[name redacted] aka [redacted] as named in the text of the police report was arrested on 11/29/2021 after evading arrest for two months with the assistance of Github management.
[name redacted] was also the co-founder of Ycombinator funded startup Hackpad (acquired by Dropbox).
Nat Friedman is [name redacted]'s best friend and hired [name redacted] knowing he had a history of abusing other women as well. He still refuses to stop associating with [name redacted].
They did not report his location to the authorities and allowed him to work across state lines without any changes to his employment agreement.
I later asked Github HR what their policy on domestic violene is. This is what they sent.
"Microsoft is committed to working with employees who are victims of domestic violence to prevent abuse from occurring in the workplace. Employees who are concerned about violence occurring in the workplace should immediately discuss their concerns with the Human Resources (HR) manager assigned to their group. The Microsoft Global Security group can provide guidelines and suggestions for increasing your safety in the workplace.
Employees who are experiencing domestic violence outside of work are encouraged to seek assistance from Microsoft Cares. Microsoft Cares provides information regarding counseling and treatment resources. Perpetrators of domestic violence are also encouraged to seek assistance from Microsoft Cares.
In some situations, employees may be eligible for time off work or other accommodation to manage medical issues and other negative consequences arising from domestic violence. Contact Benefits for more information."
They officially accommodate "perpetrators of domestic violence" as Microsoft-owned Github.
The Cares program is kind of the catch-all “I have a weird non-work issue I want help with”. You could ask HR/management what to do if you were under siege by zombie geese with chainsaws; they’d say to contact Cares.
I’m guessing if this guy actually contacted Cares, they’d be more likely to help him turn himself in without violence, than to arrange a getaway to Cuba.
What these programs (I don't know about the Microsoft one specifically) also can do in this situation is refer employees to criminal lawyers (which are still paid by the employee).
[I used such a referral once with a different employer to assist a family member in a legal matter (not involving interpersonal violence)].
> In what capacity? How did you come by your knowledge of the warrant?
Why would this matter at all? It seems like you're casting suspicion on [name redacted], although I can't begin to imagine what there is to be suspicious of.
> They officially accommodate "perpetrators of domestic violence" as Microsoft-owned Github.
In fairness, they do need procedures to accommodate such people. Your other employment-related rights don't end just because you've done bad stuff, and you need to treat perpetrators of domestic violence differently to ordinary employees (e.g. being really suspicious of them).
I like bashing Microsoft as much as the next person, but I doubt this situation had much to do with Microsoft's domestic violence policies.
but it's not that he just did "bad stuff," it's that he's a fugitive from an outstanding warrant. legally I'm curious if MS would be liable for helping him stay employed as he evaded arrest.
> They officially accommodate "perpetrators of domestic violence" as Microsoft-owned Github.
To take action against someone based on an unproven accusation of conduct outside of the workplace seems like the perfect way to get you sued. I'm sure if convicted he will become persona non grata. But until that point he should be entitled to the presumption of innocence.
I don't understand why we expect private companies/hospitals/universities do the job of the police/courts.
The justice system is complex for a reason (oversight, transparency, accountability, fairness, etc. - or at least that's the goal, however bad they are at achieving it, unaccountable private institutions will be even worse).
No, it’s only a danger if that person actually commits violence. Let’s not advocate for punishing people based on hearsay. I like to think we have enough examples of that backfiring spectacularly throughout history to have learned our lesson by now.
No, it's a danger because a person that commits violence against women is engaging in misogynistic behavior and can't be trusted to treat female subordinates and colleagues fairly.
Furthermore, Alex was reported to Github HR by multiple people for verbal abuse and nothing was done about it under Nat Friedman's leadership.
To be clear I’m not defending Alex in any way. I think it’s quite clear he should lose his job and probably be in jail, depending on the outcome of the evidence collection and eventual trial, of course.
I was saying the blanket statement than the mere presence of any allegations of any form are enough to indicate a high probability of guilt, and we should therefore enforce punishment on an individual is dangerous. Historically, this sort of attitude has led to a lot of injustice. Black men being put in jail for crimes they never committed on the word of a white woman who was embarrassed to be caught in an affair, for instance. Taken to the extreme, it leads to things like witch hunts.
lol you love injecting all these hot topics and hashtags to gain support regarding other known men who who are truly evil. Alex is not anything like Harvey Weinstein or Jeffery Epstein, who trafficked women and used their money to promise them celebrity status and riches. What did Alex promise you to make this comparison, I wonder? He certainly didn't promise or bribe me with anything. From the texts i saw, you bribed him for sex to make him stay with you. You couldn't let him go, and you still can't. You were madly in love with him, and you still are deep down.
Sex is a two-way street. I saw the text where you agreed to a purely sex-based relationship. At that point Alex no longer wanted you, and he made it clear to you. You must’ve seen a sex-based relationship as a way to keep him in your life.
I read the entire string of messages. You pulled inflammatory things out of context to DAMN him, and posted it all over twitter, etc. Who does that? What does that say about you to post negative gossip about someone from a private intimate relationship ? Do you ever ask yourself why you’re posting malicious things about someone? Is it justice you seek? It almost sounds like a HUMBLE BRAG to get attention, like “oh I’m hot stuff bc I dated the Hackpad founder?” If Alex wasn’t famous, would you still post this stuff? I don’t think so.
And do you really think you’re doing justice by posting about some fight you guys had on twitter out of context? Who are you saving from alleged abuse? Someone who googles you or Alex like a stalker the way you do?
And ask yourself why it’s still 2 years and you’re still suffering and obsessed? You clearly need some intervention, love. Please focus on forgiveness, healing, and loving others and yourself
[name redacted] has been on a witch hunt for Alex for 3 years. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Alex did not love her back. Alex did not strangle me. The police grossly exaggerated and misconstrued what occurred. It was a mistake to call the police. They just want to collect fines and fill their own pockets. They lied to me and I had to file a report on the police themselves. Who protects us from the police? sigh. This has become such a mess.
Allegedly misogynistic != actually misogynistic, and I’d personally not want Microsoft to be the arbiter of truth.
Also, it’s just wrong and immoral. If the allegations are true, him losing his job is to small of a punishment; if they’re false, it’s too big of a punishment.
> Does that mean that Cosby is innocent and should be restored?
If he’s innocent (i.e. “not guilty”), yes.
It’s funny how people are all about “restorative justice” and “rehabilitating criminals after they serve their sentences” except, you know, when it comes to actually doing it.
You make an overarching, assumptive statement, dear. I've knows Alex for years longer than you have, and he certainly does not treat women any differently than men, nor his subordinates differently than his superiors. Please stop defaming him and his friends by association.
> Perpetrators of domestic violence are also encouraged to seek assistance from Microsoft Cares.
definitely not what I expected to read, that's... huh.
