I had to follow a string of links to understand this story better, but it sounds like this individual made advances towards coworkers and colleagues.
That got me thinking, on a nationwide basis, how many people would be resigning if they were to resign based on making advances to coworkers?
For anyone else curious, here's a medium post from the linked article, written by the individual, referencing his behavior of advancing on women in work related environments.
"Making advances" is a pretty sugar-coated way to refer to someone who's had many reported cases of sexually harassing people who he had funding control over.
"Advances" is the wording used in the authors own medium post, do you have a suggestion on how they should have phrased it?
Do you know anyone, female or male, who have been hit on, flirted with, or sexually harassed at work by colleagues, bosses, etc? I do, I suspect it is more common than people realize.
You still don't get it. It was unWANTED and inappropriate advances given the professional relationship and setting. It's not like asking someone out at a bar, ffs.
The story was discussed heavily few days back and arguably has been one of the biggest news that broke in the tech industry in a while. That's the reason why the article seems to have assumed a whole bunch of stuff.
I suppose the insider-baseball nature of how the story is presented is what makes it hard to follow. These type of articles are often a mishmash of namedropping and assumptions, which ends up distracting from the actual story or the topic itself.
The question I have with all these resignations and apologies is whether the partners in question are still getting carry on their fund. Since it's not addressed anywhere, I think it's safe to assume the answer is yes.
I can't imagine how shitty it is to have been harassed, and to then muster up the bravery to out the perpetrator, only for the harasser to continue to earn money on your work while they sun themselves on a beach somewhere.
Agree that's shitty. Suggest the female founders who dealt with McClure (including and especially those NOT funded) get together and file a class action lawsuit against the fund. Then they can own it, or at least a big piece of it. When women take action on that scale this kind of thing will be policed much more carefully... but it will take powerful people losing 8/9 figure money.
I'd estimate that Dave McClure's carry is worth $25m (assumptions: funds control 250m in investments, 20% carry, 2.5x returns, DMC has 20% ownership)
It would be tough to get an investor to agree to give up that carry. Maybe a lawsuit is a better approach to ensure they don't profit from their harassment.
I'm advocating that the ability to divest investors from your company is a necessary step to solving this problem.
(PS although I answered your question directly, I did not miss the fact that you twisted my words to say something I didn't even come close to saying. Please don't do that)
There is an additional layer to this when a person in question is a founder of a fund. It's not just the carry (and salary) that generates their returns -- they also own equity in the organization itself (thus the founders of a fund like KPCB will be orders of magnitude more weathy than other concurrent GPs, as evidenced by the famous exploits of Tom Perkins).
However, whether a forced sale of a founder's equity share of the investing organization is warranted or not is a darker shade of gray than the divestiture of one's carried interest. Certainly there must have been examples in the past in various private investment funds where a founder is forced to relinquish one's ownership (due to fraud, etc.); I wonder where we deem this line to be drawn in the sand.
I'd love to hear more on this. Can you describe the structures in more detail? I wouldn't have expected the org itself to be anything except a shell around each successive fund. (Maybe I shouldn't have skipped this part of Venture Deals)
500Startups still have serious questions to answer regarding how they handled this whole process as it seems to indicate deeper problems than just one person.
Most critically they need to address the claims (https://twitter.com/sarahkunst/status/881736309009764352) that hush money was paid to silence victims because if that's true then it's clear evidence of an attempt to cover up the harassment rather than dealing with it.
Sexual harassment and bullying others isn't the same as addiction.
Let's not categorize this type of behavior as a disease. By his own admission he knew what he was getting at; leveraging his power to take sexual advantage of the weak.
Still haven't seen evidence of wrongdoing. 500 needs to be up front about this. Except a Facebook message to a non employee, we're really given no information to judge such a serious punishment
I'm guessing while there's a there, there... it so damaging that 500startups would lose a lot more by exposing it than trying to fix the situation and make amends.
How would you handle this in a way that doesn't damage the reputation further?
What additional evidence would satisfy you? Do you require a sting operation with bodycams on a 20-something female startup founder? Is multiple testimonies and a confession not “evidence”?
31 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 96.2 ms ] threadSaw it on Twitter, tried to post it, my post got marked as duped, that's how I ended up here.
That got me thinking, on a nationwide basis, how many people would be resigning if they were to resign based on making advances to coworkers?
For anyone else curious, here's a medium post from the linked article, written by the individual, referencing his behavior of advancing on women in work related environments.
https://500hats.com/im-a-creep-i-m-sorry-d2c13e996ea0
Do you know anyone, female or male, who have been hit on, flirted with, or sexually harassed at work by colleagues, bosses, etc? I do, I suspect it is more common than people realize.
> "It was unWANTED and inappropriate advances given the professional relationship and setting."
is different from what I said here:
"anyone, female or male, who have been hit on, flirted with, or sexually harassed at work by colleagues, bosses, etc"
I can't imagine how shitty it is to have been harassed, and to then muster up the bravery to out the perpetrator, only for the harasser to continue to earn money on your work while they sun themselves on a beach somewhere.
I'd estimate that Dave McClure's carry is worth $25m (assumptions: funds control 250m in investments, 20% carry, 2.5x returns, DMC has 20% ownership)
It would be tough to get an investor to agree to give up that carry. Maybe a lawsuit is a better approach to ensure they don't profit from their harassment.
Are you advocating for the total abrogation of property rights, here ?
(PS although I answered your question directly, I did not miss the fact that you twisted my words to say something I didn't even come close to saying. Please don't do that)
However, whether a forced sale of a founder's equity share of the investing organization is warranted or not is a darker shade of gray than the divestiture of one's carried interest. Certainly there must have been examples in the past in various private investment funds where a founder is forced to relinquish one's ownership (due to fraud, etc.); I wonder where we deem this line to be drawn in the sand.
Most critically they need to address the claims (https://twitter.com/sarahkunst/status/881736309009764352) that hush money was paid to silence victims because if that's true then it's clear evidence of an attempt to cover up the harassment rather than dealing with it.
How do you continue to act this way after already settling multiple cases?
How do you continue being an alcoholic after having lost you job or partner because of it?
Let's not categorize this type of behavior as a disease. By his own admission he knew what he was getting at; leveraging his power to take sexual advantage of the weak.
How would you handle this in a way that doesn't damage the reputation further?