Funny how perception works. I perceive Sam Altman to be a borderline far leftist. I guess it makes sense that those to the far left of him would see things differently.
It's one of those things where it depends on what topic. He's probably all for marriage equality, because it doesn't affect him. Talk about his incubator, and suddenly he's Donald Trump. It's similar to a number of left-leaning journalism outlets, and unions. Most of them did, and continue to support unions quite a bit. But when their own reporters unionized, they pulled every classic trick in the book to stop them.
He founded a company that sold for tens of millions of dollars. Even though many (including himself) consider it a failure, not many people have done that. And in the process he demonstrated his worth to Paul Graham, who decided he'd make the best successor.
How do you think the president of Y Combinator should be determined if not by the original creator?
Replace "Sam" with the name of anyone in a position of power and you could say the same about anyone. Case in point:
>Talk to Donald Trump alone sometime for 5 minutes and you'll get it. Super smart dude and it comes through immediately.
Being smart does not make you a nice person, nor does it mean you're incapable of prejudice or harm against anyone. Travis Kalanicks supporters were saying the same things about how nice he was as well, but the allegations of how Uber was being run and the culture of harassment against women reached fever pitch and eventually led to him stepping down from the company.
Taking the allegations Sam was being motivated by the fact Pando is owned by a woman out of the equation, Altman's actions are still pretty damning. The part about having unsubstantiated information from a former employee on Pando is not how someone in his position should act at all.
White privilege is a systemic problem, especially in tech & finance, which little is being done to address. It's worth calling out whenever it appears, to avoid normalising it.
This point would have merit if there was any reason to think Y Combinator systematically gives white men preference over others to run its organization.
There's no evidence I've seen to suggest that.
While women and minorities should be treated fairly, so should white people...they deserve to succeed too. Assuming white privilege is responsible for every white person's success (and incriminating them for it) is just as backward as traditional racism.
This isn't all or nothing. Your use of "every white person's success" is just contentious: nobody suggested what you argue against. On the other hand, suggesting white privilege is absent (different from completely responsible for) any white person's success is just wrong: that privilege is systemic and gives every white person an advantage, even if it isn't totally responsible for any white person's success. Replace "white" with "male" for a similar argument regarding gender.
There is a power differential though: white people enjoy many advantages over other groups; black people (for example) do not. I think it's fair and necessary to point out that white privilege gives an unfair advantage, such that a white person could gain a position of influence/power/responsibility in preference to a more skilled non-white person. It's also important to point out that white privilege is the default position for most of the Western world, so we should assume that, when it could be present, it is present, unless steps are taken to reduce its unfairness.
> There's no evidence I've seen to suggest that
Likewise, there's no evidence that they systemically combat white privilege.
I mostly agree with you, but I think there's a fine line between what I'll call white privilege and white preference.
White privilege is a complex system of societal advantage. There's nothing Sam (in this case) did to deserve that privilege, but there's also no reason to condemn him for using it to live the best life he can.
White preference is a racist dynamic whereby a white person is preferred over a minority solely because of the color of their skin. There's no doubt this exists too, but it's a deeply disgusting offense that's hard to prove.
It seems to me that a number of people in this thread are conflating the two. You're right that we don't know what's going on behind the scenes at YC, but I think we can give them the benefit of the doubt that white preference is not at play here.
> there's also no reason to condemn him for using it to live the best life he can.
Actually, there is. Simply accepting the benefits of this systemic injustice and not actively working to remove it, especially when in a position of power, is not acceptable. If you just use white privilege to live the best life you can, that is participating in the system and is not correct. You have a duty to not only disavow 'white preference' as you call it, but also remedy the inequity of your privilege, not simply use it.
Advocating 'fairness' is easy but living it is different.
How many white people should give up opportunities because of this injustice? Not all of them, surely, but just certain ones...which ones? Who decides? What's the criteria? Which opportunities should they give up?
What about blacks in professional sports...they're overrepresented in basketball and football. Should they give up their opportunities in professional sports to help get a more 'fair' number of whites and asians in to the leagues? Who decides what's 'fair' here? Etc.
