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The allegations of racial bias and the "bamboo ceiling" are entirely unsupported by this article. The two investors with whom Zhu seems to take issue were born

The allegations of racial bias and the "bamboo ceiling" are entirely unsupported by this article. The two investors with whom Zhu seems to take issue were born and raised in South Asia and Turkey, respectively. Zhu was replaced by his co-founder (who supported Zhu's firing) who is of East Asian descent. Zhu believed "the company were too focused on sales and money at the expense of altruistic goals". Excuse me? You're running a company with other peoples' money at stake with the express understanding that you will seek to maximize their returns. Zhu was the one who publicized the LSD incident (which was NOT a microdose, as he admits) via his contact with a reporter. The board actually tried to intervene. Imagine finding this out as an investor. Now all your company's current and potential customers, partners, and investors know that you've got an Adam Neuman type at the helm. That's got major potential to harm investors. Ultimately, this reads as an egoist who can't sufficiently control his impulses. It's a wonder he wasn't fired sooner. Separately, much of the reporting on this has been emblematic of the sorry state of journalism. This article, for example, bends over backwards to draw tenuous connections between racial bias/identity politics and Zhu's firing. Truly shameful.

senthil_rajasek 5y ago
It is a very narrow view to conclude racial bias did not exist by naming specific minority ethnicities. I have struggled with this question a lot and taking a bigger picture view helped me understand the systemic problem. The exact same reasoning was used by some social media users to argue that there was no racial motivation in the case of George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police in May 2020. One of the officer was East Asian and another was not white but the man who had the knee on the neck of George Floyd was white and was the superior officer. I can't conclude that all the power over Mr.Zhu in this case was in the hands of the two VCs you mentioned.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  Trying to conclude systemic patterns from single high profile cases will always fail.
  - senthil_rajasek 5y ago
    The same reasoning applies to the parent comment which is why I did not make any conclusions. I am saying racial bias should be viewed with the lens of the larger system or world in which we all operate.
  - fragmede 5y ago
    Absolutely. Which is why. GP's comment about there being (or not being) a bamboo ceiling is wrong, or more charitably, has faults due to the underlying dataset used.
    - xibalba 5y ago
      Perhaps my phrasing was not sufficiently clear. I make no a claim that this case falsifies the "bamboo ceiling hypothesis". Rather, it seems like there is quite a bit of evidence in this case that the reasons for Zhu's firing were unrelated to race/ethnicity/culture. To my knowledge, for instance, highly informal professional attire/attitude and use of hallucinogens are not staples of Chinese culture or tradition.
whymauri 5y ago
>The two investors with whom Zhu seems to take issue were born and raised in South Asia and Turkey, respectively. You can't simply abstract all of Asia, from Turkey to China, as a singular monolith. Now's a good chance to point out that the MIT 'Bamboo Ceiling' paper from 2020 makes this distinction in the title: "Why East Asians but not South Asians are underrepresented in leadership positions in the United States" https://www.pnas.org/content/117/9/4590.short https://www.pnas.org/content/117/9/4590.short
- dplavery92 5y ago
  I don't think he did abstract it that way; it's one point in a more holistic picture of Zhu's firing, which largely speaks against Zhu's own assertion that [investors such as Shah and Bicer] would be more comfortable with a white CEO: "You’re just pattern matching,” Zhu recalls telling them. “Your last 20 CEOs who went public, they were probably all Caucasian guys.” Note again that the same board replaced Zhu with his east-Asian partner, who also supported Zhu's ouster, and that each of the investors in question had funded other major start-ups with east-Asian CEOs.
wiz21c 5y ago
> Zhu believed "the company were too focused on sales and money at the expense of altruistic goals". Excuse me? You're running a company with other peoples' money at stake with the express understanding that you will seek to maximize their returns. A guy has a cool idea, then he needs money to make it big. Some people give the money in the hope that they will maximize their return. The fact they give money doesn't give them total power. I've been in that situation of having a cool idea with investor interested. Believe me, those with the money quickly think your idea is theirs and all of a sudden you're reduced to that : an initial idea, a starting point. As soon as money is put in, you basically don't exist anymore. I don't consider that a fair deal; it's a deal with vultures. So, yep, Zhu got my sympathy.
- silexia 5y ago
  If you don't want to be beholden to other people, don't take their money with the promise that you are going to dedicate yourself to increasing their investment.
- _jjkk 5y ago
  An investment is not a donation to your idea or cause. If you "need money to make it big" you can bootstrap, take donations, or look for investors. It's easier to raise investment than donations, because an investor expects a return in an economic/probabalistic sense(not hopes for a return) You can't have your cake and eat it too though; once you accept investment you can't cry foul when they don't sit back and act like a donor.
- GCA10 5y ago
  If it's a business with a clear social mission (fighting poverty; helping the environment, etc.) I'm super-sympathetic to the challenges of being an altruistic founder in a money-obsessed world. But Iterable's mission (quoting from its career page) is: "We empower growth marketers." Its products help your organization get more juice out of emails, texts, etc. That's a busine$$ -- and it's very much an area where money can be made. I'm struggling to see how this could be an altruism play, too.
yardie 5y ago
> Zhu was the one who publicized the LSD incident I wonder why in this case it's different, yet another tech CEO/Founder can go to Burning Man, trip on LSD and peyote, brag to everyone they were out of their mind at Burning Man, and face no consequences. I feel the LSD wasn't the main problem. Zhu just didn't manage the company in a manor they felt comfortable with and used any pretext to cast him out.
- xibalba 5y ago
  > another tech CEO/Founder can go to Burning Man, trip on LSD and peyote, brag to everyone they were out of their mind at Burning Man, and face no consequences To which CEO are you referring? Also, the comparative context is very different. One (Zhu) is in a fundraising meeting with a potential investor (i.e. in professional capacity) whereas the other (your hypothetical) is at a festival (i.e. a personal capacity). > I feel the LSD wasn't the main problem. Zhu just didn't manage the company in a manor they felt comfortable with and used any pretext to cast him out. I agree. The article seems to suggest that the LSD incident was merely emblematic of a trend of behavior with which the board was unsatisfied. In fact, reading between the lines, it actually seems like the board was more troubled that Zhu chose to publicize the LSD incidence via a reporter.

