Binary co-founder blames “corrupted” media for his resignation offer
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It's true: A VC's job is to protect the integrity of the firm's portfolio. But there's no contradiction (I'd like to think) between protecting the portfolio and engaging in decent, upstanding behavior.
This sort of e-mail just re-enforces the belief that these guys were mostly upset about being caught, and don't really recognize how bad their behavior was.
How dare these plebeians actually enforce the rules on we bourgeoisie? /s
I, uh, don't think this is the problem, here.
> What I think is that we are an industry full of entitled human beings.
Some more than others. But, yes. Apparently.
> My job is not to make you all feel good [...] My job is to preserve the integrity of the portfolio we built up and the value in it, and to ensure the resources you count on do not dematerialize.
Ah, there it is. This entire letter could've just been this.
> I am angry that women have felt hurt. I am angry that many have been hurt.
No you're not. See above.
I get that this may've been written in the heat of the moment, but this is an embarrassment.
Nice, a threat that speaking against them/him will hurt your ability to raise money. This seems only barely removed from the retaliation threats and actions Caldbeck did against the former employee (and others he harassed). Seems like a great guy to work with! Also, 'Not for my sake', lol.
Seriously, did one of their lawyers not look this over? They're facing a lawsuit from a former principal alleging extensive retaliation against her throughout the valley, and I suspect this email will wind up being a pretty compelling exhibit in the case.
This does certainly cast yet another shadow on all the public remonstrations of fealty and support shown on various social media channels towards him. In the future, you may want to wait a bit and see how things shake out.
If I'm reading this correctly, he's basically telling the women/URMs of Silicon Valley, "Hey, at least you're not dying of hunger here, stop whining." I'm really not sure telling those who face harassment and significant discrimination on a daily basis here that they are 'whiners' is a good response to this fiasco. But, then again, I don't run a VC with management fees that would presumably give me access to a world-class PR firm..
What is furthermore galling about this email to his founders is the lack of contrition towards them for the difficult position he and Binary have put them in. His actions and the actions of the firm have undoubtedly caused a great deal of distraction, angst, heartache and anger within the portfolio firms, and those founders deserve nothing but an apology from him. Instead, they are berated and threatened! Why on Earth would anyone read this and ever want to work with him as an investor?
I'm not surprised to see a C-level that's self-important and holier-than-thou, but I also expect professionalism and decorum, if only to avoid burning bridges.
Tech in general has a problem with people accepting blame for this kind of stuff. They don’t see it as wrong: just complaining about it aid wrong.
Frustrating
Let me be super clear... I am not condoning Caldbeck in the least, after all, he did admit guilt. My comment is entirely focused on the hypocrisy of the _current_ media, pretending to stand on the moral pedestal of society, but really just trying to incite outrage to generate pageviews, which generates ad revenue and keeps them in business.
Second, has anybody ever taken a look at the editors, bloggers, and writers at media outlets? I'd predict they as a group are not as diverse as you'd expect. Liberal arts college educated, making middle class salaries. Probably not the group of deep thinkers and intellectuals we'd like to believe.
It's not a witch hunt if it actually happened. It's just news.
Is it perhaps the case that the media are now doggedly rooting out this kind of thing in SV because it's pushing page views? Sure. But why does that matter? These incidents are real, and it's about time the silence was broken about it.
Is the media, itself, immune to this kind of thing? Obviously not. Fox News provides ample examples. But, again, why is that relevant in this specific context? Does it make Calbeck's actions less serious? Should the media not pursue these very real stories? Should the victims keep silent?
I'm just trying to understand the thrust of your comment, here... because I honestly don't see where you're going with this. It strikes me as mud slinging just to make sure everyone looks equally dirty, in order to somehow minimize what folks like Caldbeck have done.
That metaphor is problematic in the case of the founder of a company facing charges of employee sexual harassment. At worst, let's use "sensationalist" or "disingenuous" coverage.
What was different this time is people started naming names. I know myself I was having a lot of conversations with people about the story... mostly because everybody who's been on the harassment of of it, and the names name are names of people who we know as the people who funded the companies of folks we know.
So sure, there was auxiliary outlets fanning the flames. But that happens for lots of stories and gets forgotten quickly.
