One of the things I'm very curious about is what effect this will have on GitHub's culture as a whole. I've been in a startups where one of my colleagues triggered events that slowly began transforming our startup culture into more of a corporate culture.
Update on Julie Horvath's Departure
311–320 of 473 posts
Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure
#312When I arrived at this thread, comment two was 'using the information available in the short techcrunch article, I'm now going to PROVE, point by point, how Horvath's claims are false.' Comment three was 'aha they issued a vague apology, this is basically a FULL ADMISSION that everything Horvath said was true!' People: when did our brains melt and spill out of our ears? There is not enough public information present…
"People: when did our brains melt and spill out of our ears?" When the topic is as controversial as sexism in tech and the workplace. Or whatever the flashpoint happens to be at the moment. Like sequoia, I've noticed that controversial topics brings out the most incredible responses from both sides, and often with very little definitive evidence. To me, this is a sign of how deeply felt this topic is, and how much it…
Why do people even care when the story isn't fully developed?
Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure
#313When I arrived at this thread, comment two was 'using the information available in the short techcrunch article, I'm now going to PROVE, point by point, how Horvath's claims are false.' Comment three was 'aha they issued a vague apology, this is basically a FULL ADMISSION that everything Horvath said was true!' People: when did our brains melt and spill out of our ears? There is not enough public information present…
"People: when did our brains melt and spill out of our ears?" When the topic is as controversial as sexism in tech and the workplace. Or whatever the flashpoint happens to be at the moment. Like sequoia, I've noticed that controversial topics brings out the most incredible responses from both sides, and often with very little definitive evidence. To me, this is a sign of how deeply felt this topic is, and how much it…
> Like sequoia, I've noticed that controversial topics brings out the most incredible responses from both sides, and often with very little definitive evidence. To me, this is a sign of how deeply felt this topic is, and how much it is just under the surface of our thoughts, ready to explode when an appropriate trigger occurs.
I'm not sure if you were framing this as a net negative or positive, but I actually do appreciate when these controversial debates occur. I like to see all the contrasting world-views brought out into the open and into conflict with each other. I agree that civility is a problem, though.
Anyway, I mention this because I worry sometimes that HN's "flamewar detector" (or is it purely flagging?) seems to kill these kinds of threads, ones with a high comment-to-upvote ratio (though some notable recent threads have seemed to escape this). I often wonder if this mechanism is worth the trouble. I suppose if heated debate leads to polarization of opinion, that's an issue, but I don't know if that's necessarily the case.
Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure
#314When I arrived at this thread, comment two was 'using the information available in the short techcrunch article, I'm now going to PROVE, point by point, how Horvath's claims are false.' Comment three was 'aha they issued a vague apology, this is basically a FULL ADMISSION that everything Horvath said was true!' People: when did our brains melt and spill out of our ears? There is not enough public information present…
This statement has more meaning that you are willing to concede. If they are starting now to investigate, it means that when troubles were occuring, or even when Julia H. gave her demission, they didn't care enough to investigate thoroughly (perhaps they have other priorities, that's just a fact). This in itself is not good looking, and I feel that from there whatever really happened, they won't have the full version…
Hogwash. Companies always say they will open an investigation. In the least, it buys a little time for the story to die down and the next big stories to hit the media cycle.
Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure
#315This validates a lot of things without explicitly doing so. Why put the engineer in question on leave, and the wife and the founder and mentioning it in this apology? Makes no sense unless it was because of what happened. That isn't to say that what Julie said happened did, but there is an ounce of credibility there. Depending on how this resolves, I may (likely) take my business elsewhere.
Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure
#316It's good to see a straight-up apology, not a mealy-mouthed "I'm sorry if our engineer's sexual harrassment offended you" type response. Of course, it would have been better if Julie had felt like she could have taken this up while she still worked there and got something done at the time.
Re-read it. He was careful not to actually apologize for anything in particular. It's worth noting that they have not admitted to any 'sexism' or whatever other accusations are floating around.
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Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Comments on the original TechCrunch article were equally vindicating even though that article offered no actual evidence. It's unfortunate TechCrunch and Valley Wag posted the story without first corroborating at least some piece of it. GitHub's response neither confirms nor denies any part of the story. It does say the founder's wife will no longer be allowed in the office, but that is not an admission of wrong…
> GitHub's response neither confirms nor denies any part of the story. Well, they do say: 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. The founder’s wife discussed in the media reports has never had hiring or firing power at GitHub and will no longer be permitted i…
Yup. This, to me, is a partial admission of guilt. Why else would they take such harsh, immediate action to throw him under the bus?
Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure
#318Of course we may never know for sure exactly what was said (unless everything was secretly recorded somehow... NSA - data, please), but my initial reaction is that this story sounds a bit... exaggerated. Were things said that shouldn't have been said? Probably so. But here's the way I read it from TC: Let's look at what Horvath claims: > character started being discussed in inappropriate places like on pull requests…
"Just for sake of argument, here's a possible conversation that could be twisted into fitting the above description:"
Your example cannot be twisted into a reasonable description of "very inappropriate".
Overall your comment reads like you don't want this story to be true and are trying to minimise every part of it. Which you are free to do, but you could have just said "I don't want this story to be true".
Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure
#319When I arrived at this thread, comment two was 'using the information available in the short techcrunch article, I'm now going to PROVE, point by point, how Horvath's claims are false.' Comment three was 'aha they issued a vague apology, this is basically a FULL ADMISSION that everything Horvath said was true!' People: when did our brains melt and spill out of our ears? There is not enough public information present…
"People: when did our brains melt and spill out of our ears?" When the topic is as controversial as sexism in tech and the workplace. Or whatever the flashpoint happens to be at the moment. Like sequoia, I've noticed that controversial topics brings out the most incredible responses from both sides, and often with very little definitive evidence. To me, this is a sign of how deeply felt this topic is, and how much it…
In an ideal world, this should really be a no-brainer. Gender-background abuse should be an abhorred practice, the way we normally abhor, say, killing people.
It is telling that the topic of sexism in tech and the workplace is controversial at all.
Re: Update on Julie Horvath's Departure
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is the damage of a lawsuit different to the damage of their brand? It's one and the same.
Damage to their brand is temporary. If they behave themselves in a civilized manner from here on in, the media will soon forget this incident and move on to the next scandal. On the other hand, if the lawsuit is for enough money, it can bankrupt the company: a huge award to the plaintiff, lawyer fees, executives tied up in court instead of running the company, etc. Their investors may not be interested in covering bi…
I don't think we are talking about the same thing. Depending on who you read, Github is a $750m company. What's the payout going to be - $2m? $5m? This isn't going to bankrupt them.
San Diego Sea World and the killer whale or Blackberry & Palm mobile devices are examples of irreparable brand damage.
What's the going price for a Microsoft Zune player?