I’ve written at length about the nasty tactics that the current generation of Silicon Valley power players use to defend and expand their own reputations. It’s painful to discuss the topic, especially in light of the risk that I take by doing so.
About two months ago, I was accosted on the street by a homeless person (or, at least, someone who appeared to be indigent) brandishing a banister. “Don’t fuck with the Y Combiner!” he shouted as he ran toward me, swinging. This wasn’t the first time that something like this happened, nor the scariest, but there’s a cumulative effect that these things have and I just found myself so goddamn angry that I have to deal with this garbage.
My first instinct was to fight. It flashed into my mind, just fuck up this Buchheit Goon and be done with it. See, this isn’t the first time that a person associated with Y Combinator has come after me. I don’t need to rehash 10 months of attacks on my reputation and threats against my physical person; I’ve already done that. I was ready to go, because I knew that even though this guy had a crude weapon, I also knew that I could get the advantage quickly, and maybe I could show these Y Combinator assholes that I wasn’t fucking around…
And then, there was clarity. A flash of calm. I stopped thinking of this person as “a Buchheit Goon” and saw him as a desperate, unfortunate human being. Someone whose humanity was no less valuable than my own. This man had presumably been promised or offered some small amount of money to rough me up, but he had no personal agenda. I doubt he knew my name, nor why he’d been offered the money. What good would it do to fight him? None.
No, I didn’t stop and talk to him, trying to find our common humanity. I didn’t calm him down and help him find his way to assistance. This is not some hero story. I ran like hell, more afraid of my own anger coming back than of the assailant. Rather than do something I’d later regret, I got out of the situation as quickly as I could. He stopped running after about fifty feet. “Stop fucking with the Y Combiner!”
I guess that I’m getting old. While I’m more used to intellectual combat than the physical kind, I no longer relish conflict. I’ve spent several years opposing the moral rot at the core of the technology industry. I’ve actually fought Evil. Two things to say about that. One: Evil is still there. I’ve attracted notice to my cause, but I haven’t won. Two: it can make you crazy. Let’s just say that it’s not good for one’s mental health to be accosted by strangers or to be a declared enemy of a high-profile, misogynist gun nut who’s not above extorting third parties (such as Quora) into his own power games. There’s a point at which one has to stop fighting. When it comes to this kind of stress, it doesn’t take much to damage a person’s health.
The next person who takes up arms against the pure evil that has corrupted the technology industry will have to be pseudonymous and protected. It will require a group effort, to keep that person safe. And I will gladly mentor that person, if asked. I’ve done a lot, and I’ve learned a lot about what not to do. I can offer my services to that fight, but I can no longer be expected to lead it.
