Why? There's a really simple procedure that can solve these problems:
Don't hit on, feel-up, or try to have sex with people you're in a professional business relationship with. That goes double for people you hold power over (managers to employees, VCs to Founders, etc).
If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: record your meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders and/or don't meet alone.
I expect smart VCs that are interested in making money (as opposed to lording it over others or using their position to get sex) will continue to take lots of meetings with women.
It's not so easy. Bullshit accusations leaking on Twitter will be halfway to destroying your career before you even dig up the original recordings, and I doubt anyone will want to listen to your case anyway (if anything, they'll comb over your recordings with a tootbrush to prove you were guilty of this, and a bunch of other things). I too expect VCs to be less willing to expose themselves to such danger.
> I expect smart VCs that are interested in making money ... will continue to take lots of meetings with women.
OK, so ON NET what do you expect to happen? Lets say I agree and the smart ones take the meetings, what about the dumb ones? Or the average ones? What is the net result of all those different levels of VCs? Less or more meetings for women?
Again, "You don't have to agree with a course of action to accept the reality that certain things will happen".
Well, there are two problems with that.
1 - It puts the burden of proof on the accused. I.E. it totally throws out of the window what has become a de facto human right and an universally established legal one in every democracy: "Innocent until proven guilty", into a: "Guilty until you can shows us some footage that proves you are not guilty" (which let's face it, it's basically impossible if the accuser is lying on purpose and knows how to do things).
2 - In America I think you are free to record other people interacting with you or in your office/home (perhaps some American can clarify this), but in many other countries, specially in most of EU, that's a crime. You can't go around recording people unless they are of public interest and in a public situation or they expressly consent to it.
(Law enforcement is exempt from this restriction, of course).
As for burden of proof, I don't see it. It's like saying that asking people to lock their houses is a burden, when thieves are the criminals.
If you are a VC having a meeting with a founder, arrange for for more than 2 people to be there, such as a co-VC, a co-founder, a secretary, or whoever. Are business meetings with 3 people suddenly a human rights violation?
This is surely the poorest analogy I've ever read in my all life, comparing a burglar trying to enter your house with someone falsely accusing you of something.
What about the burden of proof you don't see if you go casually dressed to shop in some fancy shop and they falsely accuse you of trying to shoplift and you - oh bummer - didn't record everything?
You also don't see any burden of proof on you if you go to some corrupt country and the police falsely stops you for speeding and you didn't record your all trip after the moment you got there (though luck, if you didn't record everything is because you surely did something wrong)? You don't see that burden of proof on you, right?
You simply expose your naivete.
http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law
Any recordings done without the approval of the other party are illegal (opening you up to legal actions) and are completely inadmissible in court.
If I'm a VC and I've scheduled a meeting at my office it is as simple as letting the party I'm meeting with know that I had planned on recording for my archives.
Nothing unusual or sketchy about the request, especially in a business setting.
Or are you saying these will be seen as false accusations and thus it'll scare off VCs who aren't run by mysogynist pieces of sh-t?
Because I'm not sure what the alternative is. If a VC is not in the habit of harassing women, they have nothing to fear. In fact, it'll give them an opportunity to court talented entrepreneurs driven away from the immoral part of the VC spectrum.
The people who actually do this shit are scumbags, but there's plenty who will take advantage of this when things don't go their way, and reputation damage is worse than physical for a lot of people.
Ahh--if only this were ever true.
Are you saying they're false accusations?
Rape and sexual assault (of women) is seen as one of the worst possible crimes[0] a man can commit in most Western societies[1]. These crimes are so heinous that even accusations are enough to destroy someone's career and social status, even if the accusations are dropped or proven false.
This is further complicated by these crimes generally being very difficult to prove without recorded evidence and eyewitnesses, creating a dilemma of either treating the accusation as fact (foregoing "innocent until proven guilty") or risking that a criminal can avoid consequences and may go on to repeat his crime. The media often favors the former, people close to the accused often prefer the latter, although even a disproven allegation can sow permanent doubt.
There aren't many crimes a VC could be falsely accused of that have the possibility of such dire consequences and such a low burden of proof.
[0]: The only crime I can think of that society treats as worse than sexual abuse of women is sexual abuse of children.
[1]: This isn't about the relative severity of legal punishments, or in any way a judgement on what crime is "less bad" than another, just how people (and the media) generally react to people being charged with these crimes.
It is so damaging for the women involved (career, socially, and withstanding the barrage of slander, misogyny and distrust that they always seem to face) that it is very hard to step up and simply tell the truth, and you are part of the problem here, with your needless insinuations about false accusations and talk of a low burden of proof.
For all of the VCs described in this story - this was a pattern, corroborated by independent sources, and with details in writing. There is in fact a very high burden of proof before anyone even gets blasted in the mainstream media, let alone fired.
It's true that society is ridiculously "tolerant" of gross misconduct of some people more than others but there are enough examples of lives being ruined by false allegations to validate my original point.
As a sibling comment pointed out, Trump was elected despite his "locker room talk" and multiple women alleging sexual abuse (plus the actual chauvinism he has displayed on numerous occasions). However I would wager that similar allegations would be far more damaging if leveled against someone like Sanders.
There's also the effect that successive allegations sometimes even reduce the credibility of the allegations because of suspected bandwagoning ("Oh, she just wants some of that attention to make herself interesting").
Humans are fickle and irrational, especially when in a group. Individuals tend to be treated differently but this tends to be more about social status than gender itself.
Donglegate was less than five years ago, did you already forget about it?
