This is a stroke of genius by Peter Thiel. In hindsight, he was hedged. If Clinton won, his Trump endorsement would have been chalked up to his contrarian, eccentric bent. If Trump won -and he did- Thiel's bet would have a huge return.
His self-interest aside, this is a huge deal for Palantir, the company that he helped found and has many federal governments as their client. Also, in a sense, Thiel ensured that Silicon Valley didn't completely lose touch with the White House and will have some leverage in influencing them. For starters, immigration is a key issue for Silicon Valley for which Thiel can be a voice of reason to influence the new administration.
I don't agree with many things Thiel says or does. That said, this was a brilliant execution.
> For starters, immigration is a key issue for Silicon Valley for which Thiel can be a voice of reason to influence the new administration.
I don't know if immigration is as much of an issue for Palantir, given many of its clients are clandestine and won't permit non-citizens to work on their projects.
> > For starters, immigration is a key issue for Silicon Valley for which Thiel can be a voice of reason to influence the new administration.
> I don't know if immigration is as much of an issue for Palantir, given many of its clients are clandestine and won't permit non-citizens to work on their projects.
And my worthless personal single data point: I personally know a Pakistani guy who was rejected from Palantir. Sure, every other person gets rejected from every other place. The thing is, this guy is one of the best programmers I know of, has great charisma, has great communication skills, and has a star-studded pedigree. Yeah I know I'm going off on a single data, but I was just stunned to see anyone reject this guy because I happen to personally know of his genius.
Wait, so everyone is supposed to hire this dude, or else they're racist? Not really arguing with you considering that you acknowledge it's just one data point, but this standard is unfalsifiable. By your logic, there's no way to decline hiring him without being a racist...
I expect there to be a prohibition against foreign nationals at a lot of defense contractors. Consider his country of origin: it's one of the last places our government wants technology transfer or espionage to occur with.
And I mean no offense to your friend, but that's how those folks think.
So, I should not have said "Pakistani". He's actually an American-born, his parents came here in early 80s. Is that still a problem you think? Would a defense contractor be hesitant in hiring native-born citizens with parents from a different country of origin?
> Would a defense contractor be hesitant in hiring native-born citizens with parents from a different country of origin?
Foreign contacts (including family) may be a complication in security clearance background investigations, IIRC, but AFAIK discriminating directly on that basis (rather than simply requiring the clearance if necessary for the specific job) would be a bright-line violation of the law.
From what I understand, even a "white person" whose family has been here for generations can get denied clearance due to their ties or relationships to foreign nationals. This is at least true for the CIA and NSA.
A lot of the dynamics were very similar to the Brexit vote in the U.K.,” which also took many commentators by surprise.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign, he said, forgot the motto that Bill Clinton had won the presidency with in 1992: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Donald Trump was a stealth 3rd party candidate, riding on a wave produced by demographic changes and the falling fortunes of a large demographic. He's down with OPP -- where OPP means "Other Person's Party." He's used other people's money to further himself. This time, he used the Republican Party, but historically, he should be compared to other 3rd party candidates.
The media producing class in this country is out of touch with a whopping huge fraction of the populace which is going from majority middle class status to minority lower class. Not only is the media producing class out of touch, many of them on the political left actively villify and denigrate them. Seriously, what did they expect?
The degree to which the upper-middle class is out of touch, concerned with fripperies, and denigrating of the lower classes in the Bay Area is starting to look like a bunch of tropes from French Revolution period dramas. Programmers and technorati -- This means you!
I grew up in "flyover country" as it has been so lovingly labeled by the coastal urbanites, and I would agree that the media is completely out of touch with a huge portion of the country.
Many of these people are decent but weren't offered even lip-service by the Democratic candidate or party. You have Hillary treating them like second class citizens offering them a lower minimum wage than urbanites, for example. Why should people who have been historically neglected maintain this situation?
This isn't permanent though. I've mentioned in other posts on other subjects that the "New Economy" needs to align its interests with those who have been left behind. You get their kids into dynamic programs that offer them an opportunity to share in the largesse generated by innovation and they will become more generous and open and integrated with the rest of the country.