Let's make this personal. I went to a good college and got a good job because my parents' values and socioeconomic situation allowed me to.
Should I have given up my seat at university, or offered my job to another person who wasn't as fortunate as me?
Before you say yes, ask yourself if you would have done that. And regardless of what you say (or what I say) saying you/I would have done something is very different from actually doing it.
Recognizing systemic injustice and working to remove it is very different from demanding people change the way they act, when that demand is not something we would ever actually accept ourselves.
I don't understand why this is being discussed in terms of giving something up.
Educating others, being honest about these advantages, and actively calling out people who benefit and deny the benefits are all ways to combat the systemic problems and none of them require giving up what you described.
That is one doesn't have to be altruistic to the point of self harm in order to work to remedy the ills that exist.
Exactly this. The first thing we can do is recognize white privilege. Once you are comfortable talking about it, and accepting it, you may see some steps you can personally take to reduce its affect.
There is also a power differential between journalists - even for rags like Pando - and the people they cover. They have the ability to put their attacks in front of a huge audience, and in general the rest of the press will side with them. Furthermore, that power differential has a very strong racial element to it too, given how incredibly white the staff of most publications are.
No. While it's not necessarily something I'd put up there with Uber's treatment of its employees it definitely doesn't reflect well on Altman. It's also a (privileged, white) male bullying various women. Now, that may not indicate sexism (bullying isn't inherently sexist), but given the climate and extra scrutiny around this industry it's easy to understand how it could be interpreted as such.
Also I generally think it's best to listen to women when they say that treatment seems like harassment, sexism, and so forth. It may not seem like it to a man, but so what? Given our history and current culture that doesn't mean anything.
Pando is trying to present action against Pando as being because Pando reveals sexism amongst VCs (which it does) rather than because it's a muckraking gossip mag (which it is too).
It's possible to dislike Pando without supporting sexism and there are many reasons why one would do so.
But it's also got a very troubling incident of Altman publicly stating he's got "some interesting information" on Pando, implying of course that it's negative. Without bothering to say what it is.
That's a hard no-no, and should be called out as a bullshit approach whoever does it.
There is certainly hyperbole in the article but there is also a good point.
Why is Sam dropping smears? If he really thought there might be something worth "investigating" he would keep quiet and investigate. It's a total dick power move (and transparent bullshit) designed to undercut someone you don't like by spreading innuendo and veiled accusations without actually making the accusation.
The adult thing to do is say "oops, sorry. donation to charity made" and move on with your life. That's a good deed no matter how you slice it plus good PR in general. There is no win to be had here because Sam is punching down.
I'm honestly disappointed. The faux-apology just makes it worse. Much respect to you Sam, but this is childish behavior. We know it, you know it.
(I say this knowing I've doubled-down and done stuff like this in the past and regretted it every time)
So some 3rd rate blog got banned from attending YC demo days and now they want to try and weave this into the currently-hot narrative regarding harassment against women? This strikes me as just a lame attempt at news-jacking.
This happens all the time. Twitter-dramatic people rachet up their Karpman Drama Triangle histrionics against celebrities to try to get something juicy to up their social media currency. Sama deals with this every day.
I don’t think it was sexist. It’s just standard power based behavior. Isn’t specific to tech. Have seen that sort of behavior from people in power of all genders and ethnicities in the Valley for as long as I’ve been in the industry.
Examples:
- It doesn’t matter what’s in the contract. I have a lot more money than you and can sue you to oblivion.
- Tell me what to say to his boss when the boss asks me a question.
- If you have two people and one has more seniority and the other is better, who do you give the better assignment to? The one with seniority. That’s why I’m leaving.
I completely agree, but (sort of incidentally) I do wish that there was some recognition that the "tech industry" is not one specific group of people. Even at the most basic level, there are the hackers, and then there are the MBAs that flocked in when the money started flowing. Two completely disparate subcultures that are lumped in together under one banner, and not only lumped together that way by outsiders, but by "the tech industry" itself.