senthil_rajasek 5y ago

It is a very narrow view to conclude racial bias did not exist by naming specific minority ethnicities. I have struggled with this question a lot and taking a bigger picture view helped me understand the systemic problem. The exact same reasoning was used by some social media users to argue that there was no racial motivation in the case of George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police in May 2020. One of the officer was East Asian and another was not white but the man who had the knee on the neck of George Floyd was white and was the superior officer. I can't conclude that all the power over Mr.Zhu in this case was in the hands of the two VCs you mentioned.

BurningFrog 5y ago
Trying to conclude systemic patterns from single high profile cases will always fail.
- senthil_rajasek 5y ago
  The same reasoning applies to the parent comment which is why I did not make any conclusions. I am saying racial bias should be viewed with the lens of the larger system or world in which we all operate.
- fragmede 5y ago
  Absolutely. Which is why. GP's comment about there being (or not being) a bamboo ceiling is wrong, or more charitably, has faults due to the underlying dataset used.
  - xibalba 5y ago
    Perhaps my phrasing was not sufficiently clear. I make no a claim that this case falsifies the "bamboo ceiling hypothesis". Rather, it seems like there is quite a bit of evidence in this case that the reasons for Zhu's firing were unrelated to race/ethnicity/culture. To my knowledge, for instance, highly informal professional attire/attitude and use of hallucinogens are not staples of Chinese culture or tradition.

whymauri 5y ago

>The two investors with whom Zhu seems to take issue were born and raised in South Asia and Turkey, respectively. You can't simply abstract all of Asia, from Turkey to China, as a singular monolith. Now's a good chance to point out that the MIT 'Bamboo Ceiling' paper from 2020 makes this distinction in the title: "Why East Asians but not South Asians are underrepresented in leadership positions in the United States" https://www.pnas.org/content/117/9/4590.short https://www.pnas.org/content/117/9/4590.short

dplavery92 5y ago
I don't think he did abstract it that way; it's one point in a more holistic picture of Zhu's firing, which largely speaks against Zhu's own assertion that [investors such as Shah and Bicer] would be more comfortable with a white CEO: "You’re just pattern matching,” Zhu recalls telling them. “Your last 20 CEOs who went public, they were probably all Caucasian guys.” Note again that the same board replaced Zhu with his east-Asian partner, who also supported Zhu's ouster, and that each of the investors in question had funded other major start-ups with east-Asian CEOs.

wiz21c 5y ago

> Zhu believed "the company were too focused on sales and money at the expense of altruistic goals". Excuse me? You're running a company with other peoples' money at stake with the express understanding that you will seek to maximize their returns. A guy has a cool idea, then he needs money to make it big. Some people give the money in the hope that they will maximize their return. The fact they give money doesn't give them total power. I've been in that situation of having a cool idea with investor interested. Believe me, those with the money quickly think your idea is theirs and all of a sudden you're reduced to that : an initial idea, a starting point. As soon as money is put in, you basically don't exist anymore. I don't consider that a fair deal; it's a deal with vultures. So, yep, Zhu got my sympathy.

silexia 5y ago
If you don't want to be beholden to other people, don't take their money with the promise that you are going to dedicate yourself to increasing their investment.
_jjkk 5y ago
An investment is not a donation to your idea or cause. If you "need money to make it big" you can bootstrap, take donations, or look for investors. It's easier to raise investment than donations, because an investor expects a return in an economic/probabalistic sense(not hopes for a return) You can't have your cake and eat it too though; once you accept investment you can't cry foul when they don't sit back and act like a donor.
GCA10 5y ago
If it's a business with a clear social mission (fighting poverty; helping the environment, etc.) I'm super-sympathetic to the challenges of being an altruistic founder in a money-obsessed world. But Iterable's mission (quoting from its career page) is: "We empower growth marketers." Its products help your organization get more juice out of emails, texts, etc. That's a busine$$ -- and it's very much an area where money can be made. I'm struggling to see how this could be an altruism play, too.

yardie 5y ago

> Zhu was the one who publicized the LSD incident I wonder why in this case it's different, yet another tech CEO/Founder can go to Burning Man, trip on LSD and peyote, brag to everyone they were out of their mind at Burning Man, and face no consequences. I feel the LSD wasn't the main problem. Zhu just didn't manage the company in a manor they felt comfortable with and used any pretext to cast him out.

xibalba 5y ago
> another tech CEO/Founder can go to Burning Man, trip on LSD and peyote, brag to everyone they were out of their mind at Burning Man, and face no consequences To which CEO are you referring? Also, the comparative context is very different. One (Zhu) is in a fundraising meeting with a potential investor (i.e. in professional capacity) whereas the other (your hypothetical) is at a festival (i.e. a personal capacity). > I feel the LSD wasn't the main problem. Zhu just didn't manage the company in a manor they felt comfortable with and used any pretext to cast him out. I agree. The article seems to suggest that the LSD incident was merely emblematic of a trend of behavior with which the board was unsatisfied. In fact, reading between the lines, it actually seems like the board was more troubled that Zhu chose to publicize the LSD incidence via a reporter.