6 ms·

I agree. People have no incentive to change unless we name names.

wpietri 10y ago
However much I want to see these culprits caught and punished, I think it's a lot to ask a jobless, possibly homeless person to attract retribution from people who have already proven that they will do absolutely anything to maintain the appearance of success. Even when you win, bogus lawsuits are expensive and painful to sort out. My mom was sued after a business deal went south. Seeing the judge find for her on all counts and upbraid the plaintiff and the plaintiff's lawyer was satisfying, but it was not worth the 18 months of severe stress or the substantial legal bills that we had to pay. If you would like to see more names named, then try accompanying your request with a credible offer of a legal defense fund at least $100k in size. That's a lot more persuasive than the notion that random internet commenters will be disappointed.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- kelukelugames 10y ago
  I agree with you too. Speaking up is a privilege. Hard to do with a mortgage and a family. That's why when I worked at Redfin, employees rather leave instead of complain. Retaliation is real.
  - xenophon 10y ago
    An aside that seems relevant to a general discussion of "name vs not name": I've noticed that you (or a set of users that share your very unique username, perhaps) spend a ton of time attacking Redfin on various social media accounts (HN, Reddit, Facebook). I used to work there, too, and it's strange that you consistently describe the company in a negative way that is unfamiliar at best and completely unwarranted to the best of my knowledge. It sounds like you had a really bad experience, which of course is your prerogative. But generalizing your experience to attack an entire company seems to demand a higher burden of evidence and credibility -- a standard that is tough to ascribe to an anonymous hit-and-run commenter who seems to have the sole motive of flinging as much dirt as possible. I guess the question I'm posing, to you and to this forum, is the following: to what extent can you take a non-specific, general denunciation seriously without a name and a real reputation behind it? Penny did a brave, good thing in writing about her experiences for public consumption. If you want anyone to take you at your word, I'd encourage you do the same. I look forward to reading about your perspective, with a name and context attached, since it's worlds apart from mine.
    - kelukelugames 10y ago
      A ton of time is an exaggeration. I think this is the first time Redfin is mentioned by name on HN.[1] And I don't think my account is anon if you and Glenn both can figure out who I am. I enjoyed working at Redfin, and I believe they are disrupting real estate in a good way. I would say I love the site. I spend a ton of time advocating for Redfin. But I wish Glenn tried to build a more inclusive work environment. When I worked at Redfin, a number of people complained about racist and sexist incidents. All of them were minor. For example, boss touching a black woman's natural hair. No one wanted to escalate it to management, because they didn't feel it was safe or that people wouldn't care. Some co-workers were empathetic, while others expressed disbelief and defensiveness. Many were dismissive because "it's worlds apart" from their experiences. A couple of us eventually escalated to management. The lack of empathy was disappointing but not unexpected. A handful of my friends have left or want to leave partly due to these incidents. That's not good. What would you do? Feel free to PM me. I think a private conversation would be more honest and involve less posturing. [1] https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=kelukelugames%20redfin https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e... Looks like I only say nice things about Redfin. :)
      - wpietri 10y ago
        Wow, the hair-touching thing. You may enjoy/cringe at this parody workplace training video: https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/786655684809274/ https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/78665568480927...
      - xenophon 10y ago
        Thanks for sharing these experiences, man. I never heard of an incident like the one you describe, but I can totally believe that experiences like these happen by the law of large numbers. To employ a tired but accurate adage, no organization of any meaningful size is immune to this category of concerns, especially not in the tech world. Which of course is no excuse; where my experience remains different than yours is in your characterization of the management team. I've found them to be proactive and sensitive in forwarding inclusiveness and educating employees on the ways inadvertent discrimination can cause harm -- and as a minority, I never had any problems. As I'm early in my career I don't have much of a benchmark, but I'd love to PM you to understand what you would have done better. Above all, thanks for engaging productively -- I apologize for coming in hot, but hope you understand that I feel loyal to an organization and leadership team that, in my view, has done a fantastic job making me feel welcome.
- ryguytilidie 10y ago
  So your argument is that this person has no rights to know who this person who is scamming startup employees is and that the "reasonable" action they should take is to offer $100k. You can't seriously believe this makes sense, right?
  - x0x0 10y ago
    Just to be clear, your offer is this ex-employee possibly gets to pay a $x00k legal bill for your convenience, right? Read about, eg, what happened to Mother Jones when a billionaire sued them. It's easy for one person with more money than the other to impose huge costs in our legal system.
    - ryguytilidie 10y ago
      You're right, we should never ever do the right thing and just live in fear.
      - x0x0 10y ago
        It is easy to be generous with other people's time and money, yes.
        wpietri 10y ago
        Exactly. It strikes me as the same sort of entitlement dynamic that so many open source project maintainers face. "You gave me a free thing? Well it's wrong and you should give me a much better free thing. For free!" I don't mind people wanting things. We all want things. But I think it's a problem when that crosses the line into expectation or demand.
        ryguytilidie 10y ago
        Where exactly do you believe I "demanded" anything? I simply mocked YOUR demand (funny how this ended in me getting criticized for being demanding...) if someone dare even ask who these founders are, they must give her a six figure sum...