Absolutely agree with your opinion of the decency of non-urban America and also the amount it's had to put up with.
Curious what revitalization looks like in an increasingly automated economy though. Not sure Trump has his finger on the pulse of where the world's going to aim ahead of that trend. Although he might, and honestly, is probably more likely to than Hilary.
I am ok with Thiel thinking Trump would win. What was a disappointment for me is that Thiel actually believes Trump was a good candidate and (I speculate) agrees with his platform. Also, apparently has no problem with the incendiary and hateful speech of Trump
>Also, apparently has no problem with the incendiary and hateful speech of Trump
That's probably because that has been overplayed. The President, whatever his beliefs doesn't change America's racism (or lack thereof), in the same way there was a record of police shootings of blacks etc. under Obama.
A president's economic platform is more important, and Hillary, as did most pundits, mostly retold the old wives tales that globalization necessarily means giving up factories, or that somehow having jobs and motives for building stuff in one's country is obsolete, etc.
That approach might maximize enterprise profits, but not necessarily help middle and lower classes, and general societal wealth. A country can have huge companies, but not get out of them but minimal local jobs and infrastructure (because they outsource those), and not even taxes on their profits (since they use globalized subsidies and other schemes to avoid paying any).
I don't believe that Trump will actually fix that, but he at least (as did Bernie Sanders) paid lip service to the notion, and that counted to a lot of people.
There's also the foreign policy issues. Trump might be a "loose canon" or whatever, but Hillary has been constantly and vehemently pro war / invasion etc. She has threatened Russia and Iran, helped destabilize Syria, Libya, etc.
The very real potential for wars and tons of deaths (on both sides) is more important than whether Trump made misogynistic comments, or spoke against illegal immigration, etc.
> That's probably because that has been overplayed. The President, whatever his beliefs doesn't change America's racism (or lack thereof), in the same way there was a record of police shootings of blacks etc. under Obama.
This actually touches on what upset me most about this election. It's not so much that I think Trump is going to be horrible. I think he's been vague enough and it's obvious enough that he was playing to his audience that he could roll out Clinton's exact plan tomorrow and I wouldn't be all that surprised. What really bothers me is the support he got based on the persona and values he projected.
That people can equate breaking the rules using a personal email server with recorded audio of a candidate condoning and admitting sexual assault. That one was often brought out to even the score when tallying the reported sins of the candidates leaves me somewhat depressed about the state of my country. I'm left feeling that if a video was presented of Trump actually doing the things he talked about but denied, sure, Clinton would probably have won, but it still would have been close, and I'm left in the position of trying to reconcile what I thought were values most my country believed in with evidence to the contrary.
> That people can equate breaking the rules using a personal email server with recorded audio of a candidate condoning and admitting sexual assault.
I think most Trump supporters saw a pattern of behavior in Clinton that they trusted even less than Trump's gaffes. Not so much that they condoned sexual assault, but they'd rather the devil who speaks clearly than the devil who seems to have a secret in every closet.
> but they'd rather the devil who speaks clearly than the devil who seems to have a secret in every closet.
I understand that sentiment, but I never took Trump as one who spoke clearly. He spoke simply, but not clearly. I think Clinton was actually the clearer speaker by far, with her specific proposals and plans, but she didn't speak simply (and for what it's worth, I'm not sure we should optimize for candidates that speak simply over clearly, as I've covered elsewhere in these comments).
There's clarity in simplicity, in the same way that a 900 page TOS is not as clear as a 2 page TOS regardless of how precise the former's language is. Whether or not you trust and believe Trump is a different matter.
There can be clarity in simplicity, but it's not ensured. It's easily possible to simplify to the point where clarity is lost. The canonical example here is "I will replace it with something great". That's very simple, but also not clear at all. That is, while it's clear what he wants to do, it's not clear at all what he plans to do, because that information has been removed in the name of simplicity (assuming it ever existed).
