEOs," folks. You're breaking the code, and the insiders will circle the wagons if you do. BTW, "Boober" is a direct quote said directly to a GQ reporter: https://www.gq.com/story/uber-cab-confessions https://www.gq.com/story/uber-cab-confessions
- shkkmo 5y ago
  It wasn't what you said, but how you said it: > I would like you to email me your contact information so that I never end up working anywhere near you. My email is in my profile. I agreeing with the point you are making in that comment. However, I would happily flag any comment that makes disagreements unnecessarily personal in such a manner. It is the type of non-productive discourse that drags the whole conversation down.
  - pmiller2 5y ago
    Sorry, but that doesn't explain why admin specifically decided to call out the fact that I called out a "celebrity CEO." And, this disagreement is necessarily personal. Although I'm glad you agree with me, I'm not trying to convince anybody, nor do I care what amount of discussion my own, personal disagreement generates.
throwout111 5y ago
I also got thrown out of yc. It was after demo day. My co-founders blamed me for our initial anemic raise and threw me out. Because this was in-between demo day and official yc graduation, I'm no longer part of the yc network. I've done pretty well since then, but still it sucks to be divorced from an organization I once respected, and then loved.
lobo_tuerto 5y ago
Aaaaaaaaaand it's gone! (from the front page)
cable2600 5y ago
It could be worse: https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2012/04/startup_weekend_entrepreneuria.html https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2012/04/startup_weekend_...

1041 points by bqe 5y ago

Personalities and personas and misdeeds of participants (real or imagined) and feuds and every other human-interest story have always been a part of the technology world. But those things do seem to be growing rapidly as a fraction of overall mind share.

thinkingemote 5y ago

"First do no harm" is what the doctor would say.

tyingq 5y ago

Another person tweeting on being kicked out for criticizing a founder, though for a different topic. https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146 https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146

nt2h9uh238h 5y ago

So you got accepted. Then tell everybody in YC that they're shitty. Then you get kicked and wonder why.

whoknew1122 5y ago
Wait, who's shitty? A.) The person posting about how to lie to jump the vaccine queue B.) The second person posting about how to lie to jump the vaccine queue C.) The moderators of the forum who allow posts to exist that describe how to like to jump the vaccine queue D.) The person bringing this behavior to light Pretty sure it's not D...

captainredbeard 5y ago

The “cover your ass” culture in the US is getting out of hand. Since when did we expect church lady behavior from everyone? I object.

agentofoblivion 5y ago

Good. LOL.

Giorgi 5y ago

ycombinator is useless - always has been, avoid it at all costs.

redis_mlc 5y ago

For those in SF, I'm not aware of a queue or even appointments needed as of this week. Just go to a CVS store, etc.

arkitaip 5y ago

They are so thin-skinned and cancellation happy when it comes to their own reputation.

jollybean 5y ago

They should have asked him to take it down, or re-phrase it to be more polite about it. Booting someone over that seems kafkaesque, like there's a lot to hide. Especially if he was being factual, there's an element of legit whistle-blowing there, it's a bad look, YC.

pokstad 5y ago

I’m also surprised how many people bragged about jumping ahead in line when elderly people with much higher mortality rates were still waiting for theirs. At least keep it to yourself.

MarkSweep 5y ago
I was also surprised at some people I know going to great lengths to get the vaccine earlier. Maybe they have some risk factor I don’t know about, but as young stay at home workers, the risk of the virus is not high. I just waited till it was generally available and the local website had appointments available. Added bonus is by waiting the vaccine trials run that much longer so you have more data that it is safe. I’m the type of guy how likes to go to mediocre restaurants to avoid waiting in line for good ones, so maybe I’m just weird.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
CamperBob2 5y ago
Agreed. When eligibility opened up, we drove 100 miles just to avoid potentially taking doses from people at risk in the metro area. Seemed like a good excuse to get out of the house for a road trip, as well as being the right thing to do. We were able to schedule immediate appointments in an adjacent county populated by hardcore Trumpers. Upon arriving at the drive-through vaccination site, there was only one other car in the lot. No danger of cutting the line in that county.
- istorical 5y ago
  We don't have full information about this story though. It may well be the case that the YC founder called out for lying about his qualifications for the vaccine was at a vaccination location where there were zero lines and poor community uptake of the vaccine. Idle doses sitting around doing nothing. At this point, the US has so many extra doses that it is shipping millions overseas. Depending on the location and timing of the founder who lied, he may be ethically doing a moral good by reducing his own potential to transmit the virus amidst a population of people who refuse to get inoculated anyway. My point is only, it's sometimes dangerous to throw stones without asking questions or getting the full picture first. Taking doses when you aren't qualified for them is overall a bad thing I think we can all agree.

kumarski 5y ago

Bookface posts are confidential by design.

