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Steve Jurvetson is out at his own VC firm after allegations of sexual harassment

151 points by heshamg 9y ago

chaostheory 9y ago
This is what I love about America: we have periodic, bloodless revolutions that can be initiated and carried out by anyone. The social order keeps changing without the chaos, destruction, and waste of violent upheavals or coups. Isn't this what both Marx and Mao have always wanted? What they both didn't realize was that you need a functioning democracy with freedom of speech (and the Internet) to achieve it.
- draw_down 9y ago
  Madness.
- api 9y ago
  Agreed until you got to the Marx and Mao part, which is a bit "WUT?"
  - chaostheory 9y ago
    Why? Am I wrong? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution To be clear, you do realize that I'm criticizing both Marx and Mao right?
    - allenz 9y ago
      You're taking them out of context. Marx didn't want revolution for revolution's sake. He had a specific change to the social order in mind, namely the cause of socialism. He wouldn't approve of the US.
      - chaostheory 9y ago
        So you're saying that the Women's Suffrage movement changed nothing? The Civil Rights movement didn't have any effect? The Sexual Revolution did little? What about the unions? I can go on. Are you saying that none of our bloodless revolutions made any changes to the social order?
  - snakeboy 9y ago
    They both wanted social revolution, but the execution of their plans lead to tens of millions of unnecessary deaths.
- theha343432 9y ago
  Would you mind explaining this more? It's a interesting idea. What do you think causes this or allows it to happen? Did you think of this or is it taken from somewhere?
  - chaostheory 9y ago
    Yeah imo I could be wrong but this was the intent of America's forefathers. "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." TJ 1. our country was created and formed by dissidents and rebels. Rebellion is really ingrained into our culture. If you look at our history in business, arts, and even technology; you can see that it is really pervassive and our non-obvious main competitive advantage 2. Democratic republics allow our society to have bloodless revolutions by voting out leaders we don't like. It happens so often that these bloodless revolutions become the norm and its effects go beyond just politicians 3. Obvious to some but not to everyone, since not everyone on HN lives in a democracy, but freedom of speech allows us to say and write whatever is on our minds - also giving us a Free Press, which makes bloodless rebellions more likely (and violent overthrows much less likely) Combine the above ingredients and you get constant, non-destructive revolutions. Add a ubiquitous and currently open & free platform called the Internet and you get the current state of things. When you think about it, it's a win / win for everyone, because even if you are one of the people getting overthrown; you're not going to get killed unlike in other countries
AlexandrB 9y ago
The framing here is priceless. > Jurvetson is the highest-profile venture capitalist to be forced from his job amid an industrywide evaluation of how Silicon Valley treats women. And then later. > The departure comes as Jurvetson was being investigated by his own firm for harassment. An entrepreneur had alleged predatory behavior was “rampant” at DFJ. The woman, Keri Kukral, did not name Jurvetson in her Facebook post. So the "industrywide evaluation" is individual victims coming forward and reporting past abuse. That's a very charitable take that implies the industry is taking some sort of proactive action.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  The firm itself is leading the investigation, rather than an outside individual bringing a lawsuit. This is a much more proactive scenario than the KPCB-Pao situation several years ago.
  - AlexandrB 9y ago
    Even so, that's not an "industrywide evaluation" but a single firm acting responsibly. If there is a concerted push in tech to deal with sexual harassment and/or sexism I'd love to know about it.
    - gt_ 9y ago
      Maybe there are different difinitions of “deal with” beig used here? Either way, sexual harrassment is an incredibly difficult problem to “deal with.” Acknowledging it is very easy, but if the ends don’t justify the means, it’s unlikely to happen. The public pressure creates an environment where the ends are more likely to justify the means, but the original issues of how to actually deal with it in an effective manner remain, and they are significant.
    - saas_sam 9y ago
      How would you determine whether or not there is a "concerted push to deal with sexual harassment and/or sexism in tech"? Perhaps if many tech companies announced such a push? Or maybe if all major tech publications were consistently reporting on the subject? If top tech companies were hiring expensive executives to specifically handle sexism/sexual harassment, would that be enough? Because all of that has clearly been happening this year. What else can be done?
MsMowz 9y ago
It is nice to see comeuppance for those who used their position to hurt others. I'm hopeful that the past few weeks lead to a new culture where victims do not fear retribution for speaking out or going to authorities, but I fear that without a concerted effort to make that happen things will go back to normal and this will just be a blip.
- pm90 9y ago
  Its unlikely that people who are inclined to abuse their power this way will not notice. Its been a media blitz, and its astonishing how prevalent this kind of behavior has been so far. Hopefully it will at least make the abusers think twice, but more importantly, I hope it will empower the victims to speak out and not feel like its been their fault.
  - vkou 9y ago
    > Its been a media blitz, and its astonishing how prevalent this kind of behavior has been so far. Given how many people have spoken up at #meetoo, it's really not astonishing. What's astonishing is that this has been ignored for so long.
jkw 9y ago
Reply from Steve Jurvetson: "I am leaving DFJ to focus on personal matters, including taking legal action against those whose false statements have defamed me." https://twitter.com/dfjsteve/status/930170825625370624 https://twitter.com/dfjsteve/status/930170825625370624
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  Has anyone kept track of how often someone says something along those lines, and how often the suit is actually filed?
  - sitkack 9y ago
    Lol, the "defaming" has caused them to quite their own business. Let me write a quick Prolog program to figure this one out.
nhangen 9y ago
Based on what I've read, and I'm fully willing to admit it's all hearsay, Steve, while having achieved great things, has a history of abusing his power and treating founders poorly. This does not feel like bad news.
- mathattack 9y ago
  Unless the founder is of Theranos.
downandout 9y ago
