Results of the GitHub Investigation • Hacker News Board

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#311

Post by crashandburn4 » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:55 PM UTC

voidlogic wrote: post #253

parfe wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize if I missed it, but what mistakes did Tom Preston-Werner or GitHub publicly admit to? I just re-skimmed his blog and the github press release and only see denials of very specific terms regarding illegal sexual harassment.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7623440

So, just to clarify, you mean the mistake that he made was allowing Theresa to speak to employees of github and make them feel pressured to contribute to her start-up? or was there something else I'm missing?

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#312

Post by mtrimpe » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:55 PM UTC

abalone wrote: post #278

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…

Don't forget this link, the anonymous GitHub employee response to Horvath's claims: "Facts Conveniently Withheld". https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e

Let's not go there. Incorporating random anonymous posts will only make things worse.

For all we know Julie-Ann started dating someone close to Theresa Preston-Werner who shared that he, and several others, slept with her and could even be the father of Tom's child and then refused to distance himself from Theresa. When she shared this sad state of affairs in her private love life with some colleagues she was suddenly requested to meet with Theresa and....

See how that's both consistent and perfectly plausible yet still went from bad to worse pretty quickly? These things are messy enough as they are; let's not make them any messier than they need to be.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#313

Post by jw2013 » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:57 PM UTC

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 doubt there will ever be any clear explanation on what happened. Two sides of the story basically tell two different stories. As someone mentioned in the post, Julie posted some tweets in response to Github's announcement today. (https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore)

1. Bullying someone into quitting: Illegal.

2. Asking an employee to relay private conversations between her and her partner: Illegal.

3. Justifying the harassment of an employee because of her personal relationships: Pathetic.

4. How does it feel to make money for liars and cowards?

5. Pushing women with strong opinions out of your company because they disagree with you is wrong.

6. What number am I on? Oh yea, how do you sleep at night?

7. Leaving GitHub was the best decision of my life.

8. There was no investigation.

9. There was a series of conversations with a "mediator" who sought to relieve GitHub of any legal responsibility.

10. Whose reasoning included "would it surprise you to hear that [your harasser] was well-liked?"

11. No, no it would not.

12. Women at GitHub who sprang forward to defend the men who harassed me, it is naive to think the same thing cannot and will not happen to you.

13. Best of luck rolling the dice.

14. A company can never own you. They can't tell you who to fuck or not fuck. And they can't take away your voice.

15. Unless you let them.

16. Hmmm still no mention of the man who bullied me out of our code base because I wouldn't fuck him. Too popular to be accountable, I guess.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#314

Post by vectorpush » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:58 PM UTC

kalleth wrote: post #206

rinon wrote: post #162

Maybe it's just me, but I don't really think speculating on fights like this from the outside without full and complete information is beneficial, or even sane and rational. Can we just all agree that we don't know the full story here, and that any and all players might be misleading or not telling the whole story publicly? This is an internal issue. The only opinions I am interested in are internal opinions of other…

This is the internet. There is no place here for your logic and reason.

I literally cringe whenever someone posts this hackneyed response.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#315

Post by Maxford_Maxford » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 10:59 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #82

kategleason wrote: post #41

:( this sucks. Github would not even exist without Tom Preston-Werner and I am really scared to see how it will exist without him. Tragic for all his users.

> I am really scared to see how it will exist without him Isn't that a little bit extreme? Do all the good things that happen at Github stem directly from Tom Preston-Werner? I can't claim intimate knowledge of Github the company, but I somehow doubt that this is a "Steve Jobs" type situation.

Come to think, I somehow doubt Steve Jobs was a "Steve Jobs" type situation.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#316

Post by emocakes » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 11:00 PM UTC

nhangen wrote: post #49

Silly thing these gender based politics and acts of political correctness. I can guarandamntee you that if I was Tom and was innocent, mistakes in judgment aside, I would not be resigning from MY COMPANY. Is this the result of new board members coming in post-investment? If so, it's more reason to stay bootstrapped and free. If not, who is there to pressure him other than Chris? Edit: 4 downvotes without a single com…

in regards to misplaced frustration and angst, pretty much, tech is mostly filled with frustrated, unattractive (physical and personality wise) middle aged men, who believe that the only way to find a mate is to swallow this liberal agenda so as to make themselves appear as more of a 'nice guy', and thus in their twisted little heads, becoming more attractive to members of the opposite sex. Typical beta mentality.

edit: actually, I should say that tech is not actually like this, its mainly the illusion that reddit and HN present.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#317

Post by nailer » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 11:02 PM UTC

vpv wrote: post #47

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

She didn't write JS for Cats. Which is excellent, BTW.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#318

Post by smtddr » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 11:03 PM UTC

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?

I wouldn't have a joke like that on any of my social profiles. If anything, this is in her defense since it's one data-point indicating she's not a stereotypical hyper-feminist-drama-queen(do these even exist?) looking to be offended by the slightest incident. She's easy-going enough to have something like that on her public profile and she _knows_ what people will think of first when they read that.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#319

Post by ama729 » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 11:03 PM UTC

abalone wrote: post #278

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…

Don't forget this link, the anonymous GitHub employee response to Horvath's claims: "Facts Conveniently Withheld". https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e

Have there been any confirmation this is actually a Github employee? Because as far as we know, this could just as well be a troll.

Re: Results of the GitHub Investigation

#320

Post by facepalm » Mon, Apr 21, 2014, 11:03 PM UTC

jfc wrote: post #245

facepalm wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This doesn't mean there isn't any evidence--it just means that their internal investigation didn't find any." How could you ever claim anything else, though? You can only make a claim about the things you did find (including absence of things), not about things you didn't find, because you can not know about them. This is just another example of human communication depending on goodwill. If some involved parties wan…

Again, in my comment I mention that this memo is no different than other corporate statements. My point is that some comments on here say "there is no evidence", which is not what the memo says. Saying you didn't find something isn't the same as saying that something doesn't exist.

I'm not sure I agree. Of course, very strictly speaking you are probably right. So we can never know or prove anything. We can not prove that god doesn't exist, or that the flying spaghetti monster doesn't exist, or that invisible dragons don't exist. That doesn't seem a very useful attitude, though. I think not finding evidence is some evidence, at least in a bayesian sense. And OK, we can know some things - I know there is no visible dragon sitting on my keyboard right now.