I’ve been involved in a few high-profile tech feuds, and the not-surprising conclusion that I’m coming to is that they’re a waste of time.
Dan Gackle and Paul Buchheit, both associated with Y Combinator, chose to start a beef with me last month. Dan G., moderator of Hacker News, banned my account from Hacker News while intentionally taking one of my comments way out of context, then deleting that comment in a bad-faith attempt to represent his out-of-context interpretation as “official”. Paul Buchheit continued the feud by lobbing defamatory accusations at me on Quora. I don’t like to start fights, but I’ll end them on my own terms.
Under pressure that seems to have come directly from Y Combinator, Quora banned my account shortly before 1:00 pm. I was a model contributor, a three-year Top Writer, and never given any warning about conduct on the site or even the slightest inclination that I was in anything other than good standing. The ban came out of the blue. Jeff Meyerson and I worked together on the February 1, 2015 Quoracast, and Alecia Li Morgan worked with me on publishing several of my answers, and they were both great people to collaborate with.
To make it clear, I don’t harbor any ill will toward Quora and I certainly don’t hold any toward its employees, many of whom I’ve worked with in the past, and who seem to be exemplary citizens. Quora participated in a Y Combinator round (and probably regrets it now, since the company seems to have lost critical autonomy) and is thus, to some degree, connected to a rat’s nest of bad intentions that it can’t possibly control. I don’t fault Quora or anyone there for it. I assume good faith in the company itself and its people, and believe the incoming information indicating that the extortion laid upon them by external forces was so extreme as to leave them no other option.
The story coming to me (from multiple sources, as of this morning) is:
- a source inside Quora has given me that some Quora employees are aware of the ban, and disagree (some strongly) with the decision. The consensus among Quorans (even including management) who know the situation is unanimous that I shouldn’t have been banned. I thank them for their continuing support. There are many Quora employees of whom I think very highly, and I don’t hold this against them in any way.
- all evidence indicates that Quora was pressured to ban me by people associated with (and possibly part of) Y Combinator, retaliating because an anonymous contributor to Quora leaked the fact that Paul Graham’s animus toward me is largely based on this December 2013 blog post. Y Combinator seems to be acting under the assumption that the “leaker” is me, which can’t possibly be valid, because whoever did leak that fact clearly knows Paul Graham personally, and I don’t.
There is, I must note, a small chance that I am wrong. I don’t expect much to change over the Labor Day weekend but if, by Tuesday or Wednesday, my Quora account is un-banned, we’ll be able to chalk this up to an embarrassing technical or bureaucratic mistake and forget about the whole thing. If my account remains banned, the only sensible explanation will be the one that confirms the rumors of external pressure placed on Quora. An abuse of power (and, quite probably, outright extortion) from some (presumably investor-level) entity with power over Quora will be, literally, the only the only possible explanation (having ruled out the “bureaucratic mistake” explanation). This won’t prove that Y Combinator itself is responsible, but it will strongly suggest such a claim, especially in light of this enormously stupid tech beef they’ve decided to have with me.
As for Paul Buchheit and Dan Gackle, you guys need to man the fuck up, apologize for your atrocious behavior, and let us end this stupid feud. It’s obnoxious, and it’s a waste of my time. I’m sick of your shit. Thanks in advance.