This may get downvotes, but the speed with which careers are being destroyed based on mere allegations of sexual misconduct these days is frightening. While the allegations in this case may or may not be true, it is actually possible for a woman to make a false allegation of sexual misconduct. There are myriad reasons that someone would make make such a false allegation against a powerful VC. Yet in today’s environment, even if he ultimately proves himself to be innocent through the lawsuit he claims he is going to file against his accuser, a career death sentence has already been carried out by a virtual lynch mob. That is wrong.
- auganov 9y ago
  In most of these rapid takedown cases, the accused doesn't contest the allegations (or only sort of does). Easy to overestimate how often this happens. And the destruction is mutual for the most part. The moment the accusation is made, the accuser will experience some stigma too. As sad as it may be, hardly frightening.
- MsMowz 9y ago
  >Yet in today’s environment, even if he ultimately proves himself to be innocent through the lawsuit he claims he is going to file against his accuser, a career death sentence has already been carried out by a virtual lynch mob. That is wrong. Has this ever actually happened?
  - tankenmate 9y ago
    Sometimes it isn't just career death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sargeant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sargeant
    - MsMowz 9y ago
      I was talking about being falsely accused. All signs in his case are that he actually did it.
      - 9y ago
hkmurakami 9y ago
Following these very visible and high profile falls from grace, in politics, media and entertainment, and high tech, there must be some legitimate concerns that in the near future the Billy Graham rule [1] (or lately called the Graham-Pence rule) will find more followers than before. Many men in power will instinctually and subconsciously cut out women from their professional lives more than before, to the detriment of women's career advancement. Polls [2] suggest that this isn't a rare position even today. Mitigating this next challenge should be part of the current successful campaign that women and allies of women have been waging today, since even though to some it will be clear that basic attitudes of respect and professional distance will suffice, many others will make a fear-driven overreaction. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Graham_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Graham_rule [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/upshot/members-of-the-opposite-sex-at-work-gender-study.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/upshot/members-of-the-opp...
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  I think we then need to cut those people out. If you're not professional enough to be able to meet with anyone one-on-one, and not do anything, then you don't deserve a position in leadership.
  - nothrabannosir 9y ago
    > and not do anything, His point was: "... and not fear to ever be accused of anything,"
    - s73ver_ 9y ago
      And if you're that afraid, you need to ask yourself why.
      - shifter 9y ago
        There are some terrible people out there that will lie to get what they want (c.f. borderline personality disorder, sociopaths, etc.). They exist in large quantities in the business world. I've been on the receiving end of false (non-harassment) accusations and it sucks. I now take precautions to prevent that from happening again and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that BPD or sociopath women would use false harassment accusations to achieve their means.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pecanpie 9y ago
Long time reader, tentative poster, upvote or downvote as necessary… Back in the days of orkut.com, I do remember Jurvetson making what seemed to me like a huge effort to interact with pretty young women, especially from Estonia. I remember him having a few hundred friends on that service — more than most people there had — a list which included a very large population of pretty, young, single Estonian women. Keep in mind that I never saw any behavior of his on orkut.com that I would deem harassment, but his social activity there did seem curious to me, considering his married, busy professional status. It was kind of similar to what I saw Marc Canter (of Macromedia fame I guess?) doing there, but again, for neither guy did I witness, or hear, of any harassment going on. it just seemed that what they were doing was merely using their professional status to flirt. At the time, I figured that their flirting, and their collecting of young female friends, was harmless, and didn't indicate anything untoward going on. Especially since none of my female friends and acquaintances in these guys’ sights intimated to me that anything weird or unwelcome was happening. But now, I'm not so sure, considering how allegations, like the one in the featured article, are bubbling up.
- nothrabannosir 9y ago
  I'm torn on how useful this kind of comment (or gossip?) is. On the one hand: it's context. On the other: the witch hunt Has Begun™. God forbid I ever end up in a situation, and find people telling similar, about me. Even if completely true, this could still be irrelevant. How would I feel about my past self indulging in their consumption, as I am tempted to, right now? How do others feel about this? Edit: And: does it matter whether it turns out to be a false accusation, like he claims, or a real one? Because if it does (which I think it does), shouldn't we withhold these stories until the verdict is definite? But if it doesn't, then... surely, that can only mean that this comment is irrelevant?
  - jstarfish 9y ago
    Eh... if you're this indiscrete about your vices, you're indulging in them wrong.
mafsedan 9y ago
I will have nothing to do with woman in my professional life. I will not hire or work for or with women.
FiatLuxDave 9y ago
23 years ago, Steve Jurvetson was the only VC to respond to the 150 letters I sent out while seeking capital for my first startup. At the time he had not yet made partner at DFJ (it was just Draper Fisher back then). I was really impressed by his intelligence. At the time I was delivering pizza while working my way through a physics degree, designing a fusion reactor in my spare time. He cared about real advances in technology, and he and Tim Draper gave me a chance. Without him making the decision to speak to me, my whole life and career would have been different. I don't know anything about whether Steve was inappropriate towards women or not. I've never worked closely enough with him to know, and I haven't spoken to him in many years. But I can't help but hope that he's doing ok. I hope he either gets vindication if he's innocent, or comes to peace with his actions if he is not. The rest of you may see him now as a powerful middle-aged man, but I still remember him as the young hotshot with something to prove.

