Comment by theorique | Hacker News Reader

Comment by theorique | Hacker News Reader

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The bad actor in this version of the story seems to be the founder's wife. And the founder certainly dropped the ball by not keeping his wife in line.

For whatever reason, the wife acted crazy, intimidating, and creepy toward Horvath. Why? Who knows? Maybe because of jealousy or concern that her husband was interested in this (admittedly reasonably attractive) female employee?

The founder needed to do the professional thing and keep his wife in check, separating business and personal affairs, and not allowing this weird behavior to continue. He needed to act like a leader, taking charge in both his workplace and his home when it looked like things were getting out of hand.

And the romantically inclined co-worker is guilty of two things: (1) slightly clueless behavior toward a person who was already involved in a relationship with someone else (2) extremely bad timing. He's not the worst offender in this whole drama. (Edit: I forgot (3) taking revenge by reverting code commits. That is far worse than (1) or (2) - it is unprofessional behavior and calls for some form of workplace discipline.)

(Disclaimer: everything I wrote assumes that the article is telling the complete truth)

"Dropped the ball" ?!?!!??!?!?!

This is so far beyond inappropriate. If it is even 10% true then there are serious organisational problems at that company.

I am gobsmacked that people are leaping to downplay these accusations, without knowing anything about it.

Well it's not really his responsibility. It's the wife's, then HR's, then the police's job.

And in most matters that don't involve anyone actually dying I think 'dropped the ball' is perfectly acceptable.

Maybe not technically, but he is a founder and I think he should take some responsibility. The wife's power came from his position in the company, and she was able to get away with that only because she was his wife. If my partner was coming into the office and intimidating employees at my company that is something we'd be having serious conversations about the minute I heard out about it. Of course I also like to think I wouldn't marry a psychopath, but that's neither here nor there, because if I left something like this for HR to deal with I'd feel like an impotent twit.

Within the context of the company, it's his responsibility as an founder and an executive. His wife (AFAIK) has no formal title or role at the company - all her power and influence is derived from his status as a founder/executive.

Yes, as a person with free will, his wife is ultimately responsible and "shouldn't" have done what she is alleged to have done. But in the context of corporate governance and law, he is responsible for allowing her to have privileges and access to the company that are quite unconventional.

Do you know this? Does she hold no stock? Do none of the finances have her signature?

Certainly not.

If the wife has a formal, executive role at the company, then that's a completely different matter. I'm just speculating based on the usual way of things - I could be completely wrong.

Deleted comment

> Men are worse than women at being able to effectively mediate conflicts between two members of the opposite sex.

The poor emotionally-unequipped male is powerless to do anything! Do you realise how absurd this sounds?

Hmm, I read his comment more as stating a case for the value of diversity in leadership, not as a tone-deaf plea for pity.

I think this cuts both ways, I find women have a poor understanding of the dynamics's of men's relationships.

So you're saying that women are better at HR because HR departments are typically dominated by women? Do you also believe that men are better at programming?

> Men are worse than women at being able to effectively mediate conflicts between two members of the opposite sex.

Do you have any sort of justification for this archaic, idiotic and entirely out-of-place sexism?

You a liar/thief/vagabond/ruffian/scoundrel/bully/shithead/asshole/arsonist/murderer/sexist/racist. If even 10% of that is true, it is a serious allegation against you. You are not to be trusted.

Unlike your comment, this story is so long and has so many points that could be verified later through eyewitness accounts and otherwise that it's hard to imagine all of it being false (I'm inclined to believe this story).

Oh_sigh's comment is long and makes a number of points, all of which could be verified. I'm inclined to believe it.

My point was not so much about the veracity of the claims, but rather as a comment on the severity of the issue (true or not).

Is there any value in commenting on the severity of the issue in such a manner?

Well, yeah. I was commenting on the low key remark that the founder "dropped the ball," which IMO is a massive understatement.

More important than #1 or #2 (and probably easier to verify based on the tendency of version control systems to retain logs/history): he deleted a co-worker's code based on grudge.

