Thiel shows why tech billionaires are the new robber barons
Extremely wealthy people are just like any other group of people in that they come in all shapes and sizes.<p>Here, one very wealthy individual used his money to fund someone else&#x27;s lawsuit. He did so secretly. He did so against an organization that had harmed him and against which he presumably wanted payback but that also had done a gratuitously damaging and sleazy act as part of a pattern of sleazy acts upon which it had built its erstwhile presumably profitable venture, hence presumably deserving payback.<p>So what does this say about Silicon Valley? Well, nothing at all, really. Both before and after this incident, Silicon Valley was, is and remains a place where multiple tech entrepreneurs and those who back them financially have built amazing ventures (and fortunes) that have reshaped all of world commerce even while many others failed. The thing that is new and different is the tech and the ways of using it to disrupt old-style business models. What is not different is the people. As with people everywhere, some are great, others sleazy, still others ravenously greedy, still others amazingly kind and gracious - in short, people who come in all shapes and sizes. I guess they are on average more educated and accomplished than average folks but the personal traits that define them, both good and bad, are pretty much the same as with people everywhere.<p>I don&#x27;t know Mr. Thiel and don&#x27;t know any more about him than what the headlines say. He may be fully justified in taking this action (it is a perfectly legal thing to do) or he may be displaying traits deserving our opprobrium. What I am sure of is that his actions here, good or bad, have little or nothing to do with what other prominent tech entrepreneurs do or how they think or how they run their companies.<p>So the logic of this piece - Mr. Thiel did x as a private act in his life, therefore all Silicon Valley tech billionaires stand indicted, therefore the public will now see them as no different than robber barons - seems to rest on multiple <i>non sequiturs</i> that really need to be more carefully thought through.<p>I guess we are conditioned to accept this sort of sloppy reasoning when it comes to discussing the very rich but this seems like a way-over-the-top overreaction to an individual episode that is what it is but that reflects very little on the broader environment surrounding it (or, if it does, not in ways that can be generalized in the crazy ways the author does here).