14 ms·

"In 2013, Richard DeVaul, a director at Google X, the company’s research and development arm, interviewed Star Simpson, a hardware engineer. During the job inte

by a-dub 8y ago

"In 2013, Richard DeVaul, a director at Google X, the company’s research and development arm, interviewed Star Simpson, a hardware engineer. During the job interview, she said he told her that he and his wife were “polyamorous,” a word often used to describe an open marriage. She said he invited her to Burning Man, an annual festival in the Nevada desert, the following week. Ms. Simpson went with her mother and said she thought it was an opportunity to talk to Mr. DeVaul about the job. She said she brought conservative clothes suitable for a professional meeting." woah nelly! totally fucked that he was hitting on her in the interview and appears to be a pretty cut and dried abuse of power... but... business casual, with mom, at burning man? that's absolutely bananas. however i can see how it would come to be, you're staring down your dream job, and there's this tight knit group of people you want to join so you go along with all of it... and then you realize later that you were just being played because someone wanted to sleep with you. yikes.

zymhan 8y ago
Yeah I cannot imagine how uncomfortable of a position that would be, wanting such a prestigious job and being taken advantage of.
komali2 8y ago
Talk about dedication - not planning on going to burning man, then going with a week's notice, in conservative clothing no less? Ms. Simpson is willing to go to far greater lengths than I to increase offer prospects... I would have read it differently if she had gone "burning-man" mode, as I'd be tempted to do if invited on a whim like this. I'd always intended to try anyway, so having a guaranteed champion there (and maybe a camp? Unclear if crashing at the camp was implied in the invitation), would make it a fun thing to do. But the conservative clothes makes it seem like she was treating this as a step in the interview process. Why was DeVaul talking about his personal romantic/sexual life in an interview? How stupid of him. What a dumb gamble, even if he was trying to get laid, the risk/reward just doesn't make sense in the context.
- stevenwoo 8y ago
  It's apparent from reading the article that Google had a widespread and pervasive sexual harassment problem with senior executives freely doing whatever they wanted - that the current chief legal fellow is still there (and got several promotions to the top) after having an extramarital affair and child with another employee in the legal department says everything - he knew all the consequences and how things could turn out and he did it anyways. I would cut a bit of slack to Ms. Simpson, she was only 24, the power imbalance is huge, and reading about the women who have turned down these sort of invitations early in their career is to read a litany of careers crippled. I thought naively that the casting couch was a Hollywood institution but it's just an institution. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/harvey-weinstein-and-the-economics-of-consent/543618/ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/ha...
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    The article says that both founders and the 3rd majority owner triumvirate of Google a violated the company sexually conduct policy. It's part of the founding culture, even before the parade of SVPs.
    - spinchange 8y ago
      This. Tone at the top.
    - ewngzen 8y ago
      Realworld is always more wonderful than novels
  - kerng 8y ago
    You speak in past tense. Some of the mentioned Google execs are still at the company, and they are still in high ranking positions of power.
    - stevenwoo 8y ago
      Was tempted to go further but wanted to hew closely to what was supported by the news story and I also do not have any personal experience or knowledge of current work environment.
AareyBaba 8y ago
Every manager in California has to do mandatory 2 hour harassment prevention training every two years where such behavior is specifically called out as unacceptable. So he would have known this was wrong. The irony is that this mandatory sexual harassment training was signed into law by then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a couple of years after he had been fornicating with his house maid.
- packetslave 8y ago
  fornicating You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
  - bsder 8y ago
    To be fair, I had to look it up to realize that the word implies that both parties are unmarried. In today's parlance, "fornicate" generally is just a synonym for sexual congress.
    - mikeryan 8y ago
      Wait now I'm confused. Fornicate means Have sexual intercourse with someone one is not married to. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fornicate https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fornicate Seems the original use was accurate no?
      - braythwayt 8y ago
        Welcome to English as it is spoken, vs, English as it is defined.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        Er, except the actual cited definition matches use (there is an uncited definition upthread that doesn't, but that definition of just a poor definition, since definitions aim to describe use.)
stickfigure 8y ago
Yeah, super super unacceptable hit on someone in an interview. BUT... professional clothes at burning man? The charitable view is that she's making that up and feigning indignation. The uncharitable view is that she's clueless and did absolutely no research about burning man whatsoever.
- jpm_sd 8y ago
  Star Simpson is actually somewhat notorious for her naivete: https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40 https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40 http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/10/i_was_a_teenage_terrorist_the.html http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/10/i_was_a_teenage_terrori... Edit: not sure why the downvotes, I was actually attempting to defend her, in the sense that her innocence has gotten her into bad situations in the past.
  - Mithorium 8y ago
    the only naivete I can find in those links is that of the airport workers thinking a light up nametag is a bomb. About as ridiculous as the time boston shut down over some light up LED signs [1]. Something has wires and LED lights? Must be a bomb, no other explanation possible [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_panic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_panic
    - SilasX 8y ago
