8 ms·

Is it just me, or is committing public seppuku like this really necessary? If what he did was illegal, he should face prosecution. If he's compelled to apolog

• LeoNatan25 9y ago
  It did read cringe-worthy to me. But then again, the allegations are much more so.
• adriand 9y ago
  Totally agree. There's something very weird about this post. If I were truly faced with the sudden realization that I was a deeply shitty person, I can't imagine writing a post like this. I'd be off the grid entirely, probably drinking in a ditch some place. I know I can't speak for others and everyone is different, but the human element is missing here somehow. It does feel very PR.
  • jmcgough 9y ago
    His career depends very much on his reputation, and his reputation was just dragged through the mud over the past week. It's difficult to know whether this introspection and contrition is genuine, but his post is all about salvaging his name.
    • chris_wot 9y ago
      Even if it isn't genuine (and it appears genuine to me) then it's a step forward for a Silicon Valley head to recognise their actions are wrong.
  • fellellor 9y ago
    Buy will these yesterday's PR moves work in the much more cynical world of today?
  • hkmurakami 9y ago
    His firm will demand that he write a post as part of his professional duties.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• mabbo 9y ago
  There's what's legally required, and there's what's morally required. Here's a guy who did some serious soul-searching and said "holy shit, maybe I'm wrong on a very bad way". It's about doing more than what he is bare minimum allowed to get away with. He's taking personal responsibility for his actions, openly and publicly. That takes a level of maturity and openness that I know is hard, and I fully respect. All that he missed, in my opinion, is what his next steps are, and how going forward he can assure that this won't happen again. It sounds like he does have plans, but a good apology goes "I was wrong; here's why/how I was wrong; here's what I'm going to do in the future so that I don't repeat the mistake".
  • theWatcher37 9y ago
    But it won't be enough, it won't be seen as positive, and like half the comments in this thread show once you're outed as a PC heretic you're a non-entity. Read through the smarmy "he doesn't mean it" comments all over this thread to see what I mean. This culture is toxic in the tech community and needs to stop.
    • jackmott 9y ago
      The culture of being being mad at sexual harassment offenders even when they apologize is what is toxic in the tech community. ok
      • jhall1468 9y ago
        Sexual harrasment? What he did was unethical, immoral and objectively wrong, sexual harrasment is a crime. This wasn't a crime. I'm sure, as a perfect individual you've never done anything unethical or immoral. As such, your "never forgive" attitude is perfectly justifiable.
        • masondixon 9y ago
          > objectively wrong Where can I find a list of "objectively wrong" things, and is there some kind of formal process to challenge them?
• rdiddly 9y ago
  It does seem an awful lot like the same old narcissism that probably played a big role in the harassment and maybe even the drive toward entrepreneurship and investing in the first place. They're all just different faces of the same thing. Business narcissism is a matter of making much of one's own achievements. Sexual narcissism is a matter of making much of one's prowess/attractiveness (and being tone-deaf to what, to everyone else, would be obvious signs of disinterest on the part of the other party). Narcissism in disgrace is a matter of making much of one's own mistakes, and one's own suffering. I realize the following is reaching a little bit, like your high school English teacher, but: Notice who appears (twice) in the title.
  • noonespecial 9y ago
    Not reaching at all. I was trying to put my finger on what felt off about this while reading it. I think you've got it exactly. It reads like an apology on the surface, but it feels more like bragging and attention seeking.
• lopatin 9y ago
  My reaction would be more similar to yours than Dave's. But he's a public figure, with a blog and twitter and people that know him and stuff, so I guess in that position, people start asking "why aren't you posting something?" rather than "why did/will you post something".
• orthoganol 9y ago
  I think it's because he wanted to pepper in details like "It was over drinks and I thought it was social", aka actually defend his actions while renouncing them on the surface. The "upcoming discussions" with 500 associates reads like he's looking to get back onboard.
  • sergiotapia 9y ago
    I immediately thought odd it was to meet like that over drinks with a group of people. That's never not been social for me. So I'm glad he painted a picture.
    • caseysoftware 9y ago
      There are dozens, hundreds of events ranging from meetups to conference parties to pitch events to just about everything else that often involve drinks or going out for drinks immediately before/after with other participants. Whether that's "social" or a "professional" setting is hotly debated but regardless, it's the norm. Throw in social media and it is very easy (still not appropriate) to blur lines.
