Six months after his vitriolic screed against homeless people, women and San Francisco in general barfed him into the spotlight, Peter Shih's company Celery picked up a $2 million investment. If Silicon Valley still considers itself a meritocracy, it sure isn't concerned with matters of character.
After being lambasted on the street and in the media from San Francisco to Manhattan last August, Shih's name apparently didn't even warrant a mention in a TechCrunch profile of his newly funded company earlier this month. Celery makes a platform that allows retailers to collect pre-order billing information and then charge customers when the product actually ships. So, for a company that operates on a certain level of trust, it's a smart PR move to put some distance between it and a founder who openly shows distaste for those around him.
Greg Gopman, on the other hand, had a much quicker bounce back into the spotlight after he took to Facebook in December to trash San Francisco's homeless "degenerates." As Valleywag reports today, the former AngelHack CEO is now organizing an seminar with a group called Tradecraft that teaches startups how to "use improv to develop stronger culture." Or, in other words, an acting bootcamp to churn out more Class Act entrepreneurs like Gopman. As one attendee of last night's event put it on Facebook, the seminar "feels like it trains you to behave and think differently as a way great entrepreneurs do."
According to another source quoted by Valleywag, Gopman may even be considering a stunt run for political office — which wouldn't actually be that out of the ordinary in San Francisco, where we have a history of actual clowns running for political office.
Previously: Startup CEO Trashes SF's Homeless 'Degenerates'
Startup Bro Not Completely Stoked On S.F.'s Startup Bro Scene
[Valleywag]
[TechCrunch]