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I just want to elaborate on point #4. I chose those examples purposefully: Those three are all well-known business leaders who have dated or married their subo

I just want to elaborate on point #4. I chose those examples purposefully: Those three are all well-known business leaders who have dated or married their subordinates. Presumably, there was a point where Gates/Brin/Knight initiated or suggested to initiate romantic involvement. If as it turns out the woman had not been interested, in retrospect, would the methods of initiation seem like sexual harassment? I believe it's very likely they might. Again, there are clearly methods that are right and clearly some that are wrong. But I have a feeling the large grey area can be considered harassment if a woman turns out not to be interested, and adoringly recalled in a heart-warming wedding toast if they end up getting married.

rhcom2 9y ago
If the women isn't interested, you stop. Seems like many men have a problem with rejection and accepting no, that's usually when it becomes creepy. Had Gates asked his now SO out and she said no and then he politely went on his way like a respectful human being I really doubt anyone would cry sexual harassment.
- lawnchair_larry 9y ago
  Haha. You'll want to read the story of what he actually did before making this assumption. If the names were redacted from the Bill and Melinda story, everyone here would be calling for his head.
  - rhcom2 9y ago
    I don't know, it sounds like she said yes to the first date? Maybe I'm missing part of the story. http://people.com/human-interest/melinda-gates-love-story-bill-gates-sunday-morning/ http://people.com/human-interest/melinda-gates-love-story-bi...
    - Klockan 9y ago
      A 34 year old CEO asking a newly hired 23 year old college grad out on a date sounds like sexual harassment to me even if it was just a one time thing.
      - linkregister 9y ago
        It certainly raises some interesting quid-pro-quo questions. Every sexual harassment training I've attended has mentioned this as very dangerous territory, but not explicitly sexual harassment.
        Klockan 9y ago
        If a CEO asked a much younger employee out and it made her so uncomfortable that she quit would you still say that it wasn't sexual harassment? Once is still too much. And for all we know Melinda might have felt compelled to say yes to avoid retaliation and only later accepted it.
        linkregister 9y ago
        According to my many sexual harassment trainings, it doesn't meet the definition of sexual harassment under U.S. law. But it is extremely borderline.
  - firebones 9y ago
    I can't find anything other than that he awkwardly asked her out (after dating a number of Microsoft employees). Most of the recent stories read like sanitized rewrites of history. But I did find this somewhat interesting 1995 history of the lengths they went to in order to protect their privacy: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19950604&slug=2124492 http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=199...
    - lawnchair_larry 9y ago
      He cornered her in the parking lot after watching her for several weeks and asked for her number. She said no, mentioning something about him not being spontaneous enough. She didn't give him her number. An hour later he called her at home, having obtained her number through her personnel information, saying, "Is this spontaneous enough for you?" This is the wealthy CEO talking to a junior new hire. I can only imagine the mob if someone like Travis Kalanick did that. According to the standard some posters here are advocating, that makes Bill an evil sociopathic predator that should have been shamed or even locked up for harassment. Clearly, these simple Dos and Donts are not so simple. It turns out that he made the correct move, they fell in love, and are married to this day. Had I been his wing man and he bounced that plan off of me, I'd have talked him out of it and said he was crazy. It makes you wonder if he was extremely socially retarded or extremely socially advanced. He took a risk and it worked out perfectly for both of them. Yet we want to crucify the guy who joked about wanting to hit on someone in an interview. I don't think that was appropriate but I'd be lying if I said I could find where we are drawing the line between what Dave tried and what Bill tried.
- Tharkun 9y ago
  > If the women isn't interested, you stop. I feel like this is much easier said than done. Emotions can be complex and fickle. Many books have been written about how to woo a potential mate. There have been tales of love potions for hundreds of years. The dating scene is filled with people who use subtle manipulative behaviour to score. What I'm trying to say is that it can be very hard to know whether someone is interested. And the success of your wooing efforts determines -- retroactively -- their creep factor.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - cushychicken 9y ago
