Please do not spur on rumors and conspiracy theories, and use my case as your own vendetta, [name redacted]. You have defamed [name redacted] all over the internet, posting every 15 minutes, contacting his employer, coworkers, family, and friends. This is not sane. [name redacted] has a big heart, is so incredibly caring, fun, open-minded, and has invented numerous revolutionary programs to change the world and help others, which I imagine are reasons why [name redacted], you loved him, too.
I saw your messages begging [name redacted] to come back to you and that you loved him… Please, for your own sake, see a counselor and learn to move on, heal, and find someone who loves you the way you deserve and want to be loved.
Before you stalk someone who you desperately love but he doesn’t love you back, remember just one thing. You are wasting your precious time and energy. Use your efforts to make yourself better. Love is not about being desperate. You need to accept the fact and take time for yourself to grieve the pain that it’s over and work on your own happiness. Let [name redacted] go, and focus on building up yourself instead of tearing [name redacted] down because at the end of the day, all you have is yourself, you will never leave you. And you can’t love anyone until you love yourself. Work on own your emotional health. Your behavior is not healthy and not something anyone, your parents, your employer, God, would be proud of. Examine your own self and how you can be a better person. Your vendetta helps nobody. YOu're not protecting women from [name redacted]. You're only trying to ruin him because he hurt you and didn't love you back the way you loved him. And you're actually just "humble bragging" about how you dated a successful guy who had remote interest in you for 2-3 months, then dumped you. You're youngWould you be on this vindictive rampage and bragging all over the internet if it was someone not semi-famous? Who are you really trying to protect? Your story is your story and your own lesson you need to learn. Stay out of mine. Move on, find a new relationship, and find a man who reciprocates the love you seek.
[name redacted] stalked me for weeks at my home while having me blocked which prompted me to reach out again from a different number.
He clearly did not want me to move on and sent several messages stating he was in love with me but needed me to “change.”
That change was accepting verbal, emotional abuse, infidelity, and sexual assault as well as giving up all my hobbies and friendships.
The abuse was so brutal, I could not believe someone that said they loved me so profoundly would do those things to me.
Perhaps he’s found someone that’s willing to accept abuse, but that’s not what the law says.
1. You got paid a bunch of money to drop the charges and "revise" your story, which potentially was your plan from the get-go
2. The story was never true in the first place, you just wanted to ride the cancel culture train and get back at him for hurting you in some way.
Whichever it is, it's really sad to see these things. People like you are exactly why I keep a low profile and don't have any online identities.
[name redacted] had an intense focus on love and being loved when it came to control.
He asked me to marry him after only knowing him a month, which I declined. We hadn’t even slept together at that point.
According to his own account, the “love” he shoved down my throat so hard was so he could sleep with me, which I have several texts that show his own admissions.
Also I’m a bit taken aback at the ethnic slur in the username of this account.
[name redacted] stalked me for weeks at my home while having me blocked which prompted me to reach out again. He clearly did not want me to move on and sent several messages stating he was in love with me but needed me to “change.”
That change was accepting verbal, emotional abuse, infidelity, and sexual assault as well as giving up all my hobbies and friendships.
The abuse was so brutal, I could not believe someone that said they loved me so profoundly would do those things to me.
Perhaps he’s found someone that’s willing to accept abuse, but that’s not what the law says.
Do not contact me.
I do not wish for you to communicate with me further.
It’s called documenting and understanding the facts.
I’m not interested in mental health advice from a DV apologist that can’t get the facts straight or count.
[name redacted] was also the co-founder of Ycombinator funded startup Hackpad (acquired by Dropbox).
Nat Friedman is [name redacted]'s best friend and hired [name redacted] knowing he had a history of abusing other women as well. He still refuses to stop associating with [name redacted].
All I can find is anonymous stuff on a website called http://techrights.org/ which has a series of articles trying to in some way associate Nat with [redacted]'s domestic violence.
The "best friend" claim seems to have started with a weird "teaser" post on techrights.org wherein an anonymous source claims that "many others" can confirm that [redacted] was close to Nat. That of course doesn't even come close to establishing that either of them considers the other their "best friend", if it's trustworthy to begin with.
Then techrights.org cites their own teaser in other posts as saying that [redacted] claims Nat is his best friend (not true, or at least not supported by the source).
Now you are, I guess, using that as your basis to claim that they ARE in fact best friends.
I realise it's possible you're entirely honest and have sources I don't, but this looks like a pretty cynical smear job to me, especially given that none of the sources I've managed to find asserting that the two were close date from before this domestic abuse case. I don't have any insider knowledge, but the superficial appearance of all this is that a handful of activists with something against Nat have cooked up this "best friend" narrative for some reason, gradually escalating the claim each time they cite each other, and ultimately it all hinges on an anonymous source saying that other anonymous sources say that the two were close once.