Certainly not. There's a reason people say power corrupts. Nothing especially to do with intersectionality - it's the power, not who is using it on whom.
The amoral use of power to further your own agenda is where excessive political, social, economic, or religious authority always ends.
It's classically antisocial behavior. Machiavellianism, psychopathy, sadism, and narcissism.
Not much spice in this gravy. Could not understand the story despite reading it twice. Pando is just trying to make hay while the sun shines, or as we say in India, "Behti ganga mein hath dhona".
While I agree this article is pretty bad, why is it disappearing from the front page so fast? It's being upvoted pretty quickly. @dang is adamant that they don't punish articles that are negative towards Y Combinator, and I don't see it as flagged yet, so I'm curious.
I think you only see the [flagged] token once a story hits a certain threshold of flags. I know there's been at least one flag, since I flagged it myself. shrug
It's hardly worth even commenting on this, except to say that it's dishonest to conflate how the tech industry treats women with how YC treats journalists who write bad stuff about them. Every organization does its best to control how people perceive it, for better or for worse. There are real problems for women in tech; Pando getting on YC's bad side is hardly one of them.
The article makes the point that the founder of the site was a woman and tries to show the parallel between systemic harassment of women in VC-backed companies, and the isolated harassment of Sarah's site by Sam.
There's also optics. Flagging the story just feeds the narrative that YC is "hiding" something regardless of the truth.
When you see a PR train coming down the tracks... get out of the way. You can stand there and yell at it all you like but it won't matter. When you get to a certain point in life (high office, large influence, and/or lots of money) there is nowhere to punch but down. That means you have to stop throwing punches or you have to accept the hate. Those are your two options. On the plus side you're still really rich and/or powerful so it isn't exactly a bad deal.
Agreed in general, and we make a careful point of moderating HN less, not more, when an article is critical of YC or YC startups, although 'less' doesn't mean 'zero' (one learns about loopholes the hard way when running a web forum). But it's a moot point in this case; HN users have flagged the story overwhelmingly and the comments make it clear why. Since the community response is so clear, I think it's probably sufficient for us to simply explain that moderators haven't intervened in any way.
everyone in tech knows what pando is. but this needs to be unflagged so that stories of conspiracies and hiding the truth won't pop up. put it back and let it die on its own.
Users flagged it. We sometimes override that when an article is unusually substantive, but in this case the community verdict is so clear that doing so would just make things worse.
If only half of the story is true, it's still mind blowing what's going on. Very unfortunately that PG isn't involved anymore.
That Sam has doubts about Adam Penenberg integrity speaks volumes for itself - Stephen Glass fraud investigator fame - there is even a movie about the case. No wonder the HN got flagged, uneasy story, it's the user.
Honestly, this reads doesn't read like a piece of "journalism"... It's closer to a Facebook rant.
Clearly, Pando staff don't like Sam Altman, and I think this whole article is pretty unprofessional.
> How is this the culture that we built? How did we end up creating an industry in which lying pipsqueaks like Sam Altman are heralded as “thought leaders” and “visionaries”?
I don't know if Sam Altman is a visionary, or thought leader. I do know that in this case, he kept it way more professional, and the evidence Pando (or Sam for that matter) bring to the table adds nothing to the conversation.
> What the Sam Altmans care about is that three years ago a website run by a woman wrote a mean thing about one of their portfolio companies. In the Sams’ world, there must be consequences for that kind of insubordination. She must be brought to heel.
To be blunt, none of this on Sam's part seems sexist (at least I don't see it). Perhaps I missed something, but this seems to be using the "women in tech have wronged" craze to rationalize some way the Pando staff feel wronged. I grant you, many women (and probably a whole lot of others, minorities, non-citizens, etc.) have been wronged, but this... this just detracts from the discussion. Pando, the New York Times, or anyone can't just attack people for being in the positions they are in. I can't blame Altman for being in his position, he's there, all we can do at this point is try to work together to improve the situation. To do that, petty stuff like this needs to stop.