H8crilA 5y ago
By "design" of human nature the only really confidential communication is 1:1 verbal. And even that can be easily recorded. Kinda funny to see people not understand this simple fact over and over again.

version_five 5y ago

The behavior he's calling out is obviously abhorrent. But isn't this more due to him airing dirty laundry in public? If this is his last recourse after consulting internally to try and deal with this, then I get it. But there is definitely a trend (maybe not by him) of people running to social media with their complaints before discussing them with those involved. If that is the case i would understand his being sanctioned.

harzhar 5y ago
Whatever - every fucking person in SF that wanted a vaccine went and got one already. You didn't need to cheat either. They're already taking down the mass vaccination sites. This is all more liberal drama. I wish someone would drop a nuke on SF.
jollybean 5y ago
From the information available publicly, it's obvious the issue was him airing his grievance publicly. But being banned from YC is a fairly extreme measure - especially for an activity that has a hint of moral impetus. Both 'skipping vaccine lines' and 'immediately naming and shaming private conversations to the entire world' are kind of selfish and toxic signals. If I were the King of YC I would have had condescending words with both of them and told them to grow up and then that would be the end of it. Note however, we don't really know what happened behind the scenes.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  > 'immediately naming and shaming private conversations to the entire world' I don't know if it was immediate, but I'm pretty sure there was no naming.
Barrin92 5y ago
Given that the people in question lack apparently any sort of civic virtue or else they wouldn't be engaging in this behaviour in the first place, where else do you propose one exposes dirty laundry other than in the public? This is exactly why people in positions of power are afraid of transparency and why there is such a anti-media bias in the tech industry.

nostromo 5y ago

Kicked out today for a tweet from March? Why such a long delay?

lupire 5y ago
Because it's not true?
seppin 5y ago
Because it was most likely a number of things that led to it, not just a "tweet"

minimaxir 5y ago

The person who the original tweet was referring to (it's not private; they admitted it), just tweeted a GIF about "witnessing karma". https://twitter.com/Prafulfillment/status/1400934024680415235 https://twitter.com/Prafulfillment/status/140093402468041523... EDIT: Reply on HN by the author: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27400221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27400221

tshaddox 5y ago
Nice to see that everyone involved are definitely fully grown adults.
angry_octet 5y ago
It has a real "snitches get stiches" vibe to it. You have no expectation of privacy if you announce (let alone advocate for, or instruct how-to) behaviour against public health policy _during_a_pandemic_. The contrast with people who have been working hard to match people with appointments couldn't be more stark.
- jollybean 5y ago
  It does indeed have that vibe, and irrespective of what actually happened - it makes him look bad. If he was indeed talking about inappropriately skipping the line, then this guy is a bad actor. But I should point out that we don't have any idea - the situation could have been very misrepresented - and he could have done nothing wrong. But given the public information ... this Tweet is going to come of 'Snitches Get Stitches' in a 'lacking in self awareness' kind of way, as opposed to the 'I was slandered and misrepresented publicly, and that can be very damaging, I'm glad this issue is behind us" kind of way. Why are adults in the US using Twitter/GIF memes instead of finding thoughtful and mature ways of communicating this stuff? I don't like this evolution.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - nine_k 5y ago

worik 5y ago

Does speak to a sense of entitlement some people have.

TigeriusKirk 5y ago

We're about to see the Streisand Effect in action.

rvz 5y ago
If he gives screenshots, we're about to see Y Combinator and HN play a long game of whack-a-mole with those who repost the screenshot. We know who always loses when the Streisand Effect becomes in action.
smcl 5y ago
I agree that it’ll get more attention than it otherwise would, but I think that is a desirable outcome for YC. The more people who see the message “if you publicly badmouth us, you will be punished” the better for them.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  The message that I'm getting is mostly "YC is full of assholes like Praful Mathur".

pton-throw 5y ago

When did public denunciations become popular in the US? I know they've been a part of the Chinese internet since the early days. It wasn't always so intense in the US.

H8crilA 5y ago
This is getting off-topic, but the US is like the motherland of telling other people how they should behave. Look up any of the "public freakout" videos, they're 80% each side trying to explain why what the other side did was wrong, all the while not realizing that pretty much nobody cares about their opinion and is just there to watch the drama for a few minutes. Every single "Karen" video is full of self-righteousness, that's what makes them so hilarious (until you get bored, which happens rather quickly).
- pton-throw 5y ago
  That's all true. But US internet culture has changed dramatically in the past few years. And it's not just "eternal September". I miss the early years. There are still vestiges left. Some public intellectuals still respond to unsolicited email from strangers.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    > Some public intellectuals still respond to unsolicited email from strangers. Fauci is on that list, isn't he? I was kinda surprised to learn that from the email dump. I figured his email would be thoroughly filtered. Of course, whether he actually qualifies as an intellectual seems up for debate these days.
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      Wow, the political partisans are out in force today. I wish HN could be above the fray, but alas...
  - ska 5y ago
    > I miss the early years. Whatever else was true of the early years, when internet use was a niche thing it wasn't representative of broader US culture sort of by definition. Now it is, or at least much more so.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

rafaelero 5y ago

It's a bit distressing how organizations try so hard to keep a good reputation all the time. I mean, is it really that bad to publically admit that you are composed of people with questionable morals? For example, in the first company I used to work, I was always bitching about how things could improve. I got fired because I was "bringing the moral down" and was "working against the company". I could see why they would think that, but in my mind this kind of loyalty that is required is very immature: very good things arise from conflict, why would you keep that from coming? Or maybe I am being naive and a good reputation is much more important than everything else. I don't know.

