Female founders accuse VC Justin Caldbeck of making unwanted advances | Hacker News Reader

Female founders accuse VC Justin Caldbeck of making unwanted advances

techcrunch.com

203 pointsjanober76 comments

The bigger thread has already been downvoted off the front page and this one is falling quickly. Disgusting.

For all the down voters: Justin just admitted that all the accusations are true. https://www.axios.com/justin-caldbeck-takes-indefinite-leave...

The past 24 hours have been the darkest of my life. I have made many mistakes over the course of my career, some of which were brought to light this week. To say I'm sorry about my behavior is a categorical understatement. Still, I need to say it: I am so, so sorry.

I direct my apology first to those women who I've made feel uncomfortable in any way, at any time - but also to the greater tech ecosystem, a community that I have utterly failed.

The power dynamic that exists in venture capital is despicably unfair. The gap of influence between male venture capitalists and female entrepreneurs is frightening and I hate that my behavior played a role in perpetrating a gender-hostile environment. It is outrageous and unethical for any person to leverage a position of power in exchange for sexual gain, it is clear to me now that that is exactly what I've done.

I am deeply ashamed of my lack of self-awareness. I am grateful to Niniane, Susan, Leiti, and the other women who spoke up for providing me with a sobering look into my own character and behavior that I can no longer ignore. The dynamic of this industry makes it hard to speak up, but this is the type of action that leads to progress and change, starting with me.

I will be taking an indefinite leave of absence from Binary Capital, the firm I co-founded in 2014. I will be seeking professional counseling as I take steps to reflect on my behavior with and attitude towards women. I will find ways to learn from this difficult experience - and to help drive necessary changes in the broader venture community.

The Binary team will also be taking measures to ensure that the firm is a safe place for founders of all backgrounds to find the support and resources they need to change the world, without abuse of power or mistreatment of any person.

I owe a heartfelt apology to my family, my investors, my portfolio, and the team at Binary, who have been completely blindsided and in no way deserve the pain I've caused. But most of all I apologize again to those who I've hurt during the course of my career - and for the damage I've done to the industry I care so deeply about.

> The bigger thread has already been downvoted off the front page

Isn't that the result of a Hacker News algorithm that hides stories that receive a lot of comments in a short time?

I gather that recency of submission and high comment rate contribute to a "controversiality" metric which can weight a story off the front page. But given the HN moderators' generally thoughtful style, I would not be surprised to see either that story retrieved and this one's comments folded into its thread, or that one's comments folded into this.

The problem isn't the mods' local actions (though the mods are not nearly as assertive as I would like in this area); it's the Hacker News community's toleration of bigots and therefore the macro action of failing to remove them.

Inaction is a form of action.

I didn't down vote these stories, but to be blunt they aren't value adding content. I come to hacker news for interesting discussions and to learn. Reading yet another story about sexism or inequality in tech doesn't add any value to my life. The stories are predictable; the comments are predictable; and there are very few opportunities for meaningful discussion or learning. I therefore typically ignore them and I can understand why others down vote them.

Bitching about things online isn't action. Changing behavior offline is action, and I doubt these stories generate any meaningful behavioral changes among the groups that need them, so what's the point?

Is that really how it works? Stories about Uber typically get high comment rates, and I usually see them near the top.

I think I remember it being something about the ratio of comments to votes; lots of comments per vote mean that it's controversial, and controversial posts age off faster.

I'm pretty sure this is it. I heard once that if a story has more comments then votes it starts falling, though I don't know if that's accurate.

Sadly there's basically zero transparency in flagging vs comments/downvoting penalty. However when a new thread with few comments is artificially low it's almost certainly due to flag abuse. Trends in the topics that tend to get flag abused become obvious over time.

Well the recent discussion about TK resigning has over 1,000 comments and was on the front page for at least two days.

It also had a zillion upvotes as well, though.

My experience on HN is that stories about sexism often disappear quickly. It's often that I click on a story on the front page to read the comments, only to see it flagged a few moments later.

My explanation is that there is a significant number of HN readers that flag stories about sexism in tech because they don't believe them, but of course I don't have any evidence for that.

> but of course I don't have any evidence for that.