    It's pretty easy to tell if someone is interested in you. It's when you ask them on a date, and they say yes. If they say no, the respectful thing is to drop it. Do the respectful thing. This is really uncomplicated. There aren't any "ifs" or "buts" after that. The notion that this is the time to start wooing is absurdly wrong. That's the time to know you've been rejected, and move on. Accepting rejection, incidentally, seems like something many of these VCs have trained themselves to be terrible at professionally.
- home_boi 9y ago
  > Seems like many men have a problem with rejection and accepting no Women don't have the burden of having to initiate relationships and chase after potential partners
  - rorykoehler 9y ago
    Men don't either.
    - morgante 9y ago
      Yes, being single forever is indeed an option. Men should learn to deal with rejection, but let's not pretend that they don't have the burden of initiating. I've literally never been asked out by a woman in my life.
      - rorykoehler 9y ago
        It's pretty evenly balanced in my social circles. Perhaps there is something else at play?
        peoplewindow 9y ago
        Probably culture. I've been pretty successful with women in my life; whilst I was nerdy as a teenager things changed and I've since had a lot of luck with women. In Europe, where I live, I have never been asked out by a woman that I can recall, despite having had plenty of girlfriends here and good relationships. Men always have to make the first move. The most extreme case of this was when I briefly dated a Russian woman. She had recently divorced with a young kid, and was incredibly beautiful - I couldn't believe my luck when we got together. But I kept asking her out on dates, we'd do a date, it'd be fantastic, and she'd go home the next morning ... without suggesting we meet up, or informing me of her plans, or even what she liked to do really. She'd just go home. At the time I figured she maybe just wanted some fun and didn't wish to begin another relationship so soon after ending her marriage. I took it as a hint that causal dating was fine but she didn't want me intruding on her family time. So eventually I stopped asking her out on dates. I was looking for something more serious and was hoping for her to suggest something she'd like to do instead of always waiting for me, but it wasn't happening. I found out later via mutual friends that she was quite upset when our dating stopped and she'd been hoping it'd get serious. Just that in Russian culture, men are expected to take the lead and tell the woman what's going to happen to a much greater degree than in my own culture, and I'd totally misread her. However, in America, I've been asked out by women. It's a vastly more forthright culture where "sassy" women are lauded and "go getting" is seen as the way forward. Given how international tech workplaces are, you're getting vastly different dating cultures and expectations mixed together on a daily basis, in an environment where many men don't get to meet many women. I work in tech but virtually all my dating has been with women I met outside of work. But my colleagues often don't have a social life outside of their colleagues.
- a_imho 9y ago
  http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-hacked-computers-to-meet-girls-2016-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-hacked-computers-t...
pravda 9y ago
>Those three are all well-known business leaders who have dated or married their subordinates. Here's another one: Bezos! He married a subordinate. http://www.zimbio.com/photos/Mackenzie+Bezos/Business+Leaders+Meet+Sun+Valley+Conference/_e1PnPUh-OA http://www.zimbio.com/photos/Mackenzie+Bezos/Business+Leader... And she's cute. Cue ball did well for himself.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  Apparently she initiated. Bezos and MacKennzie met while working together at the New York City hedge fund D.E. Shaw. In a Vogue interview, MacKenzie said Bezos was the first person she interviewed with at Shaw. She asked him out to lunch one day and they were engaged three months later. She was only 23 years old when they married. “My office was next door to his, and all day long I listened to that fabulous laugh,” she told Vogue. “How could you not fall in love with that laugh?” http://heavy.com/news/2017/06/jeff-bezos-wife-mackenzie-writer-age-amazon-founder/ http://heavy.com/news/2017/06/jeff-bezos-wife-mackenzie-writ...
thirdsun 9y ago
That’s a very important aspect. If the difference between inappropriate harassment and the start of a sweet, romantic Pam-and-Jim-like story is the question of whether she‘s interested or not, we are in for a lot of grey area and uncertainty.