      • taurath 9y ago
        If you have a job where you are working 12 hour days and weekends, your job is your life. I am actually curious when would an actual appropriate time to ask someone on a date might be - clearly the second someone brings up professional stuff, it should be out the door, but the veil of that can be breached with a simple "what have you been working on lately"
        • noahth 9y ago
          If you're working 12 hour days and having trouble with your social life, the problem is _not_ that it's not OK to hit on women in a professional setting. The problem is that you're working too much.
          • 9y ago
• imgabe 9y ago
  I think it's less about the people involved and more about setting an example for others who might be in a similar position.
• 3327 9y ago
  Come on. All these guys who claim they are so smart and well rounded now all of a sudden are doing "I'm Sorry" posts as if they didn't know. WTF - of course they all were aware. Its easy acting all matter of fact and smart with everything else and then "I'm Sorry". Refer them to a public prosecutor because examples are needed for this to stop. We need some examples to be made.
  • theWatcher37 9y ago
    This post is a perfect example of what I've mentioned elsewhere. If you ever find yourself in this person's shoes (innocent or guilty) you have nothing to gain by this sort of public display of remorse/sepukku as others have called it. This type of angry, vitriolic, hate-filled-person will condemn you no matter if your apologies are sincere or not. The only logical move is to deny, people like the poster above will never believe you anyways but they're unwinable anyways. As long as leftism rules the cultural zeitgeist apologizing for bad behavior will never be enough to matter.
    • ithinkinstereo 9y ago
      Apologies like McClure are insincere because his behavior has likely been going on for years; targeting many many women (at least 6 according to his accuser); and because McClure knew then, as he does now, that he was in the wrong. Why do you think he is apologizing? Do you really think he is sorry or just sorry he got caught? I'm sure he is sincere, sincere that he feels bad that he got caught and is now suffering the consequences. This is just like the murderer who cries crocodile tears during sentencing. Occam's razor. A devil does not become a saint overnight.
      • collyw 9y ago
        I have been asking the same questions as you reading this thread, but I didn't jump to a conclusion anywhere near as readily as you have. There are far too many unknowns about the situation for me to do that.
      • partisan 9y ago
• pvaldes 9y ago
  It depends on his motivation, and several hypothetical motivations could fit here; Public shaming (voluntary or forced), aiming to deliberately burn/restore brigdes, lawyer advice or even e-fishing. Is not easy to eval his real expectations. About the public seppuku question, maybe for a while but nah, for some reason everybody loves when other people discloses a hidden dark side and face public ashaming. Is something about being a social species, probably. We love gossip.
• theWatcher37 9y ago
  Counterpoint: bowing to the collective social shaming buys the individual no "points", as is evidenced by this tread full of vultures questioning his motives. Instead we've created a culture where the only logical move is to deny deny deny even in the face of overwhelming evidence because the only thing the modern left hates more than "creep" is a loser.
  • macspoofing 9y ago
    >Counterpoint: bowing to the collective social shaming buys the individual no "points", as is evidenced by this tread full of vultures questioning his motives. The cynics in this thread (myself included) are not the target of this self-flagellation.
  • politician 9y ago
    An interesting game theory observation. Moving past the judgements regarding the sincerity of his apology, it'd be interesting to learn the various constiuences' ideas of acceptable outcomes at this point.
  • wfo 9y ago
    Counterpoint: his apology was not a calculated tactic to garner goodwill for nefarious purposes so he therefore does not care what "points" he will, by your judgement, gain. It was an honest, human attempt to do the right thing. Or was it? Perhaps you're suggesting he's incapable of even having a desire to do the right thing and instead is totally consumed by selfish sociopathy? It's a serious and damning psychoanalytic allegation to make, not one that I would make from afar. Perhaps you think everyone behaves this way as some sort of justification for his actions? Happily I'll inform you that they don't. What you call "logic" (i.e. pausing, removing all thoughts about morality from your head and taking a moment to refuse to think of others as human beings worthy of consideration and respect, rather, only considering what you personally will gain from a given situation and letting this heuristic drive your decisions completely) describes very few human interactions.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• cbsmith 9y ago
  Given how much denial there is about the problem, yes it is really necessary.
• geofft 9y ago
  I think that humans' problems are better solved without involving the government if at all possible. However, I certainly agree with you that he should apologize to the actual people he wronged, more than to the world at large.
• danielharrison 9y ago
  He's in damage control mode, a purely defensive move to dig his crampons in and stop sliding. He may mean what he says but only time will tell. Currently is all talk.