antipaul 5y ago
Critique is good but depends on whether it is constructive or not constructive. And that’s a bit of a subjective call
- ezekg 5y ago
  Maybe I have a minority opinion, but critique does not always need to be constructive.
  - chain-- 5y ago
    What would you say the purpose or goal is of unconstructive critique?
    - ezekg 5y ago
      Introspection.
    - vharuck 5y ago
      One example would be a food critic. They give an honest description of a restaurant so readers can decide if they want to go there. The article doesn't need to be helpful for the restaurant. But I can't think of an example where a company keeps unconstructive critics on the payroll.

saltedonion 5y ago

I’m confused. So YC kicked out the guy who complained about it on Twitter and not the people who advocated for lying to skip lines? Wtf?

cryptoz 5y ago
I'm also confused. But it seems like the tweet in question is a false story that could be libel/defamation or something? He later issues a 'correction' (why not delete the original wrong tweet?) that says that the story about "advocating for lying to skip lines" is false. [1] I don't have any part of this and I'm confused and don't know what's going on here. But it does not seem like the tweet everyone is focusing on was even true. So the story becomes possibly, that YC kicked someone out for spreading lies about people in their internal community? I don't know. [1] "I was incorrect in saying the 2nd founder lied, and would like to apologize." https://twitter.com/paulbiggar/status/1370144350861135881 https://twitter.com/paulbiggar/status/1370144350861135881
- ivanbakel 5y ago
  >But it does not seem like the tweet everyone is focusing on was even true. So the story becomes possibly, that YC kicked someone out for spreading lies about people in their internal community? I don't know. It's still partially true - the allegation of lying was wrong, but the allegation of instructing others how to lie is still being made. This is clarified by the tweet that you linked.
  - chris11 5y ago
    I didn't quite read it that way. The accusation is that both told other people how to skip the line. My assumption is that the both founders told other people how they could get the vaccine. A more charitable observation would be that the second founder told people how they could get it without waiting in line or lying. The accusation still sounds gross. Though vaccine rollout wasn't great in the bay area. I got an email from my doctor about appointments being available. The ones in the bay area were taken really quickly. Availability was much better in other counties. There were also a couple other replies. One mentioned you could get vaccinated for volunteering for 4 hours. Another mentioned some sites were doing first come first serve.

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plusbryan 5y ago

This is really distressing, especially considering the ongoing public behavior of the original founder. Kicking out Paul seems like the opposite reaction for YC to have. It would be helpful to hear a public comment from them about this situation.

nailer 5y ago
He seems to have not advocated lying though just showing up: https://www.reddit.com/r/oakland/comments/m4bqx9/comment/gqugnna https://www.reddit.com/r/oakland/comments/m4bqx9/comment/gqu...
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I'm not going to necessarily trust that reddit comment, especially when I know there were plenty instances of people lying about eligibility, and I think it is largely unlikely that most YC founders would have been eligible for this mobile clinic in west Oakland in mid-March.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    Might be a letter of the law vs. spirit of the law sort of a situation. AFAIK, the FEMA mobile clinics were meant to boost vaccinations in underserved communities. So they go to one of those communities, set up shop and then jam the needle in as many arms as they can find. I don't know but it's completely possible that as long as you are there and you are 18+, you will be eligible for it. However, since it's meant to vaccinate underserved communities, you were probably not supposed to be there if you live somewhere else.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      Eligibility was determined by zipcode in those areas, even for mobile clinics, that's the "letter" of the law.
  - scrollaway 5y ago
    Let's make three things very clear: - Lying to jump the queue, ahead of people who need it more is trashy, selfish, should be not just discouraged but heavily reprimanded. - A lot of the vaccine distribution is awful and disorganized. This often leads to vaccines being thrown away. - SHOTS IN ARMS. A vaccine in someone is better than a vaccine thrown away, even if it's not optimally distributed. "Just showing up" is a thing here in Belgium as well, and I expect many countries. Here in Brussels for example for a while the major vaccination center had time and stock for 1000 shots a day, and so would plan for 1000 shots distributed per day and invite … 1000 people for that day, not one more. Over snail mail or SMS depending on where you lived. And 75% were going unused, and they were wondering why. So yeah, we can spend time talking about how they should know better, overbook, etc but in the mean time vaccines were being thrown away and the distribution was slowing down. So people just showing up speeds that up, and is a net gain. And yet, people complain and are outraged, claim the people showing up are skipping the queue, and I frankly wish they'd shut the fuck up about it. If indeed Paul was denouncing someone who was bragging about jumping the queue or encouraging people to do so by revealing how they're Hacking Society™, that's just absolute trash and it's completely disgusting. If he's complaining about an instance of someone saying "There's unused vaccines in centers, show up at the end of the day and you can get one", then have at it. I'm not in YC / the forum in question, I've no idea, can't form an opinion. But yeah, needinfo.

ipaddr 5y ago

People have been kicked out of other important things for less. I wish they put a warning label on social media... don't post unless you want your words used against you in a future you haven't envisioned. It may be too late but I would advise anyone to delete anything you wrote under your real name now. In 10 years you are going to get buried for what is normal today. They are coming for you. What he did was wrong but in the 80s the info would have passed on to a small group at a pool party.