Occasionally, I'm sure we will need to remove people causing problems, like a CEO who enables sexual harassment, or a board member who says inappropriate things. Hopefully, this wont happen too often, as I refuse to believe the vast majority aren't decent human beings.
That being said, in this case, it seems like Pando is the problem -_-
Not to take this on a tangent but wait till female interns at VC firms decide to speak up. They put up with abnormal requests for attending parties at abnormal hours.
To be fair, I too am invited to parties at abnormal hours, or out to bars (and I don't drink), or to the water parks, etc.
I think it's important we keep things in perspective and review every case as a unique occurrence (or every person at least). There's a danger in generalizing.
There is obvious sexism (perhaps a ton of it), but I also think it's not really helpful to just assume certain requests are sexist. Especially, in the example you just gave, where female interns "abnormal requests for attending parties at abnormal hours". I'm sure it happens all the time, there may even be a small sexual component (just like every other industry), however it may be just as sexist not to invite them...
Unless it impacts their career, or in some disenfranchises them, I really don't see it as an issue. I can tell you that I turn down literally every event outside of work that isn't 9am - 5pm. It may impact my career (although I don' think so), I think people just feel pressured about it.
I can't tell you how pressured I felt turning down our teams offsite to a ski resort. I turned it down because it wasn't in my job description, but also because of the following:
(a) I like to spend time with my family
(b) I don't like skiing
(c) All the women had their own rooms, while the guys had to share
(d) I have a fulfilling life outside of work
The reason I bring that up, is a lot of people may look at that situation as sexist. It actually did disenfranchise me to not go. Literally, I was told "it's required, you have to go", I still said no.
Personally, I view it as a difference in lifestyles and expectations. I'm not offended that they made me feel uncomfortable with the offer (idk if I should, maybe...), I however am upset that I lost something out of it.
I think that's what we need to fix, fix the expectation that work leaves the office. It's fairly easy to not make people feel uncomfortable if the expectation that 9am - 5pm it's a "safe space", anything that happens there you put your work hat on and work appropriately. Then when the shift ends, your free to put your fun hat on. Don't mix the two, and you'll have a hell of a lot less problems.
I feel for you, I do. I feel the same way about extracurricular events.
But, I think what you're missing is that gender discrimination isn't black and white. It's a matter of percentages. Let's say bagging out on weekend ski trips impacts 30% of men, and 42% of women, because women bear more responsibility for child care tasks, or because they are wary of spending a beer-fueled weekend snowed in with their male co-workers. Now multiply that by a dozen other independent circumstances where women are disadvantaged, even by a percent or two, and you quickly end up with an immense headwind.
Again, that's not to say that you aren't impacted too. But in all likelihood, you come out ahead or even on some of the other dozen issues.
If you suffer because of life choices like spending time with your children or not liking binge beer drinking, that may be unfortunate but is not "sexism". Even if it happens that women tend to make different choices.
It's like if you have a policy of only hiring people with CS degrees. That's not sexist, just because most CS graduates are men.
You can't hold the company responsible for the fact that women on average choose to spend more time with their family and are less inclined to stuy certain subjects. Unless you discriminate against them BECAUSE they are women, it's not sexism.
Yes and no. Requiring a computer science degree is a fairly reasonable restriction to place on hiring, since it (at least on its face) correlates strongly with qualification for the job. However, requiring all your employees to go on a bro's ski weekend trip, or serving your free dinner at 8 PM every day when none of the women with families can stay for dinner, may have a disparate impact on employees without any correlation to their work performance.
To turn up the contrast and make a semi-absurd argument, one could say, "We don't discriminate on the basis of religion, but we ask all applicants to recite the Lord's Prayer from memory in their interview. Strangely, we never seem to hire any Hindu or Muslim applicants." OK, that's absurd, but what if you only recruit at universities that have extremely low female:male graduation ratios in their CS programs, when there are other programs with better balance? That's certainly not discriminatory on its face, but it has the same result as if you had discriminated overtly.
