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Comment by khazhoux | Hacker News Reader

I'm not so much shocked at the allegations here, but rather I'm shocked that we exist in a universe where these things are even possible. It is literally inconceivable to me to imagine a workplace like this. I can only barely imagine a living/housing environment like this (but then again, I was never in a frat, so maybe that's why?).

Talking about female coworkers? Sure, that happens.

Talk about sex at work? Sure. Not at my workplace, but ok.

Talk about rubbing one out because a coworker gave you boner? Eh.... O_o

Hell, my parents are still surprised to hear I can show up at whatever time in the morning and leave whenever I feel like it! That's what they consider outrageous.

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It's funny you mention people from an older generation. My mother worked as a secretary at a law firm in the UK in the 1960s, where she met my father. When I mentioned to her that "60% of women in tech reported unwanted sexual advances" [1], she yawned (quite literally) and said, "Is that all?" It seems hard to imagine that this fiasco, Magic Leap from last week, Uber, etc, might actually be construed as "progress", but, well...

[1] per https://www.elephantinthevalley.com

Progress is that these things now make news. Because that's what's hopefully going to change the world. First there's publicity, then there's awareness, then there's change.

I wouldn't be surprised if a woman of average and above attractiveness don't get unwanted sexual advances every month, regardless of the industry, unless it is clearly indicated that they are married.

In that case the 60% figure seems spot on. Of course the issue here is what we define as a sexual advance. It wouldn't surprise me if some propositions to a date were miscategorized as sexual advances. Not that it makes the others OK.

Here's a question for you people directly in tech: do you think the other industries are better or worse in this regard? Has there been any studies or polls or anything even remotely scientific to study this?

I was writing exactly the same thing. I can't understand how this is even possible.

But fuck. How fuck can you have a sex room in the office ? How can someone have sex in the office ?

I'm seriously speechless.

I just can't fathom how anyone working there could think this is acceptable. And why has it even been allowed to continue this long before without someone telling them to knock it off.

Sex in the workplace is far more common then you think.

People can have sex if they want to(in theory no, on the workplace shouldn't be allowed so openly). BUT company that offer a bed/room for sex ? this seems to be too much.

It's a workplace, not a frat house.

Should they get rid of the ping pong table too?

Might some see this as a healthy, progressive, sex-positive evolution of the modern workplace?

The workplace does not need to be sex positive! If anything, it should be sex-agnostic.

130 comments and I'm yet to see anyone articulate why sex in the office is bad, just downvotes to anyone that disagrees with the current traditions.

Yeah it doesn't make sense makes it even more suspect. It's 2017 everyone knows this is a lawsuit waiting to happen and for a company to open themselves up to a lawsuit that they would HAVE to know is going to be coming seems suspect.

I don't know enough to have an opinion one way or the other but if any company behaves like this the deserve to be sued out of business and should be fined for stupidity.

This is the logical consequence of Peter Thiel's idea that you put bright (but often socially inept) high-school nerds directly into founding roles in companies. You end up with socially inept and socially inappropriate bosses who were never forced to conform to society's norms.

EDIT: I am not implying that Peter Thiel would condone this behavior.

I feel I have to defend myself here to some extent (being a now former Thiel Fellow), but I can fairly safely say that the ~20 other Thiel Fellows that I would call "friends" would never do anything close to this at their companies. While there are now over 120 fellows and I do not know them all, I bet there is one or at most a small handful that could fit your description, but I would say that of any group of similar size that you were to pick from a university.

I would definitely say I am socially awkward/inept, but I don't think that necessarily correlates with being socially maladapted/unaware of societies norms. The sort of "bro" culture that exemplifies UploadVR's, Uber, and many other "hot" tech companies right now is the culture that myself and most other high-school nerds that I knew rejected... we were not the popular kids that drank, had sex, and partied. I think all of this is a symptom of technology being a much more attractive jobspace for the general public (which includes a lot of "bros") compared to just for "nerds" that it was decades ago, and your conclusion is the exact opposite of this.

Granted it is an anecdote with a relatively small sample size, but I have not seen this sort of behavior/ideas from anyone who never went to college or dropped out, but I see it from plenty of folks in their late 20s/early 30s that never grew up from their college fraternity experiences.

I shouldn't have type-cast an entire group. Clearly you can be socially inept and yet be appropriate (I was more like that too). But I also started as an employee in smallish companies and moved to founding them.

I should also note that some never seem to "grow up" - appropriateness simply eludes them permanently. If you look at Uber you have a founder that could, in theory, be a grandfather but doesn't seem to have a sense of what society condones.

What gives you the impression that these specific people are bright? Or were never forced to conform?

This is not how socially inept high school nerds behave; its how VC funded frat bros (who include their fraternity on their linkedin profile) do.

Not sure why I am defending Peter Thiel, but I don't think this has anything to do with him or any of his bad ideas.

You're right ... it's a very clear extension of the frat-bro phenomenon. You don't need to defend Thiel as I wasn't attacking him. He was simply a convenient adjective since I thought most here would know about his fellowship program (and I had to apologize for stereotyping high school nerds in another sub-comment).

The founders are far from socially-inept nerds. Perhaps relevant in some cases, but not at all here. I think that the average socially-inept-nerd company culture may be better than what this lawsuit implies existed at Upload.

