Startup Had ‘Masturbation’ Zone, Exec Who Took Off Pants in Meeting: Lawsuit | Hacker News Reader

Startup Had ‘Masturbation’ Zone, Exec Who Took Off Pants in Meeting: Lawsuit

mercurynews.com

107 pointsKKKKkkkk174 comments

wow this is super toxic, not to mention probably illegal. I'm surprised nobody else spoke up before. Even as a male I'd find this disturbing and highly dysfunctional. I can't even fathom how the plaintiff might have felt. I hope she sues them to oblivion. Such companies don't need to exist.

Yes, this is sick. This one even more:

> When she tried participating “on a very limited basis,” she was immediately given a $20,000 raise and taken more seriously, the complaint states.

I don't even want to know what "participating" means here.

The context of that statement would lead me to believe "participating" meant the use of porn lingo in the office.

A culture only becomes "toxic"when it encounters someone who doesn't like it. We would bot have had this story if Rachel was never hired in the first place.

There’s no place for weird bullshit like this in business. Open display of deviant behavior is a weird power trip on the part of whomever is in charge that ultimately speaks more about the incompetence of the investors and board than anything else.

You may be too wrapped up in outrage to have seen my bigger point. Anyone can come along and claim a corporate culture is toxic for virtually any reason. If your company had a policy that gave extra breaks for people who smoked and said people formed a clique that excluded non-smokers then you'd have grounds to call this "toxic" and agitate for change just because you didn't smoke yourself.

> Anyone can come along and claim a corporate culture is toxic for virtually any reason. If your company had a policy that...

Yes, yes, what about all the cases that aren't actually happening and all the lawsuits occuring for any made up situations that you can come up with? That's what we should focus on.

This is a specific example of a toxic culture and sexual harrasment in a workplace. It is real and not a thought experiment. When examples of your imaginary cases come to court we can discuss the merrits of those.

I want to agree with you, anyone can come in and claim toxic. I can get behind being weird and experimental but that doesn't mean there aren't lines worth drawing.

The suit isn't happening just over someone who didn't want their norms tested and wanted the corporate culture to conform.

She faced retaliation when she didn't reciprocate with English's advances. She got frozen out and harassed. That's just bread and butter bullshit. Classicly toxic work environment. The rest of the weirdness just makes that central issue worse (and probably a catchier headline).

When people are watching porn and jerking off in the server closet, it’s toxic.

Only if it's not done privately.

Surely you must concede that, in this particular instance, it's clear-cut that the workplace culture is toxic, and that there are a couple of orders of magnitude in severity between it and this hypothetical non-smoker-excluding office.

Surely you must also see that the described behavior is discriminatory. "If they just didn't hire people like X, there wouldn't be a problem" should be a huge red flag, the kind that suggests in a "there be dragons" sort of way that employment and non-discrimination laws might possibly frown upon something here.

Surely?

A toxic culture can be established independent of whether or not we have a story about it, even if Rachel was never hired this would still be about as toxic as it gets.

The tools are common sense and a sense of decency, and if those are in short supply inside the company then you could always ask your friendly neighborhood HR consultant how they feel about your place of work and its practices.

Having spent my whole career working in majority women companies, it’s sometimes hard to picture how poor working environments can be.

Articles like this give a disturbing insight.

Important to remember that the lawsuit is just one side of the story, written carefully by a lawyer to present the company in the worst possible light, and likely fed to the reporter directly. I’d love to see their response.

It seems like the startup was still pretty small, but the plaintiff was hardly the only employee there. If you're working in an environment like this, I think you have a very real responsibility to speak up. If that doesn't work you should leave. Anyone working in tech, especially in SV, has alternatives. You have a moral responsibility to squash out this kind of behavior by making it clear it's not an acceptable workplace - even (especially) if you're not the target of harassment.

You may have meant "ethical responsibility". Viewing porn as immoral doesn't sound very 2018.

The sum of the alleged behaviors here is immoral IMO. Simply watching porn is a world apart from this situation.

There are plenty of people in 2018 that consider supporting an industry rife with abuse, extortion, and even sex trafficking of vulnerable people to be immoral.