Nat and [name redacted] were always exceptionally close, which I always found confusing. [name redacted] was intense, passionate, charismatic, but also had troubled and troubling relationships with people, _particularly_ women. [name redacted] was, if I remember correctly, let go from Ximian when he failed to arrive to work every day by noon for one week straight (we lived a 5 to 10 minute walk from the office).
Even after [name redacted] was let go, he and Nat remained fast friends.
This was the beginning of a long chain of emotionally abusive, controlling, and manipulative behaviors.
Also.. This seems to have disappeared from the front page.
In regards to the front-page, there's a lot of downvotes. Went from 160 upvotes to 121 in a matter of minutes. I suspect bots.
Alex also assaulted me as well during a short, but extremely abusive relationship.
Alex mentioned his relationship with Nat several times and used it to threaten me on multiple occasions.
Alex attending Nat's destination wedding in Italy. It's that's not close, I don't know what is.
Playing devils advocate for one moment: I don’t always agree with friends abandoning other friends when they turn out to be bad people. If a person stands any chance of rehabilitation they need people who are willing to stand by them. This doesn’t mean those friends support their actions - in fact they should be honest about what actions are inexcusable. But as a society we are too quick to claim guilt by association without understanding what their relationship is like and whether that friendship is helping to reform individuals who have been (understandably) abandoned by everyone else around them.
I’m not making direct commentary on Alex and Nat though as I don’t know them nor their relationship. I’m just making a generalised observation.
You might be right and remember my post wasn’t commenting on Nat and Alex specifically. However, and mean this with the greatest of respect to yourself, even though you’ve been involved with Alex you still don’t truly know how Alex and Nat communicate in private between just the two of them.
The reason I commented is because I’ve recently seen this same kind of mob mentality happen against some genuinely nice people who have kept their association because they were sincerely trying to rehabilitate others. So they didn’t deserve guilt by association. But their cases were different to these ones.
Anyhow I’m not here to defend Nat nor Alex (I don’t even know them) and this is a understandably going to be a highly emotionally charged subject so I’ll refrain from further comments because sometimes my well intentioned remarks can come across poor (totally my issue. I’m working on fixing it).
I do truly wish you happiness in any future relationships and hope this nightmare you’ve been through doesn’t leave any scares (emotional or physical) that cannot heal.
I initially approached Nat about with this with a great deal of empathy towards Alex in spite of what he did to me. Ignoring a victim and giving a leadership position to someone like that?
How about their podcast together?
You can confirm that by Google their names and 'ximian'.
this is quite damning if so. where did you hear of this?
They did not report his location to the authorities and allowed him to work across state lines without any changes to his employment agreement.
I later asked Github HR what their policy on domestic violene is. This is what they sent.
"Microsoft is committed to working with employees who are victims of domestic violence to prevent abuse from occurring in the workplace. Employees who are concerned about violence occurring in the workplace should immediately discuss their concerns with the Human Resources (HR) manager assigned to their group. The Microsoft Global Security group can provide guidelines and suggestions for increasing your safety in the workplace.
Employees who are experiencing domestic violence outside of work are encouraged to seek assistance from Microsoft Cares. Microsoft Cares provides information regarding counseling and treatment resources. Perpetrators of domestic violence are also encouraged to seek assistance from Microsoft Cares.
In some situations, employees may be eligible for time off work or other accommodation to manage medical issues and other negative consequences arising from domestic violence. Contact Benefits for more information."
They officially accommodate "perpetrators of domestic violence" as Microsoft-owned Github.
In fairness, they do need procedures to accommodate such people. Your other employment-related rights don't end just because you've done bad stuff, and you need to treat perpetrators of domestic violence differently to ordinary employees (e.g. being really suspicious of them).
I like bashing Microsoft as much as the next person, but I doubt this situation had much to do with Microsoft's domestic violence policies.
I’m guessing if this guy actually contacted Cares, they’d be more likely to help him turn himself in without violence, than to arrange a getaway to Cuba.
[I used such a referral once with a different employer to assist a family member in a legal matter (not involving interpersonal violence)].
To take action against someone based on an unproven accusation of conduct outside of the workplace seems like the perfect way to get you sued. I'm sure if convicted he will become persona non grata. But until that point he should be entitled to the presumption of innocence.
The justice system is complex for a reason (oversight, transparency, accountability, fairness, etc. - or at least that's the goal, however bad they are at achieving it, unaccountable private institutions will be even worse).
Furthermore, Alex was reported to Github HR by multiple people for verbal abuse and nothing was done about it under Nat Friedman's leadership.