I'd expect MS would divulge his IP address from VPN logs if served by a warrant, to locate the fugitive. I wonder if this happened, and if not, what legal responsibilities or liabilities MS has to help or hinder outside warrant compliance, when the victim isn't an employee but the perp is.
(I work for MS but not GitHub, I had no idea about any of this.)
> They did not report his location to the authorities
Nonreporting, whether or not one believes it is immoral, isn't the same thing as assistance in evading arrest. The government can conscript citizens into active assistance in enforcing the law, but issuing a warrant doesn't do that.
Nonreporting is legal, assistance is a crime (“accessory after the fact” is the general term.)
It's literally a 3rd degree felony in the state of Texas.
Texas Penal Code
Sec. 38.05
Hindering Apprehension or Prosecution
(a)
A person commits an offense if, with intent to hinder the arrest, prosecution, conviction, or punishment of another for an offense or, with intent to hinder the arrest, detention, adjudication, or disposition of a child for engaging in delinquent conduct that violates a penal law of the state, or with intent to hinder the arrest of another under the authority of a warrant or capias, he:
(1)
harbors or conceals the other;
(2)
provides or aids in providing the other with any means of avoiding arrest or effecting escape; or
(3)
warns the other of impending discovery or apprehension.
I'm sorry about what you went through with this person. This statute requires prosecutors to prove intent on behalf of Microsoft; it also requires active concealment, intentional aid in avoiding arrest, or warning (or "harboring", which would require Microsoft to actually provide physical shelter and concealment). Presumably the arrest warrant you're talking about is public; disclosing the existence of a public document seems unlikely to be prosecutable.
I appreciate the rest of the details you've provided on the thread!
> Perpetrators of domestic violence are also encouraged to seek assistance from Microsoft Cares
That is a somewhat bizarre sentence that should be brought to the editorial attention of whoever wrote that. I don't think it's intended to support some of the kinds of interpretations that imagination might assign to it.
I'm honestly not sure whether to read this as "arrested ... with the assistance of Github management" or "evading arrest ... with the assistance of Github management."
Very likely this is would be the effect of a company-wide policy that would apply to every employee. (writing "would" because I'm convinced this entire post is BS)
Your account is from 2018 but you have no comments or submissions until now, all on this topic.
You make several significant, serious claims but offer no evidence aside from a jpg of a file in google drive.
For reference, the Austin city/Travis county public records results are returned as pdfs, not scans in jpg. The clerk of the court does not offer "unofficial copies" as far as I am aware.
But that only shows he has a DV charge pending, which does not tie in a whole mess of other people, github management, etc. That doesn't validate this document that is linked which is extremely peculier.
All I can find is anonymous stuff on a website called http://techrights.org/ which has a series of articles trying to in some way associate Nat with [redacted]'s domestic violence.
The "best friend" claim seems to have started with a weird "teaser" post on techrights.org wherein an anonymous source claims that "many others" can confirm that [redacted] was close to Nat. That of course doesn't even come close to establishing that either of them considers the other their "best friend", if it's trustworthy to begin with.
Then techrights.org cites their own teaser in other posts as saying that [redacted] claims Nat is his best friend (not true, or at least not supported by the source).
Now you are, I guess, using that as your basis to claim that they ARE in fact best friends.
I realise it's possible you're entirely honest and have sources I don't, but this looks like a pretty cynical smear job to me, especially given that none of the sources I've managed to find asserting that the two were close date from before this domestic abuse case. I don't have any insider knowledge, but the superficial appearance of all this is that a handful of activists with something against Nat have cooked up this "best friend" narrative for some reason, gradually escalating the claim each time they cite each other, and ultimately it all hinges on an anonymous source saying that other anonymous sources say that the two were close once.
That certainly explains the personal interest you have in this case. I hope your situation has improved and any mental scares can heal with time :)
Playing devils advocate for one moment: I don’t always agree with friends abandoning other friends when they turn out to be bad people. If a person stands any chance of rehabilitation they need people who are willing to stand by them. This doesn’t mean those friends support their actions - in fact they should be honest about what actions are inexcusable. But as a society we are too quick to claim guilt by association without understanding what their relationship is like and whether that friendship is helping to reform individuals who have been (understandably) abandoned by everyone else around them.
I’m not making direct commentary on Alex and Nat though as I don’t know them nor their relationship. I’m just making a generalised observation.
> Nat hasn't made any attempts to get Alex rehabilitation for this issue.
You might be right and remember my post wasn’t commenting on Nat and Alex specifically. However, and mean this with the greatest of respect to yourself, even though you’ve been involved with Alex you still don’t truly know how Alex and Nat communicate in private between just the two of them.
The reason I commented is because I’ve recently seen this same kind of mob mentality happen against some genuinely nice people who have kept their association because they were sincerely trying to rehabilitate others. So they didn’t deserve guilt by association. But their cases were different to these ones.
Anyhow I’m not here to defend Nat nor Alex (I don’t even know them) and this is a understandably going to be a highly emotionally charged subject so I’ll refrain from further comments because sometimes my well intentioned remarks can come across poor (totally my issue. I’m working on fixing it).
I do truly wish you happiness in any future relationships and hope this nightmare you’ve been through doesn’t leave any scares (emotional or physical) that cannot heal.
Ok, sure, but part of rehabilitation is making amends to victims. No amends have been made beyond an "apology" in which he reiterated he thought that I deserved abuse because he has more money and power than me.
I initially approached Nat about with this with a great deal of empathy towards Alex in spite of what he did to me. Ignoring a victim and giving a leadership position to someone like that?
I can't speak to any current events, but I was an employee of Ximian, formerly Helix Code, from 2000 to 2004. I also lived with [name redacted] for a year around 2001 and/or 2002, when we lived just down the street from Nat.
Nat and [name redacted] were always exceptionally close, which I always found confusing. [name redacted] was intense, passionate, charismatic, but also had troubled and troubling relationships with people, _particularly_ women. [name redacted] was, if I remember correctly, let go from Ximian when he failed to arrive to work every day by noon for one week straight (we lived a 5 to 10 minute walk from the office).
Even after [name redacted] was let go, he and Nat remained fast friends.
The lateness thing is very spot on. I have text messages of him accusing me on intentionally trying to hurt his feelings because I didn't want to sit around for hours waiting for him in a public place alone so he could finish at the gym because he "forgot" we were supposed to meet up.
This was the beginning of a long chain of emotionally abusive, controlling, and manipulative behaviors.
Did you consult a lawyer before posting this? Given how litigious some folk in SV are, I'd be wary. Microsoft doesn't tend to help fund defamation suits, they're not quite Oracle, but you never know.
Also.. This seems to have disappeared from the front page.
The document you linked appears to be a request for a warrant, containing a third person account of an accusation. Has there been a trial, or any evidence presented in support of the accusation?
I hope he gets a fair trial and that everyone involved receives justice. He's been accused of a serious crime, and that definitely calls for thourough investigation.
