McClure steps back at 500Startups after internal sexual misconduct investigation
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
He started 500 startups with a female co-founder and said he chose her because she was smarter. He saw an opening for himself and talked about playing Moneyball for venture capital. He spoke often in interviews about chasing investments among founders who didn't fit the profile but were eminently backable and that included women. He blogged publicly about his insecurities and campaigned for diversity.
https://500hats.com/commitment-to-diversity-d8a4ac8b1c12
Guess it proves you can't really know a person through their writings and interviews. He was someone that I admired and I'm more than a little disappointed.
Sometimes if you rally around someone reflexively you're empowering a predator. Justin Calbeck got at least two passes we know about previous to his current troubles.
At my alma mater there's a doctor who had people covering for him for fifteen years until a brave woman accused him publicly of sexually assaulting her during an exam. At last count 125 women have come forward with a similar complaint against him.
A few years back my attitude might have been different but you're shaped by your experiences.
> hus·tler - an aggressively enterprising person; a go-getter.
I think that tells it all right there. Is it not strange that the word hustle is used so pervasively in SV-tech communities?
It's hard for me to see where all the McClure defenders are coming from. Is it that hard to see his actions in this specific instance as being (wildly) inappropriate? This is basically textbook sexual harassment. Just distill it to the basic facts:
1) Job applicants comes to interview for a job
2) After the interview, McClure contacts her over FaceBook and not-so-subtly propositions her in relation to her goal of getting hired
How is this at all defensible? EVEN if the job applicant was overtly flirty, how is messaging a job applicant over FACEBOOK and saying what McClure said at all appropriate?
At the very least, McClure is, as he would say a "fucking" dumbass, at worst, a sexual harasser.
I 100% bet he's done a lot worse and knowing other partners at 500 Startups, it frankly doesn't surprise me at the least.
Without knowing details, there are at least indications in both McClure's and Sacca's pasts that they may (hopefully) be in the latter group.
And hopefully this will help both groups get smaller.
"In 2014, Sarah Kunst, 31, an entrepreneur, said she discussed a potential job at 500 Startups, a start-up incubator in San Francisco. During the recruiting process, Mr. McClure, a founder of 500 Startups and an investor, sent her a Facebook message that read in part, “I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you.”"
My comment was in response to the idea that Dave was secretly different than his outward appearance. I don't know him, I don't know the situation. But I think otherwise good people can do things they should apologize for and stop.
Intent matters. Men who use positions of power to intimidate women into doing things they don't want to do should absolutely be punished. Men who happen to be attracted to women that they work with/around who decide to politely ask them out shouldn't be.
So where do we draw the line, and why isn't Bill on the firing line in the same way these others are?
If this entrepreneur who got hit on had propositioned McClure instead, I don't think people would have minded that.
In general, workplace romance (even among 'equals') is fraught with these complications.
There is a reason Captain Picard never plays poker with the rest of the crew.
That's more likely because Captain Picard shares a romantic relationship with Dr. Crusher [1] -- despite him being Dr. Crusher's boss, and Picard's involvement on the death of her husband.
Life is complicated.
ps: to their defense, this happened over many years, so very different than Dave McClure's situation.
Companies should prohibit all internal fraternizing and fire anyone who is caught breaking the rules.
VCs and anyone involved in hiring should have even stricter guidelines. If you are an investor, relationships with anyone who owns another company should be off limits. If you are involved in the hiring process in any way, once the company you work for is disclosed, any potential relationships with that party should be off limits.
Tech has been singled out due to the current news cycle narrative. Many other industries are extremely hostile; expect to see plenty more stories in the future. The biases may not all be gender, but could be things such as seniority, ethnicity. Nepotism and general corruption is rampant in other areas. This is not a US problem, this is a global.
If you did that, you would have a difficult time hiring people. There are reasons that most large tech companies don't place an outright ban on it. People don't like being told what to do, and people that spend lots of time working with one another sometimes fall for each other. Tech employees aren't (yet) robots.
Yes, intent matters, and we should take it into account when morally judging someone; but if you are in the position to severely damage someone's career, you have to realize that any simple request can put them under a lot of pressure. Even if they don't want to comply, they might feel obligated to do so, unless you somehow manage to make very clear that there won't be any repercussions whichever way they decide.
If you are in a position of power and start feeling attracted to a report, you should keep it to yourself. If you really can't bear to stay silent, you should quit your job, or at least move to a different department. When they can no longer feel threatened by you, then you can try to make your advance. Everything else might devolve into harassment without any intent to do so.
Even if you "make very clear there won't be any repercussions" it's wrong. Why the hell should the other person trust that you'll be able to keep your feelings separate from your professional judgment when you've had the bad sense to make things awkward in the first place? It's pissing in the pool. It's antisocial and unnecessary.
Needless to say, getting to that point would be very difficult without accidentally putting them under pressure, which is what you should avoid in the first place. Better to not even try.
If you read only what he said and nothing else, that would still be obvious. ("i don't know whether to hire you or hit on you"). So perhaps you didn't read even that much of the topic we are discussing?
