15 ms·

At SpaceX, I couldn't stop getting sexually harassed

99 points by onychomys 5y ago

outside1234 5y ago
Tesla is a well known engineering sh*thole in the valley (part of the reason I suspect they are moving some operations to Austin - they can't recruit!) - so this doesn't surprise me in the least.
- throwntoday 5y ago
  I'm sorry to burst your bubble but the idea that Tesla has trouble recruiting is hilarious. Tesla is growing insanely. They moved operations because California is a cancer that is metastising rapidly. Convincing people to move here is the trouble.
  - api 5y ago
    They moved operations because California real estate is a cancer that has already metastasized. They can't be profitable while paying California cost of living wages.
    - anonAndOn 5y ago
      Elon was tired of CA's meddling and incoherent bureaucracy. This elected Assembly member's tweet was the last straw.[0] [0]https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1259638112688304129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1259638112688304129?ref_...
reidjs 5y ago
Sounds like sexual immaturity on the part of the male employees. It’s weird that people look for romantic partners at work. But then again, if you work for spaceX, you probably don’t have many opportunities to look for a woman outside of work because of the demanding hours.
- ugjka 5y ago
  Grabbing someone's butt is looking for romantic partner?
  - ionforce 5y ago
    Some people lack the emotional maturity and respect for other human beings.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- savant_penguin 5y ago
  Is it really that weird? I know a number of couples that got together through work When you spend so much time at work it's no surprise that interactions that could lead to relationships happen at those hours. Of course I'm not advocating for sexual harassment in any way. I think that the immaturity usually happens as the inability to accept a negative answer and back off
  - warent 5y ago
    It sounds like you and parent are talking about two different things. I read they're saying it's weird to look for sexual hookups at work, not that it's weird to find an actual life partner through work.
    - brandall10 5y ago
      They said romantic partners, which could be both.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - fxtentacle 5y ago
      Isn't the first one usually the precursor to the second? I mean I might be totally wrong and the US is much more puritan than I think it to be, but here in Europe, people usually first start doing the fun things and then later figure out if their character and life situation is compatible for a long-term relationship.
b9a2cab5 5y ago
Judging from her comments on the "colonial past" and "indigenous expertise", she'd be "speaking out" about other "social justice" issues even if harassment hadn't happened.
- tunesmith 5y ago
  Therefore...?
- dang 5y ago
  "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
OldManAndTheCpp 5y ago
> Dismayed by the lack of an environmental plan, I created a plan that would bring SpaceX to full carbon neutrality by 2030. It contained a framework for a diverse and functional society that would learn from our colonial past and incorporate indigenous expertise. I brought this plan directly to Elon Musk, who dismissed it with an email that said: “We have wind and solar energy.” Is it possible to make a rocket carbon neutral? I guess if you use hydrogen instead of RP1/methane? Follow up, how does a carbon neutrality plan fit together with a framework for a diverse and functional society that would learn from our colonial past and incorporate indigenous expertise? > But the new buildings on the campus run on gas generators, and company funding is not being dedicated to reducing carbon emissions. While there are solar panels on campus, any attempts to make new buildings and infrastructure sustainable (LEED) are deprioritized in favor of expanding the factory as fast as possible. Hard to tell what the real story is here -- you probably want high reliability power sources next to your rocket construction building. Attempting to shift some load over to solar panels, but assuring that you have the ability to go all gas power seems like a reasonable choice.
- evandwight 5y ago
  You can produce methane from water and carbon dioxide. Burning it is the reverse. Burning synthetic methane is carbon neutral.
  - OldManAndTheCpp 5y ago
    That's cool, guess the full cycle carbon footprint is dependent on what you use to power the water + co2 -> methane process.
    - evandwight 5y ago
      If they use natural gas (methane) to make electricity to make synthetic methane, I will cry
      - Isinlor 5y ago
vm 5y ago
I already see comments downplaying this issue. Take a moment to acknowledge the series of events: 1) multiple women felt harassment at at work, 2) they reported it to the company (which can be hard) 3) the issues did not get fixed. I hear about this pattern across companies and industries. It's awful. Quit systematically downplaying it. It's real and needs fixing.