In the absence of some substantial reason to believe this part, this is quite likely actionable as libel against Microsoft (as well as, without including substantial reason to believe it, wholly inappropriate for HN.)
Normally I think this kind of speculation is dangerous, but there is actual data to back you up[1].
Strangulation is a singularly accurate predictor of future homicide. There seems to be a world of difference between just hitting someone and actually trying to crush their throat with your bare hands. It should be taken far, far more seriously than it is -- attempted murder at least.
I was aware of that, hence my initial statement (although TBH I expected the subsequent downvoting, which I clearly got because some folks don't want to see patterns of that kind of behavior as likely to escalate over time), I just didn't want to dig back in time to the literature, so thanks for that. To that end: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2573025/
Taken charitably, the policy is encouraging perpetrators to seek help - therapy I assume - to end the cycle. I would not interpret this as aiding a flight from justice, but I wish you luck in your investigation.
I see, I actually missed that line: "Perpetrators of domestic violence are also encouraged to seek assistance from Microsoft Cares."
That sentence leaves a lot unsaid about the consequences of taking such an action. It's almost certain that Cares is required by policy/legal to refer that to law enforcement.
"employees may be eligible for time off work or other accommodation to manage medical issues and other negative consequences arising from domestic violence."
It doesn't specify the time off and accommodations are just for victims.
You must be having trouble parsing text or explaining your interpretation. The policy says it works with victims, not harassers (DV perps?).
[Edit: in fact, I was having trouble parsing text. I missed the line about perpetrators. For that, I apologize, as for suggesting it was your inability to parse text]
I suspect this is troll bait trying to get exactly the reaction you've given. I find the best way to discourage this type of behavior is a simple downvote and move on.
> But, now I do, since the crowd is going to get me rate limited or shadowbanned again if I dont offer up why I bothered voicing a contrarian perception.
Your original comment:
> > She told officers they were arguing because she would not give his cell phone back
> Yeah but did he get his cell phone back?
Just to clarify, that's not a "contrarian perception", or at least does not come across as one. It comes across as a tasteless joke (like ones I've heard too many times from morons who think domestic abuse is joke worthy).
It's not so easy, connecting [name redacted] and [redacted] without resorting to OP's writing was quite tricky - after looking at some Dropbox patents I _think_ that's the same person, but still ain't sure.
...I'm not mystified about claims of friendship with Nat Friedman - I don't have a high opinion of the latter, I see evidence of friendship with other Open Source folks, and that kind of people tends to be "friends" with _a lot_ of people.
...that's still relying entirely on you, though. I don't see any other public source. Perhaps I could request that from the cops - but I'm not American. Elsewhere you mentioned communication with de Icaza - wouldn't be the first time someone like that would hide their head in the sand, but it's still a bit hard to parse that he didn't say anything publicly.
When I spoke to Miguel, he said both Alex and Nat were "assholes when they were drunk."
He also said that Nat had "Hurt him deeply" and they don't talk much anymore. From what I can tell Miguel stayed friends with Alex and congratulated him on the launch of Copilot even knowing about the abuse that happened to me in greater detail than I had shared publicly.
The docket number is right there and the court as well. If you are skeptical you can just look it up at the courts website yourself or call the court or send them an email. You can do a lot of stuff yourself before spreading doubt.
Hi YXN,
as a brief explanation.
I was genuinely surprised by the publishing format. This is entirely unrelated to the content of the document.
I had not seen google drive as a way to self-publish before.
Hi [name redacted],
thank you for providing a way to verify the document. That is really great.
As a brief explanation. I was genuinely surprised by the publishing format. This is entirely unrelated to the content of the document. I had not seen google drive as a way to self-publish before. So my intention was not (at least not consciously) to doubt the validity of the claim, but more of a meta-comment.
I don‘t know [redacted] (and had never heard of him before).
I am sorry if you were hurt by him (as you mentioned in another comment).
The document mentions no evidence of anything, let alone wounds, and even Techrights, everyone's favorite anti-GitHub conspiracy blog, hasn't posted any document mentioning any evidence, despite basically salivating over this story. It's all just anecdotes from officers saying she was claiming she was hurt.
This may seem like I'm being pedantic, but I've seen fake DV calls before (unfortunately, more than once, though none directed at me), and officers are generally sympathetic to whoever is the most charismatic. This isn't to say that she's probably lying, but it's a bit too early to come to a verdict as an internet court, here.
I think [redacted] has done terrible things to the industry as much as anyone (doubly so for GitHub in general); he's obviously morally deficient. But we shouldn't go and harass GH and Microsoft employees without evidence.
> This may seem like I'm being pedantic, but I've seen fake DV calls before (unfortunately, more than once, though none directed at me), and officers are generally sympathetic to whoever is the most charismatic.
They're often more sympathetic to the female unless there's significant evidence to overcome that bias.
The way that guilt works in the US is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Hearsay is nothing to convict a person with, especially not of something so serious as domestic violence.
It's better safe than sorry when it comes to throwing someone in a prison. If his tactic is strangulation, I'm sure someone has documented wounds he caused, if true. With the volume of people you say were abused by him in this thread, 50% odds are bound to show results eventually.
Evidence is needed for accusations to be taken as more than warnings, generally.
A deposition without evidence quite literally is hearsay, under the proper definition of hearsay. I'm not playing a lawyer, I'm pointing out that "He said, she said," is literally nothing for a court of law to use.
I've changed the title to stay as close as possible to what the submitted document says, on the assumption that the document is authentic.
The submitted title was "[name redacted], architect of GitHub Copilot, arrested for strangling girlfriend". I also assumed that meant "strangled to death" when I first saw it—I think the word "strangled" in headlines tends to imply that. Assault strangulation is obviously a serious crime.
I think the only thing it makes sense to do here is stay as close as possible to the available facts.