SamReidHughes 5y ago

What are the rules for YC's private forum? Is it more restrictive than Chatham House rules? Is it permitted to leak internal conversations and denounce other YC members on Twitter?

float4 5y ago

That tweet is three months old. No way YC bans someone over a three month old tweet (unless they only discovered the tweet recently, which I doubt). I'm betting there's more to this story.

ed405 5y ago
oh yes. they ban founders all the time. myself included. https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146?s=21 https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146?s=21
- deleted 5y ago
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- havocsupreme 5y ago
  Not sure if you're allowed to say, but who was the misogynist/what was the context of her defense?

etc-hosts 5y ago

I hope Paul Graham takes a principled stand and tweets his support for Biggar. https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Apaulg%20%22cancel%20culture%22&f=live https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Apaulg%20%22cancel%20cult...

version_five 5y ago
Is Paul B getting kicked out the same thing as "cancel culture"? It seems like he's violated a rule of a voluntary group he was in, and was kicked out of that group. I know its subjective, but I don't think that's "being cancelled" in the sense that it's usually used. Its more like if you lost your diving license for speeding.
- brown9-2 5y ago
  The only consistent way “cancel culture” is used is criticize people you don’t like
  - api 5y ago
    It's also not new at all: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/dixie-chicks-were-cancelled-criticizing-130039511.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/dixie-chicks-were-cancelled-...
    - Fnoord 5y ago
      Article mentions various music artists such as The Beatles being cancelled in 1966 and Sinéad O’Connor in 1992 (both in conflict with the mighty Catholic Church) and The Dixie Chicks in 2003. More examples here [1]. Pre-internet, it's as old as Rome^H^H^H^HAthens. Paul Graham claims the person who popularized the term in the USA is anything but a rightist. According to their Wikipedia page they see themselves as centrist. It doesn't matter who popularized the term though. The phenomenon pre-internet is older, and you arguing it is good or evil or neutral or whatever is like a discussion on ethics. Or politics. Ie. opinionated, without a clear (scientific) answer to it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture#Origins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancel_culture#Origins

choppaface 5y ago

I have worked for YC founders that have shared far more disturbing things from the YC forum to non-members. If the banning is for violating privacy or public mocking (no matter how small of a “public” it might be), the YC moderation here is pretty biased. The internal forum is pretty huge now, I guess they’re Doing Things That Don’t Scale (TM).

ible 5y ago

What an excellent demonstration of what values/norms a group really cares about. Biggar violated the all time favourite in-group rule: Don't talk out of school. Don't talk about fight club. Don't snitch. The other founders violated a norm against pushing yourself ahead and taking advantage of others that doesn't even seem to hold in many groups, especially upper class/wealthy ones.

dalbasal 5y ago
Here's an analogy. You can get fired for always being late to work, but not get fired for bad behaviour (even crime) outside of work... say drunk driving. This doesn't mean that being late to work is worse than drunk driving, or that person A is worse than person B. Not everything is a general judgement on worth or character.
- ible 5y ago
  I don't think that analogy applies. Both parties in this story did things in a 'work' context. If I go on a work forum and describe my bad behaviour, behaviour that is harmful to others, and advocate for others to do it, I'm going to get in trouble, and possibly fired. If I publicly discuss private work information, I'll definitely get fired. If I mention the bad behaviour of someone at work publicly, without naming names, I might get a talking to, but probably won't be fired. How a group reacts to those different things over time defines the norms and culture of the group.
  - ible 5y ago
    Though based on dasickis comment, it seems there may not have been bad behaviour in the first place.
  - paxys 5y ago
    I have yet to see an actual source for this "bad behaviour, behaviour that is harmful to others, and advocate for others to do it" part.
  - dalbasal 5y ago

courtf 5y ago

I waited until I was eligible, which was about a month ago. Anyone could have lied about their eligibility and gotten shots early, and although I wasn't comfortable doing so, I also don't begrudge people who did. Frankly, the vaccine should have been distributed more widely from the beginning. It was disheartening to watch the politics play out where only the "most deserving" people were granted vaccine, which quickly turned into "hospital executives, their families, & high ranking admin" before they got around to the most deserving. I certainly wouldn't have encouraged a group of wealthy or soon-to-be wealthy tech founders to lie for vaccine. "Hacking the system" has always implied a sort of robinhood ethos, at least to me, not just greed purely for its own sake. I guess it's easy to be confused when you were raised inside the bubble and everything is monopoly money.

blisterpeanuts 5y ago
Actually at least in Massachusetts there was some rhyme and reason to vaccine priorities: the elderly and immune-compromised, frontline health workers, first responders, food service, teachers. I thought it was pretty much the same in most states. Anyway, the vaccine is pretty much generally available today, comparable to getting a flu shot. In some places, you don't even need an appointment; just walk in.
- courtf 5y ago
  Yes in Oregon it was ultimately very similar. I was just perhaps a little too close and saw the sausage being made behind the scenes.

anm89 5y ago

Good for YC. I don't understand why someone would assume that publicly causing drama for the company that is supporting them would be tolerated. People think that because some opinion of theirs is justified, all consequences related to any public behavior based of that opinion should be nullified. Well, reality seems to frequently think otherwise.

devmunchies 5y ago
> I don't understand why someone would assume that publicly causing drama for the company that is supporting them would be tolerated. his YC company is defunct so his risk tolerance is higher. getting social media points was probably the last bit of value he was able to extract from his YC association.

koolba 5y ago

Snitches get stitches. I’d immediately sack anyone leaking private conversations like this. This isn’t whistle blowing. It’s violating the norms of communication like sharing things said in confidence as gossip.