      No. She went into an airport wearing a circuitboard with flashing lights that made some people uneasy. When they asked her about it, she ignored them. Edit: Also, she was holding Play-doh, which no adult does at an airport, and can look like plastic explosives. Even if they did overreact (and they pretty much have to aggressively err on the side of caution), it was a bit tone deaf and callous for her to act that way.
      - Mithorium 8y ago
        Well, if in her view, it was just a nametag and not a scary piece of technology, then I think it's reasonable to not understand why anyone would be uneasy. Did people wearing google glasses back when that was a thing respond to everyone who harassed them about it? If you were walking with your phone in your hand and someone came up to you accusing you of trying to bomb them, would you bother responding or just roll your eyes and keep walking? Or other similar airport stories I've read of people in an airport terminal remoting into work being accused of hacking because scary linux terminals are the tools of hackers who are trying to hack planes and crash them. If that happened to me, I'd probably ignore the person while thinking to myself "what the fuck is this guy's problem, have they never seen a computer before"
rdtsc 8y ago
> and then you realize later that you were just being played because someone wanted to sleep with you. yikes. I think she probably realized, that's why she brought her mom and conservative clothes. Sometimes one way to win is to play along and lead your opponent into a trap. Granted the trap didn't work as https://www.linkedin.com/in/rdevaul https://www.linkedin.com/in/rdevaul is still a director at X. Propositioning people and telling them about your open relationships during an interview process then inviting them to a drug infused festival should lead to not being a director anywhere in my opinion but maybe I am old-fashioned.
- deleted 8y ago
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- mattnewton 8y ago
  As a burner myself this makes me really sad that this is what people are going to think of Burning Man. Many people absolutely do bring their mother and wear whatever they want to the burn. It’s sad to consider those were done as guarding measures in this case. There is a movement to get “Consent” ratified as the 11th principle, and I have to image for most of the people who aren’t for it, it’s because they don’t see the image problem the event has from stories like this, and wonder why people need to be reminded of something as basic as “Consent”. Well, here is why. I absolutely do not want this event I have fallen in love with to be associated with executives hitting on people and pushing drugs.
  - marricks 8y ago
    I think you stepped over the other key detail “mentioning an open relationship”, I don’t think they’re all together slamming burning man
  - StudentStuff 8y ago
    I won't go to Burning Man, and my SO won't go back after going with our friends due to the culture around the event. There are lots of great people that make an effort to go to Burning Man, but I have no desire to hang out with a good portion that are essentially mindless techbros, if I want that I can go wander over to Fremont, South Lake Union or similar. The pervasive "fuck you, got mine" among this crowd is toxic, similar to lawbertarians espousing their beliefs. In the context of Burning Man these attitudes don't make sense, but this demographic does not reconcile their attitudes and that of what they participate in, all that matters is others have said they should go.
ihtfp07 8y ago
As usual the media gets this a bit wrong and is obscuring the truth. Star knew more about Burning Man than this harassing interviewer. I was a couple years ahead of Star in school and know she was a long time fan of burning man, even going while in undergrad. No way this guy was the first person to tell her about it as this article implies. (but doesn’t explicitly state) Maybe meeting a fellow burner is what brought out his extra creepy side but that’s no excuse. She was probably going to be there anyway. She might make plans with a weeks notice but really doubt a mom living in another state would have. though also Star is a amazing famous person in her own right! She deserves more attention than Mr. DoucheVaul
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- MooseJustice 8y ago
  I also know her, and camped with her at Burning Man many moons ago. I don't think the account related in the article in any way obscures the truth, and it doesn't soften the sharp and inappropriate edge of what her interviewer did in the least. I, myself, occasionally run across subordinates at Burning Man, and I make a very strong effort to interact with them in the same way I'd do at work, with the exception of offering them water bottles, extra ampoules of sunscreen, and electrolyte packets. There is less than zero excuse for that guys' behavior.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    The article led the reader to believe that the victim was not a burner, and that Burn was part of the weird SV culture and part of the setup for harassment. The problem was the guy's behavior, not inviting her to the Burn.
    - ihtfp07 8y ago
      Totally agree! It really seems like the article is trying to say she was invited to attend her first burning man by this creepy interviewer and that she attended it mainly for networking purposes but brought her mom and a “conservative” attire to keep it professional. This isn’t explicitly stated but is strongly implied. The author also links predatory behavior with burning man by making Star seem like the outsider to it. I commented because I think this article is doing a disservice to the victim and falsely depicting her as a bit naive, clueless, and perhaps a tad too desperate for the job which isn’t accurate at all.
FireBeyond 8y ago
> During the job interview, she said he told her that he and his wife were “polyamorous,” a word often used to describe an open marriage. She said he invited her to Burning Man, an annual festival in the Nevada desert, the following week. Oh, commas and sentence structure, so important. One says Burning Man was the next week, entirely possible because she thought it was talking about the job (leaving aside -that- naivete), and makes him a liar, in that he couldn't have "believed that she had been informed that she didn't get the job" if he invited her during the interview. The other says the invitation came the next week.
- ttul 8y ago
  How did she get a BM ticket so fast for herself and her mom?
  - empath75 8y ago
    i'm sure he gave it to her.
  - ohithereyou 8y ago
    It's amazing how some people will spare no expense or effort to please their penis and won't even spare a thought about not being a complete scumfuck.
  - ummonk 8y ago
    See elsewhere in this comment thread. Apparently she was already a regular burning man attendee.
danpalmer 8y ago
