The one person that I would have never suspected is Dave McClure. Here's a guy who didn't fit the investment world and he was smart and hustled his way in.
He started 500 startups with a female co-founder and said he chose her because she was smarter. He saw an opening for himself and talked about playing Moneyball for venture capital. He spoke often in interviews about chasing investments among founders who didn't fit the profile but were eminently backable and that included women. He blogged publicly about his insecurities and campaigned for diversity.
Guess it proves you can't really know a person through their writings and interviews. He was someone that I admired and I'm more than a little disappointed.
Did he come up with "paid, laid, or made"? I've heard it from sales people and thought it predated McClure.
The kitten and "money shot" is absolutely unnecessary, but I get the coarse language for "paid, made, laid"- the idea is that compelling products and services target base desires.
I think there are both 1) sleezeballs who intentionally take advantage of their position and 2) men who don't realized what they're doing and need to use better judgement.
Without knowing details, there are at least indications in both McClure's and Sacca's pasts that they may (hopefully) be in the latter group.
And hopefully this will help both groups get smaller.
"In 2014, Sarah Kunst, 31, an entrepreneur, said she discussed a potential job at 500 Startups, a start-up incubator in San Francisco. During the recruiting process, Mr. McClure, a founder of 500 Startups and an investor, sent her a Facebook message that read in part, “I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you.”"
That message was absolutely inappropriate. Women should be able to raise money without being hit on by investors.
My comment was in response to the idea that Dave was secretly different than his outward appearance. I don't know him, I don't know the situation. But I think otherwise good people can do things they should apologize for and stop.
A person who does this being "otherwise good" doesn't lessen the harm to women looking for jobs or investment. But it does go to the person's intent and overall desert of punishment.
If you steal bread, get caught, and are shown mercy by the baker, did you still not commit a crime? Just because you aren't punished doesn't mean you didn't do something wrong.
And before you say "there's no victim if she was okay with it", there was a victim: the company and investors he represented. His actions show that he was not acting with proper ethics, putting them all at risk of lawsuits, criminal action, etc.
The fact of the matter is, when you are a hiring manager, you are in a position of power and that power comes with certain ethical obligations and responsibilities. Not just to those applying for a job or funding, but to your company and it's shareholders.
And the argument about whether she might like it or not doesn't change the fact that it's inappropriate and creepy.
Yes, they met as two professionals in the context of an open job position. Inappropriate move #1 was contacting the job applicant over FB, #2 was making a comment about whether or not to "hire" or "hit on" her. The fact that he places the chances of hiring her in relation to "hitting" on her is wildly inappropriate.
If he wanted a relationship, there are infinitely better and more appropriate ways to go about it, especially if he thought she might actually be interested.
Going via FB in the manner that he did is pure 100% creepy behavior.
It's sexual harassment. As a male, I would be incredibly uncomfortable if I were in this situation with the genders reversed. Picture: you're interviewing for a job you're wildly enthusiastic about. The hiring decision lies with an older woman who you are not at all attracted to, and she fires off that line at you. Who would feel comfortable in that situation?
I wouldnt have any issues with that honestly. We are humans not machines. We say things sometimes that get interpreted as something its not. The comment Mclure made was stupid. But calling it sexism or herrasment as if its some systemic thing seems a tad extreme too.
it's pretty unambiguous what he said. Unless he pulls a Clinton (be skeptical about the definition of "is") there is no way for this to "get interpreted as something its not".
A professional can keep their personal feelings separate from their professional responsibilities. If you feel that the former is compromising the latter, remove yourself from the situation and defer the hiring responsibilities to a colleague.
You can also ask someone else in a non-creepy way, especially by not relating the prospect of getting hired to their response to your sexual overtones (the "I don't know if I should hire you or hit on you" bit).
This isn't rocket science, its common sense and common decency, not to mention being a "professional". McClure's actions in this particularly instance are shady and creepy to the extreme.
A more apt analogy would be if you were a young hetero male not attracted to older females (cougars, in parlance) and she were a loan officer at the bank you want to procure a loan from and she hit on you like that.
It's something you'd likely report to the bank management but it's not workplace sexual harassment (she's not harassing another lower echelon staffer).