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  I think the problem with this article is that it's very easy to (mis-) interpret as her exaggerating the scale of the problem. "Some of the men who work at SpaceX [..] stare at women while they work" That struck me as a rather odd thing to say. "a fellow intern approached me in our intern housing and grabbed my butt" That is definitely unacceptable, but if I understand things correctly, she was living together with other interns to save money. So that was her roommate, doing bad stuff in his free time. I'm not quite sure if SpaceX should manage their employee's life at that level. "learn from our colonial past and incorporate indigenous expertise" That sounds to me like a dog whistle for her subgroup of social justice warriors. In any case, my boss would also be pretty surprised if someone used that word choice for arguing their case. Similarly, she mentions "very small group of women and nonbinary people" the latter of which seems hyperbolic to me because nonbinary people are rare in general, so it's not unexpected that they would be as rare at SpaceX as they are in overall society. So while I agree with her statement in the abstract that SpaceX should have a better work culture, there's too many little oddities in that letter for me to agree with it.
  - dang 5y ago
    "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - mam4 5y ago
      Hard to assume good faith from a article you strongly suspect is doing precisely the opposite.. are we supposed to just not comment at all except to say "oh sexual harassement is bad" ? Theres a strong case that false accusations can be terribly detrimental for women that get ACTUALLY harrassed and assaulted. Not just people who get offendes at literally every fashionable issue to be offended these days (sexism, racisme/colonialism, and environment in that EXACT SAME ARTICLE)
sharemywin 5y ago
I do feel for the person. but the NFT pitch was a little much at the bottom. NFT's are horrible for the planet.
- dang 5y ago
  "Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article and rush to the thread to complain about it. Find something interesting to comment about instead." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - InTheArena 5y ago
    I don't think that's the most provocative thing in the comment. Frankly, this is pretty binary. She brought up two possible things that could have resulted in discipline or not. The other claims all appear to be denunciations of a political nature - or something that is objectively easy to disprove. Did SpaceX investigate the matter? Was there any discipline? Did others disagree?
    - dang 5y ago
      It's obviously an extraneous distraction that has zero to do with the topic. We don't need a cryptocurrency flamewar, god help us, on top of this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - sharemywin 5y ago
        Let me articulate. The lead was about sexism in spacex. then there's a rant about for about half the article on SpaceX not being green. Then an NFT pitch. And YEs NFT's are currently bad for the planet. I was just pointing out if the author cares about the being green they might want to start with the article. And if the author truly cares about the lead of the article then they might want to stick to the important part. the NFT part at best distracts from the article and probably strains the authors credibility.
beardedman 5y ago
From build reliability engineer and mission integration engineer to... program manager?
- magneticnorth 5y ago
  The best program managers I've worked with have been the ones with highly technical backgrounds.
- phkahler 5y ago
  >> From build reliability engineer and mission integration engineer to... program manager? Looks like: 2017 intern at SpaceX 2019 full time at SpaceX 2021 PM at Apple Yeah it seems rather quick. OTOH if SpaceX works people as hard as some claim, she might have the equivalent of 5-10 years at some companies ;-)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- cvhashim 5y ago
  Buddy of mine went from EE Major, test engineer, to PM
mam4 5y ago
" Some of the men who work at SpaceX hug women without consent, stare at women while they work, and interpret every company-related social event as an opportunity to date (or hit on) women in the office. I saw one woman pressured into dancing with a male colleague in front of other male employees. " I was with her for the butt grabbing incident but that part sounds absolutely insane. Either you have blatant sexism incidents, or you don't, and then you resort to spin random stuff into a drama. Of course in every "slightly less professional settings" there are annoying people with have annoying behavior such as being insisting to dance. But that's not "rampant misogyny" ffs. Add to that the whole environmental thing when you work at a rocket compagny, and sending a message directly to elon musk shows a level of entitlement that lightyears (pun intended) over the top for a random employee "While there are solar panels on campus, any attempts to make new buildings and infrastructure sustainable (LEED) are deprioritized in favor of expanding the factory as fast as possible." No kidding. Even if the compagny had positive cash flow you'd have to fight for it, but now you make a drama while the compagny is still running on investor's money. You're just not fit for a corporate environement...
- Maursault 5y ago
