Who is the real victim? Obviously, we want to believe the woman who wrote the article, but bear in mind, her harassment is limited to a few text messages and emails.
On the other hand, our "villain" in this story has lost his coding, opportunities, and ideas that he contributed because he "wasn't a good fit".
One person has "gained" from the situation, although they claim to "feel" threatened, despite dubious proof. The other has had actual physical loss in the situation, and you're asking why can't we just believe her? What if the ideas he contributed turn out to make billions, is she still the victim for putting up with a few emails, and is he still just some victimizer for trying to stay involved?
Another reason we need to raise the bar is that believing these claims "on face" makes it all to easy to steal IP and exploit bosses/employees using harassment claims. I'm not saying that's what the article's author is doing, but it is a good reason to be skeptical (so prove to me you didn't just take this guy's work and claim you're the victim).
> despite dubious proof
Again, this is not a court of law, she isn't obligated to give the public proof that she was being harassed.
> What if the ideas he contributed turn out to make billions
He contributed a mock website and logo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15587336
If she felt unsafe why didn't she just get a restraining order? Unless, of course, there wasn't adequate evidence to get one in the first place.
So, actual harassment?
> Instead she fired him from her startup, is that so unreasonable?
I think this is where the mentor talked about "karma biting back." She had these facts beforehand:
1) Mark is socially-inept and an asshole
2) Mark invested time and energy into the project
3) there were no legal contracts
Is "firing" Mark (with no "smoking gun" event/email) and expecting him to bend over so reasonable? This really seems like IP theft with the OP hiding behind "harassment."
I would certainly feel uncomfortable receiving those messages in the situation as described in the article.
* Person X is in charge of a group and has an idea for a coding project
* Person Y decides to volunteer some coding time
* Person X, with full authority to do so ends, the purely voluntary relationship
* Person Y now decides that they are a co-founder and has equal rights and starts demanding compensation for the project that doesn't exist but could potentially exist in the future. They also continue to fire off emails becoming more demanding after it's made clear that the relationship has been terminated.
Were this an open source project people would think what the contributor is doing is insane. That's clearly harassment. If I fire someone on a Friday and they show up on a Monday saying that they have a right to the company's future earnings and oh, by the way, do you want this t-shirt I made about the company, I'm going to call the police.
If you and I have started a project together, and I haven't signed an IP ownership transfer (to you, the project, the company) - I am entitled to the full ownership of the intellectual rights of my work. Regardless if I get paid or not (even when I get paid, every company will ask you to sign a separate agreement where you transfer ownership of produced IP). So if I get "fired" - and I haven't signed any agreement - you are in trouble. Because from now on, /your/ project IP will always have the legal liability that at some point I can come back and claim it's mine. See Facebook and many other cases, where they worked on a project without clear initial paperwork - it's a very expensive mistake.
This attitude really frustrates me. This isn't a court of law, the man in question isn't accused of a crime, and his name is even withheld so his reputation is not at stake. She is under no obligation to turn over evidence for the public to sift through. And just because she doesn't have some smoking-gun "I'll kill you!" email doesn't mean there wasn't harassment going on. He refused to take "no" for an answer, and she says she felt unsafe being in the same room as him. She's not doing this as revenge against him, or she would have given his name. She's not doing this because she's bitter about losing the competition because she won. Why can't we, even for a moment, believe this woman when she says "I don't feel safe" ?
> If you had spent your whole weekend working around the clock on a project that won the prize on your own code, only to be told your dreams were now crushed because you "weren't a good fit", you'd probably be begging to find a way to hold onto the tickets or the project as well
From the Techstars FAQ: "Whether or not you continue to work on the idea with some or all of your team is completely up to you. Approximately 25% of Techstars Startup Weekend participants continue working on their idea with all of their team". What she did wasn't unusual, in fact it's what the majority of participants do.