I am sure he learned a lot from taking his garage prototype all the way through a billion dollar acquisition. And I hope he learned some things from his first dip into politics.
I look at someone like him, and though I can criticize his beliefs and actions, he's also a pretty normal kid who group up on YouTube and 4chan and is struggling with a pretty confusing soup of ideas, just like all of us. You never know what people are like on the inside, but I'm going to assume his heart is in the right place, and I look forward to seeing what he does next. I am absolutely certain he's caught glimpses of the VR future no one else has, and he'll do his darndest to bring them into the world.
edit: Thiel is one of the most prominent tech guys to support Trump. Zuckerberg defended him when people started calling for him to be removed.
The difference is that Luckey
1. was the face of the company 2. had issues with the community before any of the trump stuff came out. He pretty much stopped using Reddit because of it. 3. Is named in a lawsuit. 4. Supported Trump in a pretty childish way. Giving a donation or endorsing him is one thing. Trying to fund memes just looks bad.
For a guy who's main role seemed to be PR he did a poor job of it.
But why should that have been required of him?
Going against the grain has, and will always be a dangerous proposition and no amount of thought policing will change that.
Being gay is far more dangerous than being straight.
Being Muslim in a majority Christian or Hindu society is far more dangerous than being a adherent of the prevailing religion.
We could list examples all day, but it's a plainly obvious phenomenon. What I want to know is why so many people seem to act as if there's inherent moral superiority in being in the majority. There isn't.
(Also, cute bit of doublespeak characterizing a challenge to orthodoxy as "thought policing".)
It's not, and now he's dealing with the side effects of the choice he made.
I asked why his continued employment ought to be predicated on never giving the impression that he holds beliefs that people like you find offensive.
You say "It's not." But it obviously was. We can all see that it was, that's what TFA (as well as all the other press about Lucky in the last 12 months) is about: His perceived beliefs, how unacceptable they are to you, and whether or not he ought to be cast out as a consequence.
What you meant to say was "He should have known better than to give the impression that he believes things that I, and people like me, disapprove of."