Peter Thiel gets roasted to hell & back in this amazing @sfstandard.com story.
Pro Tip: Thiel should fire his entire staff—and all of his dumb friends—for allowing him to pursue this fanatical fiasco!
Great reporting by @eshugs.bsky.social and Garrett Leahy.
sfstandard.com/2025/09/16/p...
My favorite part of this story: OpenAI suggested that one of the groups opposing it was being funded by Elon Musk because the group's president lived in a house owned by Tesla Place, LLC.
So we called the owners.
NEW: OpenAI has been claiming for months now that the groups opposed to its for-profit transition are secretly backed by billionaires. We examined the evidence. sfstandard.com/2025/09/02/o...
"Across nearly every example, there’s proof that the Giving Pledge is unfulfilled, unfulfillable, and not our ticket to a fairer, better future." sfstandard.com/2025/07/30/g...
“The dumbest, most tech-brained garbage idea I’ve ever heard of.”
“Like a robot trying to conduct an orchestra...”
Don't miss @eshugs.bsky.social on the “broke startup founder” who wants Trump to declare a national security emergency and give him part of Alameda.
sfstandard.com/2025/06/16/f...
a former employee said working at CZI turned her off of billionaire philanthropy altogether
CZI recently hired its first-ever president. Tellingly, she previously served for 16 years at Meta.
CZI says its recent changes are not politically motivated, but staffers say leaders are clear they're trying to avoid being a target of the Trump administration
employees also described an obsessive focus on appearing bipartisan, even on issues like criminal justice reform
next up, employees describe a comms department that controlled what words they could use to describe their work — "social and emotional learning" was vetoed — and even what grants could go out
a thread of the biggest revelations from our new piece on the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, starting with Priscilla Chan tearing up talking about watching "the peaceful transfer of power" at Trump's inauguration
The inside story of how the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative lost its way
featuring interviews with more than a insiders, taped meetings, and how Priscilla responded to attending the inauguration sfstandard.com/2025/06/09/c...
journalists therapists
🤝
"say more about that"
“They just said they were cutting back, but everybody knows what happened,” one grantee told me.
“Mark Zuckerberg needs something from the president of the United States. … These cuts are part of Mark Zuckerberg fighting for his No. 1, which is his bottom line.”
Nonprofits are seeing their budgets slashed as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative pivots hard away from "social advocacy"
“They are making sure to cut anything that would sound or even be construed as DEI-esque,” one former employee told us. sfstandard.com/2025/05/13/n...
“It was highly publicized as a gift to the community,” she said. “They were already taking our homes because of Facebook, landlords pricing us out. Now they’re gonna take this away too. It seems unfair.”
via @eshugs.bsky.social & Garrett Leahy
The son of a Silicon Valley billionaire tells @sfstandard.com why he wrote a scathing novel about growing up rich — and why it definitely is not about his dad sfstandard.com/2025/04/07/j...
wrote about how everyone at the "abundance" book tour is horny for ezra klein sfstandard.com/2025/03/27/e...
One student said community members had been offering up their homes to students with nowhere else to go during spring break. “It’s crazy to say, but people are opening their doors to students who are concerned about this in a way that’s similar to Nazi Germany,” she said.
“This was such a gut punch of an election for so many Democratic donors,” one Democratic advisor told The Standard. “A number of the people I’ve talked to were just like, ‘What the fuck did I burn all that money for?’” sfstandard.com/2025/03/15/d...
Talked to Airbnb hosts who are fleeing the platform over co-founder Joe Gebbia reportedly joining DOGE.
“I don’t want to be a part of an organization that’s generating profit for someone that’s destroying the government and destroying my community,” one said.
sfstandard.com/2025/02/20/a...
particularly proud of my photography work on this one
Insiders who bought $1m tickets to David Sack’s VIP "Crypto Ball" reception get a gift with purchase—a guaranteed dinner with Donald Trump sfstandard.com/2025/01/17/t...
Wrote about how Time staffers are souring on their owner, Marc Benioff, as cozies up to Trump
As one asked: “How are we as journalists supposed to do our jobs when that is the look he’s putting out there?” sfstandard.com/2025/01/06/a...
thank you!!