  • collyw 9y ago
    The problem with situations like this is there is a lot of context we are not seeing. Maybe its a very genuine apology. Maybe its an attempt at damage limitation. Maybe he was really pushy when hitting on the women and wouldn't take no as an answer. Maybe he was polite and took no for an answer the first time. Probably why the situation is fairly controversial as there are so many unknowns that would make the situation seem better or worse if we actually knew the full story.
• macspoofing 9y ago
  >Is it just me, or is committing public seppuku like this really necessary? I suppose he felt this 'public seppuku' was necessary because a) he was called out by name in the NY Times article and b) he wanted to put it on record that the woman he hit on wasn't rejected from his company for rejecting him. I suspect (b) is the true motive, and without a certain level of self-flagellation it wouldn't be socially acceptable to state that fact.
• l33tbro 9y ago
  Nailed it. This is thinly-veiled damage control. While he may genuinely be sorry, his plea for recompense should be directed privately at those his actions affected. A self-effacing blog post like this reads to me as code for "please don't blacklist me in the valley".
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• obstinate 9y ago
  We have been inundated by posts like these lately as these creepy dudes have been outed. I have felt as you do on several of them. IMO, this one comes the closest to being a real apology. Doesn't make up for what he did, not by a mile. Doesn't mean he should ever be allowed to be in a position of authority over women again. But for me it was a positive step.
• elcapitan 9y ago
  Seppuku is a good description, to me it reads like a modern version of socialist "self criticism" [1]. Which is an undignified, forced way of subdueing the already broken "enemy of the people". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-criticism#Communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-criticism#Communism
• Latty 9y ago
  Or he realized he has done something wrong and wants to be clear that's not who he wants to be? I was out drinking with friends from my University course, back in the day, and made some statement like "uh, well don't be fags about it" - a hangover from my days at a boys only secondary school where "gay" was the most common term for bad and "fag" was the most common insult. Now, I have no issues with people's sexuality and would never want to offend anyone - but I was drunk and years of using the term as a generic negative insult just lead to me using the term habitually. The issue was, it wasn't just my close friends, but a larger group of people I knew less well. One of them made the point that he was Bi and didn't appreciate the comment, and I wanted to curl up and die - instantly I had to try and explain myself and apologise. How I acted didn't represent my views, it isn't who I want to be, and it's not how I'd want to interact with anyone. I put that guy - and anyone else there - in a shitty situation and while he was fortunately understanding, and spoke up about it, someone could have just heard me and felt a bit of rejection from the world. Now, you can argue about the sincerity of this guy's apology, and how possible it is to repeatedly do something and do the things he did in the context he did, etc..., but there comes a point at which if the message is good - which this apology is - it's a flat statement that his behavior was wrong, flat out, which is the right place to start from at least, I think you have to give some level of benefit of the doubt. People do fuck up. Consequences for that are fine, but you have to try to give people routes to hold up their hands and reject things they did, that has value. To note, obviously my usage of the terms during my schooling years was just as wrong, but I was a child and it's harder to judge myself at that age because of the environment and lack of knowledge I had at the time. Something I still regret deeply though - it must have been incredibly hard to be gay with so much constant negativity surrounding it in that environment.
  • sangnoir 9y ago
    > How I acted didn't represent my views, it isn't who I want to be, and it's not how I'd want to interact with anyone. I'm sorry, but this does not make sense to me. Of course what you said and how you acted represented your views at the time. It wasn't who you wanted to be, but it was who you were. You absolutely used the term fag as an insult and you meant it. I'm posting this not to judge you or be self-righteous about it, but in the hope of gaining some understanding. I have seen it happen far too many times: a person's racist/sexist words go viral on social media or in the press, and they reflexively publish "That is not my view or a reflection of who I am. Everyone who is close to me knows this". This disassociation puzzles me greatly. How is it that you have the conviction to do/say something and then disavow it when challenged?
• edanm 9y ago
  It was a bit over the top. But, I really appreciate it. In many situations, as you can see from other threads here, there is doubt in a lot of people's minds whether there's really a story here, whether the person was wrongly accused, whether it's as bad as people make it out to be, etc. In this case, he's making it clear that, yes, he really was the wrong party and really did wrong things. I think we should take his statement at face value, and be thankful we have an example of a clear-cut wrong, so anybody who is unsure just how bad the harassment situation really is can point to this as an example.
• briandear 9y ago
  What he did wasn’t illegal.
• rmc 9y ago
  When you're getting bad press, doing nothing/very little can be a bad PR move.