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Comment by whowhatwhy | Hacker News Reader

"I met Epstein in 2013 at a conference through a trusted business friend and, in my fundraising efforts for MIT Media Lab, I invited him to the Lab and visited several of his residences. I want you to know that in all of my interactions with Epstein, I was never involved in, never heard him talk about, and never saw any evidence of the horrific acts that he was accused of.

" On June 30, 2008, after Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge (one of two) of procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18 "

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I think a lot of people became aware of Epstein in 2011 when Charlie Brooker (Black Mirror creator) did this piece on Prince Andrew - https://youtu.be/yPyn7mu375I

I remember it going viral at the time, and since then a casual Google would have thrown it up pretty highly.

I miss Charlie on TV - wish he would still at least do the yearly wipe.

Do you do a deep dive in the criminal history of every person you deal with? No? didn't think so.

Come on. This wasn’t a hidden secret. I can believe not everyone who did business with Epstein after he left prison was aware, but this wasn’t a secret; it was widely reported (the truth is, many people just didn’t care) why he went to jail. The circles he traveled in might have changed, but from my own experiences on the periphery of the wealthy/connected, stuff like this comes up.

You’ll note Ito never claims he wasn’t aware of the allegations or the guilty plea, he simply says he didn’t ever see any evidence of that behavior.

Plenty of people would pause before accepting money from someone like Epstein and plenty of people, as we’ve seen, did not.

Those that did aren’t responsible for any of Epstein’s crimes, but it’s more than fair that they answer questions about why they took money from someone like him — even if the answers are uncomfortable.

Not to mention that, if you believe Ethan Zuckerman’s account of events (http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-...), he specifically warned Ito about Epstein’s history in 2014.

This is probably not the best time to point to SV and the influence of Milner and the Kremlin, but it's fascinating to read PG's comments in the 2011 discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604 and how he seems to be comfortable with the Kremlin connection even though others seemed to have known at the time.

So? There are many other external investors in the US companies, most importantly from China and Saudi Arabia. This is not illegal. And US-Russia relationships were a lot different in 2011.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143897 and PG's reply captures the problem well:

> Basically, Milner is a crook, and if there was any justice in the world he and Usmanov would be in jail for what they have done. But there isn't, and there are people in the Valley who are willing to overlook ethics if you have enough money. The fact that Milner is now working with YC is a sad testament to that fact.

PG: VCs are not so high minded that they're offended by who his LPs are, believe me.

> Actually, it would seem to be just as simple as he implies. VCs in the valley care only about money and don't give a hoot about morality. You haven't debated the fact that Milner is linked to the looting of state resources; you've simply said that anyone else would also take his money if they could.

PG: even if Yuri's money was tainted in some way, it was being used as a counterweight to another bad thing.

This is the ultimate problem and it has nothing to do with US-Russia relations but rather with dealing with known seedy characters

The really open secret part is the weirdness about his homes. Nude art, chessboard with half nude figurines of his staff.

It's pretty common. VC funds will run these checks on you, and most companies do as well when they even hire you. It's table stakes for any company committed to data security and safety.

So, it sounds like the real error was Ito's failure to do some due diligence research on a potential funder, is that right?

I was commenting based on my experience that 1) VC firms actually do ask you for permission to run background checks on you, look you up online, and know a fair bit about you 2) We run background checks on everyone we hire, and its fairly easy to do, because I believe it would be irresponsible not to.

I don't think there is one real error here as you put it, but it's been made public he was warned about him before and people he worked with would refuse to go to his properties when invited and told him why (citation: https://medium.com/@EthanZ/on-me-and-the-media-lab-715bfc707...).

Thanks, I think this is what I was missing. Failing to google a donor is a pretty bad oversight, but I think attributable to basically negligence. Ignoring the advice of your peers is more egregious, which looks like what happened here.

"Due diligence research" makes it sound complicated. Just Google the guy. I always look up potential business partners. And, in the past, I have discovered evidence of criminal activity that puts me on alert (nothing like Epstein though, just run-of-the-mill fraud.)

Yeah, seems like he already knew about Epstein's past, but accepted money anyway.

The real error is acting like the most likely explanation is he just failed to do some utterly basic due diligence.

Well, that's what's unclear to me — the apology makes it sound like he just had no idea about this guy. From the other comments, it sounds like that's false, and he ignored warnings from his peers, which makes more sense to me.

No need to be hostile, I'm just trying to understand the situation :)

The situation is Joi is dancing around Epstein's rape conviction being ok with him.