No, you don’t.

Since startup executive culture (to name one, there are many others) is a friends and family business, the whistleblower employee is more likely to be branded a crazy person and blackballed.

The amount outright toxic comments and toxic people posting in this thread is astounding. Seriously, boys, grow up and join the professional world. Disgusting.

Well, not everyone shares the anglosaxon culture of puritan shame about sex and that it's outrageous to discuss outside the bedroom.

So a lot of stuff in the post is not about going outside some professional limit (e.g. few would have been offended if they played with nerf guns in the office, like tons of startups do and most are alright with -- but which a lot of cultures would deem "unprofessional" as well, since it inherently has nothing to do with work).

Though this does go beyond limits:

And the harassment escalated, she alleged. In December, English called her into his office, shut the door and took off his pants, she claimed. Moore said she was uncomfortable, told him his behavior was “harassment,” and asked to leave the room, but English “would not let her” and began talking about his ex-girlfriend’s faults, she claimed.

as it's not mere talk (which can be crude, sensual, or whatever), but actual abuse: nobody asked to see his genitals...

I wouldn't be "offended" by others playing with nerf guns but certainly annoyed ... but I would be offended if others would involve me in this pretty infantile and sub-radar-bullying pastime. who do you think is going to get shot at on a regular basis? but of course it's just fun - right?

and no - repetitive exposure to sexualized remarks without positive feedback is sexual harassment.

and I am saying that as a European guy who is slightly infamous for very direct and obvious flirting - even at work. but as soon as I get a rejection - even a polite one - I'm going to just accept it and move on.

guys like you make work life a terrible experience for others by forcing your idea of fun on them. you should hope to never meet a guy like me b/c that's not going to be a fun experience for you in the end.

>I wouldn't be "offended" by others playing with nerf guns but certainly annoyed ... but I would be offended if others would involve me in this pretty infantile and sub-radar-bullying pastime. who do you think is going to get shot at on a regular basis?

Everybody and nobody in particular?

>and I am saying that as a European guy who is slightly infamous for very direct and obvious flirting - even at work. but as soon as I get a rejection - even a polite one - I'm going to just accept it and move on.

Well, you could have been fired multiple times in the US just for this, so there's that.

Have you checked out this "very direct and obvious flirting" against more HR departments? Or because that's where you draw the line you're OK, but anything else suggested by other people is bad (like e.g. complimenting someone on their looks, or telling a "dirty" joke among colleagues).

>guys like you make work life a terrible experience for others by forcing your idea of fun on them

"Like me"? I guess you felt free to infer that since I'm giving an argument against puritanically singling out sexual expression from various spheres of life I must be some pervert. Which is like believing that no vegan should ever argue in favor of others being able to eat meat...

>you should hope to never meet a guy like me b/c that's not going to be a fun experience for you in the end

Oh, and physical threats. Yeah, because sexual talk between colleagues is bad, but violence is fine. Typical anglosaxon puritanism (even if from a European), the kind that pushes all sorts of violence on tv, but goes into moral outrage about Janet Jackson's nip slip...

> and physical threats

that you interprete that as a physical threat tells more about you than me. I'm certainly not getting physical against anybody at work or pretty much anywhere else ... I'm talking about standing up against bullying by verbal or legal means.

>that you interprete that as a physical threat

Yeah, because "you should hope to never meet a guy like me b/c that's not going to be a fun experience for you in the end" is so open to various interpretations, right?

I guess the "tells more about you than me" part is also not an attempt at cheap pop psychology ad hominem either, I just interpreted it as such....

As I was saying to your other gross, now deleted comment... Context matters.

I can talk with my friend, in great detail, about sex. Outside of work. At work, it's inappropriate for the same reasons that talking about religion or politics can be. It will alienate people and make them uncomfortable.

But when that extends to have masturbation rooms at work, or your superiors bragging about how great they are at sex (lol), then it crosses a line. A pretty obvious line, to me. Even without the boss undressing. How do you not see that allowing the former sets the culture and leads to the latter? there are power dynamics inherent to the workplace and sex that are undeniable and unignorable if you care about an equal, respectful workplace.

