Live data from Hacker News

Update on Julie Horvath's Departure

github.com

61–70 of 473 posts

Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure

#61

It's good to see this statement out of Github. The general tone and specifically the mention of the founder's wife in this post gives a huge amount of credence to Julie's claims. I hope Github follows through on this with as much sincerity and determination as this post implies.

I agree that the statement is good. I only wish they'd addressed the concerns that were raised regarding them having access to/messing with private repos.

I didn't quite read the statement as saying the founder's wife had access to private repos. I just read it as saying that the founder's wife claimed to have access to private company communication, specifically chat logs only intended for github employees. But a statement clearing the concerns up would be nice.

Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure

#62
post #20

This is leadership. Executive leadership at other tech companies should take note.

To respond only after the issue was brought public? No, that is no leadership. It's the best possible response he could give under the present circumstances, but on the flipside, he had no choice but to make this statement. I wouldn't be surprised if it was crafted for him by a PR person or firm.

Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure

#63
post #31

This whole incident is sad. It's incredibly sad for Julie, for everyone at GitHub, for the founders, and for the alleged "crazy" founder wife who was banned from a company she probably sacrificed a lot for

I'm surprised nobody sees sexism in the way that the wife has been stigmatized.

I think that the wife's actions would have been even less acceptable if she were male. The stigma is caused by the repeated unprofessional actions she did, and made worse by the fact that she was not even an employee.

Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure

#64
post #13

Well Julie's story stinks. Let me just quote the last thigs she wrote and work backwards from that. "Two women, one of whom I work with and adore, and a friend of hers were hula hooping to some music. I didn’t have a problem with this. What I did have a problem with is the line of men sitting on one bench facing the hoopers and gawking at them. It looked like something out of a strip club. When I brought this up to m…

Sure, people can do what they want, but in a workplace there are (or should be) standards and codes of conduct that help inform employees how to behave in a way that doesn't poison the environment for others.

So sure, if people want to watch that at home, then I guess that is their prerogative, but doing so at work doesn't seem productive or healthy for their (or any company's) community and culture.

Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure

#65
post #22

Usually there are two sides of the story, but the fact that a non-employee (wife of co-founder) exercised so much power and meddled in internal office politics in the way that she did, it was hard to see how GitHub could even claim a reasonable stance. They screwed this up big time. This is a good response.

Not usually...ALWAYS. There is another side here. Github has just realized they have nothing to gain by defending.

Off topic, but there is not always "two sides". There is a tendency to try to frame and reduce everything to binary questions... but the world is just not binary.

Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure

#66
post #53

They are lucky it's not the CEO-founder. Easier to put a non-CEO on leave than a CEO I imagine.

Sounds like you're so desperate to out the guy that you have to make a weird, nonsensical post. If you really want to out him that badly just man up an post his name rather than trying to weasel around with "Easier to put a president on leave than a CEO".

Here, I edited my post so I don't hurt your peculiar sensitivities.

I wasn't outing anyone, the founder who shall not be named is the only married one as plenty of people pointed out from the start.

Also, for context to the original comment, the founder we are discussing here used to be CEO but switched roles a while back.

Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure

#67
post #59
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitHub is known to have a dubstep and IPA culture. If they want to be a standard bearer for feminism in tech, the transition is going to be difficult and they are going to take some hits. The two cultures don't mix well. It sounds like GitHub is going to have to become more stale and corporate to survive as a larger company, which is inevitable, but hastened by their own choices.

Women can't like dubstep or IPAs? Come on now...

No, they're only allowed to like top-40s and cosmos.

/s

Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure

#68
post #52
post #21

> We know we have to take action and have begun a full investigation. While that’s ongoing, and effective immediately, the relevant founder has been put on leave, as has the referenced GitHub engineer. Pretty much a full admission that everything that Julie said is true. This is great news, but putting these people on leave seems to be too nice. It's clear that these two people obey ethics that are in direct oppposit…

> This is great news, but putting these people on leave seems to be too nice. It's clear that these two people obey ethics that are in direct oppposition to the healthy growth of the company. Surely they don't want them back? The individuals, while allegedly shitlords in terms of their behaviour, being gone may eliminate 2 problems, but honestly they're products of an overall culture. In a healthy company you wouldn'…

And their line manager would have followed up with "if I even hear a rumor of this happening again, you'll be fired for cause". Because such harassment is, per my understanding, illegal, and can create enormous problems for the individual, manager, and company. Not to mention incredibly unethical.

Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure

#69
post #34
post #13

Well Julie's story stinks. Let me just quote the last thigs she wrote and work backwards from that. "Two women, one of whom I work with and adore, and a friend of hers were hula hooping to some music. I didn’t have a problem with this. What I did have a problem with is the line of men sitting on one bench facing the hoopers and gawking at them. It looked like something out of a strip club. When I brought this up to m…

Getting mad at people having harmless fun isn't normal, but on feminism it is...

Yeah, rage against feminism... the radical notion that women are people.

Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure

#70
post #31

This whole incident is sad. It's incredibly sad for Julie, for everyone at GitHub, for the founders, and for the alleged "crazy" founder wife who was banned from a company she probably sacrificed a lot for

I'm surprised nobody sees sexism in the way that the wife has been stigmatized.

I think the stigma is based on alleged bad behaviour. As this behaviour has nothing to do with gender I don't think it's accurate to say this is sexism. I could be wrong.
Post reply on HN