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Results of the GitHub Investigation

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Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#261

Post by wankerrific »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #173
awnird wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What about de-facto board members? Tom was on GitHub's board, it was/is a small company, I don't get how "founder's wife" is not a suitably trusted position. I mean, clearly a bad call in this case, but hindsight is 20/20, and in my small business the husbands of my co-founders are de-facto employees (And in fact board members with significant proxy voting power, simply by state law of common property). Edit: I looke…

Most corporate startup lawyers have founder's spouses sign release forms for to clearly indicate that they do not have some claim to ownership or equity.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#262

Post by Someone »

jfc wrote: post #165

These memos are often more about what isn't said: > The investigation found no evidence... This doesn't mean there isn't any evidence--it just means that their internal investigation didn't find any. If read carefully, this statement tells us nothing about the universe of evidence that exists, but only about what GitHub didn't find. A different investigator might come to a completely different conclusion, or find oth…

"The investigation found no evidence..."

That's the only thing you can say. Moving this to another, more objectively verifiable domain: let's suppose you want to buy a house, and you ask the seller whether asbestos was used in its construction. A seller would be stupid to go further than "to the best of my knowledge…". Problem is: if you buy the house and ten years later find asbestos behind some wall, and the seller said it wasn't there, he hangs, even if he couldn't know of the problem. Of course, you can refuse to buy unless you get a 100% definite answer, but that would raise the price because the seller would have to do better inspection (possible destructive) and/or find insurance and/or would want money for the risk he takes.

The same applies to this outside firm: if they categorically state that there are no problems, but it later turns out that there are, they are target for litigation both from employees of the company and from the company itself ("you told us we didn't have problems! but now our stock tanked")

The best you likely can get is a detailed description of what they did in their research. That limits the risk for that company. If they claim they read every e-mail message, and it later turns out that they could have spotted a problem from there, they are liable, but if it turns out they could have spotted a problem from the phone records, they are off the hook.

So yes, it would be nice to learn what exactly this outside firm did, so that we can gauge how hard they tried to find something, but I don't blame them for saying they found no evidence.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#263

Post by theorique »

pdonis wrote: post #167
personZ wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> unprofessional workplaces are generally celebrated in the tech community, often for good reason Why for good reason? Do you have any specific examples in mind?

Not the OP but here's an example.

And yet conventional ideas of professionalism have such an iron grip on our minds that even startup founders are affected by them. In our startup, when outsiders came to visit we tried hard to seem "professional." We'd clean up our offices, wear better clothes, try to arrange that a lot of people were there during conventional office hours. In fact, programming didn't get done by well-dressed people at clean desks during office hours. It got done by badly dressed people (I was notorious for programmming wearing just a towel) in offices strewn with junk at 2 in the morning. But no visitor would understand that. Not even investors, who are supposed to be able to recognize real productivity when they see it. Even we were affected by the conventional wisdom.

http://www.paulgraham.com/foundersatwork.html

The idea being, in that ultra-early-stage, 2-3 founding members only, state, trying too hard to be "professional" is counterproductive. Obviously, at the scale that we're talking about with Github, the game changes.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#264

Post by Nelson69 »

ender7 wrote: post #112
tptacek wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Surely other women work there. Time will tell here, won't it? The story is dramatically more powerful if other women come forward. I don't know that it lessens things if others do not but it does create some interesting questions to those brave enough to ask them.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#265

Post by neilk »

hntaway wrote: post #96
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…

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.

Anonymous allegations are worthless unless other Githubbers can confirm this.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#266

Post by nailer »

caycep wrote: post #237
ender7 wrote: post #81

"We didn't do anything illegal, or that would leave us vulnerable to a lawsuit" is about the only content that this blog post contains. While Horvath characterized much of her woes as being gender-related [1], the investigation could have classified most of them as either unprovable or terrible-but-not-provably-sexist (in particular, the behavior of the Preston-Werners). I doubt it will ever be clear what actually ha…

I seem to recall another big fight between Github employees and Zed Shaw of Learn Python the Hard Way fame...perhaps that was a warning sign that HR policies needed to be brought up to snuff or even created in the 1st place...

This. Both Zed and JAH are difficult personalities, but a professional structure should be in place to handle matters which can distract people from work.

GitHub should have implemented a blocking mechanism to stop people inviting Zed to 'dick' projects, and if the rumour mongering story is true, HR should have stepped in and disciplined Horvath.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#267

Post by [deleted] »

mahyarm wrote: post #116
danielweber wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TOTALLY MADE-UP EXAMPLE: 1. Employee makes sexual harassment claim. 2. Outside HR consultant brought in. 3. Consultant asks "where is your anti-sexual harassment training course?" 4. CEO says o_o. 5. HR consultant establishes a policy for the company. 6. Board asks CEO to resign for not having the thing asked for in #3. Not having a training course isn't illegal -- it's not even evidence that anyone was sexually hara…

In California once your company goes over a certain size (which github has), they must have a sexual harassment course presented to the employees every one or two years. In my company that was a mandatory all company meeting where a lawyer made a powerpoint presentation for a couple of hours. Then there was some sort quiz and us signing something as far as I can remember.

[deleted]

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#268

Post by leccine »

bitlord_219 wrote: post #217
leccine wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, if you have problem with your employment you sit down with your manager or your peers and talk about it. If you can resolve the case right there great if not, escalate. If you still think that they mistreat you, get a lawyer. Going public with accusations that you can't prove is certainly not the way. Look at her now, you think that there is any company on this planet which is going to risk the same pro…

When it's the CEO who you have a problem with, how do you escalate beyond him? > Look at her now, you think that there is any company on this planet which is going to risk the same process that was done to Github on a maximum mediocre engineer? I don't think so. She already has another job with &yet. I'm curious though, what makes you think she's a "maximum mediocre engineer"?

Well beyond the CEO is my lawyer and you get gather proof and build a case. She just exploded and left, making accusations nobody can prove. Again, that anonymous post just made it clear that she did not tell half of the story.

Just by going through her public gh profile.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#269

Post by [deleted] »

rhizome wrote: post #152
smtddr wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why, because she's supposed to be sexless before she can be credible in a claim of sexual harassment?

[deleted]

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#270

Post by jfc »

chc wrote: post #248
jfc wrote: post #165

These memos are often more about what isn't said: > The investigation found no evidence... This doesn't mean there isn't any evidence--it just means that their internal investigation didn't find any. If read carefully, this statement tells us nothing about the universe of evidence that exists, but only about what GitHub didn't find. A different investigator might come to a completely different conclusion, or find oth…

> These memos are often more about what isn't said: > > The investigation found no evidence... > This doesn't mean there isn't any evidence--it just means that their internal investigation didn't find any. If read carefully, this statement tells us nothing about the universe of evidence that exists, but only about what GitHub didn't find. You seem to be including this as part of a narrative where this statement is ph…

No, I don't think my comment is revelatory. Just adding my opinion to the boards like everybody else.
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