Suggesting some of your users will kill people or commit violent acts of terrorism and that this is okay and normal in the name of pursing money and growth, is not a "pretty cliche startup mentality". No startup I've ever worked at thankfully has ever suggested such evil things and then say they're normal. That's not what startups are.

It’s not a suggestion, it’s an admission.

There are so many indirect ways to enable harm that you’d probably be hard pressed to find a company that connects people that isn’t somehow causing harm.

You’ve never worked at a startup with a product that required a moderation team?

If your product requires a moderation team, you’re under the umbrella of enabling negative content.

To give an example, people working on video games with online play are enabling a toxic environment where verbal abuse often occurs.

Are they trying to be evil? No.

But in the course of money and growth they add chat to add a social aspect and enable it. More people than not get a positive experience.

The tacky startup aspect is the fact you’d write that down in a memo. Everyone knows it, it’s not some brilliant revelation to wave up and down and act all high and mighty about.

"There are bad people in the world, some of them will use our service, some of them will use our service as a tool or medium to do bad things."

The behavior from bad people isn't normal, but above a certain size it would be abnormal if you didn't find any bad people.

I wouldn't think there's anything objectionable about this statement other than it's vacuously true.