151–160 of 514 posts
So, guy who wrote GitHub and a ton of open source stuff is ousted from his own company and sacrificed for a person whos biggest accomplishment in open source is JavaScript for Cats? https://github.com/nrrrdcore/javascript-for-cats
Julie Ann Horvath has posted a bunch of interesting tweets about it starting here https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458340919721197568
Somehow, I don't think she's doing what is in her best interest right now. The guy has resigned and the tech media is totally on this story right now. Any small _preceived_ misstep and she could end up being labeled another "Adria Richards". Also, the question[1] in her current github background appears to represent a suggestive joke that I would have never guessed she'd be comfortable with. Not saying this is any ki…
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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…
"I was the wife of the CEO, but that never entered my mind when I hung out with any GitHubbers."
That is just not acceptable; it's the equivalent of walking around with a machine gun in your hands and saying that you never considered it might have any impact.
As much as she might have liked it to, you can't wield considerable power over people's lives and have them treat you as though you don't. It just doesn't work that way.
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…
An anonymous post on medium by github insiders: https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e Unfortunate that it is anonymous, but it is still worth reading in my opinion.
GitHub did the right thing and it turns out that Ms. Horvath accusations were without any basis. She not just damaged the gender equality efforts harder for everybody but raised visibility about how hiring females can damage your company's reputation. This is not the right way of fighting for the good case. A good example how to challenge the status quo: http://qz.com/192071/how-one-college-went-from-10-female-com...…
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No, that's saying that Tom Preston-Werner was exonerated, and that a different problem surfaced during the investigation. It is not necessary for Horvath to have lied for that to be the conclusion reached. Misunderstandings happen.
>The investigation found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or hostile work environment. However, while there may have been no legal wrongdoing, the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment. Using the word "exonerated" outright ignores the conclusion of the report. The github hired investigator reporte…
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You're right. It will never be clear what actually happened. I think Internet message boards create the perception that outcomes like that are rare. They're not: they're the norm. That's how it's supposed to be. We don't get to know everything and we need to work within the limits of our knowledge.
The only problem for GitHub now is finding a way to attract talent. If your best response to "You have a hostile work environment." is "We don't have a provably illegal hostile work environment." then that doesn't inspire great confidence when evaluating it as a place to work.
It probably will challenge their recruitment of women though.
This statement is pretty terrible. The line "sexual or gender-based harassment" looks like it's been specifically written to exclude other kinds of harassment, especially given that term is used multiple times. Employee harassment of any kind is unacceptable and if they're not willing to admit that it's a problem and act as if it's something that should be brushed under the carpet then it will continue to be a proble…
But generally not illegal except as a form of discrimination on an illegal basis (as in, e.g., sexual harassment.) The line about sexual or gender-based harassment is part of the detail leading up to the general statement of no legal wrongdoing, which is followed by the statement about errors of judgement, etc., that do not rise to the level of legal wrongdoing.
Harassment that does not constitute legally-prohibited discrimination would fall into the category of error that they have expressly stated did occur.
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No, the denial says "no evidence exists to support the claim". That's a direct and testable assertion, not weasel words.
I'd like to see how you (or anyone here) propose to test it. This isn't science; it's a corporate press release. Do we know the name of the "full, independent, third-party" investigator(s)? Do we know who paid for them, their methodology, and whether they reported to Horvath, giving her oversight? Or are investigators the same, like software contractors?
It would be very dumb of GitHub to state that there is no evidence if there is evidence that Horvath could turn up. (Granted, sometimes companies are dumb.)
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>The investigation found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or hostile work environment. However, while there may have been no legal wrongdoing, the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment. Using the word "exonerated" outright ignores the conclusion of the report. The github hired investigator reporte…
Your scare-quotes around "other" are deceptive, since those other mistakes aren't a mystery.