The founder and CEO of telehealth and online pharmacy Hims took to social media Wednesday to encourage anti-Israel protesters on college campuses to continue in those efforts because companies like his will be "eager" to hire them.
Andrew Dudum, who founded Hims in 2017, said anti-Israel campus protesters are making a difference and drew a contrast to other executives who have said the antisemitic demonstrations have made those involved in campus protests unemployable.
"Moral courage > College degree," Dudum wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "If you're currently protesting against the genocide of the Palestinian people & for your university's divestment from Israel, keep going. It's working."
"There are plenty of companies & CEOs eager to hire you, regardless of university discipline," Dudum added with a link to the Hims careers page.
Hims provides prescriptions for sexual performance and erectile dysfunction treatments, as well as medications for hair regrowth, weight loss, anxiety and skin treatment. The company rebranded as Hims & Hers after launching the Hers brand to sell birth control pills and medication to stimulate sexual desire in pre-menopausal women.
Dudum's post elicited a critical response from Joe Lonsdale, who co-founded software giant Palantir Technologies in 2003 and is currently the founder and managing partner of early-stage venture capital firm 8VC.
"Real moral courage doesn't involve joining a mindless mob, chanting anti-US and other woke pablum, following instructions not to debate or discuss your positions at all yet being indignantly righteous, while large numbers in the mob chant for violence and block Jewish students," Lonsdale wrote in response to Dudum's post.
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Lonsdale's post criticizing anti-Israel campus protesters echoes the sentiments expressed by a number of other executives and investors.
In the wake of Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, which sparked the latest round of conflict in the Middle East, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman criticized Harvard student groups that signed onto a letter placing the sole blame for the attack on Israel and said students in those groups should be made public so that he and other CEOs don't "inadvertently hire any of their members."
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Palantir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp has also criticized campus protesters and said in a December appearance on FOX Business Network's "The Claman Countdown" that the company supports "Western values" like transparency, fairness and protection of civil liberties.
"We must do better in the battlefield of ideas, and we have to protect the values that are near and dear to all of our hearts, or at least all of us that want a better and stronger world," Karp told host Liz Claman at the time. "And this new, thin and highly destructive religion whose vapors are being inhaled and kept in the lungs of our young elite students are dangerous to the world and dangerous to our society. And those of us, especially like myself, who are considered progressive – we must speak up."
Palantir announced an initiative in December for students fleeing antisemitism on college campuses and expanded that initiative last week.
"Unchecked antisemitism at U.S. universities mandates a response," the company wrote in a post on X last week. "Palantir launched an initiative on December 7 for students who feared for their safety or were concerned about antisemitism on campus, welcoming them to join Palantir as University Fellows across the company."
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"When it was launched, the program was not broadly believed necessary outside of Palantir," the company added. "Unfortunately, the historical levels of hate and antisemitism plaguing our universities have proven its necessity. We are expanding and extending this Fellowship. This opportunity continues to be open to all university students, regardless of background, who have been affected by or are concerned about the increasingly dire situation on campus."