“A word often used to describe an open marriage” Often used incorrectly. That’s not at all what polyamory is.
- true_tuna 8y ago
  However, a married person who is polyamorous is either a serial liar or in an open marriage. It’s reasonable to infer the latter since it is the least offensive.
  - danpalmer 8y ago
    This depends on your definition of "open marriage", but to be clear, polyamory is _not_ about open relationships (which I think "open marriage" suggests). Polyamory typically means closed/committed relationships, but with multiple people. That they are made out to be sleeping around or in less serious relationships is incorrect, at least as far as the terminology goes. I would not say that a married poly person is necessarily a liar or in an open marriage.
  - jimktrains2 8y ago
    You seem to be unreasonably narrowing options here for no reason. A polyamorous couple could date others, as a couple, without it being an open marriage My understanding is that an open marriage bars long term amorous relationships from the mix, but that things are ok
  - rl3 8y ago
    Polyamorous people can still marry or be married. That doesn't somehow make them "serial liars" or otherwise result in them being required to describe their relationships using a specific term such as open marriage.
replyingtoyou1 8y ago
Dude, Richard DeVaul has been harassing people for fucking years. That guy shows up in academic settings and touches and communicates inappropriately and unwantedly with women, especially at MIT. I've personally witnessed this at something as routine as a party with alcohol. His entire mindset is twisted. He saw Star Simpson as a vulnerable target. She wasn't the only person! His reckoning is long overdue, and I have no fucking clue why people at GoogleX keep him around. This is the tip of the god damned iceberg. Google is a powder keg of abuse. If they weren't so rich, paying people off as handsomely as they do, it would have come to head years ago.
throwaway66666 8y ago
I believe 100% that R. DeVaul is scum and I am not trying to attack the story, but the burning man part is too difficult to believe. Tickets for burning man go on sale 6 months before, cost $1000 and become sold out in 30 minutes. It's a festival in the middle of the desert that you have to go pretty prepared if you want to last more than half a day (coolers, water, van, etc). How did someone find tickets for 2 people a week before, drove to the desert with their mother because they honestly thought it was an interview test. EDIT: Maybe she was going to be at burning man with her mom eitherway. She just decided to get some more business oriented clothes for when she would hang with her new work mates. That makes sense. But now it makes zero sense for the article to mention the burning man story.
- mgce 8y ago
  Just FYI: tickets were $425 in 2018 with a small minority available at higher prices for those who explicitly wanted to help the event. It's also fairly easy to get tickets up until days before the event through active secondhand swap communities. Many people do, in practice, show up with only a few days of preparation.
- Beldin 8y ago
  > EDIT: Maybe she was going to be at burning man with her mom eitherway. She just decided to get some more business oriented clothes for when she would hang with her new work mates. That makes sense. How did that happen? "You're going to the same event as me, your interviewer? We should totally hang out there!" maybe? > But now it makes zero sense for the article to mention the burning man story. Which interviewer suggests (during the interview!) to meet up a week later in private at some event? One that is trying to be professional? It shows he wasn't just using his position to make suggestions, but taking it one step further and planning things. During the interview. In a story about culture by management towards sexual harassment, it makes a ton of sense to include this story.
- kerng 8y ago
  You are missing the point of being rich and powerful. He probably had multiple tickets already handy 6 months earlier to "invite" people. He did not have to buy them himself, someone else would do it for him.
vondur 8y ago
The fact that this guy still has his job after this is appalling.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
but... business casual, with mom, at burning man? that's absolutely bananas. I think it speaks to how difficult it is for women to sort whether this is really a networking opportunity or not. A lot of networking that's obviously networking when done between two hetero men could be construed as a proposition for a woman. Where does she draw the line?
- totalZero 8y ago
  Also it's my understanding that Star has had some, um, wardrobe issues in the past.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    Oy. I was banned today from a (nominally) professional forum. I was active there years ago and returned a few months back. Many years ago, I hooked up with one of the mods while I was going through a divorce. So far, so good. But I didn't want to see him again after that. So he was an ass to me about it in a way that abused his position of power on the forum. I didn't make a stink. I left, mostly for other reasons, but that was kind of a final straw. My comment last night detailing his crappy behavior was deleted and my account was quietly banned. The ban was not announced publicly. Women in business are frequently in a no win situation. If a man in power is attracted to them, win, lose, or draw, her career gets hurt and people will say she somehow screwed it up. I have no control over men being attracted to me. I've been celibate for nearly 13.5 years. That has proven to be essentially zero protection from having to worry about drama because some man sees me as hot for some damn reason. If a man is attracted in spite of my best efforts to be repulsive to him (yes, I'm being flippant here cuz I'm aggravated today), it is typically all downside for me. There isn't a good solution.
    - totalZero 8y ago
      Huh? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mit-student-with-fake-bomb-nabbed-at-logan/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mit-student-with-fake-bomb-nabb... https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40 https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40
exadeci 8y ago
I don't want to be a dick but, honestly, Star Simpson isn't attractive http://starsimpson.com/headshot_adafruit.jpg http://starsimpson.com/headshot_adafruit.jpg Of all the people that he could use his status on and risk his job, I find it odd that it would try that with her.
- dang 8y ago
  If you don't want to be a dick, consider not being a dick. What a horrible thing to post. We've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and commit to never doing anything like this again.