Sexism may not be the right word (and I didn't use that word), but I do think it's important to look at the results of your policies and environment in totality to determine if you are treating women equitably. This is certainly the standard that the courts use for evaluating things like voting regulations -- look at the recent rulings on North Carolina's voting laws: actions like curtailing the number of weekend voting days that do not mention race at all are clearly crafted to reduce participation by black voters.
I am talking very specifically about female interns at VC firms (maybe not all of them) and the pressure they face when they get invited to parties on the pretext of networking. Imagine you are one of the three women at a party with men drinking all around you.
>Unfortunately, whilst all this was playing out, at least one Valley bro apparently decided that a little bit too much progress was being made. That at least one woman too many was speaking out.
So the article opens with the implication that Altman is just another 'bro' complicit in sexually harassing women.
It then hammers on the Bilderberg part like it was somehow relevant.
Furthermore it proceeds to make a tortured comparison between Altman and Trump, even going so far as to call him "some kind of Alt Right Roger Rabbit". Presumably this is because their readership is so sophisticated as to otherwise not understand such alleged impropriety unless framed in context of Trump.
Never mind the fact that Altman is openly gay and harbors a fervent dislike of Trump. But hey—when your job involves passing off third-rate trash as journalism, then I suppose lying by omission to suit an agenda is simply par for the course.
>Which brings me to the moral of the story, where my outrage at seeing Sarah and Pando smeared by a unremitting scumbag like Sam Altman butts against my own guilt at being part of the social group – well-off white dudes in Silicon Valley – who are almost exclusively responsible for all of the shit we’ve witnessed/read about these past few days.
Ah yes, the moral of the story. This roughly translates as: "My boss is in a spat with this guy, and I like my paycheck, so I'm going to call him nasty names and state that I feel guilty about being born with the same skin color as him. Then, I'm going to blame other people with the same skin color as me for the world's ills so I can feel better about myself."
“Never mind the fact that Altman is openly gay and harbors a fervent dislike of Trump. But hey—when your job involves passing off third-rate trash as journalism, then I suppose lying by omission to suit an agenda is simply par for the course.”
Sure, but he did the same thing Trump has been doing for the past year. That’s what the comparison is.
More like Pando is saying he did. For all we know there's more nuance somewhere that they're omitting. It's easy to cherry-pick the most flattering aspects of a Twitter feud and present it as a complete accounting of events.
Regardless, I still fail to see why they felt the need to make the comparison. It just struck me as a cheap way to vilify him with their readers.
If Altman did what they said he did, then of course that's bad. However, I can't help but notice he isn't the one penning hate-filled screeds here.
All the tweets are out there to read. And that whole, “I’ve got an investigation going, but I’m not going to actually say what it revealed” thing is DIRECTLY out of Trump’s playbook. Like, that’s exactly what he did with Comey.
And yeah, if he’s being a douche, and worse yet a Trumpian douche, I see no reason not to call him out on it.
Also, he penned hate-filled screeds during that Twitter exchange.
I stopped reading as soon as I got to the Bilderberg part. For all I know Sam Altman really has behaved horribly, but it's obvious I can't trust this author.
They're conflating two different things. Criticism is fine and should be encouraged. Hysterical ranty responses with false claims is an enormous problem.
This phenomenon that we can't criticize actions without being falsely accused of being an "x hater" is dangerous. What Pando has done is dishonest.
Not sure this has anything to do with gender or race. Sounds like a disagreement on facts of a story. Seems like stirring controversy to takeover an important conversation and get clicks. Kind of like Fox News or CNN.
There is no indication, even if you believe this post, that Altman did anything because of "sexism". At most he's generally vengeful. In fact the only sexism (and racism) in this story comes from Pando.
>>> "We didn’t tolerate it from the most valuable private company in Silicon Valley history and we sure as aren’t going to take it from the substitute teacher of Paul Graham’s bro creche."
80 comments
[ 28.0 ms ] story [ 2968 ms ] threadHow do you think the president of Y Combinator should be determined if not by the original creator?
Appeal to "superficial charm" isn't the greatest argument here.
>Talk to Donald Trump alone sometime for 5 minutes and you'll get it. Super smart dude and it comes through immediately.