Granted, but I would argue the counter-example is true too: that clarity can be lessened by adding complexity. And I would argue that's currently a bigger problem in our society (particular with matters legal and political) than the one you outlined.
I feel there has to be a formula that defines how many people stop reading for each additional word you add to an informative document.
If you have written a 20,000 word document every time you're asked "Do you support the war in Iraq?" then I'm going to call bullshit.
Holding people accountable for their promises by a democratic electorate is impossible for promises over a certain level of complexity -- the voting mass simply doesn't have the time. And proxying personal research to biased, for-profit news organizations seems to be another feature that's gotten us into this mess.
>That's probably because that has been overplayed. The President, whatever his beliefs doesn't change America's racism (or lack thereof), in the same way there was a record of police shootings of blacks etc. under Obama.
You are underestimating the effect of a racist speech coming from a person in a position of power. Racists tend to keep their views for their own when are not sure they can speak freely without being judged. When they can speak freely they turn up the tone of the speech (which happened in Trump's rallies).
In Venezuela we had a similar situation when Chavez came to power, not with race but with economical status... At some point you could be yielded at the street just because the way you were dressed (didn't have to be fancy). All that was unheard before Chavez.
So yeah... A bad president can indeed reshape the view and behavior of people. Just wait until he has their own tv show as Chavez did.
That's still only 50% of the country. If someone says something racist in front of you, take the time and discomfort to confront them. "Hey, that's a person too. Trying living by the Golden Rule a bit more" Etc.
We are the country we create, whoever is in power.
That's easier to say rather than do when you are the target and those people are in group... just giving you heads ups... We didn't think it would be a big deal and we also minimized it because it was "just" 50%
The definition of minority means that most of the people reading this aren't the target, and I'm saying that's what needs to change. They (myself among them) need to make sure they're not standing idly by while this kind of stuff happens. Because that's what changes racists' behavior.
> Basically his argument is "don't take Trump literally, take him seriously".
Which I guess is great if you're a billionaire and probably get some time with Trump or someone close to him that knows what he actually plans to do.
In the meantime, all the rest of us are left with "I'm going to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something great." Forgive me if I would have preferred something a little more substantial. Then again, I would like other people to have preferred that as well. :/
Can any politician be taken literally, though? How did Obama's promises on the revolving door between lobbyists and his administration work out? Or his promise on health insurance premiums? These promises aren't the exception, they are the rule. Politicians (almost) always have to lie to win. So Trump not being specific as to what he will do seems unlikely to be any different to interpret than if he made very specific plans.
Well, I think there are differing levels of information that can be conveyed. You can say you want a healthcare system where everyone is insured. You can say you want a healthcare system where costs are lowered. You can say you want both. All these convey some information about the goals of the politician, and how they may or may not align with your own. What they eventually come up with, or not, will inform you how much they compromised on that position. I would hazard most politicians are less likely to compromise on specific goals they stated, and more likely to compromise on ones they didn't state. This allows you to steer yourself towards a candidate that may work for an outcome you want, even if there's obviously no guarantee.
In this case, we have "I will make something great", as if every candidate wasn't implicitly setting out to to do the same and every voter wasn't hoping for the same. So, am I more or less likely to get the outcome I want in this situation? Who knows? I don't because there's no way to, but I would sure appreciate being empowered to at least try to figure that out.
I would say OP has begged the question. Just because Trump has won does not mean that Thiel's bet has paid off. As in cornering the market or making a killing on paper, 'how do you bury the body?' Indeed, more than one person on the betting sites or prediction markets (or Bitcoin exchange) has been burned when they thought they won something but the market resolved otherwise. Until you've withdrawn your cash, you haven't made any money and you are still vulnerable to counterparty risk. And Thiel has yet to cash out any of his supposed 'influence'.