I agree with your statement that intent matters. But also what matters is your sensibility in propositioning others for more personal purposes. Any person in a position of power has to realize this and learn how to communicate more clearly. So its both intent and appropriate action. Men/Women attracted to people they work with should realize that propositioning women at work is NOT the same as doing the same in a bar, and MUST tailor their approaches accordingly.
I think there was some research that said that 30% of people meet their spouses/ better half at the workplace. So lots of people do ask out coworkers, but most seem to know how to do it better.
Why is it that we EVER may assume, by someone's external behaviors including their writings, videos and interviews, that we may "know" an individual? Why would we ever assume a level of trust in how they conduct themselves in their personal lives by their outward actions? Why would we assume someone who did "fit" the investment world would be more likely to act in a similar improper manner? How is it that we actually fail to acknowledge that each of us has a line that, when it is crossed, we are capable of making horrible mistakes? Why is it that Western culture has formed a view of mistakes as something to be avoided at all cost, as opposed to an opportunity for great learning?
I came out of my self-imposed exile here to post this because I think it's important to draw a line and indicate a social community such as HN (or Twitter) are woefully inadequate to deal with these types of issues in a meaningful way and to do so without a highly divisive conversation forming. (This is not to say the message should not be delivered strongly to anyone listening, however.) All that comes of these discussions is blame and division. Evidence of that is show here, now, in the polarized comments.
The only people who can judge Dave honestly here now are the victims, his co-workers and himself. I do have empathy for those involved, but my emotional contributions here are pointless, given the scale and reach of this news.
You make an incredibly important point, and the fact that HN is resistant to it shows that most people are lucky enough not to have been betrayed by someone that everyone respects. I've had that experience, and it was shocking to realize that someone could be so different internally vs how everyone perceives them.
Examples: "Money Shot" with kitten spreadings its legs and "Great Products...Get you LAID".
[1] https://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/how-to-pitch-a-vc-or-a...
edit: link directly to slides and deleted nested comment.
The kitten and "money shot" is absolutely unnecessary, but I get the coarse language for "paid, made, laid"- the idea is that compelling products and services target base desires.
Your argument is similar to the argument for having swimsuit models in tabloid newspapers. NYT is a better product.
Edit: aside, it's interesting (and frustrating) that comments on HN are often assumed to be arguments. Here for a discussion, not to defend a thesis.
> Your argument is similar to the argument for having swimsuit models in tabloid newspapers. NYT is a better product.
The argument is right, because better (as in NYT vs. tabloids, or as in better in worse-is-better) products don't win on market. If you can target base desires, you'll beat products delivering utility.
Not if "sells more" is a measure of product betterness.
(Besides swimsuit models never harmed anybody -- the NYT helped sell war with huge human toll with BS government-fed info).
Call me old school, but I still think that JWZ post "Groupware Bad" is one of the most important in the history of blogging.
This quote from the linked article (from Chris Sacca) seems apt:
Over the last week, I have spoken with friends, friends of friends, heard from people from my past including stories of how I’d behaved, and read incredibly thoughtful and courageous essays. I’ve learned that it’s often the less obvious, yet pervasive and questionable, everyday behaviors of men in our industry that collectively make it inhospitable for women.
There is definitely a pervasive issue here in software culture as it relates to women, and maybe singling out and punishing individuals is the only way to combat it—but my first inclination when making moral judgements is to consider intent. When I see those slides above, I see the work of someone whose 'filter' and sensitivity to not offending people is lower than average. I do not see immoral activity, however.
I will gladly look at more info. on McClure's offenses if anyone wants to share—and I'm perfectly aware he may not be an instance of what I'm about to mention here—but, we recognize there is a systemic issue with gender equality in software which needs to be fixed, but is there maybe a better strategy than punishing individuals who get caught displaying symptoms of the admitted, systemic issue? (or do we retract the claim that there's a systemic issue? —cause those things are at odds: is it the fault of the culture these people are a part of, or have they personally done something egregious? We could mistakenly go too far in either direction, but maybe our aim will be better if that part of the issue is at least considered...)
Not in a puritan country. People have lost their jobs for making a "dongle -> dick" joke speaking to their friend at a conference because someone overheard...
At the same time, however, you are only addressing my first sentence, and my question remains about how to best deal with this: even granting the above, I'm still left with the impression that this guy is largely socially tone deaf and non-malicious, and a product of his culture: so is it possible to make corrections without 'treating the symptom' (i.e. punishing individuals who happen to display symptoms of a systemic issue)—or maybe that's the only way we can get at it?
If you look at it this way, then punishing every incidence is critical if you want to change attitude towards them (albeit in a contextually-adjusted severe manner, of course).
But for people just "following how things are done", the disincentive is chance_of_being_caught * punishment_for_being_caught.
If only the second term in that equation changes as a result of the current push, then I feel like it just creates more inequality and doesn't change the underlying problem as much.
So yes, punishment for all to some degree that's more than a wrist slap.
Which is exactly what I did where I live in Italy. Happily married and yes, after saying things to a colleague of mine that would have made me accused in the bay area.