Being smart does not make you a nice person, nor does it mean you're incapable of prejudice or harm against anyone. Travis Kalanicks supporters were saying the same things about how nice he was as well, but the allegations of how Uber was being run and the culture of harassment against women reached fever pitch and eventually led to him stepping down from the company.
Taking the allegations Sam was being motivated by the fact Pando is owned by a woman out of the equation, Altman's actions are still pretty damning. The part about having unsubstantiated information from a former employee on Pando is not how someone in his position should act at all.
There's no evidence I've seen to suggest that.
While women and minorities should be treated fairly, so should white people...they deserve to succeed too. Assuming white privilege is responsible for every white person's success (and incriminating them for it) is just as backward as traditional racism.
> There's no evidence I've seen to suggest that
Likewise, there's no evidence that they systemically combat white privilege.
White privilege is a complex system of societal advantage. There's nothing Sam (in this case) did to deserve that privilege, but there's also no reason to condemn him for using it to live the best life he can.
White preference is a racist dynamic whereby a white person is preferred over a minority solely because of the color of their skin. There's no doubt this exists too, but it's a deeply disgusting offense that's hard to prove.
It seems to me that a number of people in this thread are conflating the two. You're right that we don't know what's going on behind the scenes at YC, but I think we can give them the benefit of the doubt that white preference is not at play here.
Actually, there is. Simply accepting the benefits of this systemic injustice and not actively working to remove it, especially when in a position of power, is not acceptable. If you just use white privilege to live the best life you can, that is participating in the system and is not correct. You have a duty to not only disavow 'white preference' as you call it, but also remedy the inequity of your privilege, not simply use it.
How many white people should give up opportunities because of this injustice? Not all of them, surely, but just certain ones...which ones? Who decides? What's the criteria? Which opportunities should they give up?
What about blacks in professional sports...they're overrepresented in basketball and football. Should they give up their opportunities in professional sports to help get a more 'fair' number of whites and asians in to the leagues? Who decides what's 'fair' here? Etc.
Let's make this personal. I went to a good college and got a good job because my parents' values and socioeconomic situation allowed me to.
Should I have given up my seat at university, or offered my job to another person who wasn't as fortunate as me?
Before you say yes, ask yourself if you would have done that. And regardless of what you say (or what I say) saying you/I would have done something is very different from actually doing it.
Recognizing systemic injustice and working to remove it is very different from demanding people change the way they act, when that demand is not something we would ever actually accept ourselves.
Educating others, being honest about these advantages, and actively calling out people who benefit and deny the benefits are all ways to combat the systemic problems and none of them require giving up what you described.
That is one doesn't have to be altruistic to the point of self harm in order to work to remedy the ills that exist.
fyi I am at the talk and accept phase.
Also I generally think it's best to listen to women when they say that treatment seems like harassment, sexism, and so forth. It may not seem like it to a man, but so what? Given our history and current culture that doesn't mean anything.
It's possible to dislike Pando without supporting sexism and there are many reasons why one would do so.
But it's also got a very troubling incident of Altman publicly stating he's got "some interesting information" on Pando, implying of course that it's negative. Without bothering to say what it is.
That's a hard no-no, and should be called out as a bullshit approach whoever does it.
Why is Sam dropping smears? If he really thought there might be something worth "investigating" he would keep quiet and investigate. It's a total dick power move (and transparent bullshit) designed to undercut someone you don't like by spreading innuendo and veiled accusations without actually making the accusation.
The adult thing to do is say "oops, sorry. donation to charity made" and move on with your life. That's a good deed no matter how you slice it plus good PR in general. There is no win to be had here because Sam is punching down.
I'm honestly disappointed. The faux-apology just makes it worse. Much respect to you Sam, but this is childish behavior. We know it, you know it.
(I say this knowing I've doubled-down and done stuff like this in the past and regretted it every time)
Pando editors are definitely unprofessional here. If they care about their integrity, I think they should apologize for raging a bit too much.
