Following Garry Tan’s seemingly alcohol-fueled rant over the weekend, in which he wrote on social media that seven progressive San Francisco supervisors should “die slow,” tech workers in San Francisco had a few choice words for the Y Combinator CEO: “shameful,” “really dumb,” “very stupid.”
Tan “should not have done any of that. He should go for a while. He should not represent tech anymore,” said Kevin Baragona, co-founder and CEO of DeepAI, a text and image generator.
“It’s shameful,” added a Y Combinator alumnus who, like others, declined to be named for fear of professional retaliation. He has been checking the Y Combinator internal message board Bookface and monitoring their daily email updates, but there has been “no communication” from the company, he said.
“If the CEO of Boeing or Coca-Cola said, ‘I hope Joe Biden dies a slow death,’ someone would be like, ‘Oh, whoops, that wasn’t supposed to happen,’” he said. “It would be a PR nightmare, and yet there has been no acknowledgment.”
On Y Combinator’s message board, Hacker News, which is owned by the company but open to the public, the topic generated hundreds of comments debating the wisdom of the purportedly drunken tirade, and whether Tan should now step down.
“This kind of behavior shouldn’t be acceptable for the head of a respectable corporation … He should resign or be dismissed, and YC should replace him with a responsible adult,” read one comment. “This isn’t a minor offense, it is grotesque. If he remains, it reflects very badly on YC.”
“I’m a YC alum,” began another, “I don’t have a problem with tech leaders holding political positions, nor do I have a problem with them making personal donations based on those opinions. Quietly.”
Some in tech, however, said the incident was a “manufactured crisis,” and that city supervisors were running with the incident to score political points.
“Do I think that it’s really dumb for the supervisors to be filing restraining orders or police reports against Garry Tan? I mean, come on, dude. Do they really expect that Garry Tan will hire some dudes to drive by and shoot them?” asked another tech founder. “No, of course not.”
Even those less who were less critical of the rant wondered about Tan’s judgment.
“I look at this as a drunken error, so I wouldn’t cancel him, personally,” added Stephen Gibson, founder of an early-stage AI startup, while acknowledging that it was “poor judgment.”
Y Combinator has not responded to multiple requests for comment on the incident — even after Tan’s online tirade begat very real-world consequences: On Tuesday, three of the supervisors named in his posts received identical threatening postcards at their homes, wishing harm to them and their families.
“Garry Tan is right!” read the postcards addressed to Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Dean Preston and Myrna Melgar. “I wish a slow and painful death for you and your loved ones.”
The postcards, bearing Tan’s face, were addressed to each supervisor individually. The postcards concluded with a note: “This mail was sent to communicate a political opinion. No threats were intended.”
The San Francisco Police Department said Wednesday it is investigating the mailers. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, whom Tan has hosted at his Mission District home, said she would recuse herself from any potential case involving Tan and refer it to the California attorney general, to avoid a conflict of interest.
Tan, for his part, apologized over the weekend, noting that his post was a reference to a Tupac Shakur lyric. He initially brushed off the comments as a joke, before taking the incident more seriously: “There is no place, no excuse and no reason for this type of speech,” he wrote hours after the initial post. He has yet to acknowledge the letters sent to the supervisors’ homes.
Joke or not, Tan’s tweet emerged from genuine rage
The supervisors named by Tan have responded quickly to the tirade: They have filed police reports and consulted with the City Attorney’s Office.
At least two supervisorial candidates whom Tan has supported, Marjan Philhour and Trevor Chandler, said they do not condone Tan’s language.
Deva Hazarika, another San Francisco tech founder, said that Tan’s statements were “a dumb thing to tweet, especially for a prominent figure, but lots of people have made ill-advised tweets after a couple too many drinks.”
And, Hazarika said later, the subsequent threats were the fault of whomever sent the anonymous mailer — not Tan. “If idiots grab onto that as some sort of rationale for threats or harassment, I think that’s on them, not him.”
