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Comment by gfunk911 | Hacker News Reader

God this is awful also. Nobody should have been fired.

Someone made an inappropriate joke at too high of a volume.

Somebody else felt uncomfortable and made a mistake in their reaction.

People make mistakes. Couldn't SendGrid have offered the guy a job and apologized profusely.

You could argue that her job is to be an advocate for SendGrid, and this incident has done the opposite. But I assume she was just fired so the ddos would go away.

Also announcing it on Facebook is brutal, even though they may have had no other choice.

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She didn't make a mistake, she made a calculated play -- she fancied herself a hero and victim at the same time, the level of self-aggrandizement on display was dizzying, she did it in public to make the mob lash out.

SendGrid is in an ugly place, probably losing customers by the minute. If I was currently a SendGrid customer, I would be taking my business elsewhere... for a variety of reasons.

SendGrid would have come out stronger from weathering the storm as a defender and promoter of women in tech. Instead, they're giving in to terrorism. Anyone feeling a sense of relief out of this situation is out of their mind.

I am not sure I agree. I don't think that their customers want to be dragged into any of this, they just want working mail... and will be unforgiving when the service is down.

As for being a "defender and promoter of women in tech" -- I guess it really depends on if you see her as the victim or the bully in the situation. Being a defender and promoter of bullies in tech is a far less noble badge to wear.

"SendGrid would have come out stronger from weathering the storm as a defender and promoter of women in tech."

Is that what they would have been though? People are drawing attention to a load of things she's said on twitter and elsewhere that are more than a bit dodgy. A picture begins to form of someone on a mission which may not really be aligned with Sendgrid's requirements for an evangelist.

DDoS = terrorism? What?

Why would you take your business elsewhere and take on an inconvenience to your company for something unrelated to how your product operates?

The product went down entirely for hours as a result of prior poor hiring decisions and terrible early handling of the situation.

Sendgrid is in a crowded space... easy enough to switch.

Are you inside her brain right now? Or are you just arrogant enough to imagine you know her motives?

She SAID it -- she said she was a hero, point blank, full stop. Please read her blog then report back.

Thats the impression i got after reading her blog post.

She pretty much detailed her reasons on her blog.

She made her own dick jokes about sexually embaressing a TSA agent on twitter at the same conference.

https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425

And Sendgrid has a 'photocopying your genitals' joke on one of their jobs pages.

http://i.imgur.com/uWc8P39.png

To be fair: that's not a "photocopying your genitals" joke. It's a "photocopying your bottom" joke.

Clearly, you have never attempted to photocopy your anogential region.

The distinction really matters?

I guess it seemed relevant to me, because the whole point was that Adria was (perhaps too easily) triggered by comments with sexual undertones. There is something scatological and offensive about photocopying your bum, but it doesn't seem all that sexual. Mooning a stranger is obnoxious, but exposing yourself to a stranger makes you a sex offender.

(And yes, it's pretty easy to photocopy your ass without photocopying the other parts if you sit on the photocopier the right way.)

IMHO, it's more public and potential offensive than muttering 'dongle' in a crowded theater.

The point I was trying to make is that every party involved is in definitely in the gray area between offensive and unoffensive. She made sexual humiliation jokes in front of thousands of twitter followers. Her company made scatlogical jokes in a much more professional setting than a conference. Compared to these, muttering 'dongle' in a crowded theater is, you must admit, at least equally as offensiv, if not quite a bit less.

And nobody gave a damn about her twitter jokes or the company jobs page before this.

Every single piece of communication and action taken as a result of this whole boondoggle reads like satire. If I read an account of these events on the Onion, I'd think maybe they'd taken the satire too far; to the point of ridiculous that passes suspension of disbelief.

I'm just waiting for someone to declare it 'art'.

SendGrid is in a lose-lose situation. Either they keep Richards, deal with the DDOS (which has crippled their mail server), and deal with disgruntled male devs who've sworn to never use their service, or they fire Richards, get good PR from their client base (the male devs who had previously sworn to never use SendGrid), get that DDOS off their back, and deal with some negative PR from the 'feminists in tech' group.

The choice is pretty obvious here.

Uhh, not so fast there. All of the feminists I've talked to so far are absolutely furious with Adria Richards on this one.

She's set back "women in tech" pretty far.

from what i have witnessed the majority of women and men agree that this was the wrong way to go about things.

There are also male devs who agree with Adria.

And female devs who disagree with Adria.

Because of these female devs who disagreed with Adria, I learnt about the difference between feminists-for-feminism and feminists-for-equality.

They seem to be in the minority.

They seem not to know all the facts involved.

From the same conference:

https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425

The company she is envangelising for thinks that a visual joke about photocopying your genitals is apropriate for their jobs pages.

http://i.imgur.com/uWc8P39.png

Actions must be judged in relation to the society in which they occur.

Which is such a pity, because it only reinforces the 'tech world systematically suppresses women' meme. There was no win to be had after this.

I guess this is how we iron out what the Code of Conduct stuff really means, hopefully we learn from it.

> it only reinforces the 'tech world systematically suppresses women' meme.

No it doesn't. It actually reduces it. She is being treated as a complete equal here, in being called out and held accountable for her actions. It would be a setback if she were protected purely because she was "speaking out" about sexism.

It's one thing to make a mistake. It's another thing to make a mistake when you're a public spokesperson/evangelist for your employer, use a widely public communication channel to publicly shame someone, and not expect your employer to do anything about that.

Was the comment really that inappropriate? Dongle jokes are a no go?

I feel like this whole incident did more damage to female right then good by making them appear small and fragile.

+1. I'd love to see more grace in our industry. This is an overreaction on all fronts. People make mistakes. Let's rewind & keep hacking cool stuff together instead of DDoSing each other.

Agreed

I would have preferred if this entire ordeal was sorted out with a game of laser tag, it'd be a fitting conclusion to the level of bizarro-world-absurdity this issue has become.

Paper-Scissors-Rock-Lizard-Spock might also be a possibility.

> People make mistakes. Couldn't SendGrid have offered the guy a job and apologized profusely.

That sounds like it'd be really awkward for both Adria and the guy and eventually make it worse for SendGrid. If you've followed Adria's comments on her blog post, you'd realize it'd be a serious about-face to back down. The guy would probably have to grovel, and personally, in this case I'd rather be out of a job.

> You could argue that her job is to be an advocate for SendGrid, and this incident has done the opposite. But I assume she was just fired so the ddos would go away.

Why not both? It didn't give me a terribly negative view of SendGrid, but certainly warned me to steer clear of ever working for / with them for fear of stepping on overly-PC toes.

Yes their customers were threatening to move away from them if Adria wasn't fired.

My thoughts exactly. What a soap opera. Everyone needs to take a deep breath.

>Couldn't SendGrid have offered the guy a job and apologized profusely.

I can't imagine the office environment with these two working together as anything but cordial.

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