So instead of calling it sensationalist... I'd say it was a big story. Some parties named directly came out and confirmed and apologized (McClure). The "fake news" / "sensationalist" claim is not holding water with me since it wants to discredit the story but does not do it on the basis of facts.
It can be. Take the case of Nobel prize winning scientist Tim Hunt who was excoriated online and off and later resigned for comments he in a speech made about woman in science.
Those comments actually happened, but later a full transcript of his speech revealed them to be just a rather poor joke amid comments praising women in science, and were not representative of his actual views and actions over the course of his career.
Then there was the Rosetta mission scientist who caught flak for wearing a risqué tshirt, which actually happened, but the outcry was far disproportionate to the crime especially as it was later revealed that the shirt was given to him in the first place by a female friend.
So it is possible for witch hunts to occur even for things that 'actually happened'
Caldbeck sexually harassed women. Period. He confessed to it. He's now being sued for it.
This is not, in any way, shape, or form, anything remotely resembling a "witch hunt". It's literally the opposite of that, in that the person being accused of the crime is guilty of said crime.
You're right. My comment was nothing about the case involving Caldbeck, in fact, my entire point was to call out that pithy comment because I don't think it's something that is generally true (even if it might be true in this case).
I don't disagree that there's sort of a witch hunt tone about this all, but honestly? In many ways, it's also necessary. The status quo hasn't see behavior like this as sufficiently problematic in the past, which is exactly why shit like this got swept under the rug for so many years; hopefully this will start changing.
The people who find themselves in that spotlight against their will do what people always do: Blame the media. "If only those nasty profit-driven journalists weren't getting into my business and digging up dirt."
As for your last paragraph... That's just insultingly stupid.
Jon Ronson (a journalist) actually wrote a book about that exact topic[1]. I think it might be of interest to you.
> has anybody ever taken a look at the editors, bloggers, and writers at media outlets
Yes. After Trump was elected, many journalists commented on the lack of diversity in journalism (although it came up before that, from time to time)[2][3].
For some reason I can't find the article now, but I remember the demographics being something like, "mostly white, almost 100% coastal, highly educated, and from wealthy backgrounds" (referring to the mainstream news sources).
After Trump, a lot of the focus was on the lack of rural/Midwestern journalists.
> Probably not the group of deep thinkers and intellectuals we'd like to believe.
I don't know if anyone thinks all of them are deep thinkers and intellectuals, but some of them certainly are.
1. https://www.amazon.com/So-Youve-Been-Publicly-Shamed/dp/B00S...
2. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/aug/04/journalism-div...
3. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/minorit...
As ad hominems go, this is one of the poorest attempts I've seen on HN recently. Not only it is an ad hominem, but you didn't even bother to provide anything but hypothetical accusations. Especially this part:
"I'd predict they as a group are not as diverse as you'd expect".
I'm actually surprised that you didn't use a burner account to post this.
For example: "Don't believe my opponent because he is Jewish/Black/White/etc."
In contrast, there is no ad hominem fallacy if someone says: "Don't believe my opponent — he has an ulterior motive, and I think he has conflicts of interest as well."
This is basically what the GP said: the media has ulterior motives (profit), and they may have a conflict of interest (if their industry is also predominated by white men).
I'm not saying I agree with all of what the GP said, but I think it's inappropriate to call this an ad hominem attack. As you point out, he doesn't supply citations for his claim of media homogeneity, but this isn't exactly rare on HN.
That is absolutely an ad hominem attack.
It engages a feature of the person (their motives) instead of the actual substance of the argument.
> My comment is entirely focused on the hypocrisy of the _current_ media...
He explicitly disclaims that he is not defending the VCs' behavior — he is just saying that perhaps the media behavior is not great as well. Having limited his claim to the behavior of the media, it is not logically inappropriate (i.e., not a logical fallacy) to talk about the media's motives and conflicts of interest.
I can understand why this might seem, at a glance, like ad hominem, because it bears some similarities to the logically fallacy. In the law, this distinction is described and handled by the evidentiary rules related to impugning a witness' character. Such character attacks are generally irrelevant and not allowed — but if they relate to the trustworthiness of the witness in general, or as it relates to their specific testimony, then they are relevant and allowable.
It's all about ethics in journalism, again...