This kind of behavior has been reported at many startups. Venture capitalists have apparently made an implicit analysis that the risk of settling a lawsuit is cheaper than adult supervision and an experienced HR department. The free market has spoken.

I don't understand why this article is on HN.

The purpose of HN is to gratify intellectual curiosity. There's nothing to learn from this, and it's not interesting. Bad things exist.

We might want to try to flag this.

What's flaggable about it? (The fact that it makes you feel weird isn't a reason, by the way.)

Being outside the guidelines is the central reason to flag a story.

I would say there is tons to learn about this. For one, if your startup starts to grow, don't do what the people in this story did. Try to make your workplace culture have a modicum of decency.

Many people on here are trying to run startups.

Understanding company culture and sexual harassment are important issues to be educated about.

As tptacek is fond of saying, HN shouldn't try to be all things to all people. There are an infinite number of issues that classify as important but are beyond the scope of HN's charter.

I'm more shocked by the puritanical reactions here, it's something I'd expect from Saudi Arabia, not silicon valley.

We're all fine with ping pong tables and other forms of entertainment that aren't work related, so I don't buy the "professional environment" bullshit. But somehow sex, or just talking about sex in an office has become taboo.

Instead of being open and progressive it's back to code words and using the disabled toilet.

Believe it or not, but there indeed exists, even in liberal San Francisco, a certain crowd of prudish men and women who categorize sexual intercourse differently from ping-pong, even though both are technically physical activities that can be entertaining.

Of course they're different activities, but I haven't seen anyone give an objective reason why one is good and one is bad.

Ladies and gentlemen, an example of someone who doesn't understand the relevance of established social norms!

You really don't understand the difference between ping-pong and sex?

Either you really like ping-pong, or you really don't like sex.. ;-)

Listen, you may have somewhat of an academic point here, but you're ignoring the fact that way more people - men and women - would be uncomfortable with open discussion of co-workers' sexual activities, much less knowing or condoning that it happens in the workplace, than having a ping pong table in the break room.

Is this a good or a bad thing? it actually doesn't matter, because it is what it is. It is a social norm.

Can it be changed? Sure, maybe.. But you will only present yourself poorly if you think that telling people their concerns don't matter, or are "bullshit" is the way to change this.

He doesn't understand because he's a complete _tablua rasa_ --- ignorant of all history and society. Not realizing that sex comes with a lot of baggage and that consequences of sex are dramatically different for a man than a woman.

Or maybe he's just from one of those foreign cultures in which you just can't get a good ping-pong game in unless you're willing to put a ring on it, or at least pay for a nice dinner.

> He doesn't understand because he's a complete _tablua rasa_ --- ignorant of all history and society.

It's a good technique to evaluate of your poisition is rational or not, you should try it sometime. "That's how it's always been done" is an awful argument for anything.

> Is this a good or a bad thing? it actually doesn't matter, because it is what it is. It is a social norm.

So basically "that's how we've always done things". That's a terrible justification for anything, particularly anything to do with sex and it's history of persecution. It wasn't long ago that being openly gay went against the social norms.

> Can it be changed? Sure, maybe.. But you will only present yourself poorly if you think that telling people their concerns don't matter, or are "bullshit" is the way to change this.

What concerns? I don't see anyone listing concerns or discussing the consequences of being more open about sex in the workplace, just a lot of statements that you can't or shouldn't do it.

It's not my place to educate you about why existing social norms should at least matter to you, regardless of whether you agree with them or not, so I'll let you learn those lessons on your own.

Also comparing sex in the workplace with gay persecution makes you look like an idiot. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's a completely unreasonable comparison. Are you going to compare it to slavery next?

We're done here.

I'll try to take a stab at this.

1.Sex is not ping pong. It is much more personal and intimate. There is a reason sex in public is an offense and playing ping pong in public is not. It is not yet another way to blow off some steam. It can come with baggage. It does not belong in a professional environment like an office. Go have sex at home, at a hotel, at a friend's place or in a sex dungeon (if that's your scene).

2.Talk about sex at work with someone who doesn't mind it or infront of someone who doesn't mind it. Personally I am not interested in hearing about your bondage fetishes or your "conquests". Be respectful of other's wishes. If you talk about your sexual life or someone else's in front of people who do mind that creates an uncomfortable working environment.

3. If you say sex is allowed in the office who's to say what kind of sex allowed vs. not allowed? There are infinite fetishes from the mundane to the unbelievable. If you are saying, but well sex in office isn't going to happen in an open setting but in a closed room so what does it matter what fetish is being enacted, well then my friend don't be cheap, just rent a hotel room for those activities instead of asking your employer to provide you with a sex room to indulge your sexual needs. Next you'll ask them to provide you with "companions", after all your employer did provide that ping pong table right?

4. Now you may say well the "puritanical" attitudes of your coworkers creates an uncomfortable work environment for you so how about they conform to your social beliefs? Well you see the majority dictates the social norms. It is a fact of life whether you think it is fair or not. Till a majority's attitude towards openly LGBTQ work colleagues hadn't shifted towards acceptability, having them as colleagues was uncomfortable for people. Then the majority attitude changed and it became acceptable.

Now the LGBTQ community worked hard to change that mindset and my friend in our democracy you too have that option to change people's minds.

But till you have changed a majority's mind you are stuck with our rules. Deal with it.

Thanks, I think I disagree with most of your points but unlike every other person here you've made some good points worth thinking about.

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