  > I was with her for the butt grabbing incident but that part sounds absolutely insane. Either you have blatant sexism incidents, or you don't, and then you resort to spin random stuff into a drama. Huh. To me it all sounds like sexual harassment, further details reinforcing the point, devoid of anything sounding so insane that I'd doubt everything else, but instead reasonable grievances reinforcing that it is a toxic environment for women. In fact, I'd be somewhat surprised if the details in the description were not accurate. And even if the last statement was "and the coffee was terrible, tasted like corn candy," it would not lead me to say, "aha! So this is all BS!" That would be a fallacious argument (A is reasonable, but B is nuts, so A&B are false.) I would not dismiss the accusations, they are too serious, nor would I ever sympathize with or try to frame sexual harassers as victims of slander.
  - mam4 5y ago
    How many clues exactly so you need to conclude she's overacting to normal vaguely annoying behaviors in semi professional settings (except the butt grabbing) and globally playing the victim card ? She is offended to literally everythin fashionable these days on the offense scale (sexisme, racisme/colonialism and evironmentalism), and literally comparing Elon Musk to her father who sexually assaulted her in her full letter..
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bell-cot 5y ago
If the 1% of males most inclined to such behavior were fixed, then the problem would be 99% fixed. Seems pretty reasonable for even a basic health care package to cover that little bit of surgery...
- dang 5y ago
  Flamebait like this will get you banned here. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Interesting that we can’t delete flagged posts…
  - dang 5y ago
    "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
      Got it, but it was actually a joke. They used an interesting choice of words, and I found it hilarious.
ghufran_syed 5y ago
It would be terrible to be in the situation that the author of the letter describes, but I'm genuinely curious what any company can do? They should probably confidentially interview the people involved, but if the other party denies it, what do you do then? And given the incident described is sexual assault, shouldn't the police be the first avenue explored, not HR? If there is no independent evidence either way, it makes sense for HR to ensure the people involved don't work or live together - but who do you move if you have no evidence? Moving the person initiating the complaint could easily be described as "punishment" in hindsight - maybe you would have to move both people involved to new work assignments? But then you can still be criticised because one person got a "better" re-assignment then the other, based on post-hoc performance My point is not that SpaceX handles these situations as well as they can be handled (I have no idea if they do), just that even if people and companies try and do the right thing, they can and will still be criticised. That is NOT a reason for them not to try.
luis8 5y ago
I'll give my 2 cents as a male. Touching someone's butt or invading personal space without permission is wrong. I never dated a girl from work, but if I was interested in someone, I'll wait for the girl to initiate the encounter. Why? Now it seems that even trying to flirt could be interpreted as harassing. I wonder if it will end up like that eventually. Women will be the ones to pursue the encounter because males will be too afraid of crossing a line
- InTheArena 5y ago
  I would be very very cautious about any sort of relationship with anyone that you are working with. Any sort of denunciation makes the front page, and that can kill a career right quick. Go to a bar. Or a reading group. Or Tinder. Far less likely for something bad to happen.
  - throwntoday 5y ago
    Conversely I would never enter a relationship with someone I met at a bar, or that uses Tinder. Work seems like a far better place to meet a partner, you get to know who they are without the haste of the other mediums you mentioned.
    - FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
      I know a couple that met on LinkedIn. That contains most of the information you'd actually care about (vs. "I like pizza"). But crucially, she approached him.
      - throwntoday 5y ago
        I met my ex on a stock trading discord. Similarly she approached me. Online seems a better place to meet people, I just don't think tinder attracts the quality of people I'm interested in given the apps focus on hookups.
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  It’s a bad idea to date at work regardless. Hardly anything worse than a breakup with someone you sit next to at work. The problems with making advances in the workplace are that it’s really not the place for it and if you’re going to do it you better be certain it’s in an appropriate way and that they feel comfortable rejecting your advances. Since those are hard things to be certain about it’s probably better to avoid it entirely at work.
akomtu 5y ago
What stops the victims from secretly recording such incidents? Modern mic recorders are microscopic.
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  It’s illegal in some places.