151 points by heshamg 9y ago

This is what I love about America: we have periodic, bloodless revolutions that can be initiated and carried out by anyone. The social order keeps changing without the chaos, destruction, and waste of violent upheavals or coups. Isn't this what both Marx and Mao have always wanted? What they both didn't realize was that you need a functioning democracy with freedom of speech (and the Internet) to achieve it.

draw_down 9y ago
Madness.
api 9y ago
Agreed until you got to the Marx and Mao part, which is a bit "WUT?"
- chaostheory 9y ago
  Why? Am I wrong? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution To be clear, you do realize that I'm criticizing both Marx and Mao right?
  - allenz 9y ago
    You're taking them out of context. Marx didn't want revolution for revolution's sake. He had a specific change to the social order in mind, namely the cause of socialism. He wouldn't approve of the US.
    - chaostheory 9y ago
      So you're saying that the Women's Suffrage movement changed nothing? The Civil Rights movement didn't have any effect? The Sexual Revolution did little? What about the unions? I can go on. Are you saying that none of our bloodless revolutions made any changes to the social order?
- snakeboy 9y ago
  They both wanted social revolution, but the execution of their plans lead to tens of millions of unnecessary deaths.
theha343432 9y ago
Would you mind explaining this more? It's a interesting idea. What do you think causes this or allows it to happen? Did you think of this or is it taken from somewhere?
- chaostheory 9y ago
  Yeah imo I could be wrong but this was the intent of America's forefathers. "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." TJ 1. our country was created and formed by dissidents and rebels. Rebellion is really ingrained into our culture. If you look at our history in business, arts, and even technology; you can see that it is really pervassive and our non-obvious main competitive advantage 2. Democratic republics allow our society to have bloodless revolutions by voting out leaders we don't like. It happens so often that these bloodless revolutions become the norm and its effects go beyond just politicians 3. Obvious to some but not to everyone, since not everyone on HN lives in a democracy, but freedom of speech allows us to say and write whatever is on our minds - also giving us a Free Press, which makes bloodless rebellions more likely (and violent overthrows much less likely) Combine the above ingredients and you get constant, non-destructive revolutions. Add a ubiquitous and currently open & free platform called the Internet and you get the current state of things. When you think about it, it's a win / win for everyone, because even if you are one of the people getting overthrown; you're not going to get killed unlike in other countries