Of course, unwanted sexual advances are a problem regardless of the relationship of the two parties, but unwanted or wanted advances between two people with a superior/subordinate relationship is where we get into trouble.
At all companies I've worked for in the US, there's never been a ban or stigma against colleagues dating, as long as there's no power differential between the two people. We still of course always expect people to behave professionally within a professional setting, but after-hours is your business.
If relationships between people with a power differential are commonplace in Italy, that's... unfortunate.
Women generally date up. This is especially common within professions with a high status since it is difficult to meet someone equal/better. View https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-who-marries-whom/
People generally are poor at reading others and end up pushing too far or getting offended easily (not referring to this case)
What's more likely to happen is what has been highlighted in the "sex partition" - https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Office-Partition-Dividing-Workpla...
Men are more likely to create more barriers to protect themselves and prevent bad optics rather than walk on egg shells around women. This in turn limits opportunities for women (aka glass ceiling).
As for "women generally date up", that is a near tautology given the imbalance in power generally between men and women. By the mere fact that men overwhelmingly hold positions of power, women will typically "date up". There is no way around that. So it's not a useful statistic and certainly isn't evidence of anything.
Sarah Kunst, the woman quoted in the NYT, mentions that other women have reached out to her about McClure. Like Caldwell, also all women of color: https://twitter.com/sarahkunst/status/881004317674577920
If one wishes to virtue-signal it helps to at least be virtuous.
You could argue that its unprofessional, but then so is wearing t-shirt and shorts to work. Tech culture quite proudly does not care much about appearances.
Just a coincidence though, right?
Without noticing you become quickly a public face the more powerful you get. Then, even in a private context you have to be careful who you approach, how you approach and how many. Often private and professional environments are not clearly separated as well.
Let's take again the intern example: There's nothing wrong with a cocky intern approaching and kiss-closing dozens of women on a night out. There's nothing wrong doing this every Friday and Saturday. But some CEOs or VCs would face immediate trouble if such behaviour even in a private context would become public.
Their life isn't better.
It's not rocket science. You can fool around with as many women as you want, as long as those women aren't subordinate to you in their professional roles. It's when you insist on mixing your business with your pleasure that you get yourself into trouble.
I legitimately cannot understand why so many men have so much trouble understanding this.
Kudos to Christine for being transparent, as expected.
Be always ready to call out bad behavior, even if it hurts. It is so much easier to start when problems are small.
Even when I've worked in teams of all guys, I've called out the sort of "locker room" talk that would be an HR nightmare of women were around. For two reasons: practice makes perfect, and it's still sexual harassment if those sorts of comments are making one of the other men uncomfortable. You don't know their intimate lives. They could be gay. They could be devoutly religious. Jerk, they could just be not a fratboy pig that needs to make comments during lunch about every woman that passes by.
We do these things for everyone.
Reactively: When offensive behavior occurs, it has to be nipped in the bud ASAP. A quick chat with a junior employee (and maybe perhaps handing over a pamphlet on sexual harassment) may be all it takes. Egregious and/or repeat offenders should be fired.
So basically her message is "it's ok to be inappropriate and stay as partner in our firm. Our investors' money is more important than sexual misbehaving". Sounds like she doesn't really deliver on her change.
I hope each and every person is exposed and held accountable for their actions.
It's inspiring to see all the women who are standing up and speaking out about these issues.
Why would they need to hit on women at their workplaces? Why isn't the normal dating game (where they have a massive edge via being loaded) sufficient? I don't get it (at all).
What am I missing? These guys seem to be (borderline) insane and incapable of rational thought.
At the workplace do the work! Leave the political/religious/mating etc games outside.
Seriously?
Are you implying that tremendously rich men (barring mental illnesses / crippling social anxiety) are disadvantaged with respect to dating? Or even that being tremendously rich is not a factor at all? If so, I'll have some of what you are smoking.
The people under discussion are men(if you are objecting to the use of 'men' vs 'people'. I specifically used Kalanick and McClure as examples).
This also applies to rich vs poor women. It also applies irrespective of whether you are hetero, homo, bi, or * sexual.
Being tremendously rich makes success in all kinds of apparently unrelated fields easier. Yes, you'll probably attract a good number of gold diggers, but excluding those explicitly targeting your money, in every society in the world, being rich(/powerful/famous) makes you more desirable in the mating game.
Perhaps in an ideal world, it shouldn't work like that, but that is a different point.
General psychology pattern: People run after what can't be easily gained. Entrepreneurs, more so.
I don't follow this stuff in any great detail and those are just the first names I thought of. Erroneously, as it turned out, and as you correctly point out.
Fwiw, I am not really interested in "social justice" issues and I use this forum mainly to get insight into purely technical issues, and I really should keep out of such politically/ideologically charged threads. Note to self.
Thanks again.
(me exits thread and topic)
In this case many details were published elsewhere already, in enough detail to offer little excuse.
Yes, in the other coverage.
I don't need specifics since hitting on someone is a suboptimal strategy for connection. If you're just looking to get laid, try it out and let me know how it works for that.
What the actual fuck.