No one anywhere has said "sex is dirty" and it strikes me as a pretty flagrant straw man.

>I can talk with my friend, in great detail, about sex. Outside of work. At work, it's inappropriate for the same reasons that talking about religion or politics can be. It will alienate people and make them uncomfortable.

In some cultures (e.g. Southern Mediterranean), people are not alienated by talking about "religion or politics" at work either. In fact people do so frequently.

See, not everybody shares the cultural constrains of your own culture...

Thanks for ignoring the entire point of my post to nitpick a single part of a sentence to advance your same point without addressing what I said. I think I'm done with this thread. Enough toxicity for one day.

This Daily Beast article twice links to an article from the Mercury News and appears to be just a rewrite of it. https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/02/her-tech-boss-took-hi...

Thanks. We changed the url to that from https://www.thedailybeast.com/startup-had-masturbation-zone-.... Calling that one a rewrite seems kind.

These allegations are more severe than those in a typical sexual harassment lawsuit. I'm interested to read their defense.

Everyone that enabled this behavior should be blacklisted by any and all respectable companies and investors.

As someone who has, on multiple occasions been required to watch pornography as a part of my job, I cannot fathom how people think that this kind of culture is acceptable in a workplace. It's one thing to have to deal with sexual content, especially in mixed genders, it's an entirely different thing to then turn your workplace into a sexual haven. Unless your job is specifically in the sex trades, there's no reason to ever unzip your pants in front of a co-worker male or female. Keep your privates private. If you really feel the need to masturbate at work there are private stalls in most workplaces that would serve this purpose just fine. The fact that this kind of thing still needs to be said boggles my mind.

I'm surprised she waited that long to sue them.

She had to gather evidence first. If the facts are truly as the article lays them out to be then this is a slam dunk for her legal team and a nice payday for everyone.

I'm not sure how she could have proof of any of the accusations beyond perhaps crass emails as circumstantial evidence. A lot of it is the sort of stuff that doesn't leave a paper trail, I doubt there was an official email declaring the server area the masturbation zone, maybe there was something with a double entendre though.

Look at how we have commenters here running around downplaying it or suggesting that she’s making it up. A legal case is going to expose her to much greater scrutiny, and it’s both expensive and time consuming even if you win. It takes time to prepare for that even if you’re confident that you’ll win.

When I read stories like this I amazed that anybody thinks this kind of behavior is acceptable! It's like we live on different planets.

Ok, maybe the getting away with something so inappropriate is thrilling?

I want to understand..

Is it because Startup these days get WAY too much money, and far too well paid that they simply ignore all the consequences of what ever they do, as long as they can produce hyper growth ( with no profits )?

Or may be they watched a little too much Wolf of Wall Street?

P.S I don't know if the site thedailybeast.com is reputable or not, or the story is true or not.

Sounds terrible.

I hope the company is sued into oblivion, and the officers publicly shamed. What an awful place.

This website took so long with load and was loaded with so many animated ads and unresponsive scrolling while more ads just kept popping up slowly it's amazingly awful how [news] sites have gotten these days to try to survive.

Maybe we should hear all involved sides before judging anyone.

Maybe, but if the allegations are false, the accuser has ended her career one year after getting an MBA from Stanford. It seems unlikely she would take that risk unless she was absolutely sure.

I'm inclined to believe some parts are slightly sensationalized, especially as it went through the newspaper translation layer, but that in aggregate, the accusations are true. The "Masturbation Zone" was probably a joke name for a room instead of a place where employees masturbated, for example, and it's The Daily Beast's fault for misleading readers about that.

I’m sure the CTO has a perfectly good reason to drop his pants in his office. Perhaps he urgently needed to urinate and his office door was the best place to do it?

While what is alleged is over the top, it’s not all that far from what women face in even the typical workplace. Source: my wife and first hand observations from other coworkers.

"I’m sure the CTO has a perfectly good reason to drop his pants in his office. Perhaps he urgently needed to urinate and his office door was the best place to do it?"

