31–40 of 67 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not talking about applying the law to everyone who owns shares. That would be ridiculous, and would take down a large number of employees. I should have clarified. I want career-making, lead investors to be liable. The people who created Evan Spiegel should be held responsible if he creates a company with a discriminatory culture. Not everyone who holds a few hundred shares; just people who either played a role,…
> The people who created Evan Spiegel should be held responsible if he creates a company with a discriminatory culture. You know that that's not happening though, right? I mean, the idea is so far-fetched and unrealistic that it's comical. The first step would be to merely hold Spiegel responsible for what he did: aaaand nothing is happening. Nothing will ever happen. But you want to go two steps ahead and hold inves…
There's a political agenda behind all of this that I don't need to get into.
I hope she wins, but this issue is a lot bigger than this one case, and what we also need is a new law that holds investors responsible for the conduct of the people they fund. Right now, they can fund frat boys and while the frat boys get sued for sexual harassment or domestic abuse, the investors are scot-free. Indeed, the appeal of Silicon Valley and VC is the disposable company. (As in... don't like what has atta…
Did something happen to you? This seems like an absurdly high bar.
I happen to think that is true to some extent. For all the...excess...in MoC's commentary, there are kernels of truths that people who have drunk the SV/VC kool aide are made uncomfortable by.
>“lacked the ability to lead others, build consensus and be a team player, which is crucial to a successful career as a venture capital senior investing partner.”
I won't pretend to know who did or said what, but language such as the above, is so broad as to mean nothing.
It's typical HR verbiage used when they want to pressure someone to quit, or get them outright fired. Whosoever presides over this, I hope they seek and drill for specifics, and demands comparison with other partners' specific performance, because on its surface, you can use this as an excuse to fire anyone. And it's a particularly maddening symptom, which may not have an easy solution. One person's "exceeds expectations", is the other person's, "failed to meet expectations", it's totally arbitrary. With that filter, I can see how one moment she's a star partner, the next she's accused of the above, as retaliation.
Which startups are breaking off with Kleiner Perkins over this? I want to know which founders value their principles more than money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not talking about applying the law to everyone who owns shares. That would be ridiculous, and would take down a large number of employees. I should have clarified. I want career-making, lead investors to be liable. The people who created Evan Spiegel should be held responsible if he creates a company with a discriminatory culture. Not everyone who holds a few hundred shares; just people who either played a role,…
> The people who created Evan Spiegel should be held responsible if he creates a company with a discriminatory culture. You know that that's not happening though, right? I mean, the idea is so far-fetched and unrealistic that it's comical. The first step would be to merely hold Spiegel responsible for what he did: aaaand nothing is happening. Nothing will ever happen. But you want to go two steps ahead and hold inves…
Oh, it probably is. Someone has to propose radical ideas or moderate changes never happen. Radicalism is the role I've had to take on these issues, for a variety of reasons not worth getting into.
To be honest, I'm nearly burnt out on the anti-VC radicalism. And my actual views are fairly moderate, not that I can express nuance in a world full of corporate apologists (Valley libertarians) who worship money/success regardless of its origin, and who have to have their idols crushed. See, I have a good job, a good life, and I find that I care less about VC and stupid techie tricks by the year. I prefer to learn about Haskell or new machine learning techniques; that's a lot more intellectually stimulating than "VC-istan". That said, a replacement for me on the anti-VC radicalism front hasn't emerged. I'd love to find one so I can play the moderate.
There's a value in being a screaming maniac, which is that your words echo in your adversaries' minds in their moments of doubt and darkness, which means that you have a chance at planting in them the seeds that take them down for good... but I prefer the moderate stance when possible. We just need a really effective screaming maniac because, even if they aren't much for nuance, they have important morale effects in terms of galvanizing the good and shaking the bad. Right now, I haven't met anyone who can and will do what I do on HN.
Consider, for example, that one of Reddit's big investors is a pimp. No, that's not a fucking joke. He was straight up selling women's bodies to be used sexually. We're not holding people who sell women's bodies for sex accountable...
Whoa. Can you say who? I've never heard of this. That is... disgusting and horrifying.
I think we probably agree that such people should be held accountable.
I'm really surprised that neither KPCB or Pao has settled this out of court. It's going to be a nasty airing of dirty laundry across the board by the time this thing is over...
I hope she wins, but this issue is a lot bigger than this one case, and what we also need is a new law that holds investors responsible for the conduct of the people they fund. Right now, they can fund frat boys and while the frat boys get sued for sexual harassment or domestic abuse, the investors are scot-free. Indeed, the appeal of Silicon Valley and VC is the disposable company. (As in... don't like what has atta…