by a-dub 8y ago

zymhan 8y ago

Yeah I cannot imagine how uncomfortable of a position that would be, wanting such a prestigious job and being taken advantage of.

komali2 8y ago

Talk about dedication - not planning on going to burning man, then going with a week's notice, in conservative clothing no less? Ms. Simpson is willing to go to far greater lengths than I to increase offer prospects... I would have read it differently if she had gone "burning-man" mode, as I'd be tempted to do if invited on a whim like this. I'd always intended to try anyway, so having a guaranteed champion there (and maybe a camp? Unclear if crashing at the camp was implied in the invitation), would make it a fun thing to do. But the conservative clothes makes it seem like she was treating this as a step in the interview process. Why was DeVaul talking about his personal romantic/sexual life in an interview? How stupid of him. What a dumb gamble, even if he was trying to get laid, the risk/reward just doesn't make sense in the context.

stevenwoo 8y ago
It's apparent from reading the article that Google had a widespread and pervasive sexual harassment problem with senior executives freely doing whatever they wanted - that the current chief legal fellow is still there (and got several promotions to the top) after having an extramarital affair and child with another employee in the legal department says everything - he knew all the consequences and how things could turn out and he did it anyways. I would cut a bit of slack to Ms. Simpson, she was only 24, the power imbalance is huge, and reading about the women who have turned down these sort of invitations early in their career is to read a litany of careers crippled. I thought naively that the casting couch was a Hollywood institution but it's just an institution. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/harvey-weinstein-and-the-economics-of-consent/543618/ https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/ha...
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  The article says that both founders and the 3rd majority owner triumvirate of Google a violated the company sexually conduct policy. It's part of the founding culture, even before the parade of SVPs.
  - spinchange 8y ago
    This. Tone at the top.
  - ewngzen 8y ago
    Realworld is always more wonderful than novels
- kerng 8y ago
  You speak in past tense. Some of the mentioned Google execs are still at the company, and they are still in high ranking positions of power.
  - stevenwoo 8y ago
    Was tempted to go further but wanted to hew closely to what was supported by the news story and I also do not have any personal experience or knowledge of current work environment.

