The End of My VC Career • Hacker News Board

Re: The End of My VC Career

#31

Post by arkades » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 7:00 PM UTC

outside2344 wrote: post #16

whataretensors wrote: post #2

Am I the only one who doesn't care about anybody's sexual past? Let a comedian be judged on comedy. Let a VC be judged on investments. For everything else there's the law. No reason to set up an extra judicial system based primarily on media headlines.

I agree with you that someone's consensual sexual past shouldn't matter. But this is not someone's sexual past, it is assault on another human being, and yes, criminal records should matter.

The problem with that being that many states have been expanding their definition of “sex offender” in a harsh-on-crime theme that, over the years, has morphed it into something unintuitive. When you tell me someone is a sex offender, I think they’ve committed a crime against another human being and should be treated accordingly. I don’t think “this person got caught taking a piss in the woods off the side of the highway” (which, in fairness, is why NYS only requires level 1 - low risk, nonviolent, non predatory - offenders to register for 20 years rather than for life - wouldn’t want to be cruel and hound a public urinator for More than two decades).

Re: The End of My VC Career

#32

Post by lainga » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

brighteyes wrote: post #26

> I suggest that by remaining in his position he took very few consequences, and that in almost any other walk of life a person with less privilege would automatically lose their job after being convicted of sexual assault. Is this actually true? If, as a random example, a waiter in a restaurant were convicted of sexual assault on the subway (as in the story here), how would the owner of the restaurant even know abou…

Through the increasingly popular (and unreliable, and hard-to-dispute) background check service that SV has created.

https://checkr.com/

Re: The End of My VC Career

#33

Post by shkkmo » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #11

DataWorker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to argue against this but the reality is that you’re advocating vigilantism. That has its own downsides and the wisdom of crowds leads to witch trials so there is a trade off to consider.

Unequivocally no , he's not arguing for vigilantism. Words mean things and "social opprobrium" does not equate to "vigilantism." There is a distinction and a difference and it borders on mendacious (when not outrightly malicious) to conflate them.

> Words mean things and "social opprobrium" does not equate to "vigilantism."

They are not identical terms, but they are overlapping terms.

Using career pressure to punish someone for a crime they committed can fall under the definition of "vigilante".

"A person who is not a member of law enforcement but who pursues and punishes persons suspected of lawbreaking."

The distinction in my mind depends on intent.

If the intent is to protect yourself and your business against fall out related to a specific person then I would say it does not qualify as vigilantism.

To avoid people who have done things you don't like also doesn't really qualify.

However, when you actively encourage others to use social opprobrium to punish people, then you are a vigilante.

I'm not wholly opposed to vigilantism, especially given the failure of our legal system in this area, but we should be cautious because there are well documented risks to letting vigilantism run free. Ideally this sort of vigilantism should be a very temporary stop gap until we get the legal system fixed.

Re: The End of My VC Career

#34

Post by eropple » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 7:04 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #30

eropple wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please cite your sources with regards to the assertion that it is "illegal" to not associate with somebody who you think does bad shit. I have a First Amendment in my back pocket--one that, if I'm being frank, I understand --that disagrees with you.

The OP said "career pressure" that's more than just avoidance. There are a host of minefields, Harassment has a very low threshold. Any unwanted communication falls under that heading. The work environment is another huge issue, California has a wide range of complex laws relating to this stuff. To simplify unless their crime specifically relates to what you do it's risky to use it in decision making. Libel and Defam…

I asked for a cite, you're giving me handwaves. It is not harassment to say "I will not engage in business with you if you employ that person." Libel is something you gotta prove, has many facets to its proof (fair-comment-and-criticism exists regardless of whether they're a public figure or not, actual malice tests exist for public figures), and has no bearing anyway on the base claim of "I will not engage in business with you if you employ that person."

This is not complicated. A person doesn't have to associate with people they don't want to associate with. (A business may be required to do business with people they don't want to do business with if the reason for their desire to not do business with them is because they are of a protected class--but that is, trivially and obviously, a different thing.)

Prosecutions are "very rare" because it isn't illegal.