I noted when Thiel made his original donations, and then kept doubling down, that there was a good probability he would 'win' (Trump never falling below 10% in the prediction markets) but I felt that the more serious issue was whether he would benefit. Trump has a long history of using and discarding people as soon as they are no longer useful, including decades of simply not paying people who have done work for him (at least two examples in his campaign alone: the polling agency and the girls who sang at his rallies) and daring them to sue. Not to mention how often he loudly promises to donate to charity and then... doesn't. Narcissists are not known for their gratitude, generosity, reciprocation, or feeling bound by past promises or contracts explicit or implicit. Thiel donating to Trump and giving speeches in his support is merely Trump's due for being the greatest businessman in the world and the man who will make America great again. It does not follow that Trump will actually do anything for Thiel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farmer_and_the_Viper
It will be interesting to see if Thiel's bet on Donald Trump ever wins big and he gets something out of it like a Supreme Court nomination. But it's not over yet, and his chickens have neither hatched nor come home to roost.
A lot of speculation here about why Thiel backed Trump. If you're genuinely curious, just watch him in his own words https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob-LJqPQEJ4. You may not agree with him, but it makes sense, especially from the author of The Diversity Myth.
His bet was completely in line with what he has been saying the past few years (about flying cars and 140 chars etc). It resonates with Trumps "US doesn't win anymore". He may have realized that a large part of US population felt the same way, something that, apparently, went amiss from everyone else in SV.
I didn't vote for Trump nor Clinton. Although I'm right-leaning on most issues, I am in the perplexed camp of why 50% of voters selected Trump. I was sure Hillary was going to win.
I'm especially bewildered why deeply religious, evangelical Christians I know were big on Trump. He's such a sinner by biblical standards, the love for the guy didn't make sense - I thought it'd be hypocrisy to support the guy. For most, they told me the single issue for them was the supreme court nominees that Trump was promising to put forward. But, in discussing what Trump was going to do once elected, the level of projection of their goodness onto Trump seemed to go to delusional, fantasy-land places.
What I'm coming to realize is that, being upper middle-class puts me completely out of touch culturally with the 50% that voted for Trump. The book Coming Apart, by Charles Murray is really helping me understand what is going on in America and what a cloistered life I've led.
> Among college-educated whites, 45% voted for Clinton – 39% of men and 51% of women (the only white demographic represented in the poll where the former secretary of state came out on top). But 54% of male college graduates voted for Trump, as did 45% of female college graduates.
Fascinating, pretty strong turnout for Trump with college educated folks! Clinton's numbers reflect that she lost a ton of male votes to third party.
> But among the 64% of American voters who earn more than $50,000 a year, 49% chose Trump, and 47% Clinton.
Middle class came out for Trump too. I wish they'd break out higher income brackets, that's where I'm at. And I guess that Clinton's support there is much stronger - which reflects the disconnect Murray describes in cultures and political leanings between the urban wealthy classes and the rest of the population.
> “His odds were very badly underestimated,” he said. “Trump voters were not being captured by the polls. A lot of the dynamics were very similar to the Brexit vote in the U.K.,” which also took many commentators by surprise.
The real takeaway for me is figuring why this is the case — how could / can we change the polls to be more robust?
To some degree, perhaps the polls influence the outcome of the election. For example, if people on the edge of voting or not think Clinton will win by a healthy margin, they might not actually bother to vote.
I've been listening to 538 for the past few weeks. I'll try and sum up what I've gleaned from their thoughts before the election and after. A few of the election night podcasts I didn't get to listen to until after the election, which helps to see what they were over-confident about or what they're backpedaling about today.
While I think it was 70/30 for Clinton they were very explicit that this doesn't mean Clinton will win. They admitted it's very difficult to convey probabilities to the average person and it's something they're still working on. I feel like a lot of the pundits (honestly, on Trump's side, too) seemed to believe Hillary winning was inevitable and the night was just going to play out like the predictions, but the polls and analysts were saying it was going to be close (although, Hillary was favored).
While Clinton had a confident lead in the popular vote, her electoral map was rocky. She had thin margins in a bunch of contentious states, but in states like California and Texas she got fairly large numbers in individuals that wouldn't translate into electoral votes. When it came to the vote she just lost the contentious states.
