[dickman3000]

If Thiel were the CEO of a corporation he could be held to violate his fiduciary duty by giving the corporation bad press by supporting someone like Trump.

Trump has made a lot of enemies in the United States: minorities, gays, women, people who don't want to see the democratic institutions of America taken apart. He has also willingly built a coalition of outspoken neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other individuals. It'd be like if a CEO threw his outspoken support behind David Duke, spoke at his rallies, and donated 1.25 million dollars to his campaign. That's what's happening here. You don't think shareholders wouldn't have a problem with that?

"Yeah, stigmatize us in the eyes of society, that's great for business."

People aren't being realistic when they say business people should just have carte blanche to say whatever they want. They owe their shareholders, partners, and employees a duty of care to not bring ridiculously bad press to their organization.

If the people at YC don't care about this bad press, and the business it will likely lose, then that's their business. But to say that it never happens in the business world shows a lack of understanding how things work.

[ryporter]

Really? There are CEOs who support Trump. [1] How many of them have sued (much less successfully sued) for breach of fiduciary duty?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Donald_Trump_president...

[dickman3000]

Just because it hasn't happened in these cases doesn't mean there isn't a case for it yet. It's very complex. That's why people pay lawyers.

The point I'm making here is that the business world isn't a universe where people can 100% of the time support an outspoken racist, anti-semitic, Islamaphobic, misogynistic, sexual predator authoritarian who wants to put an end to American democracy.

Imagine if the CEO of Coca Cola did what Peter Thiel did. You wouldn't think he wouldn't be out on his butt?

It's a case by case basis, but saying "business therefor you can say and support whoever you want" is wrong. It's up to YC to do as they wish, I just wanted to point out that things are a little more nuanced here.

[ryporter]

You made a very specific claim in your first sentence, that supporting Trump constitutes a breach of fiduciary duty. Considering how quickly shareholder lawsuits follow announcements of mergers, I would expect lawyers to be circling these CEOs already. Please cite a single example of a CEO under threat of breaching fiduciary duty for supporting Trump.

[dickman3000]

What? No I didn't. I wrote "he could be". It's right there.

[tedunangst]

I think that's a pretty novel legal theory, that CEOs have a fiduciary duty to not say things that might upset people.

[wfo]

If a new CEO of Coca-Cola made a speech announcing a proud partnership with the KKK or Al Qaeda and ran an ad campaign informing the public then sure I imagine that'd be a lawsuit. Coca Cola would never disassociate its brand, every reasonable person could predict the forthcoming disaster and every shareholder would want to recoup their losses.

So yes, CEOs do have a duty to avoid saying certain things, sometimes. Does it extend to Trump? Not quite, I don't think, but the very idea of it is not unreasonable.

[dickman3000]

It's not really that novel; it's the same underlying issue behind anything that would tarnish a brand.

[Turing_Machine]

Last time I looked, Trump's support and Clinton's support were pretty close to evenly split (Clinton slightly ahead in most polls, but not by that much).

Why is supporting Trump more "tarnishing" than supporting Clinton?

I understand that you don't like Trump (which is fine, I don't much like him either), but why do your opinions get to control? Do you think there aren't people who find Clinton equally repugnant, or even more so? I assure you that there are (I'm not voting for either, myself).

But, you know, the money of Trump supporters is just as green as the money of Clinton supporters, if you want to cast it solely in terms of fiduciary duty. Probably even more so, since I would expect that the median Trump supporter is wealthier than the median Clinton supporter.

[wfo]

I don't know, I think most of the money is on the left side of the aisle this cycle. Clinton has firmly grasped the title of "establishment" ie status quo, and status quo is good for the wealthy. Many, many wealthy republicans have flipped, IIRC from polls I think Trump's poor white base would dominate the median income.

Agree wrt the rest.