I concur with your hypothesis; there're often comments on these links that would serve as evidence.

I'm sure some people are just being contrarian for fun and karma, and some would just prefer to see more links specific to technologies and not 'Silicon Valley "culture"'... but some of the comments REALLY make me scratch my head.

Anything that isn't scientific or technical in nature gets downvoted, including posts from the other end of the spectrum like false rape accusations and gamergate.

The exception is news from the large tech companies and unicorns.

I appreciate this community driven filter after being bombarded by inflammatory headlines, ideologies and news all day. It filters out "political" and "controversial" topics very well.

It's seems more likely that, like me, they flag them because they clearly fall into the Off-Topic category of the HN guidelines.

Were they off-topic in Uber's case? I'm not sure how something that took down Travis Kalanick isn't relevant on HN.

I imagine people are more likely to flag a boring off-topic story than an interesting off-topic story. "interesting" probably being some function of relevance to the reader.

Yes. Some guy involved in scandal at company that provides a service that happens to be done through a computer is not "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". It at least falls under the categories of: crime that is not evidence of some interesting new phenomenon; maybe pratfalls; and, considering I saw it on The Today Show before HN, it's definitely covered on TV News. That's 3 of 7 stated off-topic categories.

I'm not usually a stickler for these kinds of rules but it has gotten to be too much as of late. I understand it comes in waves and usually goes away, but when the wave hits, the only tool we have to fight it is the "flag".

The topics don't go unnoticed, I'm sure HN isn't the only forum most people here visit. I occasionally partake in the conversations around this kind of story (not as a guideline Nazi), usually on Reddit, where it's expected.

The most I'm ever going to do about problems like this are to not be part of and discourage behavior like it in areas of my life I have actual control over, so I don't want to be angered hourly by stories I can't or won't do anything about directly. The guidelines seem to imply this site is supposed to be a place that aligns with that and, for the most part, it does, except when it doesn't, and that is what I think "flag" is for.

I didn't flag, and very rarely do I flag, but I can see why sexism stories don't do well here:

1. Many "stories about sexism" simply aren't persuasive. They present some gap and leave the reader to assume sexism was at fault. These stories are almost always lazy, misleading, and biased.

2. Other stories are allegations of harassment. Either there is abundant evidence of guilt and the comments are boring because everyone agrees that the accused shouldn't have done a thing or the evidence is inconclusive and the comments are boring because of all of the pointless, unsupported arguments.

Maybe there are some interesting subthreads in the comments, but the signal to noise ratio is low.

That's pretty impressive. Usually they somehow turn around the whole issue during this kind of "apology" but he pretty much says he behaved badly and that's it.

Edit: After reading https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14622737 I think he is just a big asshole who wants to make this go away so he can get back to business. No real remorse.

It would be more impressive to not harass women founders. This apology moves him above harassers who don't apologize, but still miles below non-harassers.

Beware of giving someone too much credit for doing something very harmful, then apologizing for it effusively. It doesn't undo the harm.

I really wanna hear from people who are downvoting this.

It's right to still be mad at him even if he apologizes!

Par for the course when it comes to women's issues on this site. Sad but true. There are a lot of men on here, and it's hard to see things that don't affect you directly.

So how long do we have to ostracize him for before we can treat him like a human being again? Or does he wear the scarlett letter forever now?

Is it not okay to note that he appears to be taking the right first steps?

Until he is removed from positions of power over women, and steps are taken towards making sure that it won't happen again?

Serial drunk drivers lose their license, and get sent to AA. Serial harassment... I'm not sure what institution exists to deal with that problem. A shrink? Welfare?

I don't necessarily mind acknowledging the apology. What I do mind is what I see as a lot of people going out of their way to give him props for apologizing, and relatively few people actually talking about how heinous his behavior is. Especially after factoring in where these comments are appearing relatively in their respective threads.

In my mind, that creates a signal that men -- and it is mostly men on this site -- care more about the appearance of remorse than the actual victimization of women that this man perpetrated.

He can take off the scarlett letter when he follows through on his promises of reform. Until then, I'm optimistic that his apology is sincere, but I won't trust him.

In other words, he has the benefit of the doubt from me, but an apology does not absolve him. Reform does.