encryptluks2 5y ago
Are you advocating illegally assaulting people for merely words?
- koolba 5y ago
  Not assaulted but they will face repercussions. The expression is a common one for American native English speakers. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snitches_get_stitches https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snitches_get_stitches
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    It literally means that people that tell, even if they report a rape or something truly disgusting, will get stitches (beat to the point of needing stitches) for telling on someone else.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    This expression comes from the getto's of America and it means anyone who tells the police anything will get hurt badly or their family hurt or killed. Anyone who airs dirty laundry is called a gossip not a snitch.
- blisterpeanuts 5y ago
  in a way, he's saying snitches deserve to have their wounds properly sewn up.
  - nodoodles 5y ago
    in countries with free healthcare, everyone gets stitches when they need them, not only snitches..

temp8964 5y ago

As a total outsider, I don't know 1) whether he was really kicked out over that tweet 2) whether what he said in that tweet was true

jxf 5y ago

No doubt YC will be furious about this out-of-control cancel culture!

toomanyducks 5y ago

Can we not read so much into a literal tweet? It's what, 240 characters max? We've written more words speculating on what happened than was originally said. It's a tweet. Also would like to point out: I'm not defending anyone - my initial reactions largely agree with the sentiment here, but it's 240 or 180 characters at most. It's not a news story or a comprehensive view. Let's take a moment to step back and acknowledge that before we devolve into the wars we seem to be criticizing so strongly.

user_01 5y ago

it's not skipping the line, it's hacking the line

hardwaregeek 5y ago

I really hate what I've learned about my friends and acquaintances over this pandemic. I hate that I've learned who's willing to ignore public health guidelines, who's okay with cheating to skip the line, who's okay with pressuring family to do the same. It's just so...grubby. Especially since my social bubble is so very privileged. Let's face it. The majority of us are in good health with cushy jobs. We can afford to stay home. We can afford to wear high quality medical masks. We could afford to wait the extra month for a vaccine. Besides, a month or two is nothing compared to how long many countries are going to be waiting. I can somewhat understand why people act this way, especially if they're pushing their loved ones to skip the line. But I can't help but feel it's this view of "I get mine" that is so ugly. And for what? A little more freedom a couple weeks early? What's the point?

devmunchies 5y ago
> I've learned who's willing to ignore public health guidelines do you ignore the DMV safety guidelines to check your tires everytime you before you drive? there's thousands of govt health and safety guidelines.
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molbioguy 5y ago

Though it makes YC look very weak and thin-skinned, I bet the same thing would have happened at a lot of companies if an employee tweeted critical comments about the CEO, owner, etc.

fdschoeneman 5y ago
Was the tweet directed at the CEO of ycombinator?

sulam 5y ago

I think it's telling that Atherton and Piedmont were above 80% vaccinated well before vaccinations were open to the general public. "Wait your turn" is not how they became members of their respective clubs.

fdschoeneman 5y ago
Interesting statistic. Do you have a citation?
- sulam 5y ago
  Sorry, I was too hard on Piedmont. Here’s the interesting article: https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Bay-Area-vaccination-rates-vary-widely-by-city-16058150.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/Bay-Area-vaccinati... Scroll down for the delta between vaccination eligibility and actual rates.

blisterpeanuts 5y ago

I wonder how many jobs have been lost and reputations sullied by posting thoughtless comments on Twitter. 20 years ago, you really needed to make an effort to get a thought out to the world: create a website, write an op-ed in the NY Times, get interviewed on CNN. Now, it takes 5 seconds to ruin your life. There's a lesson in here somewhere.

Igelau 5y ago

TL;DR guy gets asked to leave exclusive party. Kind of dumb to be raising a stink over the issue anyhow. Just get shots in arms. After front-line medical workers it doesn't matter whose. Prioritizing the elderly was baloney. Hell, smokers were a priority group. How much more obvious does an intentional backdoor have to be? This guy probably shames people who bluff in Poker.

fdschoeneman 5y ago
I don't know if your analysis about either front line workers needing to be first in line or the impracticality of triaging anyone after that is correct, but your analysis seems just as valid as any coming from California's political class. So yeah, dude probably does shame people for bluffing at poker. Probably drinks appletinis too.

paxys 5y ago

Don't leak internal forum discussions on Twitter. If you want to criticize someone, use their name rather than "YC founder" multiple times. If your Tweet contains misleading info, delete it rather than post a different threaded Tweet (which no one will see) with a clarification. If the rest of your YC class now has doubts about whether what they discuss is really confidential, it's pretty clear that you have to go.

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hooande 5y ago

Seems like he lost his access to the internal forum and wasn't "kicked out" of ycombinator. The actual ycombinator program lasts for months and involves funding. Access to a website is different and involves following terms of service, whatever they might be. Bit of a sensationalist post title

KyleBerezin 5y ago
The exact text of the linked tweet is "lol just got kicked out of @ycombinator"

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pratik661 5y ago

I didn’t skip the line, but I don’t fault anyone who did (in the US) after the vaccination criteria was expanded beyond the elderly and a the immunocompromised. The vaccine hesitancy rates in some communities were absurdly high. The justifications given for not vaccinating were equally ridiculous and uninformed. In that environment it’s completely morally justified to jump ahead.