Re: The End of My VC Career

#35

Post by codingdave » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 7:08 PM UTC

lainga wrote: post #32

brighteyes wrote: post #26

> I suggest that by remaining in his position he took very few consequences, and that in almost any other walk of life a person with less privilege would automatically lose their job after being convicted of sexual assault. Is this actually true? If, as a random example, a waiter in a restaurant were convicted of sexual assault on the subway (as in the story here), how would the owner of the restaurant even know abou…

Through the increasingly popular (and unreliable, and hard-to-dispute) background check service that SV has created. https://checkr.com/

Background checks have been around for a long time, and a new service has little to do with their availability to employers. The actual answer as to how an employer would know if their employee had gotten in legal trouble is the time they would miss as they got arrested, jailed, bailed, and then worked through the legal process.

Re: The End of My VC Career

#36

Post by irrational » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 7:09 PM UTC

lainga wrote: post #32

brighteyes wrote: post #26

> I suggest that by remaining in his position he took very few consequences, and that in almost any other walk of life a person with less privilege would automatically lose their job after being convicted of sexual assault. Is this actually true? If, as a random example, a waiter in a restaurant were convicted of sexual assault on the subway (as in the story here), how would the owner of the restaurant even know abou…

Through the increasingly popular (and unreliable, and hard-to-dispute) background check service that SV has created. https://checkr.com/

That kind of think really worries me. If you don't have a social media presence will it flag you as a problem? Or is it just using public records?

Re: The End of My VC Career

#37

Post by smallgovt » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #11

DataWorker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to argue against this but the reality is that you’re advocating vigilantism. That has its own downsides and the wisdom of crowds leads to witch trials so there is a trade off to consider.

Unequivocally no , he's not arguing for vigilantism. Words mean things and "social opprobrium" does not equate to "vigilantism." There is a distinction and a difference and it borders on mendacious (when not outrightly malicious) to conflate them.

Why are you playing semantics and calling people names instead of addressing the core argument?

If I'm not mistaken, the core argument being made by GP is: In the current environment, we have a lot of (truly) wronged individuals riling up public support to (reputationally) punish wrong-doers. Over all, this may have a positive effect, because many of these wrong-doers would otherwise face no punishment. However, in some cases, people who are not actual wrong-doers get caught in the cross fire.

Re: The End of My VC Career

#38

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

brighteyes wrote: post #26

> I suggest that by remaining in his position he took very few consequences, and that in almost any other walk of life a person with less privilege would automatically lose their job after being convicted of sexual assault. Is this actually true? If, as a random example, a waiter in a restaurant were convicted of sexual assault on the subway (as in the story here), how would the owner of the restaurant even know abou…

[deleted]

Re: The End of My VC Career

#39

Post by ggg9990 » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 7:11 PM UTC

brighteyes wrote: post #26

> I suggest that by remaining in his position he took very few consequences, and that in almost any other walk of life a person with less privilege would automatically lose their job after being convicted of sexual assault. Is this actually true? If, as a random example, a waiter in a restaurant were convicted of sexual assault on the subway (as in the story here), how would the owner of the restaurant even know abou…

A waiter would miss work a few times for court proceedings and be fired without knowing the reason. He’d fail his background check when he next sought employment.

Re: The End of My VC Career

#40

Post by eropple » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

smallgovt wrote: post #37

eropple wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unequivocally no , he's not arguing for vigilantism. Words mean things and "social opprobrium" does not equate to "vigilantism." There is a distinction and a difference and it borders on mendacious (when not outrightly malicious) to conflate them.

Why are you playing semantics and calling people names instead of addressing the core argument? If I'm not mistaken, the core argument being made by GP is: In the current environment, we have a lot of (truly) wronged individuals riling up public support to (reputationally) punish wrong-doers. Over all, this may have a positive effect, because many of these wrong-doers would otherwise face no punishment. However, in s…

It is not a semantic quibble to say it's not vigilantism. The core argument is that excluding people who you think do bad things is vigilantism (and, by implication, that vigilantism is bad). It is begging the question. This is the argument. It is a bad argument.

It is, however, a cheap rhetorical trick to say "it's vigilantism" to conflate the right of individuals to socially exclude people who do things that they do not like with actual crimes. It is worth noting that you elide that to tut-tut at me.

The argument you're making, which is not the argument that the poster to whom I replied made, is a better but not meaningful one to me. To be brief: it has not been demonstrated that the specter of false positives is anything but noise and concern trolling. Should that change, I'll reevaluate my position. I don't expect to need to.