> It would be more impressive to not harass women founders.

Of course. But that didn't happen, so this thread is a discussion of what did happen.

Acknowledging the apology is not praising him.

"It would be more impressive to not harass women founders."

That's not possible at this point without a time machine.

The apology doesn't undo any harm, but it's a good start for changing course. (Assuming the apology isn't solely for PR purposes.)

I am not giving him credit and I wouldn't be surprised if he did the same stuff again like a lot of other abusers. I was just surprised that at least what he wrote was not the usual passive aggressive stuff public figures put out. Stuff like "I am sorry if my actions got interpreted as harmful".

He started with the passive-aggressive version.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14622737

I'm guessing someone followed up with "I have all the texts."

Had to edit my initial comment.

It's also the quickest way to move past something like this, especially once it goes public - take responsibility for your actions, offer a sincere apology, and take steps to correct it.

Given that the depth of his apologies was proportional to the amount of evidence that his accusers were presenting, I'd say that they got him dead to rights.

More evidence that he's really not sorry about any of the shit he did - just that he got caught:

https://www.axios.com/silicon-valleys-sexist-swamp-244683763...

The other reporters pursuing this story would have certainly reached out to him for comment.

Can you share a link to the other thread?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14621397

Although it doesn't redeem him, I have to give it to Caldbeck that that's the best possible response I think it's possible to give.

I am almost certain that if there wasn't hard evidence, we would have seen nothing of the sort.

He's an adult businessman - he should have, and he almost certainly did know better!

He initially aggressively denied, then gave a lukewarm accepting response, then this. That may lend some credence to your theory.

[withdrawn]

" such deep and genuine self-awareness"

Lol, seriously?

This is standard PR bullshit. Clearly in this situation, the evidence was so cut-and-dry and unambiguous that Caldbeck had no choice but to admit defeat. The type of person that repeatedly engages in this behavior is not at all the type of person to be sobered by excellent communication. He just saw the writing on the wall.

Standard PR bullshit is terse by design. This sounds sincere.

> evidence was so cut-and-dry and unambiguous that Caldbeck had no choice but to admit defeat.

Usually when there's unambiguous evidence, people challenge the premise/context/authenticity of the evidence.

Text messages' authenticity can be verified. I think he knew that he was screwed.

> Usually when there's unambiguous evidence, people challenge the premise/context/authenticity of the evidence

His earlier statement challenged the context (though only vaguely, stating that there was significant context that was omitted from the reports.)

[withdrawn]

I'm not saying he didn't write this himself. But I am saying that if I were in his position and knew that I had no way of getting out of something like this, I would have no trouble at all (technically, not morally) faking sincerity and admitting all my actions while tying them into a larger framework such as sexism in the startup industry.

It's an admission of guilt. It's not brave, it's just an unconditional surrender.

Brogrammer culture is falling. Beautiful.

Don't worry, this has already been flagged as a dupe. Sigh.

> The bigger thread has already been downvoted off the front page and this one is falling quickly. Disgusting.

The main thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14621397) is back on the front page. The software had applied a mild ranking penalty which we've overridden, but it hasn't been flagged off by users.

How do you decide when to manually override a post ?

Maybe it is not even that interesting - a guy overstepped his boundaries? Few readers are probably deep enough in Startup Culture to have heard of him or Binary Capital, so why is it relevant?

> Among the allegations made to The Information are that Caldbeck sent explicit text messages to women; that Caldbeck sent messages in the middle of the night suggesting meeting up; that Caldbeck suggested going to a hotel bedroom during a meeting; that Caldbeck made a proposition about having an open relationship; and that Caldbeck grabbed a woman’s thigh under the table of a bar during a meeting.

Curious what Tiffany Zhong has to say...only reason I have heard of this place is because she was known as the youngest VC in the Valley until she left last year.

The firm had multiple other women leave in rapid succession as well.

It's just a little terrifying how young she was and also the fact that the 3 women who both spoke on record happened to be asian.

Note: I'm an asian male.

So I understand that Justin made some serious mistakes in pursuing his interest in several female entrepreneurs.