[name redacted], This happened to me, not you. I was nowhere near death. The police changed my story and exaggerated my account. There was no strangulation. Stay in your lane. Mind your own business. Please get over [name redacted] and find a new man to stalk and obsess over
Lol it is really me. Look at you, crazy vindictive lady, saving everything on a google drive. It wasn’t strangling the way you think it was. Once again, the police used inflammatory words to make it sound worse then it seems. They get $10k from fines, go figure
You have spent 3 years trying to cancel Alex (a man you dated for less than 3 months) after he broke up with you realizing you guys were both incompatible, and you are up on this site at 2am posting every 15 minutes about a man who didn’t love you back. Look, I’ve been there. It’s hard. I’ve loved and lost too. But please, for your own sake, move on. Why are you trying so hard to ruin people’s lives? Will it make you happy seeing someone’s downfall or will it make you happy seeing someone heal and be redeemed, or better yet, yourself healed and redeemed? Work on your own emotional health—-you’ll be much happier than trying to change someone else. Work on you. You have a right to be happy and in what you deem is a healthy relationship
You dated him for 2-3 months. I dated him for almost 2 years. You do not know him the way I do. It takes at least 2 years to really get to know a person you’re dating. You’re still in your 20s and probably haven’t had a relationship that long based on your behavior and age. You can’t seem to move on. I’m really sorry your heart got broken and things didn’t work out. Believe me, I’ve had many heartbreaks and sometimes I didn’t act sane when it was hard to let go. Maybe Alex was your first love? I’m ashamed of my behavior with one of my exes, too. I created a fake number like you, but not several as you did, and it took me maybe up to 6-12 months to finally move on.., not 2 years… not to compare, I mean we are still in the midst of a pandemic. One day your heart will heal. Give it time. And forgive Alex in your head, not for him, but for your healing heart
Once again you toss out these hot terms/hashtags like “abuse,” “metoo.” Alex does get depressed and moody sometimes, but he had never laid his hands on me nor emotionally abused me. I don’t mean to negate what you believe you went through. But my relationship with him was not abusive. It was sweet, affectionate, and loving, and we made each other laugh, and we both felt completely comfortable to let ourselves be who we are without pretense or trying. We’re both goofy and fun, like to explore, and love art and nature, dancing, exploring, traveling, and just being together gave us such peace and joy! One day, you’ll find true love that matches you and doesn’t feel like abuse, too. We still fought, but all couples do. And I admit I have a bad temper lol, which is why I’m partially to blame for why things got out of hand, but I’m working on it. No one is perfect. There is no perfect love, just loving someone perfectly, and knowing that when the love is reciprocated, you’ll work through the hard things. Work on yourself instead of trying to change and ruin others, and you’ll be much happier, and attract another great guy! You seem like a smart, creative gal. Let 2022 be your year to focus on nurturing you
Alex sold me the same story of “working on love” when he wanted to control me. This is not an uncommon theme amongst abusers.
Alex often spoke of this pure unattainable love that we had, but claimed it never existed once he realized he would never be able to control me to his liking.
My love life prior to Alex is none of your business and has no bearing on this situation and I can hear Alex’s own words echoed in your speech, which highly suspect is actually Alex.
I was in my 30s and so was Alex when we were dating.
I've been in significantly longer relationships than 2 years.
It doesn't take 2 years to know what he did to me was assault and abuse.
You're crazy. I am the girl. I'm sorry Alex didn't love you back and it didn't work out. Please get over him and move on. You will not find love if you obsess over a past love. YOu're wasting your energy. And this is me, I am the girl who filed the report. Stop trying to gaslight me
I had to file a report on the police for misconstruing my words and also for lying to me at the scene of the incident. I don’t even trust the police anymore after reporting this incident and how they handled this.
They grossly exaggerated my story, I even spoke with the prosecutors. It made me so upset that they twisted my words. That’s why I requested the detective to revise his report and I’m asking the charges to be dropped.
I clicked vouch on this since it seems like pertinent information considering she has now made some 40 comments in this very discussion thread without disclosing any of this, but I'm not sure why you would use a throwaway to post it.
I'm using a throwaway because I don't want to get sucked into whatever drama is happening here. I just thought it was an interesting omission given OP's multiple posts here.
The suit is a defamation suit in reference to me discussing publicly abuse I suffered. The judge mentioned the warrant is how I was able to confirm that the warrant existed.
I would like to know the full story. How does Liz Fong-Jones come into this? Are the progressive tech elites defending abusive behaviour because it happens to be connected to the absurdly rich (Nat Friedman)?
Liz's boss, Charity Majors, has been friends with [name redacted] and Nat since she was 17 and [name redacted] was 15 through their "Hungry Programmers" organization.
Liz works with another friend of their staff engineers Chris Toshok, who interestingly enough was dating Charity when she was underage and he is 9 years her senior.
Charity and Chris are connected to a credit card hacker Max Visions, which is documented in the non-fiction book Kingpin by Kevin Poulsen https://www.kingpin.cc/about/
Charity told me to keep quiet about [name redacted] and Nat or bad things would happen to me and lied to me by saying she doesn't know [name redacted] when she clearly does.
Liz Fong-Jones uses the fact that she donated money to create the Solidarity Fund to decide who is a valid whistleblower or not.
Since the username on this throwaway account contained the original name of the OP, and we've randomized their account by request, I've updated the username here too.
Normally we never rename accounts without permission (or edit posts without permission) but redacting someone else's personal name or identifying info is an exception (probably the only exception, actually). When we do that, we always make the minimal possible edit.
I am the girl who filed the report. this is MY story. [name redacted] did not strangle me. We had a lovers’ quarrel. No one got injured. The police grossly exaggerated the story, and have since revised my account after I called them out on it. I have been working with the prosecutor’s office to get the charges dropped. Please respect our privacy.
Please do not spur on rumors and conspiracy theories, and use my case as your own vendetta, [name redacted]. You have defamed [name redacted] all over the internet, posting every 15 minutes, contacting his employer, coworkers, family, and friends. This is not sane. [name redacted] has a big heart, is so incredibly caring, fun, open-minded, and has invented numerous revolutionary programs to change the world and help others, which I imagine are reasons why [name redacted], you loved him, too.
I saw your messages begging [name redacted] to come back to you and that you loved him… Please, for your own sake, see a counselor and learn to move on, heal, and find someone who loves you the way you deserve and want to be loved.
Haha you are such a hateful person. Please get help. Get therapy. I’m perfectly aware of what happened and I am not being “brainwashed.” You were not there. Quit telling my story as your story. He didn’t abuse you. He was trying to get you off his back, and you kept harassing him from multiple fake numbers. I would tell someone like you something mean to make you stop liking me too if I were in that position. Sometimes you have to block someone if they hurt you. He blocked you, and you created fake numbers to continually harass him and make his life a living nightmare. Does the make you happy, [name redacted]? Do you get off on this?
You’re telling things out of order. You continued to harass him and message him from multiple numbers, you lied to him and said you had a therapist, and he reached out to him bc you made him and he wanted to make peace with you. The therapist said he didn’t even know you!
He shouldn’t have said that and he didn’t mean it. He was trying to get you off his back at that point. And I saw that you agreed to a Friends with benefits relationship bc you desperately wanted him back.
That therapist disappointed me in how they handled the situation, but I did not lie and genuinely made an effort.
And that was not a therapeutic relationship – I asked him to mediate Alex understanding the harm he had done to me. And this was after Alex reached out to me again months later.
I had not contacted Alex in two weeks and had no intention of ever contacting him again when he reached out and asked me for casual sex.
