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A Reminder To Investors

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: A Reminder To Investors

#141

Post by dsirijus »

dsg42 wrote: post #137
dsirijus wrote: post #129

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 concer…

What the fuck kind of response is this? Attitudes like this are the reason harassment is a problem in the tech industry. Yes, it happens. Occasionally. But not in a situation with these kinds of power dynamics. It is never appropriate to flirt with someone who is trying to engage in a business transaction with you. No exceptions.

You're not listening. It's not happening ocassionally. It's one of the major drivers of relationship genesis. You may knee-jerk deny it and be inappropriate in your response as much as you want.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#142

Post by yummyfajitas »

rayiner wrote: post #114
yummyfajitas wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a translation of Altman's message from powertalk into english: "Dear feminists and rabble rousers, we recognize your power. We are on your team. We will genuflect in the direction of those things you consider holy. Please don't target us." (For those unfamiliar with the term, "powertalk" is the in-group language of powerful people.) http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-i... YC is attempt…

Saying that feminists are in a position of power is utterly ridiculous.

They clearly have the power to cause trouble for tech companies. Witness Pax Dickinson, Julie Horvath, and various other incidents.

It just makes (selfish) sense for Altman to try to appease them. It's bad for the industry - showing weakness will encourage more behavior of this type. (Think about why they are targeting a bunch of unlikeable low status geeks.) But it's good for YC to encourage them to target others

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#143

Post by StandardFuture »

brogrammer90 wrote: post #93

This is no surprise. There's no metro area in the USA as cringe worthy as SV when it comes to relationships between men and women. Sexually frustrated neck beards and moderately attractive women do not mix. I can't even count the number of times a coworker has confessed his love to another, get rejected, then go out of his way to sabotage their career.

Does this come from the fact that most "computer nerds" spend their lives (whether by choice or 'lot in life') in pure isolation (if not physically then mentally)? In other words, does this void of 'sociality' in their life lead them to completely lack sympathy, empathy, and general kindness towards others? And does our tech environment (that encourages that lifestyle) also 'justify' that this mentality is not only okay but actually right. And by 'environment' I am not referring to the things we like to say (e.g. "Change the world", "put more diversity in the workplace(world)", etc.) but by the things we do (e.g. only hiring people that really are a lot like ourselves, if not just like ourselves).

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#144

Post by dkarapetyan »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #70

Possibly prompted by this anonymous Forbes piece making the rounds on Twitter recently: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/08/07/what-it...

The anonymity in that article doesn't help. It doesn't matter how much money you have the kind of behavior described in that article is unacceptable. I like to think that the majority of technologists and entrepreneurs are humanists and they are in it to make the world a better place. I also like to think that if the article wasn't anonymous there would be non-violent collective action to make it known in no uncertain terms that kind of behavior is unacceptable from anyone.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#145

Post by tptacek »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #126
loganu wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 professiona…

You have provided neither the evidence nor the logic that could guide us towards your extraordinary claim that it is "preposterous" that most of the investors YC works with aren't harassing women.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#146

Post by bdcravens »

brogrammer90 wrote: post #93

This is no surprise. There's no metro area in the USA as cringe worthy as SV when it comes to relationships between men and women. Sexually frustrated neck beards and moderately attractive women do not mix. I can't even count the number of times a coworker has confessed his love to another, get rejected, then go out of his way to sabotage their career.

Sexually frustrated neck beards

Source that this is the typical YC investor? Pretty sure this is an inaccurate generalization.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#147

Post by Jun8 »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #111
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…

Here is a translation of Altman's message from powertalk into english: "Dear feminists and rabble rousers, we recognize your power. We are on your team. We will genuflect in the direction of those things you consider holy. Please don't target us." (For those unfamiliar with the term, "powertalk" is the in-group language of powerful people.) http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-i... YC is attempt…

Judging from its (current) grayness this seems to be a much derided point of view on HN. Why? In a previous comment Livingstone was quoted as saying this is a rare problem in (I assume) YC investor circles. Why put out a direct message like this then?

