Tucker Max

I know this isn’t the “best” way to deal with the modern short media cycle, but when something big happens, I usually like to let it simmer and settle before I comment on it. There are a lot of reasons for this, the main one is that the implications of something often take a long time to work out, and immediate commentary is usually nothing more than worthless chattering or visceral reaction. There’s enough of that, and not enough deep reflection.

Some people asked for more examples in this post about how to find a mentor; specifically, they want to know how to figure out how to provide enough value to a prominent person to be able to even get started on a relationship. I could go find a bunch of examples involving other people, but instead, one very specific one popped up in my life. It’s the opposite of what most people are expecting. Instead of showing how someone came to me to establish a relationship, I’ll show you how I approached a hero of mine to establish a relationship: Steven Pressfield.

I did a series of posts about hiring an intern (the original job posting, my analysis of round one, analysis of round two, analysis of round three, and explanation why I hired an assistant like that) and since then three very interesting things have happened:

The whole Planned Parenthood donation debacle described below wasn’t all that funny, it was mostly just sad on their part. But PETA’s response IS funny. I got the letter and picture below from PETA yesterday:

 

And accompanied with the picture was this Letter to Tucker Max from PETA President Ingrid Newkirk:

I’ve been dealing with media for about a decade now, and I’ve seen some crazy, ridiculous things. But this recent controversy might legitimately be the most insane thing I’ve ever been witness to.

In short: I tried to donate $500,000 to Planned Parenthood, and they turned me down because they were worried more about other people’s perceptions of the donation than helping women.

[The most factually accurate article about this is in Forbes, you can catch up on it there. There has been a ton of analysis on this as well, most of it profoundly stupid, but the best is probably here.]

I am writing this on my blog because, even though I’m used to being misquoted and misrepresented in media, I’ve never seen anything like what’s going on now. It’s like people have absolutely no regard for any sort of facts or analysis based in reality; all anyone in media wants to do it use this to rant about whatever ideological position they hold. Let me clear some things up: