Here's how to piss off an entire city. Write a ridiculously shallow, unfunny and infuriating blog post entitled 10 Things I Hate About You: San Francisco Edition. Peter Shih, the founder of payment startup Celery, penned this charming post on Medium.com, immediately drawing backlash (and doing all sorts of wonders for San Francisco's contentious relationship with the tech startup community).
When Shih started feeling the heat, he posted a disclaimer with the piece: "This post is an opinion piece by me. It was intended to be humorous satire. Hate all you want, but please stop bringing my company into this." (Peter, your credentials paint you as a fairly intelligent individual, but you do not know what "satire" means.)
The post was disclaimed, edited, then eventually taken down altogether. But Uptown Almanac has it archived (with scathing commentary) for safekeeping. Here's the original post, in all its homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, and general jerk hater asshole glory:
Shih's reputation has taken a hit, but San Francisco is not yet done with him. The city hates you back, Peter Shih. These posters have started popping up on the streets of SoMA:
In closing, here is an inspired BuzzFeed post: 10 Things I Hate About Peter Shih.
UPDATE: Here is Peter Shih's apology, which is surprisingly simple and makes no excuses: I’m Sorry.