I was saying the blanket statement than the mere presence of any allegations of any form are enough to indicate a high probability of guilt, and we should therefore enforce punishment on an individual is dangerous. Historically, this sort of attitude has led to a lot of injustice. Black men being put in jail for crimes they never committed on the word of a white woman who was embarrassed to be caught in an affair, for instance. Taken to the extreme, it leads to things like witch hunts.
Allegedly misogynistic != actually misogynistic, and I’d personally not want Microsoft to be the arbiter of truth.
Also, it’s just wrong and immoral. If the allegations are true, him losing his job is to small of a punishment; if they’re false, it’s too big of a punishment.
I've spoken to many people that say the same thing.
I think this confirms we're in some sort of inter-terrestrial waking-nightmare Office Space alternative universe variety show.
That is a somewhat bizarre sentence that should be brought to the editorial attention of whoever wrote that. I don't think it's intended to support some of the kinds of interpretations that imagination might assign to it.
definitely not what I expected to read, that's... huh.
I'd expect MS would divulge his IP address from VPN logs if served by a warrant, to locate the fugitive. I wonder if this happened, and if not, what legal responsibilities or liabilities MS has to help or hinder outside warrant compliance, when the victim isn't an employee but the perp is.
(I work for MS but not GitHub, I had no idea about any of this.)
In what capacity? How did you come by your knowledge of the warrant?
Why would this matter at all? It seems like you're casting suspicion on [name redacted], although I can't begin to imagine what there is to be suspicious of.
I can't either
I dont know who the people tagged in the tweet are, but that still seems like a shitty way to report a problem.
Nonreporting, whether or not one believes it is immoral, isn't the same thing as assistance in evading arrest. The government can conscript citizens into active assistance in enforcing the law, but issuing a warrant doesn't do that.
Nonreporting is legal, assistance is a crime (“accessory after the fact” is the general term.)
Texas Penal Code Sec. 38.05 Hindering Apprehension or Prosecution (a) A person commits an offense if, with intent to hinder the arrest, prosecution, conviction, or punishment of another for an offense or, with intent to hinder the arrest, detention, adjudication, or disposition of a child for engaging in delinquent conduct that violates a penal law of the state, or with intent to hinder the arrest of another under the authority of a warrant or capias, he: (1) harbors or conceals the other; (2) provides or aids in providing the other with any means of avoiding arrest or effecting escape; or (3) warns the other of impending discovery or apprehension.
https://texas.public.law/statutes/tex._penal_code_section_38...
I appreciate the rest of the details you've provided on the thread!
No, nonreporting is not. Active concealment/assistance is, and you just quoted a long bit of statute that says exactly that.
If the police had at all reached out in an official capacity Microsoft would have assisted.
Source: was employed at MS and know they take such things seriously.
You may want to follow up with whatever officer you talked to.
In the absence of some substantial reason to believe this part, this is quite likely actionable as libel against Microsoft (as well as, without including substantial reason to believe it, wholly inappropriate for HN.)
I'm convinced this post is satire. Too many unlikely claims, against one .jpg in Google Drive.
You make several significant, serious claims but offer no evidence aside from a jpg of a file in google drive.
For reference, the Austin city/Travis county public records results are returned as pdfs, not scans in jpg. The clerk of the court does not offer "unofficial copies" as far as I am aware.
The submitted title was "[name redacted], architect of GitHub Copilot, arrested for strangling girlfriend". I also assumed that meant "strangled to death" when I first saw it—I think the word "strangled" in headlines tends to imply that. Assault strangulation is obviously a serious crime.
I think the only thing it makes sense to do here is stay as close as possible to the available facts.
(Not sure it’s authentic.)
Why did you accuse him of strangling you again on Twitter on October 14, 2021 a full 52 days after the incident then?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A4SUnQG9_f8JE5glOq9bA2DTOcb...
It wasn't 3 years ago. It was 2 years ago.
I've already said everything I've needed to say on Twitter about the emotional abuse and how it lead to the physical abuse.
[name redacted] has made his own confessions in regards to how he manipulated my emotions to keep me under control.
Once again you toss out these hot terms/hashtags like “abuse,” “metoo.” Alex does get depressed and moody sometimes, but he had never laid his hands on me nor emotionally abused me. I don’t mean to negate what you believe you went through. But my relationship with him was not abusive. It was sweet, affectionate, and loving, and we made each other laugh, and we both felt completely comfortable to let ourselves be who we are without pretense or trying. We’re both goofy and fun, like to explore, and love art and nature, dancing, exploring, traveling, and just being together gave us such peace and joy! One day, you’ll find true love that matches you and doesn’t feel like abuse, too. We still fought, but all couples do. And I admit I have a bad temper lol, which is why I’m partially to blame for why things got out of hand, but I’m working on it. No one is perfect. There is no perfect love, just loving someone perfectly, and knowing that when the love is reciprocated, you’ll work through the hard things. Work on yourself instead of trying to change and ruin others, and you’ll be much happier, and attract another great guy! You seem like a smart, creative gal. Let 2022 be your year to focus on nurturing you
Alex often spoke of this pure unattainable love that we had, but claimed it never existed once he realized he would never be able to control me to his liking.