Her accusations were factual, although there was discussion about whether they were valid.
Also, the people who agree that her accusations were valid, are also likely the people who think that their behavior was indicative of them being serial harassers.
>The people getting in trouble right now are not the borderline cases of someone saying an awkward comment here or there.
>Also, the people who agree that her accusations were valid, are also likely the people who think that their behavior was indicative of them being serial harassers.
Which is completely unreasonable. Do you remember what she complained about them saying? Dongles and forking repos? They were discussing among themselves, it wasn't targeted at anyone, and any reasonable person wouldn't believe it was sexist.
But cases like are few and far between.
And IMO the majority of people on the internet were supportive of the guy who got fired, and also thought it was bullshit.
The woman who started the whole drama received way worse retaliation from the Internet mob (which was partially deserved) and got fired as well, so it was tit for tat at least, although that of course doesn't fix the damages.
Of course they are. There is opportunity, therefore it is possible.
Of course there are false accusations out there. It's not the majority of them or even a significant number. But it's not zero.
[0]http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/report-1-in-5-campus-rape-...
I would strongly advise against discriminating against people based on their sex in the course of your business dealings.
My prediction isn't what SHOULD happen, but what I think WILL happen. My personal opinion on what is morally right? As I'm not a VC, utterly unimportant and redundant.
While looking up the relevant law, I looked through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex and various other things, and discovered that there is an explicit exception written in to the law for members of the Communist Party. So you can totally discriminate against any commies who might try to work for you. Not really relevant here, but so weird I just had to share.
I wonder if it was just a "safeguard" against members of CPUSA claiming their membership was a religious affiliation.
http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...
It sounds like it was an amendment introduced by a confused lawmaker who wanted to make sure the law wouldn't stop companies from firing Communists. The amendment was then accepted on the basis that it didn't make any difference (since as you note party affiliation isn't protected in the first place), so it wouldn't do any harm to include it.
If you cannot understand how _stupidly easy_ it is to have a completely non-sexual, non-harassing conversation with a member of the opposite sex, you most definitely should read up on some stuff. I mean this in the most non-snarky way possible.
Wouldn't it be nice if half the population weren't completely turned off by the idea of talking to anyone in tech?
I don't socialise with work mates outside of work events either, lines get crossed when you do in a alcohol orientated culture like mine.
It's worked fine for me for 19 years employed.
Had one female former colleague assume I was gay because I never hit on her (and she was attractive).
Nope, just not interested in bollocking up a good work environment, it was interesting to watch the dynamic though.
My simple rules for work.
Treat everyone equally, small stuff matters, I went out for coffee and went and asked the cleaner if he wanted one, he looked surprised.
Don't gossip ever, just don't. Leave the conversation if someone else starts.
Be on time, meet deadlines, let boss know as soon as you know you won't.
Be professional, you might know a customer for years but they are still Mr Smith until they say 'call me Bob'.
When a boss makes what you think is a poor decision (business reasons, moral reasons etc) get it in writing.
Always send a recap email after meetings, misunderstandings cost less the earlier you catch them (much like bugs).
Its not foolproof by any stretch, but it's excellent risk management on multiple fronts.
It's really not that difficult to maintain a professional attitude, it's a skill like any other it's just the modern workplace isn't always conducive to it, frankly I'd prefer a more formal workplace than informal all things been equal.
The problem is that it's inappropriate to express interest if you're in a position of power over someone, whether you're a man or a woman. I think you were saying that, but point #1 lacks that context.
Make an introduction. Make your mild/budding interest in them clear enough. Ask them to do something that's clearly not work with you.
"Hey, want to get coffee sometime this weekend?"
You'll find out if there's preliminary interest or not. If they're interested but busy, they'll figure out how to make that distinction clear. If "sorry; I'm busy" is the entire answer, just assume they're not interested. You get one "free" chance here; make it fairly clear that you're interested; don't invite them out for a "team dinner" and then arrange for the rest of the team to not show up or other chicanery.
Personally, I've stopped ever pursuing anyone who works in the same industry due to the potential for weird dynamics, but it's sometimes not as cut-and-dry as people make it sound. Like the example with Chris Sacca, is flirting with someone at a conference a form of sexual harassment?
I'd not go with a co-worker that I have power on (like being the direct manager, or the VC). I can see many ways where the relationship can go awfully wrong.
I have eye contact and smiling with lots of people. It's just being friendly.
I would suggest than anyone who does get into such meetings simply demand the presence of multiple persons. This isn't a buddy lending money to another.
Scenario with a female founder: "Listen, I want to meet you but as we have an at least one woman present policy for any meetings with female founders, adn all the female partners are booked for the next week, I'm afraid I can't meet you".
Vs with a male: "Hells yes I'd love to catch up for coffee, I love your idea. Unfortunately, it will just be me as everyone else is busy".
When you add a price to a subset of players but not others, that subset suffers worse results see: http://freakonomics.com/2009/03/10/the-price-of-disability-l...
> One example was the Americans With Disabilities Act, and we told the story of a Los Angeles orthopedic surgeon named Andrew Brooks. When a deaf patient came to him for a consultation, he realized that the A.D.A. required him to hire a sign-language interpreter for each visit if that’s what the patient wanted. The interpreter would cost $120 an hour, with a two-hour minimum, and Brooks wouldn’t be reimbursed by the insurance company:
> That would mean laying out $240 to conduct an exam for which the woman’s insurance company would pay him $58 — a loss of more than $180 even before accounting for taxes and overhead.
That's going to be the rather depressing and sad reality of the shakeout of this.