Peter Thiel has had enough. The libertarian-minded, Trump-supporting billionaire is leaving Silicon Valley and taking his venture capital with him to Los Angeles. An aversion to liberal politics, the Wall Street Journal first reported, inspired the move.
While wealthy with plenty of billionaires, Silicon Valley shouldn’t ignore this exit. The collective tech industry ought to take notice and ought to update itself, otherwise it will remain susceptible to the sort of groupthink that stifles innovation.
It’s no secret by now that technology thrives on disruption. The geek in the garage becomes the CEO in the boardroom by challenging the status quo with new ideas that lead to new, more successful products. Almost clichéd, this kind of innovation drives every single tech company from Microsoft to Facebook. Conformity does the opposite. It stifles creativity.
Maybe political diversity doesn’t translate into the creativity needed to launch a successful startup. But someone who clings to ideological dogma probably won’t, you know, think different.
Granted, Silicon Valley has reason to recoil from Thiel’s ideas. Tech companies need high-skilled immigrants from overseas to meet a demand for qualified job candidates that U.S. universities cannot fill fast enough. But rather than have a debate about that issue, Silicon Valley exiled Thiel—the man who co-founded PayPal and helped make Facebook a thing.
It was revenge of the nerds when Thiel wrote Trump a check. Ellen Pao formerly of Reddit said his support of the Republican nominee was “in direct conflict with our values.” Marco Arment of Tumblr accused him of helping “a racist, sexist bigot.” No one stopped long enough to contemplate the policies, not just the person, that Thiel was backing.
And so, Thiel unfriended Silicon Valley. Whether or not they realize it, Silicon Valley is at risk of losing more than just his billions.