Examples: - It doesn’t matter what’s in the contract. I have a lot more money than you and can sue you to oblivion. - Tell me what to say to his boss when the boss asks me a question. - If you have two people and one has more seniority and the other is better, who do you give the better assignment to? The one with seniority. That’s why I’m leaving.
The amoral use of power to further your own agenda is where excessive political, social, economic, or religious authority always ends.
It's classically antisocial behavior. Machiavellianism, psychopathy, sadism, and narcissism.
(Edit: actually didn't see it until someone asked me about a complaint they saw on Twitter.)
When you see a PR train coming down the tracks... get out of the way. You can stand there and yell at it all you like but it won't matter. When you get to a certain point in life (high office, large influence, and/or lots of money) there is nowhere to punch but down. That means you have to stop throwing punches or you have to accept the hate. Those are your two options. On the plus side you're still really rich and/or powerful so it isn't exactly a bad deal.
That Sam has doubts about Adam Penenberg integrity speaks volumes for itself - Stephen Glass fraud investigator fame - there is even a movie about the case. No wonder the HN got flagged, uneasy story, it's the user.
I don't understand this sentence, but no one at YC or HN has touched the submission. "[flagged]" means lots of users flagged it.
/s/flagged/flagged by users/g
Clearly, Pando staff don't like Sam Altman, and I think this whole article is pretty unprofessional.
> How is this the culture that we built? How did we end up creating an industry in which lying pipsqueaks like Sam Altman are heralded as “thought leaders” and “visionaries”?
I don't know if Sam Altman is a visionary, or thought leader. I do know that in this case, he kept it way more professional, and the evidence Pando (or Sam for that matter) bring to the table adds nothing to the conversation.
> What the Sam Altmans care about is that three years ago a website run by a woman wrote a mean thing about one of their portfolio companies. In the Sams’ world, there must be consequences for that kind of insubordination. She must be brought to heel.
To be blunt, none of this on Sam's part seems sexist (at least I don't see it). Perhaps I missed something, but this seems to be using the "women in tech have wronged" craze to rationalize some way the Pando staff feel wronged. I grant you, many women (and probably a whole lot of others, minorities, non-citizens, etc.) have been wronged, but this... this just detracts from the discussion. Pando, the New York Times, or anyone can't just attack people for being in the positions they are in. I can't blame Altman for being in his position, he's there, all we can do at this point is try to work together to improve the situation. To do that, petty stuff like this needs to stop.
Occasionally, I'm sure we will need to remove people causing problems, like a CEO who enables sexual harassment, or a board member who says inappropriate things. Hopefully, this wont happen too often, as I refuse to believe the vast majority aren't decent human beings.
That being said, in this case, it seems like Pando is the problem -_-
I think it's important we keep things in perspective and review every case as a unique occurrence (or every person at least). There's a danger in generalizing.
There is obvious sexism (perhaps a ton of it), but I also think it's not really helpful to just assume certain requests are sexist. Especially, in the example you just gave, where female interns "abnormal requests for attending parties at abnormal hours". I'm sure it happens all the time, there may even be a small sexual component (just like every other industry), however it may be just as sexist not to invite them...
Unless it impacts their career, or in some disenfranchises them, I really don't see it as an issue. I can tell you that I turn down literally every event outside of work that isn't 9am - 5pm. It may impact my career (although I don' think so), I think people just feel pressured about it.
I can't tell you how pressured I felt turning down our teams offsite to a ski resort. I turned it down because it wasn't in my job description, but also because of the following:
(a) I like to spend time with my family
(b) I don't like skiing
(c) All the women had their own rooms, while the guys had to share
(d) I have a fulfilling life outside of work
The reason I bring that up, is a lot of people may look at that situation as sexist. It actually did disenfranchise me to not go. Literally, I was told "it's required, you have to go", I still said no.
Personally, I view it as a difference in lifestyles and expectations. I'm not offended that they made me feel uncomfortable with the offer (idk if I should, maybe...), I however am upset that I lost something out of it.
I think that's what we need to fix, fix the expectation that work leaves the office. It's fairly easy to not make people feel uncomfortable if the expectation that 9am - 5pm it's a "safe space", anything that happens there you put your work hat on and work appropriately. Then when the shift ends, your free to put your fun hat on. Don't mix the two, and you'll have a hell of a lot less problems.