AareyBaba 8y ago

Every manager in California has to do mandatory 2 hour harassment prevention training every two years where such behavior is specifically called out as unacceptable. So he would have known this was wrong. The irony is that this mandatory sexual harassment training was signed into law by then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a couple of years after he had been fornicating with his house maid.

packetslave 8y ago
fornicating You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
- bsder 8y ago
  To be fair, I had to look it up to realize that the word implies that both parties are unmarried. In today's parlance, "fornicate" generally is just a synonym for sexual congress.
  - mikeryan 8y ago
    Wait now I'm confused. Fornicate means Have sexual intercourse with someone one is not married to. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fornicate https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fornicate Seems the original use was accurate no?
    - braythwayt 8y ago
      Welcome to English as it is spoken, vs, English as it is defined.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        Er, except the actual cited definition matches use (there is an uncited definition upthread that doesn't, but that definition of just a poor definition, since definitions aim to describe use.)

stickfigure 8y ago

Yeah, super super unacceptable hit on someone in an interview. BUT... professional clothes at burning man? The charitable view is that she's making that up and feigning indignation. The uncharitable view is that she's clueless and did absolutely no research about burning man whatsoever.

jpm_sd 8y ago
Star Simpson is actually somewhat notorious for her naivete: https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40 https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40 http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/10/i_was_a_teenage_terrorist_the.html http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2007/10/i_was_a_teenage_terrori... Edit: not sure why the downvotes, I was actually attempting to defend her, in the sense that her innocence has gotten her into bad situations in the past.
- Mithorium 8y ago
  the only naivete I can find in those links is that of the airport workers thinking a light up nametag is a bomb. About as ridiculous as the time boston shut down over some light up LED signs [1]. Something has wires and LED lights? Must be a bomb, no other explanation possible [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_panic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_panic
  - SilasX 8y ago
    No. She went into an airport wearing a circuitboard with flashing lights that made some people uneasy. When they asked her about it, she ignored them. Edit: Also, she was holding Play-doh, which no adult does at an airport, and can look like plastic explosives. Even if they did overreact (and they pretty much have to aggressively err on the side of caution), it was a bit tone deaf and callous for her to act that way.
    - Mithorium 8y ago
      Well, if in her view, it was just a nametag and not a scary piece of technology, then I think it's reasonable to not understand why anyone would be uneasy. Did people wearing google glasses back when that was a thing respond to everyone who harassed them about it? If you were walking with your phone in your hand and someone came up to you accusing you of trying to bomb them, would you bother responding or just roll your eyes and keep walking? Or other similar airport stories I've read of people in an airport terminal remoting into work being accused of hacking because scary linux terminals are the tools of hackers who are trying to hack planes and crash them. If that happened to me, I'd probably ignore the person while thinking to myself "what the fuck is this guy's problem, have they never seen a computer before"

rdtsc 8y ago

> and then you realize later that you were just being played because someone wanted to sleep with you. yikes. I think she probably realized, that's why she brought her mom and conservative clothes. Sometimes one way to win is to play along and lead your opponent into a trap. Granted the trap didn't work as https://www.linkedin.com/in/rdevaul https://www.linkedin.com/in/rdevaul is still a director at X. Propositioning people and telling them about your open relationships during an interview process then inviting them to a drug infused festival should lead to not being a director anywhere in my opinion but maybe I am old-fashioned.