Tan and Y Combinator may not be household names, but they hold an outsized prominence in San Francisco and Silicon Valley: From his perch atop Y Combinator — the most sought-after incubator for startups, a virtual golden ticket for founders — Tan oversees hundreds of companies annually poised to become multi-billion dollar successes.
DoorDash, Cruise, Reddit, Coinbase and thousands of others have gone through the program, companies now collectively worth a combined $600 billion, according to Y Combinator.
Tan has also used his position to entreat tech workers and executives in San Francisco to involve themselves in local politics. He is a firebrand among anti-progressive political forces in the city, underwriting campaigns and groups aimed at dislodging progressive supervisors from their seats.
He frequently lambasts the progressive “political machine” and calls for retaking San Francisco from what he labels leftist excess. He employs partisan and apocalyptic language, calling opponents “cronies,” “corrupt” or “doom loop accelerationists,” and claiming they want to “destroy public safety” and “ruin” or “destroy” the city.
He is also a fount of misinformation, misunderstanding how the city’s police commission functions, for instance, or claiming that “the mayor can’t fire people.”
So even though Tan claimed the tirade was a joke, it fell well within his characteristic hostility.
“We weren’t born yesterday, we know this is all-consuming to you, this wasn’t just a joke,” said the Y Combinator alumnus. “He is just sort of trying to laugh it away and claim that he is a Twitter troll, and it’s like, no, you’re not, don’t dismiss years of your consistent attacks, don’t try to wash it all away.”
Despite the anger, many agree with Tan’s politics
If Tan were not the face of the San Francisco tech community, then whom? Baragona mentioned Emmett Shear, the co-founder of streaming platform Twitch, whom he finds “very reasonable.”
But, he added that he generally agrees with Tan’s views, which he described. “Garry Tan was basically in favor of making San Francisco safer, building more housing and moderate politics. I think these are good things.”
“I think that tech leaders and business leaders have a responsibility to cities and or to their communities to serve them both, either through politics or any other way … but making a statement like that, I think Tan probably has more to learn about the politics side of things. You can’t just be spouting off like that,” said Gibson.
Several others agreed that Tan “genuinely cares deeply” about the city, but is approaching politics in a naive fashion.
Anthony Jancso, founder of the group Accelerate SF, said he was “surprised” to read Tan’s post but that Tan “deserves more credit for the work that he’s doing … to set San Francisco up as the best city in the world.”
Added Evan Conrad, co-founder of San Francisco Compute: “Garry Tan is broadly a good person who genuinely cares deeply about San Francisco.”
The tech worker who asked to remain nameless talked about the fix Tan has created. “They’re making a bigger deal out of this. They’re trying to create some kind of political enemy for everybody to hate. I think it’s stoking a little bit more hate and resentment towards tech people … I’m a little annoyed that Garry Tan’s giving them the ammunition to do that.”
I remember in 2006, Mel Gibson was arrested for DUI and he ranted about “the Jews,” spewing antisemitic nonsense. He later blamed it on being drunk Back then I was thinking I had been drunk several times and I never spewed hate speech or said anything to hurt anyone. I may have regretted who I chose to bed with some of those nights, but that’s not the issue at hand.
Garry Tan is blaming this threatening Tweet on alcohol, which is either nonsense or evidence that he is not fit to be CEO of any company. I don’t believe it had anything to do with his choice of beverages. It is a reflection of what politics is in 2024. He has more in common with Trumpers than any civil human being. I don’t care about the testimonies that “jhe is a nice guy.”
He did what he did and he should be shunned by decent society.
…the threats were the fault of whomever sent the anonymous mailer — not Tan. “If idiots grab onto that as some sort of rationale for threats or harassment, I think that’s on them not him.”
“As described by leading scholars, stochastic terrorism involves ‘the use of mass media to provoke random acts of ideologically motivated violence that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable”
“Despite the anger, many agree with Tan’s politics”
Well, we ALL want safer cities and an end to homelessness. But (and this goes for GrowSF, too) pushing failed War on Drugs policies, corrupting local politics with outside money and lies, and maliciously trolling (That’s Fentalife!) are not practices of good-faith democracy. He at his ilk should be roundly rejected and ejected from our civic discourse.
i guess this is what happens when you block half of twitter and only have the echo chamber of your most loyal anti-poor lapdogs. i hope he sees consequences for this.
