告诉HN：对我们社区的辩护
几天前，我参加了一个HN（创业者网络）聚会，有人提到了迈克尔·O·丘奇。显然，我们应该对YC（创业孵化器）对他的处理感到矛盾：这里的禁令、Quora的丑闻、对他线下职业生涯的干扰。问题是：这个家伙活该。他理应遭受这一切。我相信还有很多我不知道的事情，我敢打赌他也应得那些。
我们谈论的是一个认为自己的道德标准比那些拥有数百万甚至可能数十亿美元的人的声誉更重要的人。我曾与一些人合作，他们认为“社会正义”或“不作恶”或“做对的事”比作为团队的一部分更重要。这样的人是不能留在身边的。你必须把他们赶走。他们永远不会接受一个30%、40%甚至50%正确的真相。他们坚持要100%。
而且，让我们现实一点。他所揭露的大多数所谓罪行甚至不算违法。将裁员伪装成淘汰低绩效员工可能是个丑陋的做法，但这并不违法。所有这些只是降低了科技行业的士气，这简直是赤裸裸的煽动叛乱。
我一直为丹·G的领导力和愿景感到自豪，他让这个家伙变得无关紧要。我已经有好几年没听到过他的名字了，但当我在一个曾经平静的聚会上吃汉堡滑块时，发现人们仍然记得他，甚至有不少人认为他是某种英雄。英雄？为了什么？他没有加速任何事情。如果这个人有任何影响，我非常怀疑，他反而拖慢了进程。
然后是保罗·格雷厄姆的问题。是的，我明白，想象一下“橙色一切之父”因为某个不知名的作家而感到烦恼是多么搞笑。然而，我进行了数小时的研究，根本没有证据表明保罗·格雷厄姆在任何事情中扮演了角色。没有。我明白这里有喜剧价值，我确实希望他们之间承诺的说唱对决能够发生，但坚持认为所有这些梗背后有严肃证据简直是在诽谤。所以大家能不能停一下？
我们甚至不谈他那本疯狂冗长的小说，书中女主角烧毁了一所大学，摧毁了人们的记忆，但她又是人类的救世主，或者类似的东西，但我不太确定，因为我连四十个字都没读进去，就想起了他试图让那些人看起来糟糕的事，气得我把女朋友最喜欢的笔扔进了她那只愚蠢猫的猫砂盆里。
忘了那个家伙。他并不是通往你下一个独角兽的道路，他离它远得很。忘了他。深呼吸，硅谷。忘了他。
我们必须抵制对我们自己和我们社区行为的道歉。
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A couple nights ago, I was at a gathering of HN folks where someone mentioned Michael O. Church. We’re apparently supposed to be conflicted about how YC treated him: the ban here, the Quora debacle, the efforts to mess with his offline career. Here’s the thing: The guy deserved it. He deserved all of it. I’m sure there’s stuff I don’t know about and I bet he deserved that too.<p>We are talking about someone who thinks his own moral code matters more than the reputations of people who have millions <i>and possibly billions</i> of dollars riding on their own good names. I’ve worked with people who think “social justice” or “not being evil” or “getting it right” matter more than working as part of a team. You can’t have people like that around. You have to get them out. They will never accept a given truth that is 30 or 40 or even 50 percent right. They insist on 100.<p>Also, let’s be real. Most of the supposed crimes that he exposed were not even illegal. Disguising a layoff as a culling of low performers may be an ugly thing to do, but it’s not against the law. All this did was reduce morale in the technology industry, which is straight up fractious sedition.<p>I have always been so proud of Dan G’s leadership and vision in pushing this guy into irrelevance. I had not heard his name <i>for years</i>, but then, while I was eating my burger sliders at an erstwhile peaceful meetup, I discovered that people still remember him, and that quite a few think he was some kind of hero. A hero? For what? He sped up nothing. If the man had any effect at all, which I very much doubt, he slowed things down.<p>Then there is the matter of Paul Graham. Yes, I get it, it’s hilarious to picture the father of everything orange getting his curlies tied up over some obscure writer. However, I have done literal hours of research and there is no evidence whatsoever that Paul Graham played a role in anything. None. I understand there is comedic value here and I do wish that the promised rap battle between the two had taken place, but to insist that there is serious evidence behind all the memes is bordering on libel. So can everyone please stop?<p>Let’s not even talk about his insanely long novel in which the heroine burns down a university and destroys people’s memories but is also the savior of humanity or something like that but I’m not sure because I couldn’t get forty words into it without remembering all the people he tried to make look bad and getting so angry on their behalf that I threw my girlfriend’s stupid favorite pen into her stupid cat’s litter box.<p>Forget that guy. He is not along the path to your next unicorn and he is nowhere near it. Forget him. Take a deep breath, Silicon Valley. Forget him.<p>We must resist apology for who we are and for our community’s actions.