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Comment by gregimba | Hacker News Reader

I don't even know what to make of this. They say there was no evidence but he is still resigning.

They say no evidence of illegality, but there is evidence of poor judgement. Without commenting on the specifics of this incident that's a valid reason to fire a CEO/co-founder/exec. I have no particular knowledge of what happened but if GitHub thinks he showed poor judgement then it is reasonable to ask him to resign.

For example, if you didn't actually do anything legally wrong, but made it look an awful lot like you did by screwing up and being a dick about it, and you're a company executive, then you can resign or get fired.

I suspect that this is not a million miles from what happened here: not actual discrimination, but enough of a blunder to look like it.

TOTALLY MADE-UP EXAMPLE:

1. Employee makes sexual harassment claim.

2. Outside HR consultant brought in.

3. Consultant asks "where is your anti-sexual harassment training course?"

4. CEO says o_o.

5. HR consultant establishes a policy for the company.

6. Board asks CEO to resign for not having the thing asked for in #3.

Not having a training course isn't illegal -- it's not even evidence that anyone was sexually harassed -- but the board can ask the CEO to move on because they feel he was not sufficiently protecting the company.

(PS: Post-college I've never worked at a place large enough to have required a harassment training course. This is just an example of "something the CEO should have done to protect the company but didn't, and we got away with it this time but might not next time.")

In California once your company goes over a certain size (which github has), they must have a sexual harassment course presented to the employees every one or two years.

In my company that was a mandatory all company meeting where a lawyer made a powerpoint presentation for a couple of hours. Then there was some sort quiz and us signing something as far as I can remember.

I believe the state requirement is for managers, not regular employees.

Every 2 years I have to spend a couple hours taking a traffic-school-style online training.

I am not a lawyer, but http://www.dfeh.ca.gov/Publications_StatLaws_SexHarrass.htm

All employees must receive info, companies > 50 need to offer two hours of classroom time within six months and then every two years.

No _legal_ wrongdoing.

This reads to me as "Tom royally fucked up, but not enough to break any laws."

The post is PR-speak for:

> "We found lots of ugly stuff but would rather not mention any of it in public, so move along, nothing to see"

Is the expectation that the public should be privy to that ugly stuff?

(Asking because I'm curious of other's opinions on the matter, not because I'm questioning your statement)

Speaking for myself, I couldn't care less. But then I wasn't following the story at all to begin with.

The truth though is that this isn't the kind of stuff we continental Europeans care much about. Heck, we elect notorious pussy hounds as presidents around here, so I imagine that whatever the guy did is benign compared to Berlusconi's sex orgies with barely legal (or not legal at all) prostitutes. (Not saying it's any good, mind you. Just try to picture the yardsticks we have.)

It says there's no evidence of gender-based $BAD_THING, but not that no $BAD_THINGs happened.

One could argue that allowing a non-employee so much access to a private company is an 'error of judgement.' (Referring to Horvath's comments about Tom's wife)

They say there was no evidence of gender-based harassment, but I don't see them claiming "there was no evidence of harassment" either. Don't know enough to pass judgement.

"the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment."

No evidence of legal wrongdoing, which is a pretty high bar. Many companies will expect better of their president than "did not actually act illegally".

well, even if he did nothing wrong his position was probably untenable. He'll have lost his credibility and more will be said about this incident than any other. i.e. anything else gitbhub would do/release, would most probably be clouded by this incident Irrespective of which scenario occurred, he made the most appropriate, and honourable decision.

They're trying to discourage employees and ex-employees from filing a class action lawsuit.

It's a distraction.

Only if it was true or partially true. If it was completely off-base and false, they'd be going after the person making the allegations like there was no tomorrow.

Dude's probably incredibly rich, he can spend the rest of his life on a beach. Why bother dragging through this? Just go buy a boat or something.

boat's keep a man poor. Get a caravan ;-)

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