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Results of the GitHub Investigation

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Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#61

Post by gdonelli »

ggreer wrote: post #46
gdonelli wrote: post #32

It feels unconvincing, and unapologetic.

I can't think of much else they could reasonably do in response to these allegations. Tom was a founder, President, and former CEO of GitHub. They effectively fired him. They apologized profusely and laid out specific ways in which they're trying to fix the problem. They hired a new HR head. They're starting to train and educate employees. What else would you have GitHub do?

Agreed. everything is right rationally, in fact I said it "feels". It feels cold. It lacks human touch, in my opinion of course.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#62

Post by voidlogic »

mef wrote: post #34
cjbprime wrote: post #14

There appear to have been weirdnesses around the investigation, such as Julie Ann Horvath (and other ex-employees) remaining uncontacted until it was wrapping up: https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/453298152569720832 So I don't know how much stock you can place behind the idea that the investigators GH hired, who did not contact ex-employees competently, found them blameless. The resignation probably speaks for mor…

Theresa Preston-Werner's response https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215

This is all conjecture, but this series of events got me thinking about what to learn from this.

I have a feeling Ms. Horvath and Mrs. Preston-Werner completely believe their own interpretations of what happened.

This is a good reminder of how subtle and ambiguous our and others views of the same reality is. In her post Theresa mentions having a blind spot for the obligations that github employees felt for helping her charity, but she didn't see it, she saw friends.

I think this is a good lesson to us all about not only making clear HR polices, but also always giving intentional consideration to how those around us see what we say and do. A kind of intellectual empathy.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#63

Post by brandon272 »

awnird wrote: post #56
brandon272 wrote: post #29

It sounds like Mrs. Preston-Werner was a regular presence at the GitHub office and, according to Horvath, had extensive access to private information throughout GitHub's systems despite the fact that she wasn't an employee. If true, that should certainly be a privacy and security concern to any GitHub customer or user.

This is incredibly troubling. How can anyone trust GitHub, knowing that non-employees regularly had access to private information?

Well, we don't know that. It's an allegation by one person which hasn't been confirmed as being true by GitHub. And presumably after this incident, if it is true, they'll have better security policies going forward.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#65

Post by sytelus »

Can anyone tell what exact discrimination Horvath faced? I went through her long interview and I can only read how she "felt" to be in "boys club" as opposed to specific events that can be qualified as discrimination. For example, she says her code was reverted and was apparently blaming that event on her being a women. I can't imagine someone throwing good code away because it was written by a women rather it seems much more likely that her code had issues. Then there is series of rambling for founders wife sitting in front of her every day. That doesn't feel like discrimination either but rather feels like she was not looked upon as desirable employee there at higher level. Overall I got an impression that she was turning whatever bad performance on her part in to case of discrimination. May be I'm missing details but it is very hard to identify events that can actually be qualified as "discrimination" in her long rambling interview.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#66

Post by debt »

brandon272 wrote: post #29

It sounds like Mrs. Preston-Werner was a regular presence at the GitHub office and, according to Horvath, had extensive access to private information throughout GitHub's systems despite the fact that she wasn't an employee. If true, that should certainly be a privacy and security concern to any GitHub customer or user.

Yeah I'm curious about this myself. Doesn't this create a pretty serious security situation? GitHub isn't a small startup anymore, I would assume they'd have some pretty serious security precautions in place.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#67

Post by turar »

It's interesting how many would still remember the incident in question, if it wasn't brought up like this again. My personal attention span must be pretty short, it took a couple of days for me to stop associating Github with that incident.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#68

Post by chrismonsanto »

personZ wrote: post #58
chrismonsanto wrote: post #8

> The investigation found no evidence to support the claims [...] of a sexist or hostile work environment. So, are they saying that Horvath was lying? I mean, there was a lot of specific stuff she mentioned that seemed inappropriate. I don't want to get into whether the behavior was "sexist" or not, but I think we can all agree that if what she said was true, the work environment was hostile and unprofessional.

So, are they saying that Horvath was lying? Neither party has to be lying. She might honestly believe she was treated in a specific way because of her sex, while others may have treated her in a specific way because of, for instance, her competence. Both may be 100% honest in their assessment of the relationship, yet be completely at odds. The workplace absolutely sounded unprofessional, which often means the entire…

> She might honestly believe she was treated in a specific way because of her sex

Yes, but the investigation said there was no evidence for a hostile work environment. That's a claim above and beyond sexism: it's quantifying over all of the various ways a work environment could be hostile (of which sexism is one way). If what Horvath says about Preston's wife is true, then that sounds like a hostile work environment to me, regardless of whether the treatment was due to her sex.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#69

Post by nymph »

nymph wrote: post #23
chrismonsanto wrote: post #8

> The investigation found no evidence to support the claims [...] of a sexist or hostile work environment. So, are they saying that Horvath was lying? I mean, there was a lot of specific stuff she mentioned that seemed inappropriate. I don't want to get into whether the behavior was "sexist" or not, but I think we can all agree that if what she said was true, the work environment was hostile and unprofessional.

There was a lot of specific stuff she mentioned that seemed inappropriate. Such as?

Downvoters: Would you mind explaining yourselves? It was a perfectly reasonable question to ask.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#70

Post by comrh »

voidlogic wrote: post #62
mef wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theresa Preston-Werner's response https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215

This is all conjecture, but this series of events got me thinking about what to learn from this. I have a feeling Ms. Horvath and Mrs. Preston-Werner completely believe their own interpretations of what happened. This is a good reminder of how subtle and ambiguous our and others views of the same reality is. In her post Theresa mentions having a blind spot for the obligations that github employees felt for helping he…

And if people point out your blind spot: stop, listen and then reevaluate.
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