Does there exist an acceptable manner for someone in a position like his to pursue such an interest? I'd imagine it would depend a lot on the context -- for example, it seems clear to me it would be very inappropriate to do so during any time period where a deal was being negotiated.

And of course, general etiquette would obviously apply, e.g. get to know them a bit and cautiously begin displaying some interest, making sure they seem receptive, etc.

I am genuinely curious about people's thoughts. Not hoping to start an incendiary discussion.

EDIT: I guess it wasn't clear enough that I'm not trying to defend or rationalize Justin's actions in any way. I wasn't trying to explore why exactly what he did was wrong -- that seems pretty clear enough. I was hoping to discuss more ambiguous scenarios.

As with a doctor dating patients or a lawyer dating clients, I'd say a VC should probably look outside the entrepreneurship realm for dates. Too much potential for the power dynamic to impact consent.

At a minimum, recuse oneself from any decisions or oversight over the decisions related to a particular deal. But actually just don't, as ceejayoz has said.

I don't think there are any concrete rules, which is why the sensible thing to do, if you're in a position of power, is simply not chase any members of the opposite gender that you have a compromising interest in.

It's not as if there aren't plenty of other dating prospects out there.

Yes, perhaps not grabbing someone's thigh under a table at a bar would be a good place to start.

I also think you simply shouldn't pursue subordinates, or those in a similar position like founders that need your money, as a matter of principle. I'm not saying it can't be done but there is so much more risk than reward in doing so. Consider also that there are thousands of very smart and successful women (or men or whatever) out there that aren't your subordinates.

> Does there exist an acceptable manner for someone in a position like his to pursue such an interest?

No. The power dynamic always makes it a problem. Someone in a position like his needs to look elsewhere for relationships.

I understand this is a common position, and I totally understand why. In most cases, it seems like the proper default.

However, I wonder if it is really something we can hold up as an absolute. Aren't there many successful relationships where one person is higher up the ladder than the other? Obviously, such things must be approached with significantly more caution.

But it seems an over generalization to assert that it is _impossible_ for it to happen without an abuse of power occurring.

Please note I'm absolutely NOT trying to defend or diminish Justin's actions here. I'm asking a different question.

There may be a million-in-one shot of making it work, but in all those other chances, the risks of it blowing up are too high, and the near-certitude of making the less-powerful party feel threatened is just not worth it.

An analogy: An entrepreneur is meeting a VC for breakfast and wants the stem of their strawberry cut off. The VC suggests that he throws a knife at the entrepreneur while the entrepreneur holds the strawberry in front of them. Sure, it's possible it'll work, but it's dangerous and the entrepreneur is almost certainly going to get hurt.

What you should do:

-Ask a woman out for dinner

-Exchange contact information, and ask to connect outside of work.

-Reach out via social media and express interest.

------------------

What you should not do:

-Grab a woman's leg under the table.

-Suggest that you move to a hotel room in the middle of a meeting.

-Suggest an open sexual relationship with multiple women from one company.

-Continue with romantic and sexual advances after already being rejected once.

> -Continue with romantic and sexual advances after already being rejected once.

I'm not sure that Michelle Obama would now wish that Barack had followed that particular piece of advice, when as a colleague he persistently asked her out after she said no several times.

Don't work in tech? Business development/marketing/real estate fields are full of young people who boink all the time. It actually happens much less frequently in tech because of the language/cultural barrier from the high immigrant population and the introvertedness of engineers.

It's just highlighted and seen as controversial when it happens in tech.

That's a gross misrepresentation of the issue here.

The issue is not young people having sex with each other. The issue is powerful people dating people they have significant power over. Business development/marketing/real estate fields generally don't let bosses seduce employees, either.

That's not really relevant since both situations most likely have similar ratios of occurrence when comparing tech to those fields.

I can imagine that bosses in the business development/marketing/real estate fields make advances on female subordinates at much higher rates also. Again, people only care when it happens in tech.

Perhaps they do. I don't know. In the abstract, I agree, it happening in those fields would be just as bad. However, I work in tech and anticipate continuing to work in tech for many years. Many of my friends work in tech. I am, somewhat but not entirely regrettably, selfish and I do care more about things that affect me more directly. If people in real estate make advances on their subordinates, that is bad, but I don't have to worry about any of my friends being the ones having advances made on. I don't have to worry about avoiding the person in question for fear of being the subordinate being harassed. I don't have to worry that they'll end up being the client contact on a pentest.