MangoCoffee 5y ago

lol. i don't get why people think y combinator is some high moral/honest company. they are just like any VC.

0xbadcafebee 5y ago

If there is ever a place that I will listen to unsubstantiated rumors without evidence from, it won't be Twitter.

dasickis 5y ago

I'm the person this original tweet was about. None of you know any of the internal details but what I can state is that Paul has no idea what he's talking about and later admits to the fact I wasn't lying. Here's the order of events: 1. I went to a neighborhood clinic in Oakland, CA that's literally next door to my house, I can see the church from my window. Paul lives in NYC which is on the opposite end of the country. 2. I asked them about eligibility and told them I don't clear CA guidelines. They told me it's first come, first served with an ID showing I am 18+. 3. I showed up the next day, waited in line for 4 hours then got jabbed. 4. Posted it in an internal forum for other founders. 5. A few people had issues so raised them which I addressed but YC still took down the post within the day. 6. I appealed but YC still held their decision as final. Outcome: YC founder came with his aunt, uncle, and mom all over 65 to get jabbed who didn't know about the vaccine site. --- Paul ends up tweeting about it and making a huge deal around something he has no idea about. He gets a bunch of people on Twitter upset about something they don't know about. Outcome: Internet rage.

throwkeep 5y ago
> Paul ends up tweeting about it and making a huge deal around something he has no idea about. He gets a bunch of people on Twitter upset about something they don't know about. I gave him the benefit of doubt, but should have been more skeptical upon seeing pronouns in bio. It's a curiously predictive heuristic. For whatever reason, pronoun people tend to be particularly good at generating internet drama.
- dcra 5y ago
  Yeah, or we want to be treated like humans. Find a better heuristic.
  - throwkeep 5y ago
    That exaggerated oppression claim only reinforces the heuristic. In reality, approximately 99% of the time people use the correct pronouns based on name and appearance. The remaining rare cases consist of honest mistakes (that can be politely corrected) or bullies (who the rest of us already denounce).

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DevKoala 5y ago

“Oh no no, not the Y Combinator Founderinos.” These things happen when you don’t practice what you preach, inconsistencies create drama.

duxup 5y ago

This is one of those cases where it seems like everyone made bad choices.

argonaut 5y ago

I view most of the outrage over skipping the vaccine line as misplaced. The (American) system was very clearly made easy to game in the first place. The government criteria was unnecessarily complicated and had many vague carveouts that were easily gamed. For example, smokers were eligible early on as having a pre-existing condition - this is trivial to game without technically lying! Indeed, many people early on advocated doing the criteria strictly by age (after healthcare workers), but the government decided to create carveouts largely for social equity reasons (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-11/COVID-04-Dooling.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-...). It got to the point where, in February/March, the only people I knew were vaccinated were a bunch of young people who got vaccinated because they were in med school (or other medical affiliated school), even though they were studying remotely. And in many cases you didn't even need to "lie" to skip the line because nobody even checked for proof you were eligible.

ixacto 5y ago
Just donate to the hospital or be on the board to get your COVID shot back in January. $$$ talks.

truetraveller 5y ago

On a similar note: This does not give me confidence in startups and "accelerators". Some (many?) startups will do questionable things for growth. They will upvote one another. They will give fake five-star reviews for one another. And they will call it growth hacking. I remember Reddit's "fake user" growth hacking. The depressing thing is: Founders who want to play by ethical rules, will ask. "May be I too should engage in this behaviour, just to level the playing field".

lupire 5y ago

Title is not substantiate by any content.

throw7 5y ago

“This is how we know we’re a real family here.”

zanethomas 5y ago

et tu ycombinator?

dang 5y ago
Not a comment on this story, but FWIW there has always been a (small) number of founders removed by YC for different reasons. It's not related to recent cultural trends.

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frakkingcylons 5y ago

As a NYC resident, I'm surprised to hear that it's not easy for healthy people to get a COVID vaccine in the Bay Area. I thought that the entire US was at the stage where they've got more than enough vaccines, at least that's the impression I got from the news. EDIT: Nevermind, I guess this was all something that happened back in March. Interesting that this controversy arose now.

nomdep 5y ago

So Paul Graham is now the new DHH for the next couple of weeks

slownews45 5y ago

I'm in Oakland, I drove someone to a clinic. It was a day of pouring rain. We got there end of day. I didn't meet whatever high priority groups were getting vaccinated (though I do have a breathing related health condition). They had extra shots, they said come get a shot, their form didn't have a spot for leftover shots being used, so the women said I'll put you down as X (which I wasn't). This whole thing of trying to criminalize and be outraged at folks in this space seems way out of whack. So good on ycombinator! Same thing with masks, no one allowed to wear N95's but health care folks. I had masks from the fires and my breathing issue. I wore the same mask for a few weeks against the rules. Got flak from folks saying a) masks don't work and b) I should have saved it for health care folks. Not only is that contradictory it's dumb.

tyre 5y ago
Your case is a bit different. If you hadn’t taken the shots, they would have been wasted because half-filled vials are disposed of at the end of the day. So in your case it was either vaccinate someone or vaccinate no one. It’s not the same as the accusation of someone skipping the line.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Can you explain exactly what the "skipping the line" accusation is then? I don't see any evidence that is not what happened in this case.

