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Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

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Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#501

Post by einhverfr »

Hmmm..... I read this slowly and I see intimidation, but it is a little short on evidence of sexism. The evidence was a perception of sexism, but very little evidence of it. How much of that was in her mind vs in actual interactions with others (unless aggressive communication regarding pull requests applied evenly to both genders is inherently sexist).

What I do see is something else though. I see a nebulous, bossless organization where the founder's wife is effectively running the political show. Call me old fashioned but that seems totally at odds with allegations of sexism.

Reading between the lines I see something else going on. "I thought I could fix X" (where X is either an organization or a person) is something that never ends well.

I hate to say this but the article did not make me sympathetic to Horvath. I have seen even in myself the tendency to try to fix an organization which was working (just in ways I didn't understand) and causing issues in the process.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#503

Post by petercooper »

mynameishere wrote: post #28

Crazy how women can turn even canonically geeky/boring things like Github into soap operas like "General Hospital". You've got to wonder what kind of drama occurs in actual hospitals, with alpha-doctors and nurses side-by-side. I've heard stories.

I've known (and know) a few doctors in my time and my wife was a nurse for a while and the answer is... lots. However, in most cases it tends to be short lived or contained to specific episodes due to the high levels of turnover in departments and the very well defined hierarchies and processes in place.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#504

Post by einhverfr »

psykotic wrote: post #380
sgentle wrote: post #235

Ouch. What a terrible situation. I'm holding out for the other side of the story, but unless you're willing to assume the entire thing is invented this is a major fuckup for GitHub. I think this is a classic problem with companies making the transition from small startup to regular business. Break down the barriers! Flat management! Kill bureaucracy and embrace no-politics DIY organisation! The article reads like an…

> I mean, someone reverting your code because of a personal vendetta? I laughed out loud when I read this and several other specific details in the story. It sounded very familiar. I have several friends and many acquaintances who work at Valve. One very senior engineer initially worked on Source 2 about three years ago but had to quickly switch projects because another, more tenured engineer was expressing his disag…

> The founder's wife story also reminds me of episodes I've heard involving the wife cabal. It's nothing as sinister as the GitHub story, but I see a lot of the same structural issues reflected in these telling anecdotes.

If you are male and a founder, one of your most valuable business resources is your wife. People will call me sexist for saying this, I expect, but women think socially with a level of complexity that I think most men never approach. If you are a man, chances are your wife does more to build the business than you ever do.

I see nothing wrong with the involvement of founders' wives in the business.

> The lack of an overt chain of command means that power asserts itself covertly.

Thats the whole point of bossless environments and both their greatest strength and their greatest weakness.

> In both cases the companies also boast a level of success that makes it hard for them to evaluate whether elements of their company culture is detrimental to their continued development at this stage of their existence.

I don't think any company can evaluate that. Culture arises from the grass roots and that means that the floor employees are the ones who ultimately decide company culture.

> I'm waiting for a hip rebranding of the term 'management' once these no-management companies realize they have issues that cannot be resolved by hiring supposedly perfect people.

What do you think of WL Gore and Associates?

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#505

Post by Link- »

sgentle wrote: post #235

Ouch. What a terrible situation. I'm holding out for the other side of the story, but unless you're willing to assume the entire thing is invented this is a major fuckup for GitHub. I think this is a classic problem with companies making the transition from small startup to regular business. Break down the barriers! Flat management! Kill bureaucracy and embrace no-politics DIY organisation! The article reads like an…

Regarding that article, it's a few entries down on HN's front page (March 16th): http://www.bhorowitz.com/how_to_minimize_politics_in_your_co... lol

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#506

Post by asdkl234890 »

buro9 wrote: post #433
logicchains wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really surprises me that somebody can get away with such destructive behaviour as reverting someone else's commits without reasonable cause. What justification is there for not firing on the spot anybody who puts their own personal vendettas over the good of the project?

I once quit a senior dev role as the tech architect at the company had veto power on all code and blocked my work because I'd spelled the word dialog the US way, rather than the UK way (dialogue). This was not in a public interface, this was in variable names. Ignoring that every word in programming is in US English: color, gray, program. We were deadlocked for weeks, with him refusing to ship working code that fulfi…

It's a good thing for hackers/programmers/engineers to be stubborn.... up to a point, but the one thing an architect should not be is stubborn.

And yet architects usually originate from promoted engineers. And that means they are stubborn, and the result is all kinds pointless conflicts with all the other developers.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#507

Post by greenrd »

jkrems wrote: post #67
rdtsc wrote: post #29

Well here we go Github-gate. Sigh... Regardless of the truth, just based on allegations, and what they'll stir, this will probably create a big mess. I can't see who can possibly win in this case.

If the situation with the one founder who is injecting outside people into power is resolved, I would say everyone in the company wins (assuming the picture painted in the article is accurate).

If she is his wife then she co-owns part of the company with him (assuming they do the "everything that is mine is yours" thing). So she is not an uninvolved outsider, she is an investor.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#508

Post by alxjrvs »

rimantas wrote: post #343
Cederfjard wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The hula hooping moment was important because it visibly demonstrated her male coworkers lack of respect for women as people. They were unabashedly staring at their female coworkers as "eyecandy" in that moment and even defended their doing so. I have never understood how this argument works, obviously I'm missing something. Because I momentarily focus my attention on someone for their physical attributes, I automa…

You are not alone. I blame PC, overprotective upbringing and "I am offended by that" trend. As soon as some subject becomes taboo to discuss people lose the understanding why something is bad and start to treat everything related as bad and unacceptable. Reminds me of this: http://i.snag.gy/kdu77.jpg (doesn't matter if experiment was real or not). This is very prominent with sexism and racism—these words are losing t…

"PC, overprotective upbringing, and I'm offended by that" are not some new horrible plague - they are attempts to let underprivileged voices and opinions survive.

When a black person says that they are proud to be black, they are expressing that they feel a certain pride in their race, which exists in this country thus far as a marginalized and underprivileged set of humanity. Saying you are "Proud to be white" kind of makes you sound like an asshole, because white people have crafted a society to let them have more advantage. True, any given white person might not be some sort of evil society architect, but white people are clearly those who most benefit from this society. Blaming this on political correctness is a cowardly and conservative move that stems from a false sense of equality between people.

As progressive and bottom-up our community can be, we are not a meritocracy, and everyone is not equal.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#509

Post by clavalle »

rtpg wrote: post #400
shiven wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... doing things that might be nice to look at is not an invitation to check them out doing it Then why do any of those things in a non-private setting with reasonable expectation of gawkers being present?

because in an office environment you can at least expect your coworkers to show a bit of respect?

You do remember they were hula hooping, right?

That is not a typical example of office decorum. If they were spinning plates they'd probably gather a few looks as well.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#510

Post by einhverfr »

logicchains wrote: post #420
psykotic wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, someone reverting your code because of a personal vendetta? I laughed out loud when I read this and several other specific details in the story. It sounded very familiar. I have several friends and many acquaintances who work at Valve. One very senior engineer initially worked on Source 2 about three years ago but had to quickly switch projects because another, more tenured engineer was expressing his disag…

It really surprises me that somebody can get away with such destructive behaviour as reverting someone else's commits without reasonable cause. What justification is there for not firing on the spot anybody who puts their own personal vendettas over the good of the project?

> It really surprises me that somebody can get away with such destructive behaviour as reverting someone else's commits without reasonable cause. What justification is there for not firing on the spot anybody who puts their own personal vendettas over the good of the project?

And yet it happens everywhere. The question is what narratives can be told about it more than what actually happened.

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