Something else they said today is that pollsters see outliers (changes from the norm) as possible noise, so they tend to bias that back to historical values or neighboring values. This can hide pockets of change or make trends slower to show up. The last election was Obama obviously he appealed to different groups of people. Many assumed the areas he flipped would stay flipped. That's why pollsters were off almost as much as 10% in some areas instead of the expected 3%.
Another thing I've heard toyed around is that public polls are funded by universities and newspapers--institutions who haven't had as much money lately. So while analysis of polls have gotten better, polls have gotten worse. There's also talk about landlines falling out of favor and online polling being worse. Campaign polls have gotten better since there's more money now. From what I've heard Romney's internal polls were way off, but Obama's polls were spot on. I've heard both Hillary's and Trump's internal polls had Hillary ahead...so all of that might be irrelevant.
It was a close race and the unconventional nature made it difficult to honestly predict. But most predictions ended up close to the margin of error--they just guessed the winner with too much confidence.
I wish Thiel would become more involved... Trump is likely to end up starting too many fights on too many fronts by myopic activists whose concerns don't matter to the average voter but that rile up a significant activist base in opposition. Trump can't win a 2nd term without triangulation to mollify that. He needs to pick his battles.
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I also voted for Trump. Valley startup expat with a masters degree now working for a Fortune 50 on the East Coast. Quarter Filipino. Supported Trump since the primaries.
Sorry to all reasonable democrats (I guess you are the vast majority) but I think your allies actually might have secured Trumps victory.
It's very clear that this is indeed what happened, and more directly than you think. According to Wikileaks, the Democrats conspired to tilt the Republican primary field in favor of candidates that they expected to be easy to defeat in the general election. One of those candidates was Donald Trump.
This act of self-destructive subversion on the DNC's part shouldn't be forgotten, but for some reason hardly anyone seems to care. This memo should be a huge deal because it explains something that wasn't clear before: how Trump ended up with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of free publicity from left-leaning US media outlets, even when he was considered a joke candidate. It is now indisputable that our media outlets take their marching orders straight from the Democratic headquarters.
I will continue to respect democracy and American people and their rules for choosing presidents.
Being a distinguished engineer at Google is definitely elite. Only a tiny fraction of its 30k employees hold that title and it probably draws a salary in the 1-2% range.
trump is an idiot who has no business being president of the country, which marks the first time someone with zero (literally zero) political experience, not even military service, was elected to that position.
That said, he speaks his mind and it's trivial to see what he's thinking.
Had Hillary Clinton (who I and any sane person would like over Trump) become President, it would be impossible to know what she really thought of anything or to decipher anything she said: she's a career politician, who pauses before speaking and then speaks out of both sides of her mouth.
listening to Trump is like listening to some random drunk idiot in a bar. he isn't pulling one over on anyone - he barely knows where he is. sometimes that has its advantages.
It would be easy to tell what he thinks... except for the fact nobody knows what his real positions are, what he is really going to do and that his strategy worked regardless.
This is very correct and true. Totally unpredicatble, exactly like a drunkard at a bar. He can be belligerent and almost get in a fight one minute and then be best buddies with an inanimate statue the next (in this case Putin, who doesn't have any actual relationship with Trump.) Completely unpredictable.
Any person that is able to parry and repose mid air the fat pigs question with "Only Rosie O'Donnel" is not an idiot by a long margin.
I have been trump supporter since the beginning - your expert diagnosis of my mental health aside - the guy won for too long, against great odds, made all the long shots for that to be luck.
And with a world gone mad, you may need a madman on top.
So take a break, take a kit-kat, watch About Last Night... (South Park), calm down - the world has not ended yet. The country is mostly the same as yesterday. The deer in headlights coupled with chicken little act that Hilary supporters are performing today while mildly amusing is pointless.
And if the left don't start to see the others as at least capable and dangerous opponents and not bigoted simpletons you may not see an winning election for a long time to come.
What the SJW managed to do in the last 4 years by overplaying their hand is the creation of strong white identity. That thing did not existed before.
You felt the first cut with brexit, and are now lacerated by 2016 election.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Trump knew himself and knew exactly what was against him. Your side didn't.