People here are largely in the tech industry. Is it any wonder that they care more about things happening in the tech industry than elsewhere? Is it a problem that should be fixed that they do?

I'd imagine the massive power imbalance makes this effectively impossible.

That said, I think it's irrelevant. We're adults, and should be able to recognize that this isn't a fairy tale where you see someone and fall in love at first sight and need to risk it all to make it work.

This is a business relationship. If you're looking for love, look somewhere else. If you're looking for something a little more tawdry, then doubly so look somewhere else. It's just not appropriate in this situation.

> We're adults, and should be able to recognize that this isn't a fairy tale where you see someone and fall in love at first sight and need to risk it all to make it work.

> This is a business relationship. If you're looking for love, look somewhere else.

This analysis, while capable of broadly preventing harm, seems to overlook some reasonable situations.

Scenario: male VC, female founder. Have interacted numerous times at casual events over the past year or two, with several longer/more meaningful conversations. No business relationship between them, and no deals on the horizon. Some apparent mutual chemistry and interest. The extent of this romantic potential is not fully known yet (obviously).

Is it still wrong to cautiously and respectfully pursue this, at least while both parties appear interested? To me that would feel like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

If it's not obvious, I'm assuming a decent level of maturity and self control here.

I find it deeply disturbing that you're more concerned about how male VCs can get their rocks off than the actual harassment that occurred here.

It's called a tangent, is that not allowed? Also, you are grotesquely mischaracterizing my line of discussion.

I made it very clear in my comments in this thread that I fully agree Justin made many enormous mistakes. Is that disclaimer insufficient?

I'm sorry that I was overly accusatory of you directly. I tend to have a belief that what people spend their words on in a comment thread is an indicator for how much they fractionally care about a particular thing. I recognize that this is not always true for everyone. Mea culpa.

R.e. tangents, there are of course cases where they are just fine. But as in real life, sometimes they are less appropriate, and sometimes they would be considered quite rude. I think it's easy to lose sight of that online. I think it's worth asking yourself whether this particular topic might not be the time to be bringing up tangents about the permissibility of/avenues for dating people who are seeking investment with one's VC firm. At least one person has found it off-putting, and while I'm an oddball and as unique as any other human person, I know several others who would likely feel the same way.

Thank you for this genuine and respectful response, it's a rarity in many online communities (although I think HN is better than most).

I knew I was taking a risk, and tried to frame my comments accordingly. Looking back, I probably could have a done a better job, especially given the sensitive nature of the topic. I also don't think I was clear enough about what I was actually asking, and how it is different from the situation in the OP.

Re, my willingness to post this: I couldn't really think of a better time or place to bring up the discussion on HN. I suppose I could make a separate "Ask HN" thread, but I'm not sure that would have worked out well. I do think the line of question is worthwhile, as opposed to only having a bunch of comments describing their particular opinion of actions of the person in question, and not much deeper discussion. I was hoping to spark an interesting and thoughtful discussion.

Another reason: I was feeling a bit desensitized and outrage-fatigued, given all of the news and events lately, and I imagined some others were as well. I hadn't made any comments like this in any of the other threads about sexism in tech on HN that have been popping up.

However, I do understand why you found it off-putting -- thank you for sharing. I hope you understand that I don't think an apology is needed or appropriate, but I will definitely keep your remarks in mind.

Have a great weekend :)

I still can't approve of the article because of all the allusions and unwarranted generalizations it makes ("this is why there are so few female founders" and the like). A favorite is cases like Ellen Pao who lose in court but in certain circles her claims continue to be believed.

Obviously, men will always be attracted to women (and sometimes vice versa), and not all men know how to deal with it in an appropriate way. But as in this case, if called out, the bad apples also get eliminated. Also YMMV - for some an unwanted SMS in the middle of the night is a nightmare, others simply shrug it off.

Even assuming women avoid becoming founders because of sleazy VCs - what do they do instead? Men are everywhere, making advances.

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