I highly doubt it. I’ve been with him for 2 years and he has never assaulted me nor anyone. Please stop spreading lies and defaming him, Microsoft, GitHub, and Nat. You can defame his doormat and car, though, lol
Hey [name redacted], the situation seems messy. This person is a powerful man in Silicon Valley has seemed to left a trail of emotional and physical destruction. I’m an anonymous person, but I want to say I believe you, and hope you get some closure and justice from this situation. It’s unfortunate the thread has attracted a fair share of gaslighters including his current girlfriend.
It was not strangling. You don’t know what happened, so please stay out of it. It’s not your case. And no, I didn’t lie. It was misconstrued. Read what I said— i had the police redact the report bc they inflated what I said.
It wasn’t strangling, once again, not the way you think it was. We both got heated, but no one was physically dangerously hurt nor close to death. It’s not your story. Stay out of my story. Quit telling my story as your story and using it for your own vendetta. Focus on YOU and how you can be happy and not obsessed with the past.
Lol you counted the days. We got heated the day the incident occurred. It did not occur at the time you posted on twitter. Quit twisting my words once again for your own malicious vendetta. You line up to the adage, “Hell hath no fury like a women scorned.” Unrequited love is hard. But the sooner you forgive Alex and move on, the sooner you’ll be happy. You haven’t been happy for 2 years since you guys broke up. Maybe get a therapist or go on tinder or bumble? Meet new people. Meet a guy who loves you the way you want to be loved . I pray that for you
Many of your comments in this thread, like this one, have had name-calling and personal attacks in them. Those are against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
I hesitate to say this because I know nothing about the situation, and intervening as a moderator in any way is likely to lead to accusations of taking a side, which is not my intention. But posting things like "you are a vindictive psycho b8tch" and "crazy evil person" and so on (and there have been a lot of these) is definitely not ok in HN threads.
The discrepancies between what you describe here, what's in the report, and what you previously claimed on social media paint the picture that one of the following is true:
1. You got paid a bunch of money to drop the charges and "revise" your story, which potentially was your plan from the get-go
2. The story was never true in the first place, you just wanted to ride the cancel culture train and get back at him for hurting you in some way.
Whichever it is, it's really sad to see these things. People like you are exactly why I keep a low profile and don't have any online identities.
Honestly, this feels like stuff [name redacted] would say, but I can’t say for sure.
[name redacted] had an intense focus on love and being loved when it came to control.
He asked me to marry him after only knowing him a month, which I declined. We hadn’t even slept together at that point.
According to his own account, the “love” he shoved down my throat so hard was so he could sleep with me, which I have several texts that show his own admissions.
Also I’m a bit taken aback at the ethnic slur in the username of this account.
It’s ironic, [name redacted], that you call [name redacted] abusive when you have been so psychologically abusive and violent to him the past 2.5 years as you have been incessantly stalking him, defaming him, his company, his friends and associates, family. Your vindictive behavior and evil desire to ruin him is psychologically violent and abusive. Who really is the abusive one?
Before you stalk someone who you desperately love but he doesn’t love you back, remember just one thing. You are wasting your precious time and energy. Use your efforts to make yourself better. Love is not about being desperate. You need to accept the fact and take time for yourself to grieve the pain that it’s over and work on your own happiness. Let [name redacted] go, and focus on building up yourself instead of tearing [name redacted] down because at the end of the day, all you have is yourself, you will never leave you. And you can’t love anyone until you love yourself. Work on own your emotional health. Your behavior is not healthy and not something anyone, your parents, your employer, God, would be proud of. Examine your own self and how you can be a better person. Your vendetta helps nobody. YOu're not protecting women from [name redacted]. You're only trying to ruin him because he hurt you and didn't love you back the way you loved him. And you're actually just "humble bragging" about how you dated a successful guy who had remote interest in you for 2-3 months, then dumped you. You're youngWould you be on this vindictive rampage and bragging all over the internet if it was someone not semi-famous? Who are you really trying to protect? Your story is your story and your own lesson you need to learn. Stay out of mine. Move on, find a new relationship, and find a man who reciprocates the love you seek.
[name redacted] sexually assaulted me and emotionally abused me.
[name redacted] stalked me for weeks at my home while having me blocked which prompted me to reach out again.
He clearly did not want me to move on and sent several messages stating he was in love with me but needed me to “change.”
That change was accepting verbal, emotional abuse, infidelity, and sexual assault as well as giving up all my hobbies and friendships.
The abuse was so brutal, I could not believe someone that said they loved me so profoundly would do those things to me.
Perhaps he’s found someone that’s willing to accept abuse, but that’s not what the law says.
There's a tonne of OT stuff herethat is interesting, at least to some HNers, but this feels like someone's private life. Even if true, and this guy built a cool/uncool/popular/terrifying tool, he's still a private person being, so far, only accused of something.
Does it have any bearing on CoPilot? On wider issues in tech? I'm not sure it does.
@Dang, this thread has become a dialogue between an alleged ex-girlfriend and the alleged current girlfriend of [redacted]. The former, who seems to have been sued by him already, is making really serious accusations that can't be really proved on this pages, the second is defending him. Does this really need to be here? I'm not a lawyer for sure, but how isn't this defamation?
On the point of Nat Friedman, I've reached out to [name redacted]is Ohanian who public holds himself out to be a vocal advocate of women's rights.
Nat and [name redacted]is are collaborators as VCs on such companies as Polywork, Deel, Reteam, and more.
Nat's wife Stephanie, who ignored my pleas for help with the abuse I suffered, and blocked me after reaching out and showing her several graphic texts messages in which [name redacted] told me I was worthless and should kill myself and is on the board of many of these companies.
[name redacted]is but refuses to discuss these allegations [name redacted] or my experiences in spite of several public comments asking for help which he has deleted.
I'm going to shut down this thread because the discussion that's continuing here, days later, is not what Hacker News is supposed to be for (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). The topic is painful and personal, and the thread got stuck in a repeating loop. There's no possibility of resolution in this context, so continuing to litigate it here can only make things worse.
252 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 275 ms ] thread[name redacted] was also the co-founder of Ycombinator funded startup Hackpad (acquired by Dropbox).
Nat Friedman is [name redacted]'s best friend and hired [name redacted] knowing he had a history of abusing other women as well. He still refuses to stop associating with [name redacted].
this is quite damning if so. where did you hear of this?
They did not report his location to the authorities and allowed him to work across state lines without any changes to his employment agreement.
I later asked Github HR what their policy on domestic violene is. This is what they sent.
"Microsoft is committed to working with employees who are victims of domestic violence to prevent abuse from occurring in the workplace. Employees who are concerned about violence occurring in the workplace should immediately discuss their concerns with the Human Resources (HR) manager assigned to their group. The Microsoft Global Security group can provide guidelines and suggestions for increasing your safety in the workplace.
Employees who are experiencing domestic violence outside of work are encouraged to seek assistance from Microsoft Cares. Microsoft Cares provides information regarding counseling and treatment resources. Perpetrators of domestic violence are also encouraged to seek assistance from Microsoft Cares.