However much I want to see these culprits caught and punished, I think it's a lot to ask a jobless, possibly homeless person to attract retribution from people who have already proven that they will do absolutely anything to maintain the appearance of success. Even when you win, bogus lawsuits are expensive and painful to sort out. My mom was sued after a business deal went south. Seeing the judge find for her on all counts and upbraid the plaintiff and the plaintiff's lawyer was satisfying, but it was not worth the 18 months of severe stress or the substantial legal bills that we had to pay. If you would like to see more names named, then try accompanying your request with a credible offer of a legal defense fund at least $100k in size. That's a lot more persuasive than the notion that random internet commenters will be disappointed.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
kelukelugames 10y ago
I agree with you too. Speaking up is a privilege. Hard to do with a mortgage and a family. That's why when I worked at Redfin, employees rather leave instead of complain. Retaliation is real.
- xenophon 10y ago
  An aside that seems relevant to a general discussion of "name vs not name": I've noticed that you (or a set of users that share your very unique username, perhaps) spend a ton of time attacking Redfin on various social media accounts (HN, Reddit, Facebook). I used to work there, too, and it's strange that you consistently describe the company in a negative way that is unfamiliar at best and completely unwarranted to the best of my knowledge. It sounds like you had a really bad experience, which of course is your prerogative. But generalizing your experience to attack an entire company seems to demand a higher burden of evidence and credibility -- a standard that is tough to ascribe to an anonymous hit-and-run commenter who seems to have the sole motive of flinging as much dirt as possible. I guess the question I'm posing, to you and to this forum, is the following: to what extent can you take a non-specific, general denunciation seriously without a name and a real reputation behind it? Penny did a brave, good thing in writing about her experiences for public consumption. If you want anyone to take you at your word, I'd encourage you do the same. I look forward to reading about your perspective, with a name and context attached, since it's worlds apart from mine.
  - kelukelugames 10y ago
    A ton of time is an exaggeration. I think this is the first time Redfin is mentioned by name on HN.[1] And I don't think my account is anon if you and Glenn both can figure out who I am. I enjoyed working at Redfin, and I believe they are disrupting real estate in a good way. I would say I love the site. I spend a ton of time advocating for Redfin. But I wish Glenn tried to build a more inclusive work environment. When I worked at Redfin, a number of people complained about racist and sexist incidents. All of them were minor. For example, boss touching a black woman's natural hair. No one wanted to escalate it to management, because they didn't feel it was safe or that people wouldn't care. Some co-workers were empathetic, while others expressed disbelief and defensiveness. Many were dismissive because "it's worlds apart" from their experiences. A couple of us eventually escalated to management. The lack of empathy was disappointing but not unexpected. A handful of my friends have left or want to leave partly due to these incidents. That's not good. What would you do? Feel free to PM me. I think a private conversation would be more honest and involve less posturing. [1] https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=kelukelugames%20redfin https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e... Looks like I only say nice things about Redfin. :)
    - wpietri 10y ago
      Wow, the hair-touching thing. You may enjoy/cringe at this parody workplace training video: https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/786655684809274/ https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/78665568480927...
    - xenophon 10y ago
      Thanks for sharing these experiences, man. I never heard of an incident like the one you describe, but I can totally believe that experiences like these happen by the law of large numbers. To employ a tired but accurate adage, no organization of any meaningful size is immune to this category of concerns, especially not in the tech world. Which of course is no excuse; where my experience remains different than yours is in your characterization of the management team. I've found them to be proactive and sensitive in forwarding inclusiveness and educating employees on the ways inadvertent discrimination can cause harm -- and as a minority, I never had any problems. As I'm early in my career I don't have much of a benchmark, but I'd love to PM you to understand what you would have done better. Above all, thanks for engaging productively -- I apologize for coming in hot, but hope you understand that I feel loyal to an organization and leadership team that, in my view, has done a fantastic job making me feel welcome.
ryguytilidie 10y ago
So your argument is that this person has no rights to know who this person who is scamming startup employees is and that the "reasonable" action they should take is to offer $100k. You can't seriously believe this makes sense, right?
- x0x0 10y ago
  Just to be clear, your offer is this ex-employee possibly gets to pay a $x00k legal bill for your convenience, right? Read about, eg, what happened to Mother Jones when a billionaire sued them. It's easy for one person with more money than the other to impose huge costs in our legal system.
  - ryguytilidie 10y ago
    You're right, we should never ever do the right thing and just live in fear.
    - x0x0 10y ago
      It is easy to be generous with other people's time and money, yes.
      - wpietri 10y ago
        Exactly. It strikes me as the same sort of entitlement dynamic that so many open source project maintainers face. "You gave me a free thing? Well it's wrong and you should give me a much better free thing. For free!" I don't mind people wanting things. We all want things. But I think it's a problem when that crosses the line into expectation or demand.
        ryguytilidie 10y ago
        Where exactly do you believe I "demanded" anything? I simply mocked YOUR demand (funny how this ended in me getting criticized for being demanding...) if someone dare even ask who these founders are, they must give her a six figure sum...