rhcom2 9y ago

If the women isn't interested, you stop. Seems like many men have a problem with rejection and accepting no, that's usually when it becomes creepy. Had Gates asked his now SO out and she said no and then he politely went on his way like a respectful human being I really doubt anyone would cry sexual harassment.

lawnchair_larry 9y ago
Haha. You'll want to read the story of what he actually did before making this assumption. If the names were redacted from the Bill and Melinda story, everyone here would be calling for his head.
- rhcom2 9y ago
  I don't know, it sounds like she said yes to the first date? Maybe I'm missing part of the story. http://people.com/human-interest/melinda-gates-love-story-bill-gates-sunday-morning/ http://people.com/human-interest/melinda-gates-love-story-bi...
  - Klockan 9y ago
    A 34 year old CEO asking a newly hired 23 year old college grad out on a date sounds like sexual harassment to me even if it was just a one time thing.
    - linkregister 9y ago
      It certainly raises some interesting quid-pro-quo questions. Every sexual harassment training I've attended has mentioned this as very dangerous territory, but not explicitly sexual harassment.
      - Klockan 9y ago
        If a CEO asked a much younger employee out and it made her so uncomfortable that she quit would you still say that it wasn't sexual harassment? Once is still too much. And for all we know Melinda might have felt compelled to say yes to avoid retaliation and only later accepted it.
        linkregister 9y ago
        According to my many sexual harassment trainings, it doesn't meet the definition of sexual harassment under U.S. law. But it is extremely borderline.
- firebones 9y ago
  I can't find anything other than that he awkwardly asked her out (after dating a number of Microsoft employees). Most of the recent stories read like sanitized rewrites of history. But I did find this somewhat interesting 1995 history of the lengths they went to in order to protect their privacy: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19950604&slug=2124492 http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=199...
  - lawnchair_larry 9y ago
    He cornered her in the parking lot after watching her for several weeks and asked for her number. She said no, mentioning something about him not being spontaneous enough. She didn't give him her number. An hour later he called her at home, having obtained her number through her personnel information, saying, "Is this spontaneous enough for you?" This is the wealthy CEO talking to a junior new hire. I can only imagine the mob if someone like Travis Kalanick did that. According to the standard some posters here are advocating, that makes Bill an evil sociopathic predator that should have been shamed or even locked up for harassment. Clearly, these simple Dos and Donts are not so simple. It turns out that he made the correct move, they fell in love, and are married to this day. Had I been his wing man and he bounced that plan off of me, I'd have talked him out of it and said he was crazy. It makes you wonder if he was extremely socially retarded or extremely socially advanced. He took a risk and it worked out perfectly for both of them. Yet we want to crucify the guy who joked about wanting to hit on someone in an interview. I don't think that was appropriate but I'd be lying if I said I could find where we are drawing the line between what Dave tried and what Bill tried.
Tharkun 9y ago
> If the women isn't interested, you stop. I feel like this is much easier said than done. Emotions can be complex and fickle. Many books have been written about how to woo a potential mate. There have been tales of love potions for hundreds of years. The dating scene is filled with people who use subtle manipulative behaviour to score. What I'm trying to say is that it can be very hard to know whether someone is interested. And the success of your wooing efforts determines -- retroactively -- their creep factor.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- cushychicken 9y ago
  It's pretty easy to tell if someone is interested in you. It's when you ask them on a date, and they say yes. If they say no, the respectful thing is to drop it. Do the respectful thing. This is really uncomplicated. There aren't any "ifs" or "buts" after that. The notion that this is the time to start wooing is absurdly wrong. That's the time to know you've been rejected, and move on. Accepting rejection, incidentally, seems like something many of these VCs have trained themselves to be terrible at professionally.
home_boi 9y ago
> Seems like many men have a problem with rejection and accepting no Women don't have the burden of having to initiate relationships and chase after potential partners
- rorykoehler 9y ago
  Men don't either.
  - morgante 9y ago
    Yes, being single forever is indeed an option. Men should learn to deal with rejection, but let's not pretend that they don't have the burden of initiating. I've literally never been asked out by a woman in my life.
    - rorykoehler 9y ago
      It's pretty evenly balanced in my social circles. Perhaps there is something else at play?
      - peoplewindow 9y ago
        Probably culture. I've been pretty successful with women in my life; whilst I was nerdy as a teenager things changed and I've since had a lot of luck with women. In Europe, where I live, I have never been asked out by a woman that I can recall, despite having had plenty of girlfriends here and good relationships. Men always have to make the first move. The most extreme case of this was when I briefly dated a Russian woman. She had recently divorced with a young kid, and was incredibly beautiful - I couldn't believe my luck when we got together. But I kept asking her out on dates, we'd do a date, it'd be fantastic, and she'd go home the next morning ... without suggesting we meet up, or informing me of her plans, or even what she liked to do really. She'd just go home. At the time I figured she maybe just wanted some fun and didn't wish to begin another relationship so soon after ending her marriage. I took it as a hint that causal dating was fine but she didn't want me intruding on her family time. So eventually I stopped asking her out on dates. I was looking for something more serious and was hoping for her to suggest something she'd like to do instead of always waiting for me, but it wasn't happening. I found out later via mutual friends that she was quite upset when our dating stopped and she'd been hoping it'd get serious. Just that in Russian culture, men are expected to take the lead and tell the woman what's going to happen to a much greater degree than in my own culture, and I'd totally misread her. However, in America, I've been asked out by women. It's a vastly more forthright culture where "sassy" women are lauded and "go getting" is seen as the way forward. Given how international tech workplaces are, you're getting vastly different dating cultures and expectations mixed together on a daily basis, in an environment where many men don't get to meet many women. I work in tech but virtually all my dating has been with women I met outside of work. But my colleagues often don't have a social life outside of their colleagues.
a_imho 9y ago
http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-hacked-computers-to-meet-girls-2016-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-hacked-computers-t...

pravda 9y ago

>Those three are all well-known business leaders who have dated or married their subordinates. Here's another one: Bezos! He married a subordinate. http://www.zimbio.com/photos/Mackenzie+Bezos/Business+Leaders+Meet+Sun+Valley+Conference/_e1PnPUh-OA http://www.zimbio.com/photos/Mackenzie+Bezos/Business+Leader... And she's cute. Cue ball did well for himself.

hkmurakami 9y ago
Apparently she initiated. Bezos and MacKennzie met while working together at the New York City hedge fund D.E. Shaw. In a Vogue interview, MacKenzie said Bezos was the first person she interviewed with at Shaw. She asked him out to lunch one day and they were engaged three months later. She was only 23 years old when they married. “My office was next door to his, and all day long I listened to that fabulous laugh,” she told Vogue. “How could you not fall in love with that laugh?” http://heavy.com/news/2017/06/jeff-bezos-wife-mackenzie-writer-age-amazon-founder/ http://heavy.com/news/2017/06/jeff-bezos-wife-mackenzie-writ...

thirdsun 9y ago

That’s a very important aspect. If the difference between inappropriate harassment and the start of a sweet, romantic Pam-and-Jim-like story is the question of whether she‘s interested or not, we are in for a lot of grey area and uncertainty.