Yes it is possible Caldbeck is a cunning predator who knew exactly what he could get away with and used his clout as a VC to grope and harass many women, but it's far more likely that he is not. Far more likely he isn't all that smooth with women and ham-handedly attempted to woo his victims.
He failed to realize how the power dynamic influenced things. This is important for anyone in a position of power to realize. My moment of realization was when I noticed that every single person on a team I led laughed at a joke I made. I realized something was off. The joke simply wasn't that funny. It's easy to see how simple flattery (which is quite normal when dealing with VCs) might have thrown off Caldbeck's compass. Yes I'd expect someone with his level of experience to be aware of it, but some people can go years without realizing they are being flattered.
This is in no way meant to minimize the poor judgment Caldbeck used or to cast any blame at all on his victims. VC is a unique world that is fad-driven and reputation-driven and so the founder of a very hot company has tremendous power over investors, but all other founders are essentially beggars.
I know Jonathan and he's an exceptionally gracious person whose behavior is completely reserved and respectful. I imagine he's quite disappointed about being lumped into all this and having his company's brand ruined by it and his name dragged through the mud for Caldbeck's poor judgment.
Lashing out and claiming that it's the media's fault seems like it's trying to just redirect blame.
Increasingly, this is becoming national news. I read a story about the Binary Capital fiasco in the WSJ -- a few years go it would have been in Valleywag and probably not even made Techcrunch.
The problem is the narrative that comes with these stories is overly general. Most startups hire based on merit and require hard work but have a supportive, kind-hearted culture. Yet stories run with headlines like "Why is Google still so white and male?" etc. Stories like these overlook the deeper social problems that make it less likely for women and minorities to get hooked on building technology at a young age, and focus on the idea that it's backward-thinking male managers who are causing this from the top down. In other words, the lay reader is nudged into thinking that there's some sort of boy's club and that women and minorities aren't welcome. The public is sensitized to this at present after some of the recordings of Donald Trump. We're all ready to send a mob after the next male villain.
Teo himself has invested in many female founded companies and the female founders I know who have worked with him consider him one of their most valuable sources of insight and support.
> Lai left Binary because of its “sexist and sexual environment,” including inappropriate conduct with female staff at company outings, a female-specific dress code and statements about the attractiveness of Lai and other women such as startup founders, according to the lawsuit. [1]
I'm extraordinarily skeptical something like this went on right in front of Tai without his implicit consent.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-29/former-em...
Even in cases where there isn't "org chart" status at play in a company, there are other forms of status, and so any kind of inappropriate talk could be abusive in some way.
This is not to say we should accept these problems without trying to make the world better, just that work culture is a hard thing to understand. Maybe when a customer calls up angry, the team refers to the person as an asshole. To some this would be highly offensive, to others it would not. Maybe someone who worked there went along with it but did so resentfully and then they find another job and write a blog post outing the team for being vulgar.
The point I'm trying articulate is that the bigger issue is that we (humans) are bad at understanding how status dynamics impact our own willingness to engage in certain topics of conversation, banter, humor, even flirtatious behavior. I've seen one sales guy who would go into the main office and kiss each of the secretaries on the cheek as part of a sort of greeting ceremony, full of high fives, etc. They all seemed like great friends who did that little ritual willingly, but it's possible one or more of the secretaries hated it and dreaded his arrival at the office. It was confusing to me at the time because I thought how I really wouldn't want to be touched by him, but I figured it wasn't really my place to judge since they all seemed to be enjoying it.
Probably the best way to handle it is for firms to establish a code of conduct for workplace interaction that forbids certain problematic topic areas explicitly, but such things are hard to enforce and seem to me to be better handled by positive examples being set by leaders and clear, zero tolerance policy toward any form of abuse of power (regardless of whether it's harassing, sexual, etc.)
He might be disappointed, but how he is acting doesn't come off as reserved and respectful. He made a judgment to associate himself with Caldbeck, and instead of making proper reparations he's digging himself an even larger hole. He's not a victim in this. He helped put Caldbeck in a position of power.
