“Terrorist sympathizer” and “successful businessperson” (or “rich person”) are completely orthogonal. Building a successful business does not necessarily change your terrorist sympathisation status. You can be a rich terrorist sympathiser.
I am not equipped to give an opinion on that either way. I’m just saying that building a successful business is independent of the accuracy of your ideology.
I think this is partly true. Raising the necessary funds, hiring enough of the right people and become sufficiently visible to get "mindshare" are all important factors in building a successful business. It is a lot harder to do these things if your ideology is out of step with what is considered mainstream.
I think it's taking things too literally and pointedly ignoring the subtext while unintended or not having subtext of their own.
feels like sophistry
the article connects the two, so they are not orthonogonal either:
> But even as things got noisy in public, Masad met eerie silence professionally. “My calendar was suddenly empty, because I was talking about Palestine,” he said. “Replit was not a hot company anymore. We did a layoff. And at the same time, a lot of my friends were no longer my friends. I was no longer invited to parties.”
> Potential partnerships dried up. Masad became a frequent topic in pro-Israel tech groupchats, a source said, where some investors accused him of being antisemitic.
> A Replit investor who requested anonymity to speak candidly told me Masad’s public persona has been “really challenging,” and he’s had to defend the founder in investor circles. I asked if Masad had lost business because of his views. “I’m sure the answer is yes,” the investor said.
TIL. Big fair-play to him, and I'm very sincere about it, he must of have left a lot of potential money on the table from possible investors as a result of his view on the genocide in Gaza. Again, fair play to him, we need a lot more people like him in our (pretty sad) industry from this point of view.
As far as I can tell, nowhere does the article argue that being "terrorist symphathizer" and being a successful business person are mutually exculsive, so you seem to be arguing against a point no one made.
What is obvious is that people should be outraged if a successful businessperson is actually a "terrorist sympathizer", because most people, whatever their ideology, would simply consider it to be an outrageous and ridiculous state of affairs if a successful businessperson was allowed to function unimpeded in western society and its business world if they themselves considered the businessperson to be an unapologetic "terrorist sympathizer".
The title is clearly an enagement ploy by the editor because it forces the reader to decide whether they themselves believe the founder is actually a terrorist sympathizer or not. If they don't think so, then it's outrageous that he's been libelled in a such a manner. If they think he is a terrorist sympathizer then it would be outrageous to them that he is allowed to operate unimpeded in western society and its economic realm.
That's why this comment sounds disingenously pedantic and your follow-up comment's detached tone doesn't feel sincere frankly. The article does list specific reasons why he was called a "terrorist sympathizer" and forces the reader to decide whether they themselves would consider the founder a "terrorist sympathizer" given the context in order to come to a conclusion about him in general.
This isn’t good for anyone that prefers media that someone put soul into. People thought Disney lost their mojo over the past few years… be prepared for almost every Disney movie to have that straight-to-video vibe from now on.
Is my market analysis flawed? You don’t start with premise “hey I’m trying to create something where I need your company to trust me with all of your proprietary company data and strategy”.
You can start with "hey this is useful for small businesses who don't necessarily have the same concerns" or "hey this is useful for personal notes" or any other use case that doesn't implicate the machinery of a massive bureaucracy.
That’s not what he’s aiming at “generic personal note taking”. Let’s say I am a small business with 1 on 1s. Should I as a manager put my one on one notes - Employee Jane Doe was discussing how she needs a raise because she’s going through a divorce and a bitter custody battle and just found out that she is pregnant and may need time off” - on his site?
If I were on a train and there was even a chance that we were careering towards a collapsed bridge... I would appreciate that train stopping before we find out.
“Terrorist sympathizer” and “successful businessperson” (or “rich person”) are completely orthogonal. Building a successful business does not necessarily change your terrorist sympathisation status. You can be a rich terrorist sympathiser.
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