AlexandrB 9y ago

The framing here is priceless. > Jurvetson is the highest-profile venture capitalist to be forced from his job amid an industrywide evaluation of how Silicon Valley treats women. And then later. > The departure comes as Jurvetson was being investigated by his own firm for harassment. An entrepreneur had alleged predatory behavior was “rampant” at DFJ. The woman, Keri Kukral, did not name Jurvetson in her Facebook post. So the "industrywide evaluation" is individual victims coming forward and reporting past abuse. That's a very charitable take that implies the industry is taking some sort of proactive action.

hkmurakami 9y ago
The firm itself is leading the investigation, rather than an outside individual bringing a lawsuit. This is a much more proactive scenario than the KPCB-Pao situation several years ago.
- AlexandrB 9y ago
  Even so, that's not an "industrywide evaluation" but a single firm acting responsibly. If there is a concerted push in tech to deal with sexual harassment and/or sexism I'd love to know about it.
  - gt_ 9y ago
    Maybe there are different difinitions of “deal with” beig used here? Either way, sexual harrassment is an incredibly difficult problem to “deal with.” Acknowledging it is very easy, but if the ends don’t justify the means, it’s unlikely to happen. The public pressure creates an environment where the ends are more likely to justify the means, but the original issues of how to actually deal with it in an effective manner remain, and they are significant.
  - saas_sam 9y ago
    How would you determine whether or not there is a "concerted push to deal with sexual harassment and/or sexism in tech"? Perhaps if many tech companies announced such a push? Or maybe if all major tech publications were consistently reporting on the subject? If top tech companies were hiring expensive executives to specifically handle sexism/sexual harassment, would that be enough? Because all of that has clearly been happening this year. What else can be done?

MsMowz 9y ago

It is nice to see comeuppance for those who used their position to hurt others. I'm hopeful that the past few weeks lead to a new culture where victims do not fear retribution for speaking out or going to authorities, but I fear that without a concerted effort to make that happen things will go back to normal and this will just be a blip.

pm90 9y ago
Its unlikely that people who are inclined to abuse their power this way will not notice. Its been a media blitz, and its astonishing how prevalent this kind of behavior has been so far. Hopefully it will at least make the abusers think twice, but more importantly, I hope it will empower the victims to speak out and not feel like its been their fault.
- vkou 9y ago
  > Its been a media blitz, and its astonishing how prevalent this kind of behavior has been so far. Given how many people have spoken up at #meetoo, it's really not astonishing. What's astonishing is that this has been ignored for so long.

jkw 9y ago

Reply from Steve Jurvetson: "I am leaving DFJ to focus on personal matters, including taking legal action against those whose false statements have defamed me." https://twitter.com/dfjsteve/status/930170825625370624 https://twitter.com/dfjsteve/status/930170825625370624

s73ver_ 9y ago
Has anyone kept track of how often someone says something along those lines, and how often the suit is actually filed?
- sitkack 9y ago
  Lol, the "defaming" has caused them to quite their own business. Let me write a quick Prolog program to figure this one out.

nhangen 9y ago

Based on what I've read, and I'm fully willing to admit it's all hearsay, Steve, while having achieved great things, has a history of abusing his power and treating founders poorly. This does not feel like bad news.

mathattack 9y ago
Unless the founder is of Theranos.

downandout 9y ago

This may get downvotes, but the speed with which careers are being destroyed based on mere allegations of sexual misconduct these days is frightening. While the allegations in this case may or may not be true, it is actually possible for a woman to make a false allegation of sexual misconduct. There are myriad reasons that someone would make make such a false allegation against a powerful VC. Yet in today’s environment, even if he ultimately proves himself to be innocent through the lawsuit he claims he is going to file against his accuser, a career death sentence has already been carried out by a virtual lynch mob. That is wrong.

