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Agree strongly with this: "Does anyone seriously think that was anything other than hitting on Pao?"

Any man who is beyond college age, and who sincerely does not realize the meaning of handing out gifts and asking women out to dinner, is an idiot and should be removed from any position of authority. Emphasis on "sincerely" -- Randy Komisar is not that stupid, and his denials are hardly sincere.

The line "his wife bought the gift for her" has become something of a cliche which married couples use when the husband has been caught flirting but the wife is not yet ready to end the marriage.

Gifts given in public, for work well done, are always welcome, but a pattern of private gifts and requests for dinner are universally understood to be requests to initiate a sexual relationship.

One last word about "sincerely" -- there are some men who sincerely are that stupid. I have known at least 2. They somehow reach middle age and it does not occur to them that the gifts they are giving to an attractive young woman are being interpreted as sexual overtures. As Schiller said, "Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain." There is no cure for such men, but they need to be kept out of positions of power.

Hitting on a woman isn't even illegal unless there is a threat of coercion or it is so frequent/severe that it creates a hostile work environment.

I'm sure Pao's attorneys are arguing it is a part of a larger hostile work environment. But itself isn't sexual harassment.

It was in reference to the quote and the implication that the two were equivalent and equal.

Mentoring and being nice to a woman is very, very different than flirting with her. Implying they are the same is gross.

Ah, I should have seen that. I agree.

No worries, written communication isn't perfect.

I think the author of this article made it (perhaps deliberately) ambiguous as to when these events took place.

he gave Pao a volume of Leonard Cohen’s poems and drawings (entitled Book of Longing) on Valentine’s Day and asked her out to dinner on a night when his wife was out of town

These could very well be two completely separate occasions. I suspect the author created this juxtaposition to elicit your precise reaction.

Why do you think that?

There are plenty of articles that agree the gift was given on Valentine's Day?

I think he is saying the dinner wasn't on Valentine's Day.

The timing of the dinner request isn't relevant.

The problem is the choice of gift on Valentines and the fact the author of the article basically equated buying erotic poetry with being "nice and mentoring".

I agree that the gift was inappropriate. I was responding to your comment:

"Hitting on a woman" - Doing nice things and inviting her to be alone with you on a day dedicated to romance.

The invitation to have dinner may have happened anytime.

This is why I feel it's just better to refrain from any sort of judgment on this case based on what you read in the news. You're right - as it's written, it looks like "Duh, he's hitting on her." But did he give a gift to everyone on Valentine's Day? When he "asked her out to dinner on a night when his wife was out of town", was it a date or a "Let's talk about a potential investment at a popular VC haunt"?

I have no idea which is true, and I don't think I'm going to be able to find out based on summaries in the news.

well she did have an affair with a married coworker, so how are other men supposed to judge her? You make that kind of serious mistake in a professional environment and people are right to judge your competence. They did try/fire the guy involved over her objection.

As for handing out valentine gifts, hell my entire work place would be in trouble for gifts, cards, and the like. We celebrate a lot different events, though you learn real quick whom to avoid as some people look to take offense; not saying she did. The can subpoena the gift giver's wife to see if that side of his story holds up. As for asking her out, she already demonstrated that marriage was no barrier.

Let's be honest. We only get a picture, one tinted by personal views and time. It will be interesting what the court digs up and how the final determination comes about.

> As for handing out valentine gifts, hell my entire work place would be in trouble for gifts, cards, and the like.

Oddly enough, where I work, the accepted standard is you simply don't hand out stuff to coworkers on Valentines.

I mean it is one f'n day of the year, how hard is it to avoid that unless your sole goal is to entice someone?

> We celebrate a lot different events

I think you are making my point for me. Any event except Valentines/romance related, the behavior would have been appropriate. Specifically doing it on Valentines with the unspoken implication of he'd be alone with her and his wife would be out of town....? :/

> Let's be honest. We only get a picture, one tinted by personal views and time. It will be interesting what the court digs up and how the final determination comes about.

Of course. However, it disgusts me that the article seems to imply that "hitting on a woman" and "being nice/mentoring" is the same behavior as the positioning of that quote implied.

Having an affair with one married coworker doesn't give other coworkers license to hit on you.

The argument you're using is basically, "She slept with someone else, so why should other people not expect to be able to get to have privileged relationships with her too?"

And even if you ignore that, you obviously shouldn't be hitting on people at work.

> Having an affair with one married coworker doesn't give other coworkers license to hit on you.

Coworkers don't need a license, because it's not illegal to make a pass at a coworker.

> you obviously shouldn't be hitting on people at work.

"Hitting on" is a crude way to describe buying a gift. Is love now banned at work?

I don't even make friendships at work anymore, given the ugly fallout that can result from something negative in the friendship impacting a professional relationship. It is wise to completely disconnect your professional life and private one in this climate, as this Pao case demonstrates in some ways.

Drinks with the team? Sure, but I leave after one. Gifts to a coworker and an invitation to dinner? Not a chance. It's just too unpredictable no matter what you mean by it. I respect my coworkers enough not to force them into ambiguity with me as a person. Personal relationships have so many opportunities to go south. Why would I complicate my workplace?

Is that unfair? Maybe. I'm not there to make friends. Silicon Valley is pretty bad at this in general. The last thing I want to do on a weekend anyway is see the same people I see all week and do something social, and have to pretend that business stays at the office.

You should try it. I haven't been burnt out for years, like I was when I left work only to go socialize with the same people. It was like living in Groundhog Day. The startups that force this culture on its employees are part of the problem. I do not devote my life to a company. I'm sorry.

> Coworkers don't need a license, because it's not illegal to make a pass at a coworker.

I never said anything about legality. Ethics should not strictly be a reflection of laws, laws should be a reflection of ethics. Using laws as the only things that guide your ethical decisions works fine if you want to be a major asshole to people, but not if you want to exist in a healthy community.

> "Hitting on" is a crude way to describe buying a gift. Is love now banned at work?

This isn't about "love" being "banned" at work or anything, this is about what constitutes appropriate behavior. You should try to not make things uncomfortable for others. The immediate personal cost you incur when you work to make a group of people less uncomfortable is tiny compared to the costs that they have to deal with from society handing them a raw deal, and it can help a lot.

> The argument you're using is basically, "She slept with someone else, so why should other people not expect to be able to get to have privileged relationships with her too?"

Actually, the argument is "She slept with someone else, so why shouldn't I be allowed to see if she's interested in sleeping with me?"

> Actually, the argument is "She slept with someone else, so why shouldn't I be allowed to see if she's interested in sleeping with me?"

Finding out if she's interested in sleeping with you is a privileged relationship. You don't just find that out from random coworkers. The "privileged relationship" I was referring to was one where you get to find that sort of thing out, not one where you automatically get to sleep with them.

I don't find the dinner invitation to be damning in the slightest. Have you all not been around VCs? They're always having dinner, having multiple dinners in one night, flitting from one company to another, to some new prospect, whatever. On this night, he has no plans, his wife is out, so he invites a coworker to grab food after work. So what? Things will get steamy at University Cafe?