  - caymanjim 5y ago
    Specifically, it's illegal in Florida, where the offenses allegedly occurred. Florida is what's called a "two-party consent" state, meaning that it's illegal to record any non-public conversation (phone call, in-person, Zoom, etc.) without explicit consent from all parties involved. Other states allow single-party consent in some or all circumstances.
    - JJMcJ 5y ago
      Also California is two-party.
  - akomtu 5y ago
    Why on earth does it matter? That recording can be used in many ways, anonymously or not, in a court or in an informal investigation. You don't even have to use it, and if you don't use it, it simply doesn't exist.
    - caymanjim 5y ago
      Or as grounds for terminating your employment. Or as evidence in a criminal trial against you. Or in a civil lawsuit against you. Or to discredit you for breaking the law. The only beneficial way it could be used is in the court of public opinion.
      - akomtu 5y ago
        All of that may happen if you're careless. And, BTW, you're already being recorded all the time or occasionally by security cameras, your phone and various hardware.
Isinlor 5y ago
...
- 230149dsad232jj 5y ago
  The number of harassment at any company should be 0. You may not have meant it this way, but your comment makes it sound as if the goal should be to keep harassment down to some average number.
  - rowanG077 5y ago
    And crimes rates should be 0. We should also have infinite food and drink. People shouldn't get ill. Etc. Etc. Most people would rather deal with reality then criticize from an impossible dream world standard.
  - Isinlor 5y ago
    Yes, it must be 0, but people are people. You get 10 000 employees, probably some 7-8 000 of them are men, so the remaining 2 000 women will receive a lot of crap. Proportionally more than if the split was 50/50, so SpaceX needs to adjust for that. Same is true in areas dominated by women, if you are the only guy in a group of female nurses you will almost certainly receive the most physically draining work the whole time for the same pay. You will also hear a lot of sexist jokes about men, and quite likely receive potentially unwanted sexual attention.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Zero-tolerance policies are their own form of hell. Issues should be reasonably and earnestly managed. At some point, noise, misinterpretations, and false reports will emerge and form a floor. One strives toward but does not insist upon ideals.
gremloni 5y ago
Just because they “felt” harassed doesn’t mean they truly were. Probably just opportunistic vultures to be honest and they probably have a gear to grind against Elon.
- csb6 5y ago
  > probably just opportunistic vultures What is your inside information as to the incidents described in the article? Can you bring evidence that contradicts what they’ve claimed? Otherwise you are just speculating.
- dang 5y ago
  Commenting like this will get you banned here. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like this again. Edit: actually, you've been violating the site guidelines so often and so badly that I've banned the account. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29561080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29561080.
magwa101 5y ago
Unions give employees collective bargaining power and collectively have power to make changes when management will not.
nope96 5y ago
"Lioness has listed an NFT artwork for auction in tandem with this story." Wow, that's kind of tacky. "Owning this NFT is a chance to own part of a story that will make waves and shift culture." $26,585 reserve price? Really? https://foundation.app/@lioness/~/118513 https://foundation.app/@lioness/~/118513
- falcolas 5y ago
  Sounds like the latest version of GoFundMe, playing to the Cryptocurrency and NFT trend to cover living and lawyer costs.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    To supplement your lowly apple project manager salary
- gok 5y ago
  6.9 ETH? Seems...Musky?
philonoist 5y ago
This article is blatantly following the same bland pattern. It doesn't take an ML Engineer to know why women in EU, AUS and whatever similar country have disparate pattern of complaints when it comes to this category. After all, these countries are very much similar to USA in terms of dating culture, culture of inappropriateness, legality, efficiency of law and order, etc. I feel like giving up on US-feminism. Look at the comments of HN, reading transcripts after transcripts of women detailing their stories at the courts and on internet, courts dismissing the case with "but this is not harassment at all!" and embarrassingly saying myself the same. And then I have to feel guilty myself for just being a male with phrases like "bro culture", "scrotes", "casual misogyny", "masculinity, ew!" and so on. There is a separate book when it comes to workplace jargon. When I see many careers ending dead on track in my personal life, Reddit, 4chan and Quora... Edit: proofreading
- seoulmetro 5y ago
  Modern feminism has been poisoned. But that doesn't mean feminism isn't still a great goal to work towards. Sadly most people don't realise what's poison and what is not. And there's a whole lot of poison out there.