Joi would love to pretend he (somehow) didn't know, but a colleague has come forward to say he warned him.

Are you insinuating he did the due diligence and ignored it?

He was literally told by his colleague (who today quit) that he should not associate with Epstein:

https://medium.com/@EthanZ/on-me-and-the-media-lab-715bfc707...

No, only the ones I deal after I visit several of their homes and they invest in the company I work for and also invest in several different of my private financial dealings that I have a stake in. And even then maybe not a deep dive but just may be that I noticed something on the news...

I think it's pretty common place to know a little bit about the background of anyone who is an investor in your interests. When you take or solicit an investment there's often a conscious cost-benefit decision on those dollars. Even people who need money and want to take risks often want to make the best risky decisions and deliberately place their bets.

Every person? No. Someone giving you around a quarter million dollars? Yes. Hence the appropriateness of the apology.

If someone wants to invest a quarter million in whatever I'm doing with no strings attached (aka donate) the last thing I'm gonna be doing is asking questions. Most academics, charities, and other operations that run off donations don't have enough money to be picky about where it comes from.

Considering that that's basically pocket change to the MIT Media Lab they can afford to do their due diligence and turn people down if need be.

Some small charity you've never heard of that runs a summer camp for inner city kids or some no-name research lab at a state university's non-flagship campus (or whatever) is just gonna take the money because they can't afford to be picky. They're not gonna do background checks because the last thing they want is being in a position of weighing the need for money vs the ethics of who's giving it.

TL;DR: People and groups with less resources are less picky who they're willing to take money from but MIT doesn't have this excuse.

> If someone wants to invest a quarter million in whatever I'm doing with no strings attached (aka donate) the last thing I'm gonna be doing is asking questions

haha why are you proud of this? That's essentially the quintessential spirit of corruption representing everything wrong with this country and world.

The presence of strings attached or implied is necessarily part of how corruption and "not technically corruption but pretty damn close" behavior works.

It's a little different if you're a pro-privacy organization or climate change researcher and google or exxon starts stuffing you with money. There's a material conflict of interest in cases like that. That's the exception, not the rule. Some hypothetical summer camp has no conflict of interest taking the Koch brothers' money even if it disagrees with their politics.

Strings are always attached when taking billionaire money.

> I'm doing with no strings attached (aka donate) the last thing I'm gonna be doing is asking questions.

Good you can end up like a friend of a friend that realized his investors were part of the Israeli Mafia. That guy was one of the few people who was ecstatic when tech industry cratered in 2001.

Jeffrey Epstein was a well known sexual predator in 2013, nobody who is in charge of fundraising for any institution would need to do a "deep dive" on his criminal activity in order to know about that. It shows a major lapse in judgement, as Joi Ito states in his apology.

> It shows a major lapse in judgement

At best...

I'd probably at least google a millionaire before visiting several of their residences?

Haha, a deep dive? It was probably the first Google result!

Because we all know that everything on the internet is true.

Epstein was literally convicted. You cannot be serious.

A Google search normally doesn't pull up boring criminal records. It will pull up extremely lurid reporting on a life-destroying case that later ends in acquittal.

Epstein is the exception--he was a level 3 offender and could have been pulled for a felony for not checking in with the police. He shouldn't even have been walking around.

Much less walking around while serving his sentence...

"While most convicted sex offenders in Florida are sent to state prison, Epstein was instead housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade and, according to the sheriff's office, was after 3 1⁄2 months allowed to leave the jail on "work release" for up to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. This contravened the sheriff's own policies requiring a maximum remaining sentence of 10 months and making sex offenders ineligible for the privilege. He was allowed to come and go outside of specified release hours.

Epstein's cell door was left unlocked, and he had access to the attorney room where a television was installed for him, before he was moved to the Stockade's previously unstaffed infirmary. He worked at the office of a foundation he had created shortly before reporting to jail; he dissolved it after he had served his time. The Sheriff's Office received $128,000 from Epstein's non-profit to pay for the costs of extra services being provided during his work release. His office was monitored by "permit deputies" whose overtime was paid by Epstein. They were required to wear suits, and checked in "welcomed guests" at the "front desk". Later the Sheriff's Office said these guest logs were destroyed per the department's "records retention" rules (although inexplicably the Stockade visitor logs were not). He was allowed to use his own driver to drive him between jail and his office and other appointments."

Info on his wikipedia page is well sourced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein#Conviction_and...