In some situations, employees may be eligible for time off work or other accommodation to manage medical issues and other negative consequences arising from domestic violence. Contact Benefits for more information."
They officially accommodate "perpetrators of domestic violence" as Microsoft-owned Github.
I’m guessing if this guy actually contacted Cares, they’d be more likely to help him turn himself in without violence, than to arrange a getaway to Cuba.
[I used such a referral once with a different employer to assist a family member in a legal matter (not involving interpersonal violence)].
In what capacity? How did you come by your knowledge of the warrant?
Why would this matter at all? It seems like you're casting suspicion on [name redacted], although I can't begin to imagine what there is to be suspicious of.
I can't either
I dont know who the people tagged in the tweet are, but that still seems like a shitty way to report a problem.
I think this confirms we're in some sort of inter-terrestrial waking-nightmare Office Space alternative universe variety show.
In fairness, they do need procedures to accommodate such people. Your other employment-related rights don't end just because you've done bad stuff, and you need to treat perpetrators of domestic violence differently to ordinary employees (e.g. being really suspicious of them).
I like bashing Microsoft as much as the next person, but I doubt this situation had much to do with Microsoft's domestic violence policies.
To take action against someone based on an unproven accusation of conduct outside of the workplace seems like the perfect way to get you sued. I'm sure if convicted he will become persona non grata. But until that point he should be entitled to the presumption of innocence.
The justice system is complex for a reason (oversight, transparency, accountability, fairness, etc. - or at least that's the goal, however bad they are at achieving it, unaccountable private institutions will be even worse).
Furthermore, Alex was reported to Github HR by multiple people for verbal abuse and nothing was done about it under Nat Friedman's leadership.
I was saying the blanket statement than the mere presence of any allegations of any form are enough to indicate a high probability of guilt, and we should therefore enforce punishment on an individual is dangerous. Historically, this sort of attitude has led to a lot of injustice. Black men being put in jail for crimes they never committed on the word of a white woman who was embarrassed to be caught in an affair, for instance. Taken to the extreme, it leads to things like witch hunts.
I read the entire string of messages. You pulled inflammatory things out of context to DAMN him, and posted it all over twitter, etc. Who does that? What does that say about you to post negative gossip about someone from a private intimate relationship ? Do you ever ask yourself why you’re posting malicious things about someone? Is it justice you seek? It almost sounds like a HUMBLE BRAG to get attention, like “oh I’m hot stuff bc I dated the Hackpad founder?” If Alex wasn’t famous, would you still post this stuff? I don’t think so.
And do you really think you’re doing justice by posting about some fight you guys had on twitter out of context? Who are you saving from alleged abuse? Someone who googles you or Alex like a stalker the way you do?
And ask yourself why it’s still 2 years and you’re still suffering and obsessed? You clearly need some intervention, love. Please focus on forgiveness, healing, and loving others and yourself
A lot of that same stuff got turned into threats eventually.
Allegedly misogynistic != actually misogynistic, and I’d personally not want Microsoft to be the arbiter of truth.
Also, it’s just wrong and immoral. If the allegations are true, him losing his job is to small of a punishment; if they’re false, it’s too big of a punishment.
If he’s innocent (i.e. “not guilty”), yes.
It’s funny how people are all about “restorative justice” and “rehabilitating criminals after they serve their sentences” except, you know, when it comes to actually doing it.
I've spoken to many people that say the same thing.
definitely not what I expected to read, that's... huh.
I'd expect MS would divulge his IP address from VPN logs if served by a warrant, to locate the fugitive. I wonder if this happened, and if not, what legal responsibilities or liabilities MS has to help or hinder outside warrant compliance, when the victim isn't an employee but the perp is.
(I work for MS but not GitHub, I had no idea about any of this.)
Nonreporting, whether or not one believes it is immoral, isn't the same thing as assistance in evading arrest. The government can conscript citizens into active assistance in enforcing the law, but issuing a warrant doesn't do that.
Nonreporting is legal, assistance is a crime (“accessory after the fact” is the general term.)
Texas Penal Code Sec. 38.05 Hindering Apprehension or Prosecution (a) A person commits an offense if, with intent to hinder the arrest, prosecution, conviction, or punishment of another for an offense or, with intent to hinder the arrest, detention, adjudication, or disposition of a child for engaging in delinquent conduct that violates a penal law of the state, or with intent to hinder the arrest of another under the authority of a warrant or capias, he: (1) harbors or conceals the other; (2) provides or aids in providing the other with any means of avoiding arrest or effecting escape; or (3) warns the other of impending discovery or apprehension.
https://texas.public.law/statutes/tex._penal_code_section_38...
I appreciate the rest of the details you've provided on the thread!
No, nonreporting is not. Active concealment/assistance is, and you just quoted a long bit of statute that says exactly that.
That is a somewhat bizarre sentence that should be brought to the editorial attention of whoever wrote that. I don't think it's intended to support some of the kinds of interpretations that imagination might assign to it.
If the police had at all reached out in an official capacity Microsoft would have assisted.
Source: was employed at MS and know they take such things seriously.
You may want to follow up with whatever officer you talked to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satya_Rhodes-Conway
You make several significant, serious claims but offer no evidence aside from a jpg of a file in google drive.
For reference, the Austin city/Travis county public records results are returned as pdfs, not scans in jpg. The clerk of the court does not offer "unofficial copies" as far as I am aware.
All I can find is anonymous stuff on a website called http://techrights.org/ which has a series of articles trying to in some way associate Nat with [redacted]'s domestic violence.
The "best friend" claim seems to have started with a weird "teaser" post on techrights.org wherein an anonymous source claims that "many others" can confirm that [redacted] was close to Nat. That of course doesn't even come close to establishing that either of them considers the other their "best friend", if it's trustworthy to begin with.
Then techrights.org cites their own teaser in other posts as saying that [redacted] claims Nat is his best friend (not true, or at least not supported by the source).
Now you are, I guess, using that as your basis to claim that they ARE in fact best friends.
I realise it's possible you're entirely honest and have sources I don't, but this looks like a pretty cynical smear job to me, especially given that none of the sources I've managed to find asserting that the two were close date from before this domestic abuse case. I don't have any insider knowledge, but the superficial appearance of all this is that a handful of activists with something against Nat have cooked up this "best friend" narrative for some reason, gradually escalating the claim each time they cite each other, and ultimately it all hinges on an anonymous source saying that other anonymous sources say that the two were close once.
Alex also assaulted me as well during a short, but extremely abusive relationship.
Alex mentioned his relationship with Nat several times and used it to threaten me on multiple occasions.
Alex attending Nat's destination wedding in Italy. It's that's not close, I don't know what is.
How about their podcast together?
