Jeffrey Epstein's Money Mingled with Silicon Valley Startups(www.nytimes.com)
48 pointsby JumpCrisscross4 hours ago6 comments
  • aomix2 hours ago
    The Wire's eternal wisdom "You start to follow the money, you don't know where the fuck it's gonna take you"
  • 3 hours ago
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  • belter3 hours ago
    "Epstein associated with Silicon Valley elite years after his release from prison" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46892509
  • o3jsslje3 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • kylecazar2 hours ago
      If founders (or VC's) feel comfortable working with someone who pled guilty to procuring a child for prostitution, they should go ahead. But they shouldn't then be surprised when people consider them a piece of shit.
    • nutjob2an hour ago
      How many friends do you have that are (convicted) pedophiles?

      If you had any, would you tell anyone about them?

      If no, why is that?

    • GuinansEyebrows2 hours ago
      wild to try to begin a social relationship with the hn community by trying to argue this position.
      • krappan hour ago
        I've seen this exact argument made numerous times in defense of some heinous people, or generally against "cancel culture" within tech, in favor of what they consider the political neutrality of "pure meritocracy."

        If Jeffrey Epstein were a startup founder or if he had written a really important compiler or something that linked him to tech more directly, more people here would be defending him.

        • mrguyorama33 minutes ago
          >in favor of what they consider the political neutrality of "pure meritocracy."

          Meanwhile these people often got where they were explicitly through nepotism

    • 3 hours ago
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    • watwut2 hours ago
      I find it great that we now get to see what kind of men pick winners and loosers and how they operate. The fact that we now see the hypocrisy and moral rot of supposed meritocracy is not a bug.

      And no, Epstein did not stopped his abuses after his network got him incredibly sweet deal and prevented further investigation. He did not even operated in secrecy after that.

  • simianwords2 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • shihab2 hours ago
      The article strictly talks about people who were pals with him _after_ his Pedophilia conviction. And please don't do this strawman "evil person eating babies", nobody sane is claiming that.
      • wcfieldsan hour ago
        Just take a look at the photos of his residences, it's filled with big black redaction squares of the "artwork" and photos on his walls and the little bits that can be seen lend a huge credence to his prior conviction.

        Absolutely bonkers to say he's a "somewhat flawed person" when there's gigs of PDFs of some of the most heinous things imaginable.

      • 2 hours ago
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      • simianwords2 hours ago
        His pedophilia charges are 1000x worse than Roman Polanski who actually (the literal sense of the word) raped a 13 year old.

        Whereas Epstein was convicted solicited sex from 16 year old. There's a mountain of a difference between them.

        Here are the people who signed petition against Roman's conviction

        * Woody Allen

        * Wes Anderson

        * Jean-Jacques Annaud

        * Asia Argento (later expressed regret)

        * Darren Aronofsky

        * Paul Auster

        * Monica Bellucci

        * Gael García Bernal

        * Adrien Brody

        * Penélope Cruz

        * Alfonso Cuarón

        * Guillermo del Toro

        * Jonathan Demme

        * Alexandre Desplat

        * Xavier Dolan (later expressed regret)

        * Stephen Frears

        * Harrison Ford

        * Terry Gilliam

        * Taylor Hackford

        * Buck Henry

        * Alejandro G. Iñárritu

        * Jeremy Irons

        * Neil Jordan

        * Harmony Korine

        * John Landis

        * David Lynch (his daughter claimed posthumous regret in 2025)

        * Michael Mann

        * Sam Mendes

        * Mike Nichols

        * Alexander Payne

        * Natalie Portman (later expressed regret)

        * Brett Ratner

        * Walter Salles

        * Jerry Schatzberg

        * Julian Schnabel

        * Martin Scorsese

        * Steven Soderbergh

        * Tilda Swinton

        * Kristin Scott Thomas

        * Tom Tykwer

        * Emma Thompson (later expressed regret)

        * Pedro Almodóvar

        * Wong Kar-wai

        * Salman Rushdie

        * Milan Kundera

        * Diane von Furstenberg

        * Neil Gaiman (signed a related petition)

        * Meryl Streep (publicly supported without signing)

        * Whoopi Goldberg (publicly supported without signing)

        * Debra Winger (publicly supported without signing)

        * Harvey Weinstein (publicly defended him)

        Why don't we hold these people to the same standards?

        • lovich2 hours ago
          Im not a fan of Roman Polanski to put it mildly, but are you trying to claim that supporting a pedophile is as bad as being a pedophile?

          Also all those people can fuck themselves. There’s more than enough blame to go around.

          • simianwordsan hour ago
            do you agree that you have to hold all these people to the same standard?
    • joriJordan2 hours ago
      What if he was both? His villainous nature made him a willing accomplice and aligned him with political monsters.

      The "oh this is just repetitive/tiresome/old" energy is an emotional trope that is itself repetitive, tiresome, and old.

      Dopamine addicted brain demands the circus bring out a new act! Otherwise it might calm down enough to notice all it's given to eat is bread!

      Amazing how the adults are just like kids watching Saturday morning cartoons; aww news interruption! How dare reality intrude on my disassociation!