Wow, that boggles the mind. Talk about double standards.

"Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein jailed for paying underage prostitutes"

That's a sample headline from the first page of search results from the date range 2008-2013.

Are you claiming that sex offender registries are routinely faked...?

Bad convictions do happen, but to think it could happen to somebody as wealthy as Epstein strains credulity.

But it isn't "every person"! It's a donor and an investor. It is not some random person that they had dinner with.

It wouldn't have taken a "deep dive" a simple Google search would have uncovered it. This was in the international news media, especially in the US and the UK.

Criminal background checks on investors is considered basic due diligence for any fund.

I Google most people I meet. Especially people I'm going to transact money with.

You should, especially in the age of the Internet where much of this information is publicly available

You expect us to believe Ito wasn't aware of the conviction? please.

His post doesn't say that either. The OP is presenting things that can both easily true and do not contradict one another.

My point is we should not accept Ito's claim that he was unaware of Epstein's background. It is a lie, designed to attenuate our assessment of Ito's responsibility.

Where does he say that? I don't see that. Edit: I'll save you the trouble: You can't, because it doesn't exist in the letter linked.

The apology letter is clearly meant to have us believe he was not aware! Through omission and indirection.

> I was never involved in, never heard him talk about, and never saw any evidence of the horrific acts that he was accused of.

But fine let's say you're right. "I knew he'd done this, but at his house I never saw evidence of rape or trafficking" isn't much better. He should resign.

You should probably know who's cutting your checks.

If they're giving me millions of dollars I do

At this level? Absolutely, yes.

Are you accusing the author of lying, or of being irresponsible for not having known about his criminal background? Either seems fairly presumptuous.

Edit: Changed "unrealistic" to "presumptuous". I certainly think it's realistic that this person I've never heard of may be immoral or irresponsible, but what I don't understand is making that accusation based only on the correlation to the simple fact of his criminal background.

http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-...

"Joi asked me in 2014 if I wanted to meet Epstein, and I refused and urged him not to meet with him."

A fair number of people who follow politics avidly would have known that Epstein was radioactive even before his conviction. However, that's a tiny number of people. Many more people who follow politics would have been aware after that conviction, but that's still a very small number of people. Now, however, everyone knows.

If you were raising money from Epstein, investing with him and visiting his houses, it's safe to say you were one of the people that were aware of his background. Ethan Zuckerman explicitly stated he warned Ito about Epstein and Ito chose to ignore it: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-...

Yes, I just saw that, and it changes things. I'm not sure that the Lab would have done too much of a background search on Epstein -- I'd forgive them not having done that in 2011. But if Ito visited Epstein's island, then that makes Ito radioactive as the public perception is that if you went, you knew of Epsteins crimes first-hand or -worse- committed crimes with him, and if Ito was warned and didn't end the relationship right then, then Ito is decidedly radioactive as he had to have known.

One: I don't keep track of criminal convictions of every person I interact with. I'm not going to investigate criminal convictions until I'm at the point where money is likely to start changing hands. It's called due diligence, and it occurs late in the game, not early.

Two: the justice system is supposed to work such that when you are done with it your debt to society is paid. The fact that Epstein got off so lightly, repeatedly, is the fundamental problem. An individual should not have to look up the criminal convictions of every person they interact with.

No.

The justice system must exercise extreme caution. The standard for guilt is “beyond a reasonable doubt” which is a very high standard.

It’s precisely because the justice system must be so conservative that we in our private lives MUST do our best not simply to mirror the decisions of the courts, but to make decisions for ourselves.

It is ONLY in our private circles the victims have ANY chance at being protected, because the courts explicitly (and rightly) must wait for unequivocal proof.

Especially in sex crimes that proof is almost never there. Acceding to the courts is the equivalent of saying 90% of victims should receive no protection from anyone on Earth. And that there is no corner where they might be safe from their tormentor.

> Especially in sex crimes that proof is almost never there.

Hogwash. As we have seen so far, in Polanski, Weinstein, Cosby, Epstein, etc. these people did this repeatedly and were protected and enabled. The evidence was abundant and only needed someone in the justice system to actually do their job instead of covering it up in return for favors.

Sexual abuse in the single he said-she said case is problematic, and there may simply never be a good way to fix that.

Your way, however, allows accusations to destroy careers and reputations without evidence, and, in the case of genuine malicious actors, allows such accusations to become weaponized. See: Franken.

