Longtime VC Michael Goguen hit with explosive lawsuit | Hacker News Reader

Longtime VC Michael Goguen hit with explosive lawsuit

techcrunch.com

101 pointsjstreebin55 comments

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Here is the full official complaint. Warning, it is very textually graphic.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/304104968/Goguen-Baptiste-San-Mate...

The whole document or just a preview? I'm on a phone and Scribd wants to install an app...

Link to original PDF: http://openaccess1.sanmateocourt.org/getpdf/pdftemp/20160312...

"Want to keep reading? Download the app for the full version!"

What? You go to the work to support web in addition to an Android app, but only for a couple pages? That seems like the most difficult way to do it.

Human sex trafficking over a period of over a decade? Holy shit, yes, that is a very explosive lawsuit. I thought the headline was overstating things but if anything it's the opposite. No wonder he was fired within the day.

She's not accusing him of sex trafficking, she didn't meet him until she was already in the USA:

she is described as a “victim of human trafficking since she was 15.” It says that she was “brought to America in 2001,” “sold as a dancer to a strip club,” and that shortly after her arrival, she met Goguen at a Texas strip club and was soon submitting to his “constant sexual abuse” and “relying on his promise that he would help her break free of the human traffickers who held her in perpetual debt.”

He was aware of and took advantage of human sex trafficking. I never said that he brought her into the country himself. But he acted to perpetuate the system, which isn't much better.

Not only that, but the age of consent in Texas is 17. It sounds like she met him "shortly after" being trafficked at age 15.

Nope. The woman born in 1980. She was 21 when they met.

The lawsuit alleges he did these things. They shouldn't be stated as facts at this point.

It also seems to "allege" that he already paid $10M. That would be an odd thing to falsely claim, no?

He is claiming he was being extorted.

Innocent people usually don't pay millions in extortion money though

This is false.

Someone might pay millions of dollars to avoid making a spectacle that refocuses their efforts on something they are not interested in dealing with.

"You wouldn't want your wife and business partners to find out that you have a girlfriend, would you?"

I don't know how it could be false when I said "usually" (and thus I don't particularly appreciate the downvote). I'd like to see a list of known cases where someone paid $40 million to hide an affair and had nothing illegal to hide. I suspect it is quite short.

If she was under the age of consent, then he either didn't sleep with her and thus had no reason to pay any money or he did and he broke the law. Right? At that point, he wouldn't have only been paying to hide it from his wife and Sequoia but also the government and hence wouldn't be innocent.

I don't know how to respond to such a comment, why say anything if you can just weasel out of it?

You're saying he did something illegal. OK.

As someone who frequents HN, you are no doubt aware that people "settle" without going to trial many times. Perhaps he did the math and figured it wasn't worth his time.

See this for what it is: a divorce, without a legal marriage. She's pissed, he's just trying to move on.

Michael's response:

https://t.co/kZiaYd076U

Michael's supportive friends are a bit much.

"You go Mike! I hate extortionist. You gave her $10M and she wanted more, LOL ... wtf ?!? and she can leave any time. Karma will bite her."

I don't know what it's like to be rich and powerful but I can't imagine an innocent person paying $10 mil in hush money. Though asking for 30 more might look bad in front of a jury.

a potential theory is he paid her the money to not tell his wife/kids who knew nothing of the affair, obviously extremely ill advised but plausible

Michael Goguen appears to be on Twitter attacking Sequoia: https://twitter.com/negars

It's not clear that he realizes this account can be traced to him, however.

How do you know it's him?

They don't sound like troll tweets.

Indeed, one could say there's a certain air of emotional authenticity to them.

One of his tweets from several years ago is nearly identical to a message he emailed the woman suing him, which is included in the complaint.

The earliest tweets on the account send messages to Amanda Goguen

For reference, since whoever appears to own the account has deleted the old tweets (which are a bit odd):

http://cloud.harryh.com/0x111B1K2c0p http://cloud.harryh.com/2d331L3L080E

I have confirmed this is NOT his account.