deleted 8y ago
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mattnewton 8y ago
As a burner myself this makes me really sad that this is what people are going to think of Burning Man. Many people absolutely do bring their mother and wear whatever they want to the burn. It’s sad to consider those were done as guarding measures in this case. There is a movement to get “Consent” ratified as the 11th principle, and I have to image for most of the people who aren’t for it, it’s because they don’t see the image problem the event has from stories like this, and wonder why people need to be reminded of something as basic as “Consent”. Well, here is why. I absolutely do not want this event I have fallen in love with to be associated with executives hitting on people and pushing drugs.
- marricks 8y ago
  I think you stepped over the other key detail “mentioning an open relationship”, I don’t think they’re all together slamming burning man
- StudentStuff 8y ago
  I won't go to Burning Man, and my SO won't go back after going with our friends due to the culture around the event. There are lots of great people that make an effort to go to Burning Man, but I have no desire to hang out with a good portion that are essentially mindless techbros, if I want that I can go wander over to Fremont, South Lake Union or similar. The pervasive "fuck you, got mine" among this crowd is toxic, similar to lawbertarians espousing their beliefs. In the context of Burning Man these attitudes don't make sense, but this demographic does not reconcile their attitudes and that of what they participate in, all that matters is others have said they should go.

ihtfp07 8y ago

As usual the media gets this a bit wrong and is obscuring the truth. Star knew more about Burning Man than this harassing interviewer. I was a couple years ahead of Star in school and know she was a long time fan of burning man, even going while in undergrad. No way this guy was the first person to tell her about it as this article implies. (but doesn’t explicitly state) Maybe meeting a fellow burner is what brought out his extra creepy side but that’s no excuse. She was probably going to be there anyway. She might make plans with a weeks notice but really doubt a mom living in another state would have. though also Star is a amazing famous person in her own right! She deserves more attention than Mr. DoucheVaul

deleted 8y ago
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MooseJustice 8y ago
I also know her, and camped with her at Burning Man many moons ago. I don't think the account related in the article in any way obscures the truth, and it doesn't soften the sharp and inappropriate edge of what her interviewer did in the least. I, myself, occasionally run across subordinates at Burning Man, and I make a very strong effort to interact with them in the same way I'd do at work, with the exception of offering them water bottles, extra ampoules of sunscreen, and electrolyte packets. There is less than zero excuse for that guys' behavior.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  The article led the reader to believe that the victim was not a burner, and that Burn was part of the weird SV culture and part of the setup for harassment. The problem was the guy's behavior, not inviting her to the Burn.
  - ihtfp07 8y ago
    Totally agree! It really seems like the article is trying to say she was invited to attend her first burning man by this creepy interviewer and that she attended it mainly for networking purposes but brought her mom and a “conservative” attire to keep it professional. This isn’t explicitly stated but is strongly implied. The author also links predatory behavior with burning man by making Star seem like the outsider to it. I commented because I think this article is doing a disservice to the victim and falsely depicting her as a bit naive, clueless, and perhaps a tad too desperate for the job which isn’t accurate at all.

FireBeyond 8y ago

> During the job interview, she said he told her that he and his wife were “polyamorous,” a word often used to describe an open marriage. She said he invited her to Burning Man, an annual festival in the Nevada desert, the following week. Oh, commas and sentence structure, so important. One says Burning Man was the next week, entirely possible because she thought it was talking about the job (leaving aside -that- naivete), and makes him a liar, in that he couldn't have "believed that she had been informed that she didn't get the job" if he invited her during the interview. The other says the invitation came the next week.

ttul 8y ago
How did she get a BM ticket so fast for herself and her mom?
- empath75 8y ago
  i'm sure he gave it to her.
- ohithereyou 8y ago
  It's amazing how some people will spare no expense or effort to please their penis and won't even spare a thought about not being a complete scumfuck.
- ummonk 8y ago
  See elsewhere in this comment thread. Apparently she was already a regular burning man attendee.

danpalmer 8y ago

“A word often used to describe an open marriage” Often used incorrectly. That’s not at all what polyamory is.

true_tuna 8y ago
However, a married person who is polyamorous is either a serial liar or in an open marriage. It’s reasonable to infer the latter since it is the least offensive.
- danpalmer 8y ago
  This depends on your definition of "open marriage", but to be clear, polyamory is _not_ about open relationships (which I think "open marriage" suggests). Polyamory typically means closed/committed relationships, but with multiple people. That they are made out to be sleeping around or in less serious relationships is incorrect, at least as far as the terminology goes. I would not say that a married poly person is necessarily a liar or in an open marriage.
- jimktrains2 8y ago
  You seem to be unreasonably narrowing options here for no reason. A polyamorous couple could date others, as a couple, without it being an open marriage My understanding is that an open marriage bars long term amorous relationships from the mix, but that things are ok
- rl3 8y ago
  Polyamorous people can still marry or be married. That doesn't somehow make them "serial liars" or otherwise result in them being required to describe their relationships using a specific term such as open marriage.

