A Reminder To Investors • Hacker News Board

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#121

Post by Chronic29 » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:15 PM UTC

loganu wrote: post #89

angersock wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I'm rather surprised that there hasn't/isn't a fund or group set up explicitly for that purpose--just being up front that yeah, there's tit-for-tat, if you want funding you may have to deal with this nonsense. I further wonder how close that would skirt the lines of laws against prostitution. I imagine such a thing would be amazingly toxic and hopefully collapse into a vortex of bad. EDIT: It's an offensive…

Downvotes because you're wondering why there isn't a VC fund/group "explicitly" set up to invest money in companies/individuals in exchange for some sort of sexual favors or for tolerating whatever behaviour you would throw at them. It may just be an idea that you're not explicitly advocating, but it's an idea that's too close to what professionals here and the industry as a whole are trying to distance themselves fr…

Just because the industry is trying to avoid it, doesn't mean we can't discuss it. I too am interested if there is a VC who explicitly tries to do this.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#122

Post by intortus » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:19 PM UTC

sebkomianos wrote: post #108

intortus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your analogy makes no sense. If you've read any of the previous Y Combinator statements on sexism against founders, you'd know that position being taken here is one of removing inefficiencies in the system. All the women being literally chased out by male investors who are seriously abusing their power just to get their rocks off is considered to be a huge opportunity cost. A female founder conference is a workaround…

Okay, so let's be honest and direct and talk about the system and its inefficiencies. Because so far all this "no sexism" has everyone believe that it is about people, not "the system". Which is why I am saying, if you care about the people - which we happen to describe with the term "females" in this case - you should strive to include them, not to create conferences, events and groups that "protect" them by isolati…

For the ballet analogy to fit, you'd have to imagine that men who attended coed classes were frequently subject to a lot of negative attention, ranging from "oh my god a male" all the way up to blatant sexual abuse. You would have to imagine men generally avoiding ballet because of this.

In such a situation, I think providing some path for men to participate at all, and thus gradually shift the balance to the point where it no longer is a big deal, would trump the more abstract general concern of "let's not ever make anything about sex." I understand that ideal, but we're not there yet. We're in a remedial situation, where VC (and much of society, to be honest) is as of yet too immature to allow that to work.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#123

Post by rayiner » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:20 PM UTC

tuneladora wrote: post #5

I perfectly understand intolerance towards sexual harassment but I wonder what qualifies as "inappropriate romantic behavior" in this context. You can not ask a founder "on a date"? What's if is the other way around? EDIT: of course this is coming from a nobody. I'm just curious.

The other responses are excellent, but I'll add my two cents. There is good reason to interpret this language broadly. Its really shitty when someone you assumed was interested in you as a potential investment (or as a coworker or mentor or contact or just an ally in office politics), turns out to just be interested in getting into your pants. Hitting on someone at demo day is just the tip of the iceberg. This goes all the way down to asking out someone on your team. This shit is just toxic up and down.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#124

Post by StandardFuture » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:20 PM UTC

I have always been pessimistic about the glorification of Silicon Valley, but this puts me over the edge to be utterly disgusted with everything that is the Tech world.

It might as well be a giant cult, where the "priests" (VCs and/or wealthy individuals in general) get to have sex with the women (people) of their choice. I am absolutely disgusted. The level of hypocrisy in this industry is horrendous. Until the Tech community can clean up its own act, it need not apply for 'cleaning up the world'.

There is a systemic attitude justifying these actions in the minds of these individuals. Just because they may be extremal outliers does not mean that their thinking was independent of their environment.

EDIT: I would like to add: And just because you write software, or helped build a company, or invested in a company that created a widely adopted piece of software, does NOT make you some sort of (semi-)savior of the world. I strongly believe that much of the chauvinism we are seeing is derived from the already large (undeserved) egotistical foundation much of S.V. sustains/feeds/nourishes itself off of.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#125

Post by simplemind » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:20 PM UTC

yid wrote: post #110

simplemind wrote: post #100

Sadly, I sometimes worry that explicit moves like this deter investors from working with female founders. If the risk is, "I have to watch every little thing I say/joke with a female founder lest I get blacklisted", if I was a VC, I might choose to avoid female founders altogether. Wonder if the better solution involves more carrot and less stick.