mrandish 5y ago

I can understand the apparent moral disparity but from a "rule-administering" POV it may just be case of * Action A occurs which is widely agreed to be misguided and reprehensible by YC and other forum members. However, Action A was not explicitly against any existing rule at the time, it was just super-dickish. Action A was probably immediately widely (if not universally) condemned by community members and YC. YC tells the person, don't do that ever again because now it's against the rules. Maybe they spanked that person in other ways, I don't know. I'm confident the idiot was the recipient of overwhelmingly negative social consequences from members of the private community. * Another person is very angry about Action A and commits Action B by taking private forum events onto public social media. Action B is clearly, explicitly against an existing, very simple rule. Perhaps others have already been banned for violating this rule. Despite our intuitions to the contrary, the stupidity and gross awfulness of Action A doesn't somehow offset the fact Action B is against an existing rule and Action A wasn't at the time it was committed. It's not wrong that YC enforced the clear rule against Action B. YC may even have had very mixed feelings about it. To me, in the absence of further factual context, it seems uncharitable to reflexively pillory YC - even though I admit I feel tempted to do exactly that.

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dang 5y ago

The submitted title was "Y Combinator kicks out Paul Biggar over a tweet". That is inaccurate, so in keeping with the HN guidelines ("Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), I've replaced the title with the tweet text. That's the standard thing we do with titles, when people post Twitter links. Much as I'd love to, it's not my place to say why the original title was inaccurate, so I'll just remind you all that there are two or more sides to every story and not everything on Twitter is true. In keeping with the rule that we moderate HN less, not more, when YC or a YC startup is involved (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20%22not%20more%22%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...), I'm not doing anything else to the submission. Normally, of course, we'd downweight this sort of petty drama.

FemmeAndroid 5y ago
Honest question, since I’ve seen the situation come up before: Would you be willing to modify the title of any post to be ‘accurate’ based on non-public information, without making that information public? If so, how does one make that request, and what would the process look like? There have been a few titles I knew to be extremely misleading or false, but never thought there was a way to rectify it without publicly providing information I wasn’t able to share openly.
- dang 5y ago
  It would depend on the specific circumstances, but I can imagine doing that, or perhaps there would be something else we could do that was better; it's hard to say in general, because cases like that are always very specific. We'd want to explain as much to the community as we could without harmful side-effects, but if someone's safety or privacy is at risk, I'm comfortable telling the community so, and I'm confident that the bulk of this community would respect that. In such situations the thing to do is email hn@ycombinator.com.
  - 5y ago

arduinomancer 5y ago

Looks like this prompted another founder to post that they were kicked out 2 weeks ago for a different incident: https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146 https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146

smashah 5y ago
Very concerning thread. Maybe worse are the replies defending YC e.g https://twitter.com/figputt/status/1401050235141558274?s=19 https://twitter.com/figputt/status/1401050235141558274?s=19 Hopefully YC doesn't pull a coinbase/Basecamp after this. Just because you have an private internal forum doesn't mean people should need to treat it like fight club, or be concerned about their place in the club for calling out bad behaviour.
lenova 5y ago
That accusation is far more serious...
FemmeAndroid 5y ago
To me this is a far more serious and concerning issue. As a woman, I’m always skeptical of institutions like YC, and I take these kinds of comments very seriously. It’s really sad for me, to be honest. I used to really aspire to VC. But I’ve accepted I can only bootstrap at this point because of the treatment I’ve heard of others experiencing. I don’t think I could handle it emotionally.

jamesbfb 5y ago

Not sure what the deal is in the US, but in Melbourne, Australia (a week prior to our current lockdown) I managed to get my Pfizer jab as a walk in, even though I do not meet the eligibility criteria. At that point, some vaccination centres were allowing all walk ins due to the lack of (eligible) people wanting the vaccine here. Obviously lockdown 4.0 has changed that, and now everyone wants a jab.v

basicplus2 5y ago

Sounds like it is in Australia, there are some sites that are vaccinating only those based on an eligbility criteria, and there are mass vaccination sites for anyone who wants the vaccination. Some people are getting upset about people skipping the elegibility criteria. Its a story about poor Governement communication to the masses.

ed405 5y ago

I got kicked out of YC too. https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146?s=21 https://twitter.com/ekadamer/status/1400956227501318146?s=21

CRConrad 5y ago
"This account owner limits who can view their Tweets."

fdschoeneman 5y ago

None of the rules around vaccination make sense to me -- nor do I have faith in the politicians who came up with them -- so I find it difficult to judge the person accused of skipping the line. But I do find it easy to judge the person who shamed him. And that judgment is that he's annoying and should mind his own business.

jfoster 5y ago

All of the energy going into this should instead be directed toward "how do we vaccinate most efficiently in future?" I think it makes a lot of sense to vary eligibility criteria by vaccination site, and allow for anyone to be vaccinated at some of the sites. That way, anyone who meets special criteria can go to a site where the wait will be shorter, and anyone who doesn't meet any particular criteria still have a place where they can go to get it provided they are willing to endure the potentially long wait. As the rollout progresses, if some of the "special criteria" sites are not too busy, they can change to become "anyone" sites. Overall, the problem of "too many people want the vaccine ASAP" is a great problem to have.