replyingtoyou1 8y ago

Dude, Richard DeVaul has been harassing people for fucking years. That guy shows up in academic settings and touches and communicates inappropriately and unwantedly with women, especially at MIT. I've personally witnessed this at something as routine as a party with alcohol. His entire mindset is twisted. He saw Star Simpson as a vulnerable target. She wasn't the only person! His reckoning is long overdue, and I have no fucking clue why people at GoogleX keep him around. This is the tip of the god damned iceberg. Google is a powder keg of abuse. If they weren't so rich, paying people off as handsomely as they do, it would have come to head years ago.

throwaway66666 8y ago

I believe 100% that R. DeVaul is scum and I am not trying to attack the story, but the burning man part is too difficult to believe. Tickets for burning man go on sale 6 months before, cost $1000 and become sold out in 30 minutes. It's a festival in the middle of the desert that you have to go pretty prepared if you want to last more than half a day (coolers, water, van, etc). How did someone find tickets for 2 people a week before, drove to the desert with their mother because they honestly thought it was an interview test. EDIT: Maybe she was going to be at burning man with her mom eitherway. She just decided to get some more business oriented clothes for when she would hang with her new work mates. That makes sense. But now it makes zero sense for the article to mention the burning man story.

mgce 8y ago
Just FYI: tickets were $425 in 2018 with a small minority available at higher prices for those who explicitly wanted to help the event. It's also fairly easy to get tickets up until days before the event through active secondhand swap communities. Many people do, in practice, show up with only a few days of preparation.
Beldin 8y ago
> EDIT: Maybe she was going to be at burning man with her mom eitherway. She just decided to get some more business oriented clothes for when she would hang with her new work mates. That makes sense. How did that happen? "You're going to the same event as me, your interviewer? We should totally hang out there!" maybe? > But now it makes zero sense for the article to mention the burning man story. Which interviewer suggests (during the interview!) to meet up a week later in private at some event? One that is trying to be professional? It shows he wasn't just using his position to make suggestions, but taking it one step further and planning things. During the interview. In a story about culture by management towards sexual harassment, it makes a ton of sense to include this story.
kerng 8y ago
You are missing the point of being rich and powerful. He probably had multiple tickets already handy 6 months earlier to "invite" people. He did not have to buy them himself, someone else would do it for him.

vondur 8y ago

The fact that this guy still has his job after this is appalling.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

but... business casual, with mom, at burning man? that's absolutely bananas. I think it speaks to how difficult it is for women to sort whether this is really a networking opportunity or not. A lot of networking that's obviously networking when done between two hetero men could be construed as a proposition for a woman. Where does she draw the line?

totalZero 8y ago
Also it's my understanding that Star has had some, um, wardrobe issues in the past.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  Oy. I was banned today from a (nominally) professional forum. I was active there years ago and returned a few months back. Many years ago, I hooked up with one of the mods while I was going through a divorce. So far, so good. But I didn't want to see him again after that. So he was an ass to me about it in a way that abused his position of power on the forum. I didn't make a stink. I left, mostly for other reasons, but that was kind of a final straw. My comment last night detailing his crappy behavior was deleted and my account was quietly banned. The ban was not announced publicly. Women in business are frequently in a no win situation. If a man in power is attracted to them, win, lose, or draw, her career gets hurt and people will say she somehow screwed it up. I have no control over men being attracted to me. I've been celibate for nearly 13.5 years. That has proven to be essentially zero protection from having to worry about drama because some man sees me as hot for some damn reason. If a man is attracted in spite of my best efforts to be repulsive to him (yes, I'm being flippant here cuz I'm aggravated today), it is typically all downside for me. There isn't a good solution.
  - totalZero 8y ago
    Huh? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mit-student-with-fake-bomb-nabbed-at-logan/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mit-student-with-fake-bomb-nabb... https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40 https://thetech.com/2007/11/13/simpson-v127-n40

exadeci 8y ago

I don't want to be a dick but, honestly, Star Simpson isn't attractive http://starsimpson.com/headshot_adafruit.jpg http://starsimpson.com/headshot_adafruit.jpg Of all the people that he could use his status on and risk his job, I find it odd that it would try that with her.

dang 8y ago
If you don't want to be a dick, consider not being a dick. What a horrible thing to post. We've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and commit to never doing anything like this again.