Still uncouth and uncalled for and any respectable organization would take corrective action.
[edit] Seeing that that was during staff recruiting process, I can't even imagine how someone would even entertain such a puerile idea in their heads, no less mention it in communication.
There are some people (maybe many) who when they have some power seemingly lose all sense of decency. It's discouraging and boggling.
I know we are way past civics and other classes in school which tried to steer kids into a more "moral" frame of mind, but I think the advent of fraternity culture permeating into daily life beyond secondary education and educational institutions in the educated indicates that something's amiss in our culture.
Music, movies, games, etc., take a pretty jocular view of appropriate behavior --it's not to say there were not predators or other unsavory behavior by people toward others before mass media, but at least in some classes of people it was at least frowned upon whereas now it's openly celebrated with few exceptions.
I think this is a cop-out excuse. Even the frattiest of frat boys have moms, sisters, and girlfriends/wives.
This isn't that complicated, it's simply "treat others how you wish to be treated."
Before you proposition job applicants over Facebook DM just ask yourself: would I be okay with this if someone treated my mom/sister/girlfriend in this manner?
I'm not sure having sisters/wives/moms/brothers/fathers has much effect on people who are reared and imbued in a culture where entertainment (liberally defined) celebrates fraternity culture.
You just have to examine the "shaving cream on mouth and dicks painted on friends faces" attitude to know people do things to others that they _do not_ particularly want done to themselves.
To use a car analogy these are the kinds of people who would be happy to cut someone off while driving but would get enraged if someone did that to them. Of course, it's simple, drive defensively and don't do stupid things when driving --do people follow?
I think this is much more serious that you are making it sound if I'm reading your post correctly. As a potential investor you are in a position of power. Depending how things are going it might be a very serious power imbalance. The person seeking funding might feel very compelled to in essence prostitute themselves.
I mean if we're going to debate labels: In my opinion it is completely inappropriate when your position of power, in a person setting, while referencing the professional setting, to discuss this. Maybe we could use the labels "abusive" or "predatory" or "toxic" if you'd prefer? Personally, I'm fine with "sexually harassive".
The comment is like in the dictionary next to "sexual harassment." Hell, you can tell how bad the statement is even without any other context. "I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you." The implication is that this woman might have lost out on a job opportunity because the man interviewing her found her attractive.
No, this is clear sexual harassment, and would be if the genders were reversed, or the same, or entirely unknown. It's a sexual proposition from someone with power over another person in a professional relationship.
I agree, but I think that even the most feminist men are raised and inculcated in a misogynist society. You likely do have a good idea of who McClure is. But it's a numbers game - given a position of power and a systemic gendered inequity, there are a lot more opportunities for a man to fuck up. That's why we, and I speak as a (cisgendered/heterosexual) man myself, have to be constantly vigilant about our actions and introspective about our thoughts and where they come from.
This is the "I can't be racist because my best friend is black" defense.
It's hard for me to see where all the McClure defenders are coming from. Is it that hard to see his actions in this specific instance as being (wildly) inappropriate? This is basically textbook sexual harassment. Just distill it to the basic facts:
1) Job applicants comes to interview for a job
2) After the interview, McClure contacts her over FaceBook and not-so-subtly propositions her in relation to her goal of getting hired
How is this at all defensible? EVEN if the job applicant was overtly flirty, how is messaging a job applicant over FACEBOOK and saying what McClure said at all appropriate?
At the very least, McClure is, as he would say a "fucking" dumbass, at worst, a sexual harasser.
I 100% bet he's done a lot worse and knowing other partners at 500 Startups, it frankly doesn't surprise me at the least.
I interpreted the original comment and direct parent as not defending McClure, but being shocked and surprised that his private behavior was so contrary to his public persona.
Thanks for the link. The way women are portrayed on that page is very objectifying. It seems to be saying, "your sexuality is the most important thing to us"
You are making a statement of surprise that someone who "didn't fit the investment world", who was "smart" and a "hustler" would not make such a mistake while navigating the interface between his personal life and his business/career. I say "personal life" given these advances indicate an IMPROPER blurring of personal need, including a physical attraction response, which was then carried over into day-to-day business. It is this response that creates a double bind for the women who are involved in situation. Double binds are bad news, whether they are intentional, such as those used by Trump, or unintentional, such as those created by those who do not manage their personal lives well.
