GitHub CEO: What I learned from our harassment scandal | Hacker News Reader

GitHub CEO: What I learned from our harassment scandal

fortune.com

1 pointstrzalek5 comments

Perhaps I'm being dense, but the Forbes title doesn't seem to match the text, which only asks how the CEO navigated the harassment claim. The response given seems to be the bland "companies should think about company culture from the beginning."

Can someone point out what the CEO learned from the harassment scandal?

Sounds to me kind of like he learned this:

"People need to be treated right. That's not a nice to have or something you can put off until later. Failing to make your people feel safe and secure and free to focus on their work hurts their work and can come back to bite you in the arse."

That's what I meant by bland. It could be said after nearly any staff-related problems.

For example, if they had a rank-and-yank system and decided it wasn't worthwhile as good people were leaving to avoid the internal stress, then they could announce that they are getting rid of the policy, and repeat almost identical text.

In any case, I find it hard to believe that it really took a lawsuit to learn that "people need to be treated right", so that can't be the real lesson learned.

It seems to me the tech world has a lot of folks in it who aren't especially socially savvy. This is why they tend to hire out things like marketing.

Just because it seems obvious to you does not mean it was obvious to him. And perhaps it is bland because a) he learned that being too specific about things is a potential minefield and b) he is still socially awkward enough that glossing over the details is the best way he knows how to handle it. It takes substantial social savvy to get into the details and not just dig your grave deeper. So it does not surprise me that his main takeaway may be "Don't do certain really stupid things that amount to cutting your own throat" and he still is not qualified to instruct others in a detailed way as to how to not make those errors to start with.

Edit: I will note that, so far, the piece has no upvotes. So you aren't the only one who thinks the takeaway is pretty meh.

Thank you for your insightful comments. What I was missing was the precipice it is to run a billion-dollar company, with all eyes on you. Your response now highlighted that those factors are also important.

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