Some here have argued that it is useful because it makes things unambiguous and simple. I think the people who condone and/or engage this behavior (e.g. the kinds that are exemplified in the Forbes article) don't do so because they don't know any better or because "the rules of engagement" were not clearly stated in this regard.

So I think at least part of the motivation behind putting out a message like this explicitly, rather than including in, say, an investor legal agreement, has to be the desire to preempt allegations based on this point.

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#148

Post by mkal_tsr »

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.

One day there may be a VC that only interacts with potential investments through the internet where no age, gender, height, orientation, religion, etc. is ever disclosed, both by the investor and investees. The only information to go off of would be the product/service, the business plan, and the integrity of the idea. Funny how this hasn't really caught on yet...

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#149

Post by mqsiuser »

brogrammer90 wrote: post #93

This is no surprise. There's no metro area in the USA as cringe worthy as SV when it comes to relationships between men and women. Sexually frustrated neck beards and moderately attractive women do not mix. I can't even count the number of times a coworker has confessed his love to another, get rejected, then go out of his way to sabotage their career.

No one ever addresses the f__ked up lives that we (neck-beards, semi-down syndrome havers and others... normals) have. Flocked together, left alone to make the best out of the situation. Welcome to the real IT, enjoy!

Re: A Reminder To Investors

#150

Post by msandford »

mrkurt wrote: post #14
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.

Any kind of romantic behavior is probably inappropriate, due to the power/incentive imbalance. A founder is trying to get money, an investor has money, and romantic overtures are really difficult to separate from the "getting money" problem.

I sort-of agree with you and sort-of don't. I think there are situations where there isn't a power imbalance.

For example a lot of VC firms won't invest in two companies in the same space. This ensures that they themselves don't have to pick which of their two portfolio companies is a winner in terms of advice, contacts, hiring help, etc. This is "baked in" to VC in a very, very obvious, no-exceptions kind of way.

So let's suppose that Anna is a founder at BoxFlix. And let's suppose that Gary is a VC with ABCD Partners. ABCD led Netflix's series A round (and since it's fictional, Netflix hasn't gone public yet). Gary is at demo day and couldn't possibly ever even HOPE to invest in BoxFlix no matter how compelling Anna and her team and company are; he's already in the Netflix deal. Further let's suppose that Gary primarily deals on the clean energy side of things, meaning that most of his personal/professional (they're often intermixed) contacts won't do Anna any good.

So could Gary ask Anna out on a date without it being inappropriate?

Let's suppose for the sake of argument that he tells Anna all this prior to his asking her out on a date such that she knows Gary and ABCD Partners will never invest in her company. In this case I think it's at the very least in a grey area and quite possibly not inappropriate at all.

Now if Gary conveniently doesn't mention that he or his company could never invest with BoxFlix, it could be argued that he's trying to bait & switch on Anna and that's a real problem.

Or if Gary led the investment in Netflix and sits on the board and remains highly involved in the company that could be inappropriate too, at least for Gary. Anna might not mind, but ABCD Partners surely would.

Disclaimer: I made all this stuff up. I live in Houston, not California and I don't really know anyone out there. If this seems too much like anything that's happened in real life I apologize and I'm happy to change the made-up names of Anna, Gary or ABCD Partners. It's all just to illustrate a point, not to make anyone feel bad.

EDIT: I wrote all this out because the original line is "Y Combinator has a zero tolerance policy for inappropriate sexual or romantic behavior from investors toward founders."

In that I read the word "inappropriate". If it was a strictly zero-tolerance policy (like schools have for guns, fake or real or toy or hand-formed-into-a-gun) then the word "inappropriate" wouldn't need to be there. By definition ALL romantic/sexual advances would be inappropriate.

So that leads me to believe that the folks at YC think it is possible for a VC and a founder to interact in a way that might end up romantic and that it's OK.

The other possibility is that they mean "no VC we invite can ever ask a founder out" but worded it poorly. I'd like to think that the folks at YC are smarter than that so I discount it as a possibility but there's still some chance that's what happened.

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