Why is it that we EVER may assume, by someone's external behaviors including their writings, videos and interviews, that we may "know" an individual? Why would we ever assume a level of trust in how they conduct themselves in their personal lives by their outward actions? Why would we assume someone who did "fit" the investment world would be more likely to act in a similar improper manner? How is it that we actually fail to acknowledge that each of us has a line that, when it is crossed, we are capable of making horrible mistakes? Why is it that Western culture has formed a view of mistakes as something to be avoided at all cost, as opposed to an opportunity for great learning?
I came out of my self-imposed exile here to post this because I think it's important to draw a line and indicate a social community such as HN (or Twitter) are woefully inadequate to deal with these types of issues in a meaningful way and to do so without a highly divisive conversation forming. (This is not to say the message should not be delivered strongly to anyone listening, however.) All that comes of these discussions is blame and division. Evidence of that is show here, now, in the polarized comments.
The only people who can judge Dave honestly here now are the victims, his co-workers and himself. I do have empathy for those involved, but my emotional contributions here are pointless, given the scale and reach of this news.
You make an incredibly important point, and the fact that HN is resistant to it shows that most people are lucky enough not to have been betrayed by someone that everyone respects. I've had that experience, and it was shocking to realize that someone could be so different internally vs how everyone perceives them.
It's entirely possible he is being set up. Anyone who doesn't see this angle is foolish, and honestly shouldn't say anything publicly about it due to their naïveté.
What is particularly telling for me that instead of trying to explain himself he just ran away.
Sometimes if you rally around someone reflexively you're empowering a predator. Justin Calbeck got at least two passes we know about previous to his current troubles.
At my alma mater there's a doctor who had people covering for him for fifteen years until a brave woman accused him publicly of sexually assaulting her during an exam. At last count 125 women have come forward with a similar complaint against him.
A few years back my attitude might have been different but you're shaped by your experiences.
On the contra side of this is Trevor Fitzgibbon, who was accused of sexual assault, had the investigation dropped, and yet is nonetheless blackballed by the PR industry.
Again, those whose minds are stuck on repeat -- whose own minds trap them into believing women over men -- are fools who should not be heeded. Like Nazis who sing hymns while Jews are marched to the gas chambers.
The idiocy is real, and the effects on society are damning.
I agree with your sentiment (could've been worded better). Without clarification it seems like people are assuming the worst. Given Dave's reputation that doesn't seem fair. Hopefully the community will get some clarification so that those who work(ed) with Dave can make an informed judgement call for themselves about how to proceed with their relationship.
Women reported it, right? The Times article describes it. Women seeking jobs were propositioned and then denied jobs after rebuffing, sexist comments were made while they were fund raising and suggestive texts were sent. It doesn't seem like rape level stuff but it's still bad and unacceptable.
It's never a good idea to approach someone romantically if there is some kind of superior/subordinate relationship. it just seems really messy with some sort of VC type relationship too, maybe almost a worst case scenarios.
Just to be real clear, I don't think that's the bar. I think it's sick what happened. One of the parents was asking about the details and asked if it was rape or whatever and I tried to answer.
I'm not in any way, shape, or form condoning or down playing what has happened here
I'm not sure what McClure actually did, but in the current hypersensitive, politically correct environment, simply asking a woman out that you happen to meet while both of you are involved with a startup seems to be considered "harassment" worthy of destroying careers and businesses. Some of the stories that have surfaced recently clearly step over the line, but many others are vague and lack any clear intent on the part of the accused to make the woman uncomfortable, let alone harass or assault them.
Intent matters. Men who use positions of power to intimidate women into doing things they don't want to do should absolutely be punished. Men who happen to be attracted to women that they work with/around who decide to politely ask them out shouldn't be.
The problem is that men who happen to be attracted to women that they work with/around sometimes end up using positions of power to intimidate women into doing things they don't want to do, simply by deciding to politely ask them out.
Yes, intent matters, and we should take it into account when morally judging someone; but if you are in the position to severely damage someone's career, you have to realize that any simple request can put them under a lot of pressure. Even if they don't want to comply, they might feel obligated to do so, unless you somehow manage to make very clear that there won't be any repercussions whichever way they decide.
