Tech companies criticize travel ban

Tech companies criticize travel ban but not their investor Peter Thiel:

The ride-hailing service earned praise from customers for condemning President Trump’s travel ban and pledging to donate $1 million to the ACLU over the next four years. Many on social media urged followers to #DeleteUber for appearing to break up a driver strike about the ban. On Monday, Lyft cracked the top 10 free apps on Apple’s App Store.

Less noted, however, is the fact that Peter Thiel is one of Lyft’s investors. Thiel, the billionaire investor and PayPal (PYPL, Tech30) cofounder, is Trump’s top tech advocate and an adviser on his transition team. He also recently appeared to defend the travel ban, despite the many concerns about it in Silicon Valley.

I hate to make it all about business, but sometimes things don’t change unless it affects businesses and Trump’s decisions are clearly hitting a nerve not just with individuals around the country but will companies too.

Categories:

Technology, Tromp

Peter Thiel

Kara Swisher on Silicon Valley tech investor Peter Thiel, who will speaking tonight at the GOP convention:

According to BuzzFeed: “The speech will cover why Donald Trump is better for America over Hillary Clinton because of Trump’s anti-war stance and Trump’s economic credentials. Thiel is also expected to say that he’s proud to be gay.”

The last part is something socially tolerant Silicon Valley will surely cheer. But even the most diehard Republicans in tech — Meg Whitman, Mary Meeker and the always contrarian bear-hugger-of-capitalism Marc Andreessen — think Trump is insane and that any administration run by him will spell doom for the sector.

And while everyone imagines that is because tech people are so liberal, they’re really not deep down — the economic system works very well (thank you very much for the billions!) for Silicon Valley. Its denizens would rather tweak it to their advantage rather than blow it up completely as is Thiel’s bent.

Like Trump standing out from the rest of the GOP, Thiel stands out from the rest of Silicon Valley. An odd dude for sure.

Thiel is the guy who was secretly funding Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker.