An investor-founder relationship is akin to a boss-underling relationship. In many companies, sleeping with each other is forbidden if one is a direct report of

An investor-founder relationship is akin to a boss-underling relationship. In many companies, sleeping with each other is forbidden if one is a direct report of the other and this is the right way to handle it. If two founders of different companies happen to meet at a conference, there is nothing inherently wrong with them dating (assuming it doesn't cause some kind of conflict of interest due to their businesses). But an investor-founder relationship needs to be platonic. Think of it from this angle: You are a heterosexual man pitching a bunch of heterosexual men to get money for your startup. The industry standard is that investors can sleep with founders that are pitching them. If some woman comes in, sleeps with all the investors on the board and gets scads of money for her startup while you get turned down because there was not enough money for both, are you totes happy with that outcome? The reasons for disallowing an investor-founder romance go far beyond protecting women from predatory male behavior.