If you are in a position of power and start feeling attracted to a report, you should keep it to yourself. If you really can't bear to stay silent, you should quit your job, or at least move to a different department. When they can no longer feel threatened by you, then you can try to make your advance. Everything else might devolve into harassment without any intent to do so.
Good points. While less common, it's probably important to highlight that this applies to all gender combinations and orientations. If you're in a position of power over someone, it's not ok to express or act on interest.
I was careful not to use any gendered expressions after the first paragraph, which I collaged from downandout's comment. It was probably too subtle, so thank you for making it explicit.
> Even if they don't want to comply, they might feel obligated to do so, unless you somehow manage to make very clear that there won't be any repercussions whichever way they decide.
Even if you "make very clear there won't be any repercussions" it's wrong. Why the hell should the other person trust that you'll be able to keep your feelings separate from your professional judgment when you've had the bad sense to make things awkward in the first place? It's pissing in the pool. It's antisocial and unnecessary.
Yes, you can never be sure that you have successfully made yourself clear unless the other person explicitly acknowledges it. (E.g. by saying "I feel like you are trying to tell me something, but don't think it's quite appropriate. Go right ahead, I think I can handle whatever it is.")
Needless to say, getting to that point would be very difficult without accidentally putting them under pressure, which is what you should avoid in the first place. Better to not even try.
Melinda Gates worked at Microsoft when she met Bill. Should he be publicly tarred and feathered like this? By your logic, he abused his authority and he should not have dated or married his wife because he held power over her -
he could have immediately fired her if she had rejected his advances.
So where do we draw the line, and why isn't Bill on the firing line in the same way these others are?
That was still a risky move. The key (literally, one of the elements of sexual harassment) is whether the advance is welcome. I'm guessing that Bill used a lower-risk way of finding that out than sending a text message after a job interview.
You are right, the line is whether the other party welcomed the advance. A lot of very smart people are not socially mature enough to even guess what will happen. Something worked once so they repeat it, over and over again.
Companies should prohibit all internal fraternizing and fire anyone who is caught breaking the rules.
VCs and anyone involved in hiring should have even stricter guidelines. If you are an investor, relationships with anyone who owns another company should be off limits. If you are involved in the hiring process in any way, once the company you work for is disclosed, any potential relationships with that party should be off limits.
Tech has been singled out due to the current news cycle narrative. Many other industries are extremely hostile; expect to see plenty more stories in the future. The biases may not all be gender, but could be things such as seniority, ethnicity. Nepotism and general corruption is rampant in other areas. This is not a US problem, this is a global.
>Companies should prohibit all internal fraternizing and fire anyone who is caught breaking the rules.
If you did that, you would have a difficult time hiring people. There are reasons that most large tech companies don't place an outright ban on it. People don't like being told what to do, and people that spend lots of time working with one another sometimes fall for each other. Tech employees aren't (yet) robots.
I for one don't know any details about what happened between Bill and Melinda. Do you? Maybe they slowly became friends over time and just got closer and closer after they adjust had developed a trusting, non-sexual relationship. If we however would learn that Bill made some remark about feeling sexualy attracted to her the first day they meet then that's a different story and we should be appalled. But we don't know. It certainly is a delicate problem.
There is a reason Captain Picard never plays poker with the rest of the crew.
> There is a reason Captain Picard never plays poker with the rest of the crew.
That's more likely because Captain Picard shares a romantic relationship with Dr. Crusher [1] -- despite him being Dr. Crusher's boss, and Picard's involvement on the death of her husband.
Life is complicated.
ps: to their defense, this happened over many years, so very different than Dave McClure's situation.
"both involved in a startup" ... nope. she was applying for a job.
If you read only what he said and nothing else, that would still be obvious. ("i don't know whether to hire you or hit on you"). So perhaps you didn't read even that much of the topic we are discussing?
something I've never understood. These guys (Kalanick, McClure) are multi millionaires, and could probably get any number of women to take interest in them on that basis alone. Why flirt (pun not intended) with career suicide?
Why would they need to hit on women at their workplaces? Why isn't the normal dating game (where they have a massive edge via being loaded) sufficient? I don't get it (at all). What am I missing?
