Hacker News Reader

Comment by niniane | Hacker News Reader

I am one of the three women who went on the record: Niniane Wang. I'm one of the "she-said"s.

I have nothing to gain from this. I am not suing. I'm founder & CEO of a Greylock-funded startup. Thankfully Greylock has come out in full support, but I didn't know that beforehand and was very nervous when I decided to do the article. The only way that any reporter would agree to publish was if I used my real name. I knew Justin was continuing to harass women, and this was the only way to stop him.

sillysaurus3, you may be thinking of cases where women go to accuse a "rich or powerful" person and are trying to get something out of it. I had nothing to gain and a lot to lose.

View on HN

As a fellow lady who has bootstrapped her business, and knows nothing about the VC world - I just want to say thank you. You coming out in the open has made the environment better for all of us. Seriously, thanks.

I think you're pretty courageous, much more than I am, as the potential backlash could result in your startup failing.

Would you rather invest in a start-up led by a non-courageous founder?

You need courage to found a startup, but I don't think you always need courage to make a profitable business.

why did your reporter think it was necessary that you go and out yourself?

3 reporters have tried over the years. Justin made threats against them. So they all gave up. One of them describes this in his article: https://www.axios.com/silicon-valleys-sexist-swamp-244683763...

"The unfortunate truth is that I simply could not write this until Albergotti published, as I didn't have anyone on the record, which is virtually essential from a journalistic perspective. "

Wow. Honestly that sounds like a start-up opportunity. Is there really no venue for people to speak out without potentially harming themselves?

Here's a platform that aims to solve this problem:

https://www.projectcallisto.org/

Victims report incidents, an their info is not shared at the time of report. Victims can elect to have their reports unsealed if subsequent accusations are made against the same individual. This mirrors the current status quo, where it's less common for victims to speak out if there are no other cases to corroborate, but makes discovery of other cases more feasible.

It's being rolled out specifically in the context of college sexual assault, but I imagine the approach could work elsewhere too.

Write an anonymous blog about it on Medium or whatever and submit it to HN, you'll get views. You'll persuade or not persuade some people in the blog's truth no matter what you say from confirmation bias alone (e.g. rise in sexism in tech vs. rise in hoax charges). Some people will be more persuaded if you use your real name, for others it doesn't matter. Some people will be more persuaded if you give actual specifics about what was said and done (I'm one of those -- "harassment" is very broad, "groping" might be too, you need to either define your terms or state physically what happened, because you'd think we would all agree on what "grope" means but there are videos you can find of women screaming "help, he's raping me!" when it's just a cop using force to arrest her), but on the other hand too specific and people might find it literally incredible that someone actually grabbed you by the pussy without a tape of the person admitting as much.

There isn't really, because the moment you reveal enough actual details that it's possible to identify you, you also open yourself up for subtle forms of retaliation.

Thank you for your courage. You almost certainly saved others from harassment directly and your bravery also will have saved hundreds of others since those in powerful positions will be more vary and those being harassed will be more vocal. This story is one more stepping stone towards progress.

Sorry, I didn't mean to cast doubts. All I meant was that we should reserve judgement. In this case, it sounds pretty clear-cut, but the point was about future cases that may not be so straightforward.

I can only imagine how stressful a situation like this can be, so I certainly didn't mean to increase it. Best of luck.

Come on, you totally meant to cast doubt. Still, it takes some degree of huevos to stand up in a semi-anonymous forum and admit your mistake (instead of deleting your comment or other dumb stuff). Kudos for that at least.

For what it's worth, I didn't mean to cast doubt on her character. It was more along the lines of "Maybe we should wait to see how this plays out." I'm also rather upset that my comment indirectly made HN a less welcoming place for founders. I've written extensively about the fact that HN has become less founder-friendly and they've had to flee to places like Bookface just to get some support. The idea that I contributed to that isn't a happy thought.

Your comment didn't make hackernews any less welcoming than it was before. Don't listen to their lies.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com