Playing devils advocate for one moment: I don’t always agree with friends abandoning other friends when they turn out to be bad people. If a person stands any chance of rehabilitation they need people who are willing to stand by them. This doesn’t mean those friends support their actions - in fact they should be honest about what actions are inexcusable. But as a society we are too quick to claim guilt by association without understanding what their relationship is like and whether that friendship is helping to reform individuals who have been (understandably) abandoned by everyone else around them.
I’m not making direct commentary on Alex and Nat though as I don’t know them nor their relationship. I’m just making a generalised observation.
You might be right and remember my post wasn’t commenting on Nat and Alex specifically. However, and mean this with the greatest of respect to yourself, even though you’ve been involved with Alex you still don’t truly know how Alex and Nat communicate in private between just the two of them.
The reason I commented is because I’ve recently seen this same kind of mob mentality happen against some genuinely nice people who have kept their association because they were sincerely trying to rehabilitate others. So they didn’t deserve guilt by association. But their cases were different to these ones.
Anyhow I’m not here to defend Nat nor Alex (I don’t even know them) and this is a understandably going to be a highly emotionally charged subject so I’ll refrain from further comments because sometimes my well intentioned remarks can come across poor (totally my issue. I’m working on fixing it).
I do truly wish you happiness in any future relationships and hope this nightmare you’ve been through doesn’t leave any scares (emotional or physical) that cannot heal.
I initially approached Nat about with this with a great deal of empathy towards Alex in spite of what he did to me. Ignoring a victim and giving a leadership position to someone like that?
Nat and [name redacted] were always exceptionally close, which I always found confusing. [name redacted] was intense, passionate, charismatic, but also had troubled and troubling relationships with people, _particularly_ women. [name redacted] was, if I remember correctly, let go from Ximian when he failed to arrive to work every day by noon for one week straight (we lived a 5 to 10 minute walk from the office).
Even after [name redacted] was let go, he and Nat remained fast friends.
This was the beginning of a long chain of emotionally abusive, controlling, and manipulative behaviors.
Also.. This seems to have disappeared from the front page.
In regards to the front-page, there's a lot of downvotes. Went from 160 upvotes to 121 in a matter of minutes. I suspect bots.
You can confirm that by Google their names and 'ximian'.
I'm convinced this post is satire. Too many unlikely claims, against one .jpg in Google Drive.
In the absence of some substantial reason to believe this part, this is quite likely actionable as libel against Microsoft (as well as, without including substantial reason to believe it, wholly inappropriate for HN.)
Strangulation is a singularly accurate predictor of future homicide. There seems to be a world of difference between just hitting someone and actually trying to crush their throat with your bare hands. It should be taken far, far more seriously than it is -- attempted murder at least.
1. https://apnews.com/article/dc9066892be14b7f8cf234468a83f170
If it's not what it says, then I've been misled by leadership at Github.
That sentence leaves a lot unsaid about the consequences of taking such an action. It's almost certain that Cares is required by policy/legal to refer that to law enforcement.
It doesn't specify the time off and accommodations are just for victims.
[Edit: in fact, I was having trouble parsing text. I missed the line about perpetrators. For that, I apologize, as for suggesting it was your inability to parse text]
Sorry, it genuinely sounds like you're saying that it's sad someone can lose situational awareness of where their phone is...
> just assault someone and no longer care about the consequences
And this also sounds like you're talking about the phone again.
What is even the point of comments like this?
Your original comment:
> > She told officers they were arguing because she would not give his cell phone back
> Yeah but did he get his cell phone back?
Just to clarify, that's not a "contrarian perception", or at least does not come across as one. It comes across as a tasteless joke (like ones I've heard too many times from morons who think domestic abuse is joke worthy).
...I'm not mystified about claims of friendship with Nat Friedman - I don't have a high opinion of the latter, I see evidence of friendship with other Open Source folks, and that kind of people tends to be "friends" with _a lot_ of people.
He also said that Nat had "Hurt him deeply" and they don't talk much anymore. From what I can tell Miguel stayed friends with Alex and congratulated him on the launch of Copilot even knowing about the abuse that happened to me in greater detail than I had shared publicly.
You can also search the Travis County Court portal for "[redacted]" and see there's a pre-indictment felony case against him.
https://odysseyweb.traviscountytx.gov/Portal/Home/WorkspaceM...
For now, it is "he says she says" situation, and court proceeding will show details in the future.
He assaulted me too.
The document mentions no evidence of anything, let alone wounds, and even Techrights, everyone's favorite anti-GitHub conspiracy blog, hasn't posted any document mentioning any evidence, despite basically salivating over this story. It's all just anecdotes from officers saying she was claiming she was hurt.
This may seem like I'm being pedantic, but I've seen fake DV calls before (unfortunately, more than once, though none directed at me), and officers are generally sympathetic to whoever is the most charismatic. This isn't to say that she's probably lying, but it's a bit too early to come to a verdict as an internet court, here.
I think [redacted] has done terrible things to the industry as much as anyone (doubly so for GitHub in general); he's obviously morally deficient. But we shouldn't go and harass GH and Microsoft employees without evidence.
They're often more sympathetic to the female unless there's significant evidence to overcome that bias.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10695143_Strangulat...
It's better safe than sorry when it comes to throwing someone in a prison. If his tactic is strangulation, I'm sure someone has documented wounds he caused, if true. With the volume of people you say were abused by him in this thread, 50% odds are bound to show results eventually.
Evidence is needed for accusations to be taken as more than warnings, generally.
If you're going to play armchair lawyer, get the facts straight.
The submitted title was "[name redacted], architect of GitHub Copilot, arrested for strangling girlfriend". I also assumed that meant "strangled to death" when I first saw it—I think the word "strangled" in headlines tends to imply that. Assault strangulation is obviously a serious crime.
I think the only thing it makes sense to do here is stay as close as possible to the available facts.
(Not sure it’s authentic.)
Why did you accuse him of strangling you again on Twitter on October 14, 2021 a full 52 days after the incident then?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A4SUnQG9_f8JE5glOq9bA2DTOcb...
It wasn't 3 years ago. It was 2 years ago.
I've already said everything I've needed to say on Twitter about the emotional abuse and how it lead to the physical abuse.
[name redacted] has made his own confessions in regards to how he manipulated my emotions to keep me under control.
Once again you toss out these hot terms/hashtags like “abuse,” “metoo.” Alex does get depressed and moody sometimes, but he had never laid his hands on me nor emotionally abused me. I don’t mean to negate what you believe you went through. But my relationship with him was not abusive. It was sweet, affectionate, and loving, and we made each other laugh, and we both felt completely comfortable to let ourselves be who we are without pretense or trying. We’re both goofy and fun, like to explore, and love art and nature, dancing, exploring, traveling, and just being together gave us such peace and joy! One day, you’ll find true love that matches you and doesn’t feel like abuse, too. We still fought, but all couples do. And I admit I have a bad temper lol, which is why I’m partially to blame for why things got out of hand, but I’m working on it. No one is perfect. There is no perfect love, just loving someone perfectly, and knowing that when the love is reciprocated, you’ll work through the hard things. Work on yourself instead of trying to change and ruin others, and you’ll be much happier, and attract another great guy! You seem like a smart, creative gal. Let 2022 be your year to focus on nurturing you
Alex often spoke of this pure unattainable love that we had, but claimed it never existed once he realized he would never be able to control me to his liking.