Droping pant is a way to show that, we are all in the game with new tech stack and we not holding anything back, not even our pants. In a startup, we should do whatever it takes to succeed.

We've banned this account for trolling.

Still, you shouldn't destroy people lives before hearing all sides of the story. Let the facts come out first.

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus Another "holy shit I can't believe this is real" story that ended up being an almost complete fabrication.

Obviously we shouldn't downplay the victim, but we also shouldn't go on witch hunts.

Workplace Wanking - comedy becomes reality: https://youtu.be/VKH9ECC_Qa4

what the fuck did I just read?

the site requires switching off scripts in order to read article, there is no way i am switching off adblocker

Are there so few women out there that these guys can't just get a girlfriend?

No girl is dumb enough to be their girlfriend.

When it comes to what many women put up with, Stanford man-children are fairly benign in comparison.

This is not a true statement

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Turner

How many women have you known personally? I'm not trying to be crass, but if you think women don't date or marry terrible men, you'd better think again.

> No girl is dumb enough to be their girlfriend.

Being smart has nothing to do with it. People don't make a rational choice while choosing a partner. I am not even remotely good looking compared to many handsome men around. What works is rather simple, if you can do funny things bravely, you'll get the any girl you want.

Now, i am from Eastern Europe and Ashkenazi Jew. I am naturally not good looking compared to many other handsome men. But I still don't feel ugly and i am able to attract any woman i want.

Many women here threw insult at me but i laughed them off, they are just checking what you are made up of and how difficult it is to agitate you or make you sad, a manchild can't handle this without breaking into tears.

I'm also confused whenever I read about such seemingly open-and-shut cases. Have these guys never heard of "Don't shit where you eat"? Or, are they so wrapped up in their business that work becomes everything for them, including the entirety of their social life?

Could be that they've been in the PhD bubble for so long that they were never really exposed to how the rest of the world works.

I remember a lot of the profs at my college--gross old dudes--sleeping with their students and getting away with it. Hell, if I were a young girl, and I've got to listen to this guy every other day, and he has control over my grade--which could have a major impact on the rest of my life... maybe that would eventually have some kind of effect on my psyche.

Who knows?

Hard to tell. On the one hand society has always had creeps and weirdos. On the other hand this may be a canary that indicates that we've had some kind of societal breakdown where these guys felt better about taking pants off in a meeting rather than just asking someone on a date and dealing with rejection there.

Regarding your example: it's true that you describe a power imbalance, but unless those professors were issuing ultimatums (for which a smart person could gather evidence), the girls were making their own choices on how to get ahead.

Professors sleeping with their current students is incredibly inappropriate regardless of how the relationship was initiated. Just keep it in your pants until the end of the semester.

This isn’t about it being their social life. Stripping in front of an employee and then retaliating when she won’t engage with you sexually is not “social life”.

Would that actually change anything? It's about in-groups vs out-groups, bullying and humiliation, showing off and hangers-on, all that sort of thing. Having a girlfriend doesn't seem like it would make any difference.

I am not qualified to psychoanalyze them, so I won't.

"Masturbation Zone" sounds like it came out of the untouched teenage boy playbook if you ask me.

Certainly does, and as I recall, teenage boys continue to be teenage boys even when they get a girlfriend. Sometimes even more so. I would hazard that the kind of person who thinks this is a good idea in the workplace wouldn't stop thinking that by having a girlfriend.

> It's about in-groups vs out-groups, bullying and humiliation, showing off and hangers-on, all that sort of thing.

In other words, it's called "clan like thinking" - that's exactly what makes a startup successful.

Without this you can never succeed, anyone who says otherwise is not telling you the complete truth.

So you’d be ok with a company led by women that only hired women to prevent men from introducing this culture? I suspect, based on your previous comments, you would not.

Are these guys so narcissistic, disrespectful and immature that they can't sustain romantic relationships without exercising power over someone else?

You don’t just “get a girlfriend”. Usually having a girlfriend involves being a decent enough human being in the first place that a woman would want to spend time with you. This CEO was clearly a dickhead (in every sense of the term), and I can understand why no woman would touch him with a proverbial 10 foot pole in a romantic sense.

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