Comment by JonFish85 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JonFish85 | Hacker News Reader

> It said “he messed up enough to need to leave, but it’s not a technical legal claim.” That’s.. ambiguous. It comes across as “something bad happened, but we’re going to pretend it didn’t to protect ourselves legally.”

I don't really see why people are confused about this. He probably exercised some poor judgement, as they said, but poor judgement and illegalities are often a long ways apart. The best thing for both parties was probably for him to leave. He was a distraction to GitHub, and this whole mess is a distraction for him. Part ways, both parties move on and continue. I don't think it comes across sketchy, personally. There was almost no way he was going to stay on long-term, given this history. It's a liability for the company, and honestly he's probably on eggshells around the company anyways.

Even as the author states, it's hard to PROVE that something was sexist. I imagine he said some inappropriate things, and maybe even did some inappropriate things, but proving that they were illegal is a WHOLE different bag.

>The entire situation reads: A male executive can do something that’s wrong/sexist. The company will want to cover itself legally, so it will discredit the claims.

Let's fix that. "An executive can do something that's wrong/sexist. The company will want to cover itself legally, so it will discredit the claims." Let's not make this about gender. A company has a duty to its shareholders to protect itself.

"He probably exercised some poor judgement"

As you said, people seem to fail to understand the nuances of something like this. It's entirely possible that he meant entirely well, but acted in a manner that was -- as they mentioned to his wife -- terribly naive, at least for a company of the scale of Github.

Just to give an example of such a nuance, in a tiny startup there might be occasions where everyone might have a big drinking and cavorting pool party at the founder's pad. As the company gets bigger, however, such activities become legal liability cesspools, and it would be very poor judgment because everything becomes a perilous he said/she said type situation. That is an extreme example, but it's why senior management often become increasingly insular and detached as the company grows: Because they legally have to. It sounds like Tom failed to do this.

Which is exactly what it sounds like happened here.

I kind of despise this blog entry because while it berates the unfairness of the old boy's club and so on, it seems to argue that any woman who claims anything should be treated as unequivocal truth, punishment meted out to the harshest extent possible. That is scary, but it is sadly where many of these conversations seem to go.

Not all women are honest and truthful. Women are not above pettiness, power plays and self-interests.

'despise' is a very strong term. It implies a much much stronger reaction to the material than just disagreeing with it. Why is that?

'it seems to argue that any woman who claims anything should be treated as unequivocal truth, punishment meted out to the harshest extent possible'

No it doesn't. It doesn't say anything of the kind.If you take that from the article then you are bringing that position to the material.

"Not all women are honest and truthful. Women are not above pettiness, power plays and self-interests."

Very true. But it is hard to see how this relates to the real point of the blog.

All in all, I detect clear evidence of an angry person, ready to project his resentment at what he believes to be inappropriate powerplays by scheming women. Scary powerplays that are too often blindly supported.

>Why is that?

Because it is unfair when someone supports someone, and their position, purely because of their gender. It is despicable behaviour. It is absolutely worth strong emotions.

>It doesn't say anything of the kind.

It quite clearly lays out a case that Horvath must be in the right, Tom must be in the wrong (and those supporting him will face the wrath of all women who will now not want to deal with them, because of the above), and Github is merely trying to clean their hands of it. Yes, it absolutely says so. All outcomes are only variations of the preceding.

>All in all, I detect clear evidence of an angry person

Take your white knight act somewhere else. Your particular form of discouraging disagreement is disgusting. No, seriously, it is vile, and is the sort of banal ignorance of people who have nothing interesting to say.

It is actually remarkably paternalistic how many take stories like that: She is a woman, so she simply must be the victim. He is a man, so he simply must be the villain. Yet this base assumption goes unstated and simply assumed, as if we're all in agreement. But we aren't, and stating that women are as great as men in all things, including the negatives, is important, because brave knights such as yourself fail to understand this.

The post does not do that. In fact it doesn't lay out a case that Horvath must be in the right at all. What the post actually does, for those who took the time to read it, is point out that a distressing takeaway from the whole messy affair is that without a convincing post mortem (legal or not) that is has a chilling effect on the way women feel about the tech workplace. In other words, the key point is about how such messy events are handled and the impact ths 'handling' has.

As for your concern about my concern for your anger. I think your last paragraph speaks for itself. Apparently you don't seem to understand that angry statements about the way women (the unfair beneficiaries of being unthinkingly treated as victims) and men (unfairly branded as villains) just reproduces a stereotyped position that is as laughable as your idea that listing the many negatives of women is doing them a favor.

without a convincing post mortem

Where they found no evidence or harassment, sexual or not? For those who are sure that Horvath has been wronged, this outcome will never be convincing.

Further it's worth noting that while Horvath can go off slinging whatever accusations she feels like, Github and its employees are all seriously constrained. If they pulled a Tesla and responded openly, they would be attacked for it, guaranteed. This is the best they can do.

listing the many negatives of women is doing them a favor

I listed the negatives of people, of which women are (to, apparently, your surprise).

Once again I refer you to the actual blog post. The concern about the post mortem she actually voiced was that the investigation was by an agency paid for by the company. The well known problem with such investigations is that they are rarely seen as being independent and hence, sadly irrespective of their merits of lack of them, they rarely solve the problem because their reports are seen as being tainted. Hence such investigations do not serve to remove the chill she was trying to explain and which you evidently failed to understand.

With regard to the apparent imbalance between Horvath and Github and its employees, such an alleged imbalance is fictional. This kind of situation where there is an employee involved in any kind of war of words with a company is indeed rarely balanced but it is rare for it to be truly in favor of the employee. A company has the resources and many means to make its position clear. This starts with engaging a PR / crisis management firm to craft the strategy to be rolled out. It will typically involve and investigation and two classes of public statements. Statements from the company expressing vague regret and apology for any perceived wrong doing. And orchestrated anonymous statements from employees explaining how the situation was more nuanced and how the employee in question was always difficult etc etc. Just to be clear how typical this pattern is, I predicted precisely this rollout weeks ago and it followed the standard pattern precisely.

Please note that I do not have any knowledge of the situation and assume nothing about what did or didn't happen. I do however recognize that precisely that uncertainty, if not properly handled after the effect can indeed have a chilling effect. It is for that reason that I believe the original post had merit.

Please further note that my concern with your comment is because you mindlessly trot out stereotyped generalities about the unfairness of the ways men and women are treated in the workplace. The same tired old shibboleth's about how women are inevitably considered blameless and right and men villainous perpetrators whatever the facts.

As for me being surprised by your insight that women too can have negative sides to their personalities - grow up.

The instinct of an organization to cover its ass is indeed much more general than in matters of sexist behavior. I don't however agree that this instinct constitutes a duty to its shareholders. Bear in mind that shareholders are only one of an organizations stakeholders and it has duties to all of them. Employees too are stakeholders and if we assume for the moment that there was some unfortunate behavior covering it up is not good for existing employees. The community in which the organization operates is a stakeholder and coverups can be very contrary to community interests. Etc et.

For those interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeholder_theory

Is there a "law" that states that any remote possibility of a situation being sexist, will be labeled as such?

No. Of course not.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com