edit: I figured it out.
You seem to desire a world where Square is exalted to some sort of sovereign status, answerable to no law beyond their own policies and procedures. Which is a horrifying state of affairs.
If something happened here that is against the law, I am heartened that a legal framework exists to provide remedies. If it did not, I am similarly heartened to note that the accused at least has resources sufficient to mount a defense. We can argue the injustice of a false accusation, if indeed it turns out the accusation was so, but the accused admits maintaining a physical relationship was in poor judgment. This is one of the realities that comes from that level of success. It's a cost of doing business that you must be much, much more cautious in the deployment of your genitals.
You seem to desire a world where Square is exalted to some sort of sovereign status, answerable to no law beyond their own policies and procedures. Which is a horrifying state of affairs.
Why would it be a horrifying state of affairs? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't understand!
Well.
It would mean that corporations would exist outside of laws to govern their behavior. And we've already figured out that's a bad idea.
Society, generally, wants it to be illegal to force people to fuck you to keep a job, in an extreme example.
Generally, it wants it to be legal to blow the whistle on illegal activity.
Generally, it wants it to be illegal to prioritize profits over the safety of workers.
Being successful and making lots of money shouldn't relieve your company of accountability under the law.
> Was Square harmed?
Square's reputation would have been harmed by a protracted and public legal battle.
> I guess I just don't see who, other than the couple in question, was harmed here.
There's not a couple here. There's an accuser, who claims that Rabois sexually harassed him and that Square covered for it.
Where it gets complicated for Rabois, I suspect, comes with this line:
"exchanged intimate, personal information, as people in similar relationships often do."
This suggests to me that the accuser has sufficient proof that Rabois can't deny a sexual relationship continuing after the hire. Given the asymmetry of power between these two sexual partners, consent starts to get very muddy to sort out.
So he had to leave, given the very real legal issues this opened for the company.
I'm not saying that's what happened here; rather, the laws against this sort of arrangement are what the alleged "victim" is invoking to bring a case against Mr. Rabois.
Well, we seem to have done that with sports. Or, has Lance Armstrong been indicted yet?
I'm not asserting that Keith did what he's accused of. But many, many other people have, and if we have to choose, I'd rather see the state monopoly on violence used to protect the victims, not the perpetrators.