99 points by onychomys 5y ago

Tesla is a well known engineering sh*thole in the valley (part of the reason I suspect they are moving some operations to Austin - they can't recruit!) - so this doesn't surprise me in the least.

throwntoday 5y ago
I'm sorry to burst your bubble but the idea that Tesla has trouble recruiting is hilarious. Tesla is growing insanely. They moved operations because California is a cancer that is metastising rapidly. Convincing people to move here is the trouble.
- api 5y ago
  They moved operations because California real estate is a cancer that has already metastasized. They can't be profitable while paying California cost of living wages.
  - anonAndOn 5y ago
    Elon was tired of CA's meddling and incoherent bureaucracy. This elected Assembly member's tweet was the last straw.[0] [0]https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1259638112688304129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1259638112688304129?ref_...

reidjs 5y ago

Sounds like sexual immaturity on the part of the male employees. It’s weird that people look for romantic partners at work. But then again, if you work for spaceX, you probably don’t have many opportunities to look for a woman outside of work because of the demanding hours.

ugjka 5y ago
Grabbing someone's butt is looking for romantic partner?
- ionforce 5y ago
  Some people lack the emotional maturity and respect for other human beings.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
savant_penguin 5y ago
Is it really that weird? I know a number of couples that got together through work When you spend so much time at work it's no surprise that interactions that could lead to relationships happen at those hours. Of course I'm not advocating for sexual harassment in any way. I think that the immaturity usually happens as the inability to accept a negative answer and back off
- warent 5y ago
  It sounds like you and parent are talking about two different things. I read they're saying it's weird to look for sexual hookups at work, not that it's weird to find an actual life partner through work.
  - brandall10 5y ago
    They said romantic partners, which could be both.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - fxtentacle 5y ago
    Isn't the first one usually the precursor to the second? I mean I might be totally wrong and the US is much more puritan than I think it to be, but here in Europe, people usually first start doing the fun things and then later figure out if their character and life situation is compatible for a long-term relationship.

b9a2cab5 5y ago

Judging from her comments on the "colonial past" and "indigenous expertise", she'd be "speaking out" about other "social justice" issues even if harassment hadn't happened.

tunesmith 5y ago
Therefore...?
dang 5y ago
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

OldManAndTheCpp 5y ago

> Dismayed by the lack of an environmental plan, I created a plan that would bring SpaceX to full carbon neutrality by 2030. It contained a framework for a diverse and functional society that would learn from our colonial past and incorporate indigenous expertise. I brought this plan directly to Elon Musk, who dismissed it with an email that said: “We have wind and solar energy.” Is it possible to make a rocket carbon neutral? I guess if you use hydrogen instead of RP1/methane? Follow up, how does a carbon neutrality plan fit together with a framework for a diverse and functional society that would learn from our colonial past and incorporate indigenous expertise? > But the new buildings on the campus run on gas generators, and company funding is not being dedicated to reducing carbon emissions. While there are solar panels on campus, any attempts to make new buildings and infrastructure sustainable (LEED) are deprioritized in favor of expanding the factory as fast as possible. Hard to tell what the real story is here -- you probably want high reliability power sources next to your rocket construction building. Attempting to shift some load over to solar panels, but assuring that you have the ability to go all gas power seems like a reasonable choice.

evandwight 5y ago
You can produce methane from water and carbon dioxide. Burning it is the reverse. Burning synthetic methane is carbon neutral.
- OldManAndTheCpp 5y ago
  That's cool, guess the full cycle carbon footprint is dependent on what you use to power the water + co2 -> methane process.
  - evandwight 5y ago
    If they use natural gas (methane) to make electricity to make synthetic methane, I will cry
    - Isinlor 5y ago

vm 5y ago

I already see comments downplaying this issue. Take a moment to acknowledge the series of events: 1) multiple women felt harassment at at work, 2) they reported it to the company (which can be hard) 3) the issues did not get fixed. I hear about this pattern across companies and industries. It's awful. Quit systematically downplaying it. It's real and needs fixing.

