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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

The allegations, if true, are bad.

> Mr. Mateen went on to say that he didn’t want boys trying to date Ms. Wolfe due to her co-founder status, and that being a female co-founder of Tinder was 'slutty' because it is an app people use 'to hook up.'

On a tangential note: it's interesting to see the very weak bargaining on her part on pages 64-65, where she's trying to talk to Sean Rad about her equity. Textbook wrong way to approach it for both parties. He should've been soft, to encourage her not to sue, and she should've been the one with a hard edge, seeing as how she was effectively being driven out of the company she helped co-found.

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In order of reliability, things we probably know about Tinder:

* Mateen did supervise Wolfe.

* Mateen did send some "inappropriate" messages to Wolfe (Tinder has, bafflingly, acknowledged this publicly).

* The text messages in the exhibits in the complaint actually occurred.

At this point, vice-grip mortal-lock "bad" seems to be just a "Tinder and/or IAC's management knew this was happening" showing away, right?

> * Mateen did send some "inappropriate" messages to Wolfe (Tinder has, bafflingly, acknowledged this publicly).

It is very unusual to see a company actually acknowledge an allegation like that. But do you think it was a bad idea to do so?

Obviously it has legal ramifications. They're literally admitting guilt.

But Tinder/IAC will have to work to do to demonstrate that they care about having a healthy workplace culture. And this seems like a good way to lend credibility to the fact that they take that responsibility seriously (instead of just FUD-ing the victim with a vaguely worded statement).

They might as well 'fess up; there's no point in trying to defuse a bomb that has already gone off...

(Not legal advice disclaimer)

Wolfe might not even need to show that Tinder/IAC knew if she can show that Mateen invoked his supervisory authority to demote Wolfe from co-founder status. In such cases, where the harasser uses official authority to effect a tangible employment action, the company is vicariously liable for the conduct of the harasser, without any further showing by the plaintiff.

If she can't show a tangible employment action, the company can avoid liability by showing that it acted reasonably to prevent or correct the harassment, or that she acted unreasonably by e.g. not complaining to someone higher up. Showing lack of knowledge would be a good start, but they could also show they tried to take corrective measures when they found out. Of course if the text messages are true, some of those angles might be foreclosed...

Here's a short article on the subject that explains this pretty clearly: http://www.thompsoncoe.com/NewsEvents/Publications?find=2631....

It hurt to read that, because part of me was scared that she was about to permanently bargain away things that were owed to her. It seems she merely resigned and didn't accept any settlement, so she dodged that bullet.

EDIT TO ADD Anyone who feels treated unfairly: don't sign any offer without legal advice. A contract needs, among other things, to have consideration[1] to be binding. If they give you $100 if you agree not to sue for sexual harassment, you could be up a creek.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration

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