Character is what we do when nobody is looking. Clearly, Jason Caldbeck's character is flawed especially when it comes to professional and respectful behavior towards women and at least initially in accepting responsibility for his action. Jonathon Teo could stand a refresher because men of character stand up for what is right, when it is right and required. Turning a blind eye to his partners behavior is a direct reflection of his own. And these letters, well they say I will stand up and speak out against specific behavior when I have to rather than when I needed to do so. Maybe he would not be working to further prevent the outcome (firestorm surrounding the news of bad behavior) had he been more diligent to prevent the action in the first place.
It appears Jonathan was either inattentive to the point of being reckless or unconcerned to the point of being callous and or implicit. The truth of the matter is only he knows at this point. His letters do nothing but attempt to spin the situation further tarnishing his handling of this situation from occurance to discovery and thereafter.
I'm curious, why is that "far more likely"?
At this point I don't think anyone who isn't involved in these events knows enough to say one way or another. Yet you seem pretty certain.
My first guess would be confirmation bias, given you purport to actually know Teo.
Simply because most people fall within a fairly narrow band of behavioral and psychological norms. Religion creates the fictitious idea that there are "good" people and "bad" people.
In reality most people are simply mediocre in the moral sense. Chances are Caldbeck is very much within the normal range, which, like it or not, the vast majority of people fall into.
There are some people who are sociopaths and truly predatory, but such people are exceedingly rare.
Based on my observations of the behaviours of people in C-suite positions, I don't think I'd be so willing to use general population statistics as a justification for a priori exonerating the man.
As an aside, you've also posed a false dichotomy, here: Caldbeck is a calculating sociopath, or a bumbling idiot who stumbled into harrassment. The truth more likely lies somewhere in the middle.
My comment is not meant to exonerate Caldbeck. He went over the line and wound up having people speaking out about his inappropriate behavior. He's likely going to feel the embarrassment from his actions on an ongoing basis for years.
My point was that many people, if put in a position of power such as Caldbeck was, might very well have found themselves misconstruing the level of enthusiasm that founders had for hanging out with him, etc.
This comment is literally an attempt to exonerate the man: You are providing an alternative motive (or, less charitably, an excuse) that would lead one to conclude what he did was not, in fact, sexual harrassment, but simply a misunderstanding.
If you can't see that that's what you're doing, you're not being honest with yourself.
My point is not that Caldbeck ought to be exonerated. I think the embarrassment he's facing and reputation costs are likely well deserved.
The issue is that by painting Caldbeck as a psychological outlier and predator it prevents reflection on what could be done to make situations like this get resolved/rectified more quickly and more effectively.
At risk of pulling a "fixed it for you," a former partner is suing Binary Capital because -- according to her lawsuit -- after she told them she was going to resign due to Caldbeck's treatment of her and other women, Caldbeck told her she would never get work again and, after she resigned, started contacting members of her LinkedIn network and falsely telling them she had been fired, while continually sending weird, harassing and vaguely threatening texts (my words, but seriously, they're all in the affidavit). Perhaps the way Caldbeck treated women could be described as "inappropriate behavior," but "we're going to try to destroy your career through back channel means because you're not promising to stay quiet" is way beyond that.
Caldbeck's actions of contacting the former partner's LinkedIn network to falsely state she was fired is beyond the pale of human decency. I guess it is true that desperate times call for desperate measures. Maybe his statement of the former Binary partner never working in SV again may be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I have never thought that Teo should resign for something someone else did but if he knew and turned a blind eye to what was going on then his resignation may end up being necessary for Binary to fully recover. I have always been a firm believer in personal accountability and at this point only Teo knows what he knew and when.
I agree, it sounds like once he realized his actions were blowing up in his face his behavior got ugly. That is certainly an indication of immaturity.
Surely Teo would have been concerned by the lawsuit even if he was convinced it had been a one-time issue. He'd hitched his wagon to Caldbeck's and so was made vulnerable by Caldbeck's behavior.
Teo's duty to LPs and Founders is to preserve the stability of the fund. He may have decided not to continue working with Caldbeck after the evidence surfaced, but taking immediate action would have been highly destabilizing. It's hard to imagine that he'd have felt some personal loyalty to Caldbeck that would have dominated the very simple risk-avoidance calculus for a situation like this and no evidence that any existed.
Think of how easily Teo could have become a hero just by bailing from the fund when the first accusations surfaced. He'd have screwed over the founders and LPs but would seem like the pinnacle of moral judgment.
This is why it's troublesome to adopt an overly moralistic view when analyzing these sorts of situations. The strategic behavior changes and rewards personal grandstanding at the expense of the rest of the parties involved.
Ultimately, Caldbeck's behavior was immature, inappropriate, and disgusting, but it was likely not illegal. Would you really argue that someone in Teo's position should jeopardize his firm just to send a strong message about some accusations?
In my opinion the right thing to do is take clear action to prevent it from happening again but to stay focused on the business.
It's astounding to me that you view threatening to destroy someone's career as simply an "indication of immaturity"... immaturity implies impulsiveness, an act taken in the heat of the moment without a full understanding of the consequences.
The purported emails, texts, and linked-in messages demonstrate a pattern of persistent, premeditated behaviour that goes well beyond simple "immaturity".
Ultimately, Caldbeck's behavior was immature, inappropriate, and disgusting, but it was likely not illegal
At minimum we have clear allegations of harassment. You seem to be willing to dismiss those allegations out-of-hand, but neither of us is in a position to determine if those acts went to the level of breaking the law. That will be up to a jury to decide.
Would you really argue that someone in Teo's position should jeopardize his firm just to send a strong message about some accusations?
And head off a media circus? Absolutely! You cannot possibly believe that the way this has been handled has been even remotely optimal. If Teo knew about this (and let's face it, he probably did), he should've gotten waaaaay out in front of it.
At this point, he looks either 1) complicit, or 2) incompetent.
Well, he obviously had to trust Caldbeck's word a great deal to want to do business with him in the first place, so maybe Caldbeck lied. Would you consider Caldbeck's spouse similarly responsible?
Keep in mind that these new accusations hadn't been made yet so perhaps Teo thought the problem had been dealt with and risk minimized. This is the key point, it's about risk minimization. Teo has nothing to gain by this blowing up and everything to gain by surfacing it early, distancing himself, and being the good guy.
SO to claim that you think he's complicit indicates that you think he was loyal to Caldbeck like a hypothetical fraternity brother, and not rational like an experienced investor.
If there is one person to whom Caldbeck's conduct would have been most alarming (aside from his spouse) it would have been Teo, so I think your assumption of his complicity unlikely to be true.
Similarly, the idea that he handled it incompetently also does not hold up to scrutiny. His firm just blew up, and he clearly didn't want that to happen. My read on it is that he's attempted to act selflessly to preserve the value of the firm for the LPs and founders, and not tried to capitalize on it for his own gain.
It sounds likely that Caldbeck may be guilty of having harassed some founders, and if so I hope he receives appropriate legal consequences in addition to the inevitable reputation loss.
But we should give Teo the benefit of the doubt since I think his actions indicate that he's not trying to act opportunistically.
The overall scope of accusations against Caldbeck (including the rather detailed court filing of former employee Ann Lai, which includes disturbing documentary evidence in the form of text messages) is, at this point, substantial.
Your choice to interpret and minimize this as mere 'poor judgment' and 'signals got mixed up' is questionable given the preponderance of evidence, and certainly does seem to minimize the scope of harassment reported by the victims. I mean, for heaven's sake, he had to leave Lightspeed because of his harassment of one of their founders! They took a big financial hit with StitchFix. This was clearly widely understood and swept under the rug.
The problem is not one bad apple, the core problem is deeper and more cultural and has to do with status dynamics and boundaries.
Even if he were a naif that just accidentally harassed women, having Stitch Fix's ceo ask for him to be removed from the board should have been enough to make him modify his behavior [1]. Instead, he continued. That makes me update my prior that he's a serial harasser to about 99.99, though I'm willing to go higher.
[1] https://www.recode.net/2017/6/27/15880434/stitch-fix-ceo-jus...
Yes, but I bet he realizes it now. That's the entire point of naming and shaming this behaviour. If you don't understand the negatives of your actions eventually people are going to tell you you're in the wrong. Hopefully you have enough good friends or colleagues who you respect that are able to tell you when you're in the wrong before it gets to this stage.
Maybe answer is obvious yes. Sorry to asking. In articles by womens she talked about experiences but not mentioned ask to remove of VC's, but maybe is best outcome.
if not woman please not answer: easy to read 1,000 comments from men.
if my comment is hurts you please to mention of this and I remove.