lamontcg 5y ago

Sounds like he violated a confidentiality agreement. If you read something on a private discussion forum and then blast it out publicly on twitter, don't be shocked when you get kicked out of that forum. It sorta doesn't matter how righteous your cause was, it is just going to be automatic. I know people that have been fired from the company they work for over a similar kind of offense. If you've signed a confidentiality agreement then you do not have the right of freedom to tweet without repercussions.

sjg007 5y ago

I don't get it.. the vaccine is available to everyone 12 and up now. You can make an appointment or find a walk in clinic. https://myturn.ca.gov https://myturn.ca.gov The governor opened up vaccines for everyone on April 15. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/04/15/all-californians-16-now-eligible-for-covid-19-vaccines/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/04/15/all-californians-16-now-el...

etxm 5y ago
Original tweet is from March

AzzieElbab 5y ago

well, lol

oblib 5y ago

Hmmm.... personally I never saw any ambiguity in who qualified when and where for that vaccine so it's pretty hard for me to buy into anyone using that for an excuse to jump in a line they didn't belong in. This is a moral character issue. I try to avoid those who don't have it and doing that is more than proof enough for me they don't.

eplanit 5y ago

Steve Jobs used his means to game the system to make a liver transplant available for himself; his wait time for an organ was much shorter than less wealthy and connected people. I recall no moral outrage over that[1]. A CEO who's smart enough to get their vaccine early should be acknowledged for their cleverness -- wouldn't you want that kind of smarts running a company?? I guess he would have been safer by refusing the vaccine -- oh, wait -- there's a different scarlet letter for that, right? [1] http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/24/liver.transplant.priority.lists/ http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/24/liver.transplant.priori...

towergratis 5y ago

His defense was: > 1. I went to a neighborhood clinic in Oakland, CA that's literally next door to my house, I can see the church from my window. Paul lives in NYC which is on the opposite end of the country. > 2. I asked them about eligibility and told them I don't clear CA guidelines. They told me it's first come, first served with an ID showing I am 18+. I am not buying this. Why would they even go and ask for eligibility when they know very well they are not eligible? The only reason would be to hope to find a loophole. The whole vaccine situation in CA was an excellent test of character. They failed it. Not surprised that a YC founder thinks that rules apply only to others and not themselves. The antisocial gene is strong in this one.

Wanker_News 5y ago

My heartfelt message to Paul Graham: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * / \ \ / \ * *| | \ | | * *| `. | | : * *` | | \| | * * \ | / / \\\ ____ \\ : * * \ \/ ___~~ ~____| \ | * * \ \__~ ~__\ | * * \_ \ _.______ .______\| | * * \ \______// _ ___ _ (_(__> \ | * * \ . C ___) ______ (_(____> | / * * /\ | C ____)/ \ (_____> |_/ * * / /\| C_____) | (___> / \ * * | ( _C_____)\______/ // _/ / \ * * | \ |__ \\_________// (__/ | * * | \ \____) `____ ___' | * * | \_ ___\ /_ _/ | * * | / | | \ | * * | | / \ \ | * * | / / | | \ |* * | / / \__/\___/ | |* * | / | | | |* * | | | | | |* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

pmiller2 5y ago

Guess what? It can happen to you, too, if you dare criticize a celebrity CEO. I got flagged & chastised for “breaking the guidelines” over a comment that stated facts about a certain CEO whose initials are TK. Remember when y’all kept saying there’s no free speech on Facebook or Twitter? Well, it’s worse here, because if you don’t toe that line and bend the knee, you might get your user privileges limited. Edit: here it is. +3 points and flagged. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26914977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26914977 Edit 2: and here's the dressing down I got: > Regardless of how wrong or badly-behaved other people (be they HN users, celebrity CEOs, or imperialist bullies) are or you feel they are, you owe this community better if you're participating in it. Other people doing bad things is a poor non-excuse for setting this place on fire. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26938019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26938019 See? Don't criticize "celebrity CEOs," folks. You're breaking the code, and the insiders will circle the wagons if you do. BTW, "Boober" is a direct quote said directly to a GQ reporter: https://www.gq.com/story/uber-cab-confessions https://www.gq.com/story/uber-cab-confessions

shkkmo 5y ago
It wasn't what you said, but how you said it: > I would like you to email me your contact information so that I never end up working anywhere near you. My email is in my profile. I agreeing with the point you are making in that comment. However, I would happily flag any comment that makes disagreements unnecessarily personal in such a manner. It is the type of non-productive discourse that drags the whole conversation down.
- pmiller2 5y ago
  Sorry, but that doesn't explain why admin specifically decided to call out the fact that I called out a "celebrity CEO." And, this disagreement is necessarily personal. Although I'm glad you agree with me, I'm not trying to convince anybody, nor do I care what amount of discussion my own, personal disagreement generates.

throwout111 5y ago

I also got thrown out of yc. It was after demo day. My co-founders blamed me for our initial anemic raise and threw me out. Because this was in-between demo day and official yc graduation, I'm no longer part of the yc network. I've done pretty well since then, but still it sucks to be divorced from an organization I once respected, and then loved.

lobo_tuerto 5y ago

Aaaaaaaaaand it's gone! (from the front page)

cable2600 5y ago

It could be worse: https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2012/04/startup_weekend_entrepreneuria.html https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2012/04/startup_weekend_...