Comment by jw2013 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jw2013 | Hacker News Reader

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I doubt there will ever be any clear explanation on what happened. Two sides of the story basically tell two different stories. As someone mentioned in the post, Julie posted some tweets in response to Github's announcement today. (https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore)

1. Bullying someone into quitting: Illegal.

2. Asking an employee to relay private conversations between her and her partner: Illegal.

3. Justifying the harassment of an employee because of her personal relationships: Pathetic.

4. How does it feel to make money for liars and cowards?

5. Pushing women with strong opinions out of your company because they disagree with you is wrong.

6. What number am I on? Oh yea, how do you sleep at night?

7. Leaving GitHub was the best decision of my life.

8. There was no investigation.

9. There was a series of conversations with a "mediator" who sought to relieve GitHub of any legal responsibility.

10. Whose reasoning included "would it surprise you to hear that [your harasser] was well-liked?"

11. No, no it would not.

12. Women at GitHub who sprang forward to defend the men who harassed me, it is naive to think the same thing cannot and will not happen to you.

13. Best of luck rolling the dice.

14. A company can never own you. They can't tell you who to fuck or not fuck. And they can't take away your voice.

15. Unless you let them.

16. Hmmm still no mention of the man who bullied me out of our code base because I wouldn't fuck him. Too popular to be accountable, I guess.

You can never know which side of the story is true, but it's worth noting that one side of the story looks crazy and the other does not.

It's hard to quantify the smell of crazy, but we can start with an overwhelming interest in insulting the other party, and the claims stretch credibility. For example, consider the claim that a man "bullied [her] out of our code base because I wouldn't fuck him". This is a very strong statement and it seems unrealistic that investigators, lawyers, and other people within Github would come forward with "no evidence" of such things happening. On the other hand, it's the sort of thing you would say to appeal to the Internet social-justice-warrior crowd. Even the phrasing smells like something you'd read on Tumblr or a r/shitredditsays comment thread.

I don't think I can make a strong inference about what actually happened, but I would not treat this whole kerfuffle as a useful source of information about gender issues in technology--except that this is another example how powerful accusations concerning touchy issues can be, even when there is "no evidence" for them.

She isn't helping her case with this ranting list. I'm certainly not saying that she's acting out some kind of "hysterical female" trope, but she is kind of acting in a kind of stereotypically "hysterical female" way. Legal counsel would probably suggest she stick a cork in it rather than make herself look bad.

Men are also capable of angry twitter explosions with the properties I'm talking about. I don't see why you felt the need to bring up the "hysterical female" stereotype. It doesn't add anything to the conversation.

Being labeled as a "hysterical female" or "that girl" is an often stated concern of women who speak out against workplace harassment.

(I am speaking in general and totally not referring to any specifics of the situation here.)

A lot of internet feminists and others have pointed to the gender dimensions of the issue. I figured it made sense to address it straight off. Since she is kind of ranting.

I would rant if I had to deal with shit like that, too, assuming that her account is accurate.

When bullying or harassment occurs in any environment unless there is intervention it will not stop. There is ample opportunity to collect evidence beyond hearsay. What proof has either side provided?

Ah yes; you know exactly how you would react if everything you've worked for for several years vanishes into thin air just because your CEO's wife has boundary issues and your company doesn't know how to deal with shit like that.

Indeed.

Her responses also failed to address the fact that one of the co-founders resigned.

So at the end of the day we have someone spewing vitriol; and someone stepping down from a prestigious position as a show of good faith. That's the only evidence I have and it doesn't reflect well on Julie at all; I can only imagine what it's like to work with a person who spits out expletives at that cadence.

That actually sounds extremely plausible to me. I mean, I don't think the guy literally said to himself "she won't fuck me, revert!"

What I imagine happened is some guy at work had a crush on her and made an awkward pass at her. Maybe he tried to smell her hair or something, I don't know. She shot him down, then he got all butthurt and started undoing her commits on the projects they worked on together. Because they were painful reminders of her.

From his perspective, he's a sensitive guy who just got rejected and isn't coping well. But to her, he's the guy deleting her code because she wouldn't fuck him.

That doesn't seem crazy at all to me. It seems totally possible, and just the kind of situation competent HR departments are supposed to prevent and mitigate.

    "Pushing [people] with strong opinions out of your company 
    because they disagree with you is wrong."

FTFY. This may or may not be a truism. Circumstances matter. If you are trying to steer a ship of several hundred people in one direction and you have one loud naysayer with poor tact, you are justified in pushing them out of the company. Should you listen to their opinions and give them adequate consideration? Certainly. But if they are being disruptive and toxic, pushing them out is acceptable. Allowing someone acting in a visibly toxic way to remain at the company is poor leadership. I say this as someone who was once that toxic person and also as someone who has raised concerns about the deleterious effects of toxic colleagues.

How you say something matters as much if not more than what you are saying. Given the tweets and posts I've seen from JAH, it's pretty easy to imagine prior behavior that others would have considered toxic.

Yeah...sometimes Twitter just isn't the best place to make a cogent argument:

> 1. Bullying someone into quitting: Illegal.

If that bullying falls under the legal definition of harassment, then yes, it is illegal. But that's kind of begging the question a bit (e.g. Bullying someone is illegal because it is harassment). The thing is, some/much what Horvath described was assuredly captured in electronic records. If she believes something is illegal, and she is not afraid of speaking out, she should take the next step and file a lawsuit.

> 2. Asking an employee to relay private conversations between her and her partner: Illegal.

OK not sure what that refers to. Again, Twitter is not great for these things.

> 3. Justifying the harassment of an employee because of her personal relationships: Pathetic.

Who justified what?

> 4. How does it feel to make money for liars and cowards?

OK and then the rest of this seems like free association. I agree that a third-party investigation instigated by the accused is not automatically the truth, but neither are accusations. The word illegal has real meaning and if Horvath has the proof, then let's see it, rather than have a TechCrunch retelling be the canonical source of facts.

Some of it is contradictory [7,5 vs 1], and some sounds like outright crazy emotional, attention-seeking drivel [16]. Definitely not helping make her case.

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