How did you confirm this? Do you know the person with the account?

The person verified with me via their facebook account.

Crazy stuff, indeed. Scumbags at every level of society.

Well she got 10 mil out of it. So either way, nothing for me to be concerned with, justice will be done. This is simply a money matter.

Curiously, as of a few minutes ago, this thread has been no longer visible on main HN page -- despite its high ranking, and obvious relevance to the HN community.

It was flagged by users. That's why most items that drop in rank drop in rank.

Smells fishy - 13 year ongoing abuse? In the States where one can just walk to the police freely? After paying $10M out of $40M extortion to her? Stripper with only one sexual partner? Red lights everywhere...

How is it possible to terminate a guy in the US with unproven allegations? Guilty by default? I am not saying he isn't, but was there a due process already?

>How is it possible to terminate a guy in the US with unproven allegations?

The allegations of that specific lawsuit may be unproven but the previous "settlement" of $40m "hush money" that's attached as an exhibit to the end of the lawsuit (see the scribd link) appears to be factual and not a forgery of MG's signature.

Since many reasonable employers wouldn't hire someone with such a settlement made public, it logically follows that they would also fire someone for such a document damaging the company image. Any judgement of innocence or guilt on the allegations down the road is irrelevant to the damage done now.

Do you really not understand how human trafficking and slavery works? Getting out of that situation is not nearly as easy as "just going to the police". There's lots of books on the subject you can read to learn more.

> How is it possible to terminate a guy in the US with unproven allegations?

At-will employment. Anyone can be fired at any time for any reason. Innocent until proven guilty applies to the legal system, not to employment.

For the most part, sex trafficking doesn't seem to work - it's one of those things that exists more in the media than reality. There's a huge activism industry and massive amounts of police work around it, but when you dig into the details there's just nothing behind it all. Statistics fall apart - supposed US government stats are just them reporting that the press said something, which was a quote from some politician's speech with no apparent basis, and so on. High-profile stories with films and activist organisations around them like Somali Mam are verifiable lies. Busts actually just arrest the women who are having sex for money. Time and time again, there's just nothing actually there.

Honestly, it's probably just not viable. Too high on the police priority list and involves the victims interacting with too many people not in on the operation. Normal labour trafficking is so much safer

Can we please stop submitting and upvoting things like this. There is literally zero value in articles like this. These are no better than national inquirer articles and should just be banned wholesale.

I've already flagged. If a few more people flag it it will drop off the front page.

nah

I strongly disagree. There is always value in policing the powerful.

If we're going to celebrate the wins (and we should), we have to soberly examine both the losses and the externalities. If these accusations are true, it is our industry that gave him the wealth to cause this kind of harm.

You don't need to be a millionaire to abuse women and take advantage of sex trafficking.

This is hardly an indictment if silicon valley.

You don't need to be a millionaire to abuse women and take advantage of sex trafficking.

But it can certainly help you buy silence from your victims.

Until you default on your payments, that is.

Money is one kind of power, and it definitely takes power to abuse others.

It's not an indictment of Silicon Valley, sure. And I'd like to keep it that way, which is why I think it's worth paying attention to these things.

Are you going to police the entire industry from your keyboard? Everything laid out in the article is already being handled by the judicial system. Sideline gawking is not adding anything.

I agree the VC system and the start-up ecosystem in general should be more decentralized and sustainable but that is beside the point. Sensationalized articles like this that only work because of people's morbid curiosity are hardly the way to galvanize such change.

they add opprobrium

> Everything laid out in the article is already being handled by the judicial system.

This is both false and absurd. If the allegations are correct, this woman spent more than a dozen years as a sex slave. None of those crimes were "handled" by the judicial system. This is just a civil settlement. And she is only one person. The complaint also alleges that he was involved with many other women. We know nothing about their status, but abusers rarely confine their crimes to one victim.

> Sideline gawking is not adding anything.

If gawking is all that happens, sure. So maybe you could pipe down and let some actual discussion happen?

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