1/ In case you're curious, here are some less shitposty and more nuanced thoughts on the issues around the recent Business Insider article, Zach Graumann, and the HR issues with the Yang 2020 campaign.

As someone who's been dragging him a lot recently, I have a lot of thoughts..

2/ TL;DR— the article highlighted a lot of verifiable issues with the campaign, & in order to stop them from dragging down Yang's future political efforts, I personally think Zach should proactively take the hit & step out of the spotlight for the sake of Yang & the movement.

3/ First off, many people had a wonderful experience with the campaign, and I personally remain very positive on what Yang accomplished, his overall vision & approach to politics, and his future as a political leader. However, the reality is that the campaign had many..

4/ workplace/HR issues that were handled unprofessionally, and many staffers/volunteers came away disillusioned with the campaign operation itself.

5/ At the time, I was inclined to let it slide as a Yang fan b/c of the importance of the cause & because it seemed more negligent than malicious from the top, and I was pretty irritated with folks like Erica who seemed to be holding a young scrappy movement to unreasonable..

6/ standards in light of the stakes (especially considering what politicians are like in general). Over time though, I saw a repeated dynamic of A) people at the top like Yang & Zach failing to directly and publicly address these issues in the same "humanity first" way that..

7/ extended to so many other aspects of the campaign/messaging B) people who experienced these issues firsthand being treated in an unprofessional & dismissive manner, kind of being treated as legal liabilities instead of individuals & exposing deficiencies in the campaign's..

8/ HR processes, with several examples of promised resolution being reneged or not followed up on, C) a blind spot for elevating the types of individuals who were contributing to the problems, and D) Yang Gangers blindly defending the campaign and attacking anyone who voiced..

9/ their frustrations with it, thus compounding the initial problems. This growing awareness came as the campaign was winding down & there didn't seem much point in making a big stink about it, given that most of the negative press didn't really stick & Yang 2024 is years away..

10/ and I was hopeful they would learn from the mistakes.

As far as Zach is concerned, I have plenty of other issues with him occupying the spotlight he does— I don't think he holds a candle to Yang talent-wise, I think him being a preppy white guy centrist with a disdain..

11/ towards the activist left has hurt Yang with Black and progressive support, I think he’s a boring host on Yang Speaks, and most importantly I think Yang needs someone to aggressively curate grifters & mediocre talent in his circles since he seems to be too nice & loyal to..

12/ do it himself— Zach hasn’t shown himself to be up to this task. Of course Zach is a close friend of Andrew and played a key role in getting Yang to where he is now, & deserves recognition and appreciation for his work. Recognizing when a close friend is holding you back..

13/ and acting on it is an incredibly difficult task required of leaders, & Zach would be doing him a huge favor by taking the initiative to take the heat for Yang 2020 issues and step out of the spotlight.

14/ Anyway, unfortunately for Yang this recent article put a lot of these issues front & center again, so that changed the calculus about letting things lie. Despite of having an obvious agenda (exposing workplace toxicity issues) and not being the most eloquent or balanced..

15/ piece of reporting, the author obviously did a lot of legwork and presented many verifiably true facts about the Yang 2020 campaign (this most important of which to me being the elevation and tolerance of Nick Ryan, who was at the center of many of the issues). I had kind..

16/ of a sinking feeling once it started getting buzz on social media, because I knew a lot of the parts to be accurate & because there’s no way the NY media was going to let this drop. The reality of politics is that when you are supporting cast (Zach) and you become the..

17/ story— whether fair or not— stepping out of the spotlight is often the most effective & loyal thing you can do. For this reason I stopped keeping my opinions to myself and decided it was finally time to really pressure Zach to take responsibility and take the heat.

18/ For Yang’s sake, I’m very happy Business Insider posted that lengthy retraction statement, as it seriously undermines the credibility of the article to the average reader. But it changes very little of the content, only a couple of the more speculative bits.

19/ It’s pretty disappointing to me for a number of Yang supporters to use this to knee-jerk dismiss all of the valid concerns that have been raised over the past several months as well as in the remaining 99% of the article. Just because something is an unbalanced “hit piece”..

20/ doesn’t mean it doesn’t convey accurate and concerning information— “thinking harder” is sifting through the bias (both the article’s and your own) and finding/corroborating the nuggets of truth. (It was kind embarrassing to see the number of people who blindly dismissed..

21/ the claims of the article and yet had never heard the name Nick Ryan before.) Consider— if you’re a Yang stan, have you ever reached out to a frustrated former staffer/volunteer with an open mind to hear their side of the story?

22/ Anyhow, don’t assume from my ragging on Zach that I’m just piling on because of a smear piece. Even if this bullet has been dodged for now, I think these issues will continue to crop up in the mayoral campaign and beyond unless they are addressed in a more decisive way.

23/23. I wouldn’t be writing all this and dragging Zach so much if I didn’t badly want to see Yang and the highest ideals he’s promoting succeed. As always my ears are open if you think my perspective is incomplete.

PS I'm not alone in my judgment here.