Agree 100% - see edit.

From the account, he wasn't just not "taking charge in both his workplace and his home", but he was conspiring with his wife to actually undertake these actions, at least at the beginning. It doesn't even need to have these undertones of "the man needed to keep his woman in line". Github is a business, the office is a place of work. If you're not an employee, or a prospective employee, you don't belong past the lobby.

> "admittedly reasonably attractive"

Admittedly, you seem reasonably intelligent, but this is out of place.

Thanks, it took two hours to do my brain makeup today.

I don't think it's completely irrelevant - if female competitiveness is a factor (wife jealous of star employee at husband's company) - a big 'if' since we don't know the whole story - it is much more likely to be a factor in the case of an attractive woman versus one who is not.

Uh, I was taking issue with "admittedly reasonably", not with "attractive", but even that is out of place, because, assuming you don't know Horvath personally, you're implying that knowing how a woman looks is enough to determine if she's attractive or not.

All sides hopefully will state their case publicly, unfair to judge until all sides are heard but this timeline is troubling.

> keeping his wife in line.

I have never cringed so hard in my life.

Please, just delete this comment. Yeah oh my god that sentence could be interpreted wrong. We don't need a tangent about it. The real meaning has absolutely nothing to do with subordination. It's a simple matter of keeping your friends/relatives/partners out of your job. They don't work there, they shouldn't be interfering.

Also, shame on anyone that upvotes such a derail just because they agree with the words.

What do we have, if not words, to convey complex meanings? We can't all be telepaths like you.

His wife doesn't need to be kept in line... his wife needs to be kept out of company business unless she's an employee.

The 'line' seems clear to me, the company/not-company boundary.

And I wasn't disparaging words. But if I pick some post and comment 'freedom is good!' I'm not contributing to productive discussion no matter how many people agree.

You fucked up, you got called on it. Stop blaming the person who pointed out your mistake.

What? Is this comment in the right spot?

Considering the context, I think it is perfectly reasonable to lament the choice of wording and no, I will not be deleting my comment because you don't like it. It has a rather higher score than I anticipated, so I didn't react to that wording in a vacuum, now did I?

For someone who hates tangents you're sure good at them.

Sometimes people complain about comments getting downvoted out of disagreement, even though they contribute to the discussion. But I am far more bothered by the inverse problem: comments that get upvoted out of shallow agreement even though they serve no purpose, focusing on some negligibly relevant detail in a haughty way. These comments make it harder to participate in the conversation for fear of people latching on to completely irrelevant details and drowning out the message.

In short: Upvotes correlate with good comments, but they also correlate with certain types of poisonous comment.

As to continuing tangents, I would have been quite happy to see both of our comments dug into invisible gray together. But even if that fails I'm happy to provide a bright warning against being reactionary, and to hope that any wasted space is meta at worst.

Well, not in the offensive sense of "bitch, you better behave or ima smack you", but at least something modern like "honey, when you talk to my employees and act really strange and intimidating around them, it makes things very difficult for me at work".

The wife's behavior seems to be the catalyst for nearly all the drama described here.

In many marriages, there's one spouse who keeps the other in line and then there is the spouse who is kept in line. One does not simply reverse these roles.

That's true, but when that leads to the (hypothetically) more powerful spouse taking on a shadow role at her husband's company, then it can lead to potential abuses, as it may have done in this case.

(Disclaimer: not an insider, wildly speculating, etc)

According the the story we have so far, he should have actually kept his wife in line but failed to do so. You only cringe because you read too much into what he said.

Pretty sure they meant work/personal balance or boundaries (line).

Yes, husbands need to keep their wives in line gasp AND wives need to keep their husbands in line.

If you form a life partnership with someone being able to steer them around icebergs is 1. Good for them, 2. Good for you and optionally 3. Good for your offspring (and mutual assets). If you can't trust your partner to do this for you, and you for them, its not a good partershaft.

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