Even with your example, that wouldn't occur.
But, I think what you're missing is that gender discrimination isn't black and white. It's a matter of percentages. Let's say bagging out on weekend ski trips impacts 30% of men, and 42% of women, because women bear more responsibility for child care tasks, or because they are wary of spending a beer-fueled weekend snowed in with their male co-workers. Now multiply that by a dozen other independent circumstances where women are disadvantaged, even by a percent or two, and you quickly end up with an immense headwind.
Again, that's not to say that you aren't impacted too. But in all likelihood, you come out ahead or even on some of the other dozen issues.
It's like if you have a policy of only hiring people with CS degrees. That's not sexist, just because most CS graduates are men.
You can't hold the company responsible for the fact that women on average choose to spend more time with their family and are less inclined to stuy certain subjects. Unless you discriminate against them BECAUSE they are women, it's not sexism.
To turn up the contrast and make a semi-absurd argument, one could say, "We don't discriminate on the basis of religion, but we ask all applicants to recite the Lord's Prayer from memory in their interview. Strangely, we never seem to hire any Hindu or Muslim applicants." OK, that's absurd, but what if you only recruit at universities that have extremely low female:male graduation ratios in their CS programs, when there are other programs with better balance? That's certainly not discriminatory on its face, but it has the same result as if you had discriminated overtly.
Sexism may not be the right word (and I didn't use that word), but I do think it's important to look at the results of your policies and environment in totality to determine if you are treating women equitably. This is certainly the standard that the courts use for evaluating things like voting regulations -- look at the recent rulings on North Carolina's voting laws: actions like curtailing the number of weekend voting days that do not mention race at all are clearly crafted to reduce participation by black voters.
Is your suggestion to ban decisions that have disparate impact in terms of race or gender?
How many other women are in a similar situation, and are unable to speak up?
So the article opens with the implication that Altman is just another 'bro' complicit in sexually harassing women.
It then hammers on the Bilderberg part like it was somehow relevant.
Furthermore it proceeds to make a tortured comparison between Altman and Trump, even going so far as to call him "some kind of Alt Right Roger Rabbit". Presumably this is because their readership is so sophisticated as to otherwise not understand such alleged impropriety unless framed in context of Trump.
Never mind the fact that Altman is openly gay and harbors a fervent dislike of Trump. But hey—when your job involves passing off third-rate trash as journalism, then I suppose lying by omission to suit an agenda is simply par for the course.
>Which brings me to the moral of the story, where my outrage at seeing Sarah and Pando smeared by a unremitting scumbag like Sam Altman butts against my own guilt at being part of the social group – well-off white dudes in Silicon Valley – who are almost exclusively responsible for all of the shit we’ve witnessed/read about these past few days.
Ah yes, the moral of the story. This roughly translates as: "My boss is in a spat with this guy, and I like my paycheck, so I'm going to call him nasty names and state that I feel guilty about being born with the same skin color as him. Then, I'm going to blame other people with the same skin color as me for the world's ills so I can feel better about myself."
Sure, but he did the same thing Trump has been doing for the past year. That’s what the comparison is.
Regardless, I still fail to see why they felt the need to make the comparison. It just struck me as a cheap way to vilify him with their readers.
If Altman did what they said he did, then of course that's bad. However, I can't help but notice he isn't the one penning hate-filled screeds here.
And yeah, if he’s being a douche, and worse yet a Trumpian douche, I see no reason not to call him out on it.
Also, he penned hate-filled screeds during that Twitter exchange.
This phenomenon that we can't criticize actions without being falsely accused of being an "x hater" is dangerous. What Pando has done is dishonest.
Why the fck could we not leave the race out of it? Nobody would dare to speak about race unless they are white - in which case it is used as a slur?
That's fucked up.
I hope by just throwing sexual harassment claims Without serious facts they don't ruin trust and credibility.
Touche. I disagree, but touche nonetheless!