Today is not a day to make rational arguments. Any mention of trump incites spontaneous namecalling , as if only certain people are entitled to the truth. I'd give it a few days until the internet becomes usable again.
Very many sane people had no desire to see Hillary Clinton be the president of the United States. There's just no need to keep pretending that your opinion is the only rational choice when you've been repudiated so completely.
> There's just no need to keep pretending that your opinion is the only rational choice when you've been repudiated so completely.
You do realize that Clinton won the popular vote, right? the majority of Americans agree with her policies and voted for her. Trump won because of the arcane 18th century election structure unique to the US called an electoral college.
Ahh, is it time to cry about the electoral college again? I suppose if no one knew going in that it was the way things were done, I'd care. Since everyone knew, it's just the worst kind of monday-morning quarterbacking.
The thorough repudiation is that Hillary Clinton was anointed the next president, anointed the "only" "sane" choice, and lost. It's a fact, no matter what tears people dredge up now.
I say this with no love or support for Donald Trump, just open eyes in a process that most people enter willfully blind.
> Since everyone knew, it's just the worst kind of monday-morning quarterbacking.
To be fair, it's not like this only gets brought up after the election. The last 3-6 months have been filled with people complaining about how our voting system works, different systems and their own problems, etc.
these are facts, one can decide to deride them in a childish attempt to obfuscate or wallow in ignorance or one can choose to objectively discuss them as they are
Literally every presidential victory is delivered by the electoral college, as has been required by the US Constitution since long before Donald Trump was a dirty thought. What is to discuss? For that matter, what is being obfuscated?
Nobody thought Clinton was swell, most Democrats I've spoken with hated her. The alternative is someone (Trump) who never had any kind of political experience of any kind, period. Would you get in a plane flown by someone with 0 hours of flight training, literally zero?
I'd rather get in a plane flown by a pilot who has spoken out publicly about being a Jihadi terrorist (in this analogy Hillary Clinton, and I make this analogy because I really, really disagree with a lot of her policies and I don't even like her and don't think she even wants what's best for me), than in a plane piloted by someone who literally has never piloted anything, not just a jumbo jet but not even sat in a student's seat, of any kind of plane. Who doesn't even have a driver's license. That is insane. Never in the history of the United States has someone with no political experience of any kind been elected to the Presidency. It's just insane.
Google "What jobs did Obama have". At least Trump ran a company and built things like hotels, which shows some organizational skill. If he runs the goverment as efficiently as he did his campagin (less than $5/vote) he might get some where -- we should at least give him the benefit of the doubt.
> If he runs the goverment as efficiently as he did his campagin (less than $5/vote)
I don't know if you realize, but Trump's definition of efficiency is ripping off people he has leverage off, now he will have several degrees of freedom to rip off not only tax players but governments.
I have a strong feeling that the plan he has to make Mexico pay for the wall involves leverage with the NAFTA redefinition... He might miscalculate this though, Mexico is not as dependent of USA as it used to be
I agree with you regarding the business perspective.
I don't think the efficiency of his campaign is directly applicable, more I would say his ability to seize an advantage (the media's strong dislike of him) where others would not have even known there was an advantage to be had is the real takeaway.
> Had Hillary Clinton (who I and any sane person preferred) become President, it would be impossible to know what she really thought of anything or to decipher anything she said: she's a career politician, who pauses before speaking and then speaks out of both sides of her mouth.
"Trump voters were not being captured by the polls. A lot of the dynamics were very similar to the Brexit vote in the U.K.,” which also took many commentators by surprise."
The media in both countries was outright lying. The only surprise here is that they believed their own lies.
His self-interest aside, this is a huge deal for Palantir, the company that he helped found and has many federal governments as their client. Also, in a sense, Thiel ensured that Silicon Valley didn't completely lose touch with the White House and will have some leverage in influencing them. For starters, immigration is a key issue for Silicon Valley for which Thiel can be a voice of reason to influence the new administration.
I don't agree with many things Thiel says or does. That said, this was a brilliant execution.