“Do I think that it’s really dumb for the supervisors to be filing restraining orders or police reports against Garry Tan? I mean, come on, dude. Do they really expect that Garry Tan will hire some dudes to drive by and shoot them?” asked another tech founder. “No, of course not.”
Uh, that tech lunatic just stabbed the other tech guy to death in SF, after doing drugs all day. Obviously, an unhinged bunch….
Gary Tan makes it so easy to hate him, just his habit of blocking anyone who he might not agree with shows the man has a problem. And he talks like Trump. To refer to him as a “moderate” is just wrong. I think he cares about himself, not San Francisco. I will not be voting for candidates he supports!
Given the rise of violence and hate speech in the United States, Tan’s irresponsible remarks should be unequivocally condemned by his peers.
we really do need to see the MAGA leader face some consequence for inciting violence so everyone understands what they can be held responsible for even if they personally don’t do anything other than make threats that their followers might act on.
Will GrowSF keep Tan on their board? Quite a liability now, given their “fix SF from incompetent leadership” mission…
https://growsf.org/team/
What are the underlying assumptions that would motivate the writer of this article to single out only the small sliver of the tech-worker demographic to conduct a survey? This is a story about the safety of those who represent the citizens of San Francisco, across the board. Besides, anyone and everyone who lives in San Francisco is subject to the whims of the tech industry’s venture-capitalist overlords. What makes the voices of non-tech-workers worth excluding?
it sounded to me like they were looking for perspectives from those who were in the tech community, a little like the news reporters who ask friends, co-workers, and acquaintances of someone who does some crime to see if they can paint a fuller picture of the person. it wouldn’t make sense to ask a lot of people who didn’t know him.
Raise their taxes.
The “just kidding/it was a joke” defense is the lamest and most fake that ever was. People who say this were not joking. They said or did something repugnant and now want to avoid the consequences of their actions. Nothing more. Ask anyone who has ever been bullied. They’ll recognize this tactic and its falseness immediately. He is yet another male, millionaire who thinks he can do whatever he pleases — threaten whoever he wishes – without consequence. Save us all from their arrogance.
Need to look into how many years did PUC General Manager Harlan Kelly Jr. received yesterday January 31-2024 for he can meet up with Mohammed Nuru and make sure that there city pension was taken away. Thank you
Oh how ridiculous. Does anybody seriously believe Garry Tan would walk walk into a Supervisor’s office and shoot him or her or them? Is he going to hire a gang of hit men to storm City Hall? Haha. What a joke. Garry gets active in local politics because he’s an upstanding citizen. And this isn’t political violence like Trump talks about all the time. That’s unAmerican, and would never happen in a city like San Francisco. Oh snap. It did? The day Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk were gunned down in their offices by an upstanding Twinkie-crazed citizen. A former cop. A former Supervisor. Like Garry, an entrepreneur who believed the homeless mentally-ill progressive drug addicts who run San Francisco were out to get him. Garry’s not delusional, other than imbibing the standard delusions of grandeur of his profession. Maybe people in the community would feel safer if he voluntarily submits to a drug test to clear the air.
If a random Canadian can walk into Pelosi’s home and smash a hammer into her husband’s skull, he sure can. And those threats got mailed to their homes.
“Upstanding” citizens fight with ideas, not explicit death threats.
The rest of your argument is nonsensical and excusing his behavior.
You missed the point Mark. What if some random whacko mailed a post card with death and die threats and anti Semitic hate filled crap to your HOME ADDRESS? Pretty sure you wouldn’t like that….not at all. More frighteningly: are you Jewish/Asian/Muslim/LGBTQ/ black or brown/ female? Do you live with elderly parents, your children, your gay husband or wife or??? How can you defend or normalize these death threats and call to violence? What if you got a postcard? What would you do? What if your daughters were threatened? What would you do?