Comment by brighteyes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brighteyes | Hacker News Reader

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The Ellis example is a good one, I think.

She went public with concrete names and bad things that happened to her while working at Google, regarding both an engineering manager Rod Chavez, and a VP, Vic Gondotra. While there were a few of the expected "where's the proof" people on Twitter, as Kelly said, the large majority of responses she got were supportive, from lots of men and women.

In addition, in the google+ thread, several people from inside Google expressed shock (they only heard about it now, it wasn't common knowledge across the company) and mentioned that a lot of noise is going on internally right now about this.

Gondotra isn't still with Google, but Chavez is. I would bet that won't be for long.

Overall, the responses internally at Google were horrible, back then. HR tried to save the company from liability, not help her. But when she went public now, the responses were good, and change might actually happen.

As the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant. The article here is correct to say that it's scary to be a whistleblower, but Kelly Ellis shows it's possible to be brave, and that the industry and community will in fact react positively when you do.

> While there were a few of the expected "where's the proof" people on Twitter, as Kelly said, the large majority of responses she got were supportive, from lots of men and women.

You raise a good point, but the problem is that not all supportiveness is equal.

There are a lot of people who share their opinions when an incident like this goes public, and depending on what communities you happen to draw the attention of, the response may well be more positive than negative. But there's a much smaller number of people (like bosses and future bosses, for instance) whose response will have a real, tangible effect on your career and future.

If those few people happen to be an unlucky random sample -- like, say, the HN commenter who said about Kelly Ellis that "the only thing I have learnt from this and the Adria Richards nonsense is when I am hiring I will screen for radical feminism" -- then the supportive comments from complete strangers don't mean much. And so it's understandable why someone would be reluctant to take that risk.

The reluctance is understandable. But we can't understate the positive: In that very google+ thread, more than one former colleague from Google said something to the effect of "I've always considered you someone to try to hire for my future startup, and I still do."

In other words, even if some wary bosses would see any whistleblowing as a risk factor, the fact is that the large majority of responses she got were positive. People believe her, and people strongly feel she got treated unfairly. She's also, according to many accounts, a talented engineer. Signs for her future employment are very positive.

She also mentioned herself that her current job at Medium is with a very supportive team. (edit: i misunderstood something here)

Once more, none of this is to diminish the understandable concerns with going public with allegations. But in the Ellis case, I think we see that the overall outcome can be quite positive. It's good for the whistleblower, it's good for the tech industry as a whole, it's really just bad only for the small amount of bad people we need to get rid of.

I don't work at Medium. I'm taking some time between work right now. I don't think I could have written this if I had a job with a conventional employer. No matter how great my employer is, if the post got popular, it would be pretty irresponsible and could hurt my employer. I'd at least talk it over with my coworkers and have addressed it directly in the article.

Oh - sorry! I must have misread something.

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