auganov 9y ago
In most of these rapid takedown cases, the accused doesn't contest the allegations (or only sort of does). Easy to overestimate how often this happens. And the destruction is mutual for the most part. The moment the accusation is made, the accuser will experience some stigma too. As sad as it may be, hardly frightening.
MsMowz 9y ago
>Yet in today’s environment, even if he ultimately proves himself to be innocent through the lawsuit he claims he is going to file against his accuser, a career death sentence has already been carried out by a virtual lynch mob. That is wrong. Has this ever actually happened?
- tankenmate 9y ago
  Sometimes it isn't just career death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sargeant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sargeant
  - MsMowz 9y ago
    I was talking about being falsely accused. All signs in his case are that he actually did it.
    - 9y ago

hkmurakami 9y ago

Following these very visible and high profile falls from grace, in politics, media and entertainment, and high tech, there must be some legitimate concerns that in the near future the Billy Graham rule [1] (or lately called the Graham-Pence rule) will find more followers than before. Many men in power will instinctually and subconsciously cut out women from their professional lives more than before, to the detriment of women's career advancement. Polls [2] suggest that this isn't a rare position even today. Mitigating this next challenge should be part of the current successful campaign that women and allies of women have been waging today, since even though to some it will be clear that basic attitudes of respect and professional distance will suffice, many others will make a fear-driven overreaction. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Graham_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Graham_rule [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/upshot/members-of-the-opposite-sex-at-work-gender-study.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/upshot/members-of-the-opp...

s73ver_ 9y ago
I think we then need to cut those people out. If you're not professional enough to be able to meet with anyone one-on-one, and not do anything, then you don't deserve a position in leadership.
- nothrabannosir 9y ago
  > and not do anything, His point was: "... and not fear to ever be accused of anything,"
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    And if you're that afraid, you need to ask yourself why.
    - shifter 9y ago
      There are some terrible people out there that will lie to get what they want (c.f. borderline personality disorder, sociopaths, etc.). They exist in large quantities in the business world. I've been on the receiving end of false (non-harassment) accusations and it sucks. I now take precautions to prevent that from happening again and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that BPD or sociopath women would use false harassment accusations to achieve their means.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pecanpie 9y ago

Long time reader, tentative poster, upvote or downvote as necessary… Back in the days of orkut.com, I do remember Jurvetson making what seemed to me like a huge effort to interact with pretty young women, especially from Estonia. I remember him having a few hundred friends on that service — more than most people there had — a list which included a very large population of pretty, young, single Estonian women. Keep in mind that I never saw any behavior of his on orkut.com that I would deem harassment, but his social activity there did seem curious to me, considering his married, busy professional status. It was kind of similar to what I saw Marc Canter (of Macromedia fame I guess?) doing there, but again, for neither guy did I witness, or hear, of any harassment going on. it just seemed that what they were doing was merely using their professional status to flirt. At the time, I figured that their flirting, and their collecting of young female friends, was harmless, and didn't indicate anything untoward going on. Especially since none of my female friends and acquaintances in these guys’ sights intimated to me that anything weird or unwelcome was happening. But now, I'm not so sure, considering how allegations, like the one in the featured article, are bubbling up.

nothrabannosir 9y ago
I'm torn on how useful this kind of comment (or gossip?) is. On the one hand: it's context. On the other: the witch hunt Has Begun™. God forbid I ever end up in a situation, and find people telling similar, about me. Even if completely true, this could still be irrelevant. How would I feel about my past self indulging in their consumption, as I am tempted to, right now? How do others feel about this? Edit: And: does it matter whether it turns out to be a false accusation, like he claims, or a real one? Because if it does (which I think it does), shouldn't we withhold these stories until the verdict is definite? But if it doesn't, then... surely, that can only mean that this comment is irrelevant?
- jstarfish 9y ago
  Eh... if you're this indiscrete about your vices, you're indulging in them wrong.

mafsedan 9y ago

I will have nothing to do with woman in my professional life. I will not hire or work for or with women.

FiatLuxDave 9y ago

23 years ago, Steve Jurvetson was the only VC to respond to the 150 letters I sent out while seeking capital for my first startup. At the time he had not yet made partner at DFJ (it was just Draper Fisher back then). I was really impressed by his intelligence. At the time I was delivering pizza while working my way through a physics degree, designing a fusion reactor in my spare time. He cared about real advances in technology, and he and Tim Draper gave me a chance. Without him making the decision to speak to me, my whole life and career would have been different. I don't know anything about whether Steve was inappropriate towards women or not. I've never worked closely enough with him to know, and I haven't spoken to him in many years. But I can't help but hope that he's doing ok. I hope he either gets vindication if he's innocent, or comes to peace with his actions if he is not. The rest of you may see him now as a powerful middle-aged man, but I still remember him as the young hotshot with something to prove.