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Comment by throwaway66666 | Hacker News Reader

I believe 100% that R. DeVaul is scum and I am not trying to attack the story, but the burning man part is too difficult to believe.

Tickets for burning man go on sale 6 months before, cost $1000 and become sold out in 30 minutes. It's a festival in the middle of the desert that you have to go pretty prepared if you want to last more than half a day (coolers, water, van, etc).

How did someone find tickets for 2 people a week before, drove to the desert with their mother because they honestly thought it was an interview test.

EDIT: Maybe she was going to be at burning man with her mom eitherway. She just decided to get some more business oriented clothes for when she would hang with her new work mates. That makes sense. But now it makes zero sense for the article to mention the burning man story.

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You are missing the point of being rich and powerful. He probably had multiple tickets already handy 6 months earlier to "invite" people. He did not have to buy them himself, someone else would do it for him.

> EDIT: Maybe she was going to be at burning man with her mom eitherway. She just decided to get some more business oriented clothes for when she would hang with her new work mates. That makes sense.

How did that happen? "You're going to the same event as me, your interviewer? We should totally hang out there!" maybe?

> But now it makes zero sense for the article to mention the burning man story.

Which interviewer suggests (during the interview!) to meet up a week later in private at some event? One that is trying to be professional?

It shows he wasn't just using his position to make suggestions, but taking it one step further and planning things. During the interview.

In a story about culture by management towards sexual harassment, it makes a ton of sense to include this story.

According to Star Simpson, she attended Burning Man 5 times prior to this this, between 2007-2011.[0]

Given she attended with her mom, it seems more likely that Star was already planning on going to Burning Man in 2013, not that she decided to go on a week's notice after her interview with DeVaul - which is something that many in this thread are assuming, but is not stated in the article.

[0] http://starsimpson.com/ "Have we met?"

Just FYI: tickets were $425 in 2018 with a small minority available at higher prices for those who explicitly wanted to help the event.

It's also fairly easy to get tickets up until days before the event through active secondhand swap communities. Many people do, in practice, show up with only a few days of preparation.

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