fxtentacle 5y ago
I think the problem with this article is that it's very easy to (mis-) interpret as her exaggerating the scale of the problem. "Some of the men who work at SpaceX [..] stare at women while they work" That struck me as a rather odd thing to say. "a fellow intern approached me in our intern housing and grabbed my butt" That is definitely unacceptable, but if I understand things correctly, she was living together with other interns to save money. So that was her roommate, doing bad stuff in his free time. I'm not quite sure if SpaceX should manage their employee's life at that level. "learn from our colonial past and incorporate indigenous expertise" That sounds to me like a dog whistle for her subgroup of social justice warriors. In any case, my boss would also be pretty surprised if someone used that word choice for arguing their case. Similarly, she mentions "very small group of women and nonbinary people" the latter of which seems hyperbolic to me because nonbinary people are rare in general, so it's not unexpected that they would be as rare at SpaceX as they are in overall society. So while I agree with her statement in the abstract that SpaceX should have a better work culture, there's too many little oddities in that letter for me to agree with it.
- dang 5y ago
  "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - mam4 5y ago
    Hard to assume good faith from a article you strongly suspect is doing precisely the opposite.. are we supposed to just not comment at all except to say "oh sexual harassement is bad" ? Theres a strong case that false accusations can be terribly detrimental for women that get ACTUALLY harrassed and assaulted. Not just people who get offendes at literally every fashionable issue to be offended these days (sexism, racisme/colonialism, and environment in that EXACT SAME ARTICLE)

sharemywin 5y ago

I do feel for the person. but the NFT pitch was a little much at the bottom. NFT's are horrible for the planet.

dang 5y ago
"Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article and rush to the thread to complain about it. Find something interesting to comment about instead." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- InTheArena 5y ago
  I don't think that's the most provocative thing in the comment. Frankly, this is pretty binary. She brought up two possible things that could have resulted in discipline or not. The other claims all appear to be denunciations of a political nature - or something that is objectively easy to disprove. Did SpaceX investigate the matter? Was there any discipline? Did others disagree?
  - dang 5y ago
    It's obviously an extraneous distraction that has zero to do with the topic. We don't need a cryptocurrency flamewar, god help us, on top of this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - sharemywin 5y ago
      Let me articulate. The lead was about sexism in spacex. then there's a rant about for about half the article on SpaceX not being green. Then an NFT pitch. And YEs NFT's are currently bad for the planet. I was just pointing out if the author cares about the being green they might want to start with the article. And if the author truly cares about the lead of the article then they might want to stick to the important part. the NFT part at best distracts from the article and probably strains the authors credibility.

beardedman 5y ago

From build reliability engineer and mission integration engineer to... program manager?

magneticnorth 5y ago
The best program managers I've worked with have been the ones with highly technical backgrounds.
phkahler 5y ago
>> From build reliability engineer and mission integration engineer to... program manager? Looks like: 2017 intern at SpaceX 2019 full time at SpaceX 2021 PM at Apple Yeah it seems rather quick. OTOH if SpaceX works people as hard as some claim, she might have the equivalent of 5-10 years at some companies ;-)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cvhashim 5y ago
Buddy of mine went from EE Major, test engineer, to PM

mam4 5y ago

" Some of the men who work at SpaceX hug women without consent, stare at women while they work, and interpret every company-related social event as an opportunity to date (or hit on) women in the office. I saw one woman pressured into dancing with a male colleague in front of other male employees. " I was with her for the butt grabbing incident but that part sounds absolutely insane. Either you have blatant sexism incidents, or you don't, and then you resort to spin random stuff into a drama. Of course in every "slightly less professional settings" there are annoying people with have annoying behavior such as being insisting to dance. But that's not "rampant misogyny" ffs. Add to that the whole environmental thing when you work at a rocket compagny, and sending a message directly to elon musk shows a level of entitlement that lightyears (pun intended) over the top for a random employee "While there are solar panels on campus, any attempts to make new buildings and infrastructure sustainable (LEED) are deprioritized in favor of expanding the factory as fast as possible." No kidding. Even if the compagny had positive cash flow you'd have to fight for it, but now you make a drama while the compagny is still running on investor's money. You're just not fit for a corporate environement...

Maursault 5y ago
> I was with her for the butt grabbing incident but that part sounds absolutely insane. Either you have blatant sexism incidents, or you don't, and then you resort to spin random stuff into a drama. Huh. To me it all sounds like sexual harassment, further details reinforcing the point, devoid of anything sounding so insane that I'd doubt everything else, but instead reasonable grievances reinforcing that it is a toