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Female founders accuse VC Justin Caldbeck of making unwanted advances

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Re: Female founders accuse VC Justin Caldbeck of making unwanted advances

#71

Post by weberc2 »

jakobegger wrote: post #20
leereeves wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bigger thread has already been downvoted off the front page Isn't that the result of a Hacker News algorithm that hides stories that receive a lot of comments in a short time?

My experience on HN is that stories about sexism often disappear quickly. It's often that I click on a story on the front page to read the comments, only to see it flagged a few moments later. My explanation is that there is a significant number of HN readers that flag stories about sexism in tech because they don't believe them, but of course I don't have any evidence for that.

I didn't flag, and very rarely do I flag, but I can see why sexism stories don't do well here:

1. Many "stories about sexism" simply aren't persuasive. They present some gap and leave the reader to assume sexism was at fault. These stories are almost always lazy, misleading, and biased.

2. Other stories are allegations of harassment. Either there is abundant evidence of guilt and the comments are boring because everyone agrees that the accused shouldn't have done a thing or the evidence is inconclusive and the comments are boring because of all of the pointless, unsupported arguments.

Maybe there are some interesting subthreads in the comments, but the signal to noise ratio is low.

Re: Female founders accuse VC Justin Caldbeck of making unwanted advances

#72

Post by [deleted] »

opportune wrote: post #44
logicallee wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[withdrawn]

I'm not saying he didn't write this himself. But I am saying that if I were in his position and knew that I had no way of getting out of something like this, I would have no trouble at all (technically, not morally) faking sincerity and admitting all my actions while tying them into a larger framework such as sexism in the startup industry. It's an admission of guilt. It's not brave, it's just an unconditional surren…

[deleted]

Re: Female founders accuse VC Justin Caldbeck of making unwanted advances

#73

Post by weberc2 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #65
jasonkostempski wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's seems more likely that, like me, they flag them because they clearly fall into the Off-Topic category of the HN guidelines.

Were they off-topic in Uber's case? I'm not sure how something that took down Travis Kalanick isn't relevant on HN.

I imagine people are more likely to flag a boring off-topic story than an interesting off-topic story. "interesting" probably being some function of relevance to the reader.

Re: Female founders accuse VC Justin Caldbeck of making unwanted advances

#74

Post by munchbunny »

debaserab2 wrote: post #30
obstinate wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be more impressive to not harass women founders. This apology moves him above harassers who don't apologize, but still miles below non-harassers. Beware of giving someone too much credit for doing something very harmful, then apologizing for it effusively. It doesn't undo the harm.

So how long do we have to ostracize him for before we can treat him like a human being again? Or does he wear the scarlett letter forever now? Is it not okay to note that he appears to be taking the right first steps?

He can take off the scarlett letter when he follows through on his promises of reform. Until then, I'm optimistic that his apology is sincere, but I won't trust him.

In other words, he has the benefit of the doubt from me, but an apology does not absolve him. Reform does.

Re: Female founders accuse VC Justin Caldbeck of making unwanted advances

#75

Post by ekiru »

FT_intern wrote: post #69
ceejayoz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a gross misrepresentation of the issue here. The issue is not young people having sex with each other. The issue is powerful people dating people they have significant power over. Business development/marketing/real estate fields generally don't let bosses seduce employees, either.

That's not really relevant since both situations most likely have similar ratios of occurrence when comparing tech to those fields. I can imagine that bosses in the business development/marketing/real estate fields make advances on female subordinates at much higher rates also. Again, people only care when it happens in tech.

Perhaps they do. I don't know. In the abstract, I agree, it happening in those fields would be just as bad. However, I work in tech and anticipate continuing to work in tech for many years. Many of my friends work in tech. I am, somewhat but not entirely regrettably, selfish and I do care more about things that affect me more directly. If people in real estate make advances on their subordinates, that is bad, but I don't have to worry about any of my friends being the ones having advances made on. I don't have to worry about avoiding the person in question for fear of being the subordinate being harassed. I don't have to worry that they'll end up being the client contact on a pentest.

People here are largely in the tech industry. Is it any wonder that they care more about things happening in the tech industry than elsewhere? Is it a problem that should be fixed that they do?

Re: Female founders accuse VC Justin Caldbeck of making unwanted advances

#76

Post by obstinate »

dwaltrip wrote: post #70
obstinate wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it deeply disturbing that you're more concerned about how male VCs can get their rocks off than the actual harassment that occurred here.

It's called a tangent, is that not allowed? Also, you are grotesquely mischaracterizing my line of discussion. I made it very clear in my comments in this thread that I fully agree Justin made many enormous mistakes. Is that disclaimer insufficient?

I'm sorry that I was overly accusatory of you directly. I tend to have a belief that what people spend their words on in a comment thread is an indicator for how much they fractionally care about a particular thing. I recognize that this is not always true for everyone. Mea culpa.

R.e. tangents, there are of course cases where they are just fine. But as in real life, sometimes they are less appropriate, and sometimes they would be considered quite rude. I think it's easy to lose sight of that online. I think it's worth asking yourself whether this particular topic might not be the time to be bringing up tangents about the permissibility of/avenues for dating people who are seeking investment with one's VC firm. At least one person has found it off-putting, and while I'm an oddball and as unique as any other human person, I know several others who would likely feel the same way.

Re: Female founders accuse VC Justin Caldbeck of making unwanted advances

#77

Post by renaudg »

sctb wrote: post #47
ithinkinstereo wrote: post #2

The bigger thread has already been downvoted off the front page and this one is falling quickly. Disgusting. For all the down voters: Justin just admitted that all the accusations are true. https://www.axios.com/justin-caldbeck-takes-indefinite-leave... The past 24 hours have been the darkest of my life. I have made many mistakes over the course of my career, some of which were brought to light this week. To say I'm…

> The bigger thread has already been downvoted off the front page and this one is falling quickly. Disgusting. The main thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14621397 ) is back on the front page. The software had applied a mild ranking penalty which we've overridden, but it hasn't been flagged off by users.

How do you decide when to manually override a post ?

Re: Female founders accuse VC Justin Caldbeck of making unwanted advances

#78

Post by dwaltrip »

obstinate wrote: post #76
dwaltrip wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called a tangent, is that not allowed? Also, you are grotesquely mischaracterizing my line of discussion. I made it very clear in my comments in this thread that I fully agree Justin made many enormous mistakes. Is that disclaimer insufficient?

I'm sorry that I was overly accusatory of you directly. I tend to have a belief that what people spend their words on in a comment thread is an indicator for how much they fractionally care about a particular thing. I recognize that this is not always true for everyone. Mea culpa. R.e. tangents, there are of course cases where they are just fine. But as in real life, sometimes they are less appropriate, and sometimes…

Thank you for this genuine and respectful response, it's a rarity in many online communities (although I think HN is better than most).

I knew I was taking a risk, and tried to frame my comments accordingly. Looking back, I probably could have a done a better job, especially given the sensitive nature of the topic. I also don't think I was clear enough about what I was actually asking, and how it is different from the situation in the OP.

Re, my willingness to post this: I couldn't really think of a better time or place to bring up the discussion on HN. I suppose I could make a separate "Ask HN" thread, but I'm not sure that would have worked out well. I do think the line of question is worthwhile, as opposed to only having a bunch of comments describing their particular opinion of actions of the person in question, and not much deeper discussion. I was hoping to spark an interesting and thoughtful discussion.

Another reason: I was feeling a bit desensitized and outrage-fatigued, given all of the news and events lately, and I imagined some others were as well. I hadn't made any comments like this in any of the other threads about sexism in tech on HN that have been popping up.

However, I do understand why you found it off-putting -- thank you for sharing. I hope you understand that I don't think an apology is needed or appropriate, but I will definitely keep your remarks in mind.

Have a great weekend :)

Re: Female founders accuse VC Justin Caldbeck of making unwanted advances

#79

Post by renaudg »

RIMR wrote: post #51
dwaltrip wrote: post #28

So I understand that Justin made some serious mistakes in pursuing his interest in several female entrepreneurs. Does there exist an acceptable manner for someone in a position like his to pursue such an interest? I'd imagine it would depend a lot on the context -- for example, it seems clear to me it would be very inappropriate to do so during any time period where a deal was being negotiated. And of course, general…

What you should do: -Ask a woman out for dinner -Exchange contact information, and ask to connect outside of work. -Reach out via social media and express interest. ------------------ What you should not do: -Grab a woman's leg under the table. -Suggest that you move to a hotel room in the middle of a meeting. -Suggest an open sexual relationship with multiple women from one company. -Continue with romantic and sexua…

> -Continue with romantic and sexual advances after already being rejected once.

I'm not sure that Michelle Obama would now wish that Barack had followed that particular piece of advice, when as a colleague he persistently asked her out after she said no several times.

Re: Female founders accuse VC Justin Caldbeck of making unwanted advances

#80

Post by jasonkostempski »

ceejayoz wrote: post #65
jasonkostempski wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's seems more likely that, like me, they flag them because they clearly fall into the Off-Topic category of the HN guidelines.

Were they off-topic in Uber's case? I'm not sure how something that took down Travis Kalanick isn't relevant on HN.

Yes. Some guy involved in scandal at company that provides a service that happens to be done through a computer is not "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". It at least falls under the categories of: crime that is not evidence of some interesting new phenomenon; maybe pratfalls; and, considering I saw it on The Today Show before HN, it's definitely covered on TV News. That's 3 of 7 stated off-topic categories.

I'm not usually a stickler for these kinds of rules but it has gotten to be too much as of late. I understand it comes in waves and usually goes away, but when the wave hits, the only tool we have to fight it is the "flag".

The topics don't go unnoticed, I'm sure HN isn't the only forum most people here visit. I occasionally partake in the conversations around this kind of story (not as a guideline Nazi), usually on Reddit, where it's expected.

The most I'm ever going to do about problems like this are to not be part of and discourage behavior like it in areas of my life I have actual control over, so I don't want to be angered hourly by stories I can't or won't do anything about directly. The guidelines seem to imply this site is supposed to be a place that aligns with that and, for the most part, it does, except when it doesn't, and that is what I think "flag" is for.

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