My love life prior to Alex is none of your business and has no bearing on this situation and I can hear Alex’s own words echoed in your speech, which highly suspect is actually Alex.
I was in my 30s and so was Alex when we were dating.
I've been in significantly longer relationships than 2 years.
It doesn't take 2 years to know what he did to me was assault and abuse.
You seemed to have upheld your story again on Twitter.
[1]: [link redacted]
Liz works with another friend of their staff engineers Chris Toshok, who interestingly enough was dating Charity when she was underage and he is 9 years her senior.
Charity and Chris are connected to a credit card hacker Max Visions, which is documented in the non-fiction book Kingpin by Kevin Poulsen https://www.kingpin.cc/about/
Charity told me to keep quiet about [name redacted] and Nat or bad things would happen to me and lied to me by saying she doesn't know [name redacted] when she clearly does.
Liz Fong-Jones uses the fact that she donated money to create the Solidarity Fund to decide who is a valid whistleblower or not.
Normally we never rename accounts without permission (or edit posts without permission) but redacting someone else's personal name or identifying info is an exception (probably the only exception, actually). When we do that, we always make the minimal possible edit.
Please do not spur on rumors and conspiracy theories, and use my case as your own vendetta, [name redacted]. You have defamed [name redacted] all over the internet, posting every 15 minutes, contacting his employer, coworkers, family, and friends. This is not sane. [name redacted] has a big heart, is so incredibly caring, fun, open-minded, and has invented numerous revolutionary programs to change the world and help others, which I imagine are reasons why [name redacted], you loved him, too.
I saw your messages begging [name redacted] to come back to you and that you loved him… Please, for your own sake, see a counselor and learn to move on, heal, and find someone who loves you the way you deserve and want to be loved.
[name redacted] unblocked me and tried to convince me to have sex with him again. He's the one that reinitiated contact.
I thought staying in contact would ultimately result in the apology I deserve, but resulted in him trying to convince me to commit suicide.
And that was not a therapeutic relationship – I asked him to mediate Alex understanding the harm he had done to me. And this was after Alex reached out to me again months later.
I had not contacted Alex in two weeks and had no intention of ever contacting him again when he reached out and asked me for casual sex.
The worst part is the ugly truth of how easy it is to get away with violence against women.
It’s called documenting and understanding the facts.
I’m not interested in mental health advice from a DV apologist that can’t get the facts straight or count.
I hesitate to say this because I know nothing about the situation, and intervening as a moderator in any way is likely to lead to accusations of taking a side, which is not my intention. But posting things like "you are a vindictive psycho b8tch" and "crazy evil person" and so on (and there have been a lot of these) is definitely not ok in HN threads.
I'm going to shut this thread down now, for reasons explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29847546.
1. You got paid a bunch of money to drop the charges and "revise" your story, which potentially was your plan from the get-go
2. The story was never true in the first place, you just wanted to ride the cancel culture train and get back at him for hurting you in some way.
Whichever it is, it's really sad to see these things. People like you are exactly why I keep a low profile and don't have any online identities.
[name redacted] had an intense focus on love and being loved when it came to control.
He asked me to marry him after only knowing him a month, which I declined. We hadn’t even slept together at that point.
According to his own account, the “love” he shoved down my throat so hard was so he could sleep with me, which I have several texts that show his own admissions.
Also I’m a bit taken aback at the ethnic slur in the username of this account.
Before you stalk someone who you desperately love but he doesn’t love you back, remember just one thing. You are wasting your precious time and energy. Use your efforts to make yourself better. Love is not about being desperate. You need to accept the fact and take time for yourself to grieve the pain that it’s over and work on your own happiness. Let [name redacted] go, and focus on building up yourself instead of tearing [name redacted] down because at the end of the day, all you have is yourself, you will never leave you. And you can’t love anyone until you love yourself. Work on own your emotional health. Your behavior is not healthy and not something anyone, your parents, your employer, God, would be proud of. Examine your own self and how you can be a better person. Your vendetta helps nobody. YOu're not protecting women from [name redacted]. You're only trying to ruin him because he hurt you and didn't love you back the way you loved him. And you're actually just "humble bragging" about how you dated a successful guy who had remote interest in you for 2-3 months, then dumped you. You're youngWould you be on this vindictive rampage and bragging all over the internet if it was someone not semi-famous? Who are you really trying to protect? Your story is your story and your own lesson you need to learn. Stay out of mine. Move on, find a new relationship, and find a man who reciprocates the love you seek.
[name redacted] stalked me for weeks at my home while having me blocked which prompted me to reach out again from a different number.
He clearly did not want me to move on and sent several messages stating he was in love with me but needed me to “change.”
That change was accepting verbal, emotional abuse, infidelity, and sexual assault as well as giving up all my hobbies and friendships.
The abuse was so brutal, I could not believe someone that said they loved me so profoundly would do those things to me.
Perhaps he’s found someone that’s willing to accept abuse, but that’s not what the law says.
[name redacted] stalked me for weeks at my home while having me blocked which prompted me to reach out again. He clearly did not want me to move on and sent several messages stating he was in love with me but needed me to “change.”
That change was accepting verbal, emotional abuse, infidelity, and sexual assault as well as giving up all my hobbies and friendships.
The abuse was so brutal, I could not believe someone that said they loved me so profoundly would do those things to me.
Perhaps he’s found someone that’s willing to accept abuse, but that’s not what the law says.
Do not contact me.
I do not wish for you to communicate with me further.
There's a tonne of OT stuff herethat is interesting, at least to some HNers, but this feels like someone's private life. Even if true, and this guy built a cool/uncool/popular/terrifying tool, he's still a private person being, so far, only accused of something.
Does it have any bearing on CoPilot? On wider issues in tech? I'm not sure it does.
[name redacted] told me being a “bad programmer” was a reason to kill myself.
Kind of strange from a guy that didn’t know the definitions of OOP or functional programming.
It's sometimes easy for me to forget that behind these online personas are real people with real issues.
Nat and [name redacted]is are collaborators as VCs on such companies as Polywork, Deel, Reteam, and more.
Nat's wife Stephanie, who ignored my pleas for help with the abuse I suffered, and blocked me after reaching out and showing her several graphic texts messages in which [name redacted] told me I was worthless and should kill myself and is on the board of many of these companies.
[name redacted]is but refuses to discuss these allegations [name redacted] or my experiences in spite of several public comments asking for help which he has deleted.