> if I was a VC, I might choose to avoid female founders altogether. If you're a VC, you should be adept at assessing risk. If you think that the "risk" of working with female founders outweighs the potential upside, you're definitely not going to be touching my money and I'd rather not have any of yours.

How would you know? We all know investors who only have male-founded companies in their portfolios.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#126

Post by 7Figures2Commas » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:22 PM UTC

loganu wrote: post #109

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm not as easily impressed as you are. Sam Altman recently wrote[1], "Yes, it’s awful to hear the horror stories of wildly inappropriate behavior from investors to the entrepreneurs pitching them. (Unfortunately, stories like these are not super rare, but because there’s a big cost to going public with them, most never get told. My hope is that YC has enough leverage at this point to make it clear that this…

I don't know, but it could be both? On one hand, most cases of harassment/ whatever never get exposed. On the other, YC thinks they have a good handle on the VCs they are working with, and believe that they are all (or mostly) above this behaviour. The truth is probably somewhere in between, and it doesn't really matter. Both are explicitly stating that this behaviour is not tolerated and bears consequences.

Sam Altman acknowledges that stories of this behavior are not "super rare", but that "most" stories don't get told for obvious reasons. Y Combinator states that Demo Day is attended by "most of the world’s top startup investors." This is a large group of people.

Given the size of the investor pool and apparent prevalence of this behavior, the "nearly all the investors we know are completely upstanding and professional" statement is preposterous. There is simply no way for anybody to know all of the investors who are behaving badly, and the "even one inappropriate incident is too many" statement minimizes the regularity with which it is clear this behavior is occurring by subtly suggesting that these are isolated incidents.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#127

Post by jchrome » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:26 PM UTC

highCs wrote: post #90

bdcravens wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional athletes and drug use. Police officers and violence. Clergy and child sexual abuse. As a percentage, those situations are extreme minorities, but it's important to aggressively address serious issues that exist in an industry, and not shy away for fear of generalizing.

Interesting point. But if I rephrase things a little bit, I don't feel it is becoming better: "A reminder to Clergy people: no sexual abuse on children are permitted." I think if I was a member of that profession, I would feel insulted. EDIT: rerephrased according to comment (that may invalidate the commentors' opinions).

Well, putting it that way, it is an insult. This is why companies have someone who is intelligent craft delicate messages.

There are a lot of common sense things in this world. Washing behind your ears, changing your sheets... etc.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#128

Post by goatforce5 » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:29 PM UTC

simplemind wrote: post #100

Sadly, I sometimes worry that explicit moves like this deter investors from working with female founders. If the risk is, "I have to watch every little thing I say/joke with a female founder lest I get blacklisted", if I was a VC, I might choose to avoid female founders altogether. Wonder if the better solution involves more carrot and less stick.

What if that same male VC met a male founder and he got some gay vibes off of him? Oh no!

Best take him to the gym and do manly guy things like working out and hanging out in the steam room to prove his masculinity.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#129

Post by dsirijus » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:31 PM UTC

Not insignificant, but major amount of relationships and subsequent marriages have sprung from flirts and advances at work, obviously frequently including power-disbalanced positions. [1]

While this particular (and pretty stringent at that) declaration of code of conduct is probably conducive to business and PR goals of YC, I'm far from convinced it will be advancing health of relationships between individuals concerned.

[1] http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdeta...

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#130

Post by trose » Tue, Aug 12, 2014, 5:33 PM UTC

cjensen wrote: post #116

The only way to stop bullying is to stand up to bullies. I know it's difficult and there may be consequences, but I really believe the right way to handle this is to gather up a bunch of these stories and publish them with full disclosure of the names of people involved. You don't change a culture of harassment by quietly warning people about who is a harasser. You change the culture by ostracizing people who behave…

Devil's advocate: We should be careful about doing this as we could end up harassing someone over a false claim or overreaction. In this case, maybe some discretion is necessary. I do support public humiliation in cases that are well documented and blatant.