My love life prior to Alex is none of your business and has no bearing on this situation and I can hear Alex’s own words echoed in your speech, which highly suspect is actually Alex.
I was in my 30s and so was Alex when we were dating.
I've been in significantly longer relationships than 2 years.
It doesn't take 2 years to know what he did to me was assault and abuse.
You seemed to have upheld your story again on Twitter.
There's a tonne of OT stuff herethat is interesting, at least to some HNers, but this feels like someone's private life. Even if true, and this guy built a cool/uncool/popular/terrifying tool, he's still a private person being, so far, only accused of something.
Does it have any bearing on CoPilot? On wider issues in tech? I'm not sure it does.
[name redacted] told me being a “bad programmer” was a reason to kill myself.
Kind of strange from a guy that didn’t know the definitions of OOP or functional programming.
[1]: [link redacted]
Normally we never rename accounts without permission (or edit posts without permission) but redacting someone else's personal name or identifying info is an exception (probably the only exception, actually). When we do that, we always make the minimal possible edit.
Liz works with another friend of their staff engineers Chris Toshok, who interestingly enough was dating Charity when she was underage and he is 9 years her senior.
Charity and Chris are connected to a credit card hacker Max Visions, which is documented in the non-fiction book Kingpin by Kevin Poulsen https://www.kingpin.cc/about/
Charity told me to keep quiet about [name redacted] and Nat or bad things would happen to me and lied to me by saying she doesn't know [name redacted] when she clearly does.
Liz Fong-Jones uses the fact that she donated money to create the Solidarity Fund to decide who is a valid whistleblower or not.
The document mentions no evidence of anything, let alone wounds, and even Techrights, everyone's favorite anti-GitHub conspiracy blog, hasn't posted any document mentioning any evidence, despite basically salivating over this story. It's all just anecdotes from officers saying she was claiming she was hurt.
This may seem like I'm being pedantic, but I've seen fake DV calls before (unfortunately, more than once, though none directed at me), and officers are generally sympathetic to whoever is the most charismatic. This isn't to say that she's probably lying, but it's a bit too early to come to a verdict as an internet court, here.
I think [redacted] has done terrible things to the industry as much as anyone (doubly so for GitHub in general); he's obviously morally deficient. But we shouldn't go and harass GH and Microsoft employees without evidence.
They're often more sympathetic to the female unless there's significant evidence to overcome that bias.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10695143_Strangulat...
It's better safe than sorry when it comes to throwing someone in a prison. If his tactic is strangulation, I'm sure someone has documented wounds he caused, if true. With the volume of people you say were abused by him in this thread, 50% odds are bound to show results eventually.
Evidence is needed for accusations to be taken as more than warnings, generally.
If you're going to play armchair lawyer, get the facts straight.
Nat and [name redacted]is are collaborators as VCs on such companies as Polywork, Deel, Reteam, and more.
Nat's wife Stephanie, who ignored my pleas for help with the abuse I suffered, and blocked me after reaching out and showing her several graphic texts messages in which [name redacted] told me I was worthless and should kill myself and is on the board of many of these companies.
[name redacted]is but refuses to discuss these allegations [name redacted] or my experiences in spite of several public comments asking for help which he has deleted.
You can also search the Travis County Court portal for "[redacted]" and see there's a pre-indictment felony case against him.
https://odysseyweb.traviscountytx.gov/Portal/Home/WorkspaceM...
For now, it is "he says she says" situation, and court proceeding will show details in the future.
He assaulted me too.
...I'm not mystified about claims of friendship with Nat Friedman - I don't have a high opinion of the latter, I see evidence of friendship with other Open Source folks, and that kind of people tends to be "friends" with _a lot_ of people.
He also said that Nat had "Hurt him deeply" and they don't talk much anymore. From what I can tell Miguel stayed friends with Alex and congratulated him on the launch of Copilot even knowing about the abuse that happened to me in greater detail than I had shared publicly.
It's sometimes easy for me to forget that behind these online personas are real people with real issues.
Strangulation is a singularly accurate predictor of future homicide. There seems to be a world of difference between just hitting someone and actually trying to crush their throat with your bare hands. It should be taken far, far more seriously than it is -- attempted murder at least.
1. https://apnews.com/article/dc9066892be14b7f8cf234468a83f170