Update on Julie Horvath's Departure

Before we string up the cofounder's wife, let's actually let her and/or the cofounder defend themselves, OK? It's entirely possible Horvath is completely embellishing things and the cofounder's wife didn't do anything terribly out of line.

The cheapest way to win a lawsuit is for it never to be filed in the first place.

Let's look at what Horvath claims:

> character started being discussed in inappropriate places like on pull requests and issues

It's unclear what exactly this means, and in most cases, bringing up someone's character in PRs is certainly inappropriate. Does it happen? Yes, it happens all the time, regardless of gender. A PR comment like "it's a bit naive to assume these conditions will be met in this instruction - please fix" is technically bringing up someone's character inappropriately. She never claimed (at least as quoted by TC) that sexist or intimidating things were brought up in PRs/issues - just that "character started being discussed".

> She calls her colleagues’ response to her own work and the work of other female GitHub employees a “serious problem.”

Again, pretty unclear. The response to her work MAY have had nothing to do with her gender or any kind of personal/social conflict, but rather based solely on performance. If such was the case, then I'd say colleagues tend to "respond" to other people's work all day long. I honestly can't say the "response" in this case was completely benign, but again, the article and direct quotes certainly don't seem to point at anything specific.

> she struggled to feel welcome.

This is a common feeling in pretty much any workplace or environment, regardless of who you are.

> she did her best to distance herself from the founder’s wife, as well as the founder, for fear of being caught up in an unhealthy situation.

This is mentioned before anything else regarding the founder or the founder's wife. It sounds like (at least the way it's presented in the article) some kind of animosity was felt even before any real interaction between the parties. That could be based on anything (including possibly Horvath's own prejudgement). The truth is we don't know because we aren't given any more details.

> almost immediately the conversation that I thought was supposed to be causal turned into something very inappropriate. She began telling me about how she informs her husband’s decision-making at GitHub, how I better not leave GitHub and write something bad about them, and how she had been told by her husband that she should intervene with my relationship to be sure I was ‘made very happy’ so that I wouldn’t quit and say something nasty about her husband’s company because ‘he had worked so hard.’... the wife went on to claim that she was responsible for hires at GitHub, and asked Horvath to explain to her what she was working on.

Just for sake of argument, here's a possible conversation that could be twisted into fitting the above description:

"Glad you could join us for drinks! My husband works hard to create an amazing workplace at GitHub, and even though I'm not a part of the company myself, I enjoy meeting the employees and want to help people feel welcome the best way I can. My husband told me you're fairly new... what is it you do? That's great. I just want to make sure you're very happy at GitHub. In some way, I feel responsible for helping make sure the company treats everyone well. If there's anything that could be better, I might be able to put in a word with him. The last thing they'd want is for you to have a bad experience and leave the company."

That's just an example of something I wouldn't be surprised to hear from a founder's spouse in a startup environment.

> The wife also claimed to employ “spies” inside of GitHub, and claimed to be able to, again according to Horvath, read GitHub employees’ private chat-room logs, which only employees are supposed to have access to

I agree this is definitely crossing a line, but of course the wife only "claimed" to have this access. That doesn't mean she does, and I could easily see it being said in a low voice (trying to win over someone's "exclusive" or "secret" friendly confidence) along the lines of:

"I'm not officially with GitHub, but I have ears. I try to keep close tabs on what employees are saying about the company in the chat rooms and company chit-chat."

The next few events are pretty vague. It includes rumors, a random profession of love (and rejection) outside the workplace (if she had a problem with trespassing, she should have called the cops; the male engineer's reaction at work - if true - should have been corrected by HR, but it sounds like it was never brought up to HR by Horvath as it should have been), Horvath "feeling threatened", and "the founder accus[ing] her of threatening his wife", followed by the wife "sitting close to Horvath". Lots of generalities.

Finally it bubbles to the point of Horvath claiming "The next thing I knew the wife was in my face at my work station verbally attacking me"

From my own experience, perfectly civil conversations can often be turned into "verbal attacks" later if it helps a person's case. I'm not saying that's what happened here, but the details are just so vague. What was the conversation about?

As for the hula hooping... you're telling me that two women hula hooping to music in the workplace is perfectly appropriate, but when the other people nearby (who are going to be mostly males if the majority of employees are male - go figure) suddenly notice, that's the inappropriate part? Really?

I certainly won't say that Horvath is making this stuff up, and it does sound like some inappropriate actions did occur and she should be upset. But I will say that based on the "evidence" presented in the TC article, GitHub is not guilty of all the claims "beyond a shadow of a doubt."

The company I work for often has spouses and significant others (including the CEO's) around either for drinks in the evening, or just for fun.

They don't have any power or influence in the company beyond the typical role of adviser that all spouses serve.