> the truth always lies somewhere in between

In my experience, the truth usually lies very strongly to one side of the spectrum, and sometimes beyond an extreme (as reasonable people often bend over backwards in giving their version of events, while unreasonable people do not), but you'll never find out for sure.

E.g. in the Techcrunch piece Horvath says that the founder's wife spoke of having spies, and influencing HR decisions, and so on. I can easily imagine the conversation taking place over drinks, and it could be horribly sinister or it could be someone's not-very-well-judged attempt at humor. But this doesn't mean that "the truth is in-between".

You appear to have had very different experiences than me.

Horvath said the founder spoke of having spies, etc.

The founder says she did nothing of the sort, and blah blah blah I would thus expect the truth is "the founder said she kept in touch with goings-on in the company through friends" or something similarly in-between.

Not "The founder has hired spies that prepare detailed daily reports" (which would be very strongly to one side) or "the founder has no idea what goes on in the company, and knows nobody" (which would be to the other).

IMHO, of course. Maybe you have a different view of what it would mean to lean strongly to one side of the spectrum in that situation?

Nonsense. Her picture probably opens her up to suit, where she lying about the company. At the bare minimum, any lawyer would tell her to not post demonstrable lies about the company, for many reasons. Not least of which is regardless of the whole truth, in any lawsuit (filed by her, or github, or Tom, or Tom's wife, or other parties), opposition counsel will attempt to discredit your whole testimony by finding small lies and tainting you in the eyes of the jury.

So how much stock we can expect to put into such investigations?

You demand a higher standard of evidence than you yourself meet. Especially when you say "always", with zero evidence or plausibility. (And in fact, it's a standard of evidence HN rarely meets, on any subject.) The other poster was ironically much more careful.

First, I demanded nothing. I pointed out one should not assume something is true because someone, particularly someone with a clear interest in the outcome and process, said it.

Second, This is somewhat pedantic. The OP simply assumed what whatever Jane said was true, and then went from there.

Your complaint is essentially that i did not add the words "in every case i have been part of, and every one i know about in sufficient independent detail" in front of "always". All told, that's about 43 cases.

Feel free to pretend i did write that, if it suffices.

If not, feel free to disbelieve me!