At the workplace do the work! Leave the political/religious/mating etc games outside.
Very disappointing. As a 500 alum I would never have expected this, as the environment was very professional and there were a lot of powerful women in leadership positions. In fact if memory serves, at least at mountain view, the women were more numerous than the men.
Kudos to Christine for being transparent, as expected.
> "The change I want to see is a startup environment where everyone, regardless of gender and background feels welcome and safe."
So basically her message is "it's ok to be inappropriate and stay as partner in our firm. Our investors' money is more important than sexual misbehaving".
Sounds like she doesn't really deliver on her change.
Proactively: Be overt about your policies and values. Even though everyone will shift uncomfortably and roll their eyes, have occasional training sessions. Make a discussion of "what is not ok to say" part of your onboarding process. Have 1 on 1s. Collect anonymized feedback.
Reactively: When offensive behavior occurs, it has to be nipped in the bud ASAP. A quick chat with a junior employee (and maybe perhaps handing over a pamphlet on sexual harassment) may be all it takes. Egregious and/or repeat offenders should be fired.
It's very easy. Be polite and considerate. To be considerate: to consider the feelings of another person. Have empathy.
Be always ready to call out bad behavior, even if it hurts. It is so much easier to start when problems are small.
Even when I've worked in teams of all guys, I've called out the sort of "locker room" talk that would be an HR nightmare of women were around. For two reasons: practice makes perfect, and it's still sexual harassment if those sorts of comments are making one of the other men uncomfortable. You don't know their intimate lives. They could be gay. They could be devoutly religious. Jerk, they could just be not a fratboy pig that needs to make comments during lunch about every woman that passes by.
When these reports about sexual harassment are so vague about what actually happened it does a disservice to everyone. How is anyone supposed to know where the line is between hitting on someone and sexual harassment? Many women like to play hard to get. Many men out there are just plain dumb when it comes to how they show their interest in a woman, not malicious. With more specifics they'd be able to learn what's right and what's not.
I assume you actually realise why they are vague, but in case you don't: it's polite. Many victims find it humiliating to talk about, and adding details often adds to this humiliation.
In this case many details were published elsewhere already, in enough detail to offer little excuse.
Was the victim(s) identified? If not, then we should be free to talk about the specifics without making any identifications. Again, there's no details to go on here.
Raping someone is fucked up. I don't see how that sentence is fucked up. If someone said that to me, I would take it as a compliment. To me it says not only are you smart enough to be hired, you're also attractive. Is it better to split it up into two separate sentences? Obviously the guy is hitting on her, if she's not interested then that's fine. I really don't see the problem, could someone please explain?
Yeah, I immediately thought of that video when I was considering the massive power imbalance at play here.
You can re-word most of Dennis' dialogue to fit the situation, too. "The implication that [she won't get an investment] if she refuses to sleep with me."
The last part of that clip is especially applicable. The other commenter sees this as a compliment. "She's attractive; of course she'd get hit on!" But it's a "compliment" with an asterisk attached to it, and the subtext is a massive power imbalance.
If you happen to work in California, you should study the law better before you consider a supervisory position. This style of advance is black-letter sexual harassment in California, if done by a supervisor to an employee in their organization. (This wasn't the precise case here, but it was very close, and your wording seems to take in cases beyond this particular scenario.) If these advances continued, it is easy grounds for a lawsuit.
Perhaps by first developing some level of intimacy & emotional connection in a platonic context, being a supportive whole human being with well-defined/practiced/communicated boundaries, and occasionally having a meta discussion about the relationship to get on the same page?
I don't need specifics since hitting on someone is a suboptimal strategy for connection. If you're just looking to get laid, try it out and let me know how it works for that.
He started 500 startups with a female co-founder and said he chose her because she was smarter. He saw an opening for himself and talked about playing Moneyball for venture capital. He spoke often in interviews about chasing investments among founders who didn't fit the profile but were eminently backable and that included women. He blogged publicly about his insecurities and campaigned for diversity.
https://500hats.com/commitment-to-diversity-d8a4ac8b1c12
Guess it proves you can't really know a person through their writings and interviews. He was someone that I admired and I'm more than a little disappointed.
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