In addition, your mob justice is, in fact, most likely to enable these rich abusers because they don't really have to worry about the mob. Only plebeians like you and me will suffer at the hands of the mob because we don't have the resources to resist.

1. The existence of people who were protected doesn’t imply that most unindicted predators are being protected.

2. Yes, accusations destroy careers (of the falsely accused). Not believing accusations that haven’t been proven in court also destroys careers (of victims). So that’s not a real argument.

3. I’m not advocating any formation of mobs. I’m advocating individual employers, friends, family members make decisions for themselves and bar the accused from their private spaces at their discretion, not based on the decisions of the courts.

I’m an American though, so maybe I’m overly committed to private autonomy. But I’m not going to defer to my government about the safety of my people.

> the justice system is supposed to work such that when you are done with it your debt to society is paid.

Yeah, no. If you are a convicted child sex trafficker I won't do business with you ever, even if the state is done with you. If you would, I'd say that's a moral failing on your part.

You are missing the point--HE SHOULDN'T BE WALKING AROUND FREE.

I shouldn't have to even think about doing business with a convicted child sex trafficker because he should be in jail.

And anyone you or I have contact with would have been in jail until doomsday if convicted of that.

So we're supposed to lock people up until everyone has forgiven them, else for life?

>until everyone has forgiven him

? The point OP was making is that the justice system is meant to have punished/rehabilitated him to a point where they are satisfied that he is no longer a danger to society.

If he hasn't served his time, then he shouldn't be walking free to do business with people.

Either it is legal for him to do business or it isn't, and it seems that it was legal for him to do business at that time.

The fact rich people seem to be able to manipulate the system to do easier/less time than others is a separate and very valid point.

Like OP said, if you or I did what he did, we'd be in jail forever.

Maybe in this case people should have known, but taking it to the extreme, citizens can't be expected to hire private investigators to learn about their business partners.

And so Joi Ito will continue to be in charge of "Ethics" at the MIT Media Lab?

I wouldn't have blacklisted the person or the transaction. Why are you and the author suggesting these are related things to weigh?

If they are not on the OFAC list, and we aren't involved in an illegal transaction, then what is the issue? I am looking for complete, articulate sentences here. I honestly don't know the other perspective and haven't been exposed to an articulate reason to attempt to financially isolate capital.

If optics of a particular name actually were of concern due to records and disclosures, I would say just use a lawyer or new entity in specific jurisdictions, or lawyer+entity. This is something I would recommend for everyone if they can afford it, just to avoid grifters that realize you might have money and are willing to move it around. And yes, this also prevents other scrutiny, and avoids anyone having to make the decisions I am trying to understand.

Do you or do you not have a cause to support? Do you or do you not have a supporter? Simple questions with simple answers.

Can someone here articulate why they would blacklist transactions or persons that are not blacklisted by the state? Even if Epstein was actually in prison he could direct funds to causes he wanted to support. Convictions have nothing to do with capital controls. Why are you trying to control capital?

> Why are you and the author suggesting these are related things to weigh?

Because it seems his donations bought him access as well.

Hmmm

1) Didn't the money also support causes and do what it was expected to do?

2) Isn't his predatory nature with this access only visible in hindsight? There are incentives not to be repeat offenders of the same kind of crime, let alone any crime as a prior convict.

3) What is the appropriate response here? Don't let any convicted felon try to redeem themselves via donations? Shut them out of capital based networking just like poorer convicts that need the workforce are shut out of it?

I don't see this is a valid response or a piece of a coordinated response. We should try to prosecute sexual assaulting maniacs better. But I'm open to you all's thoughts on this scenario and what I think the open questions are

I applaud that the author wants to try to use his voice to raise money for victims, this has nothing to do with having been a recipient of Epstein money previously, except for the possibility that the author's projects got funded and they were able to use that validation and project success to have a voice to begin with, instead of disappearing into the rat race of wage work like most of us.

You act as if one discounts the other. They do not.

Edit: I hate meta comments, but getting downvoted for pointing out lies is tiring. I've read the apology. I'm right.

of course they don't, but when presented side-by-side, it makes it harder for this sort of deception to fly

What deception? You aren't saying anything useful.

People plead guilty all the time. It's a byproduct of the US justice system. It doesn't mean that there was any evidence against them, much less indisputable evidence.

People willfully ignore those details when money is on the line. There's a good chance he genuinely didn't know because he genuinely didn't bother to research his investors.

Plenty of SV investors looked the other way when Milner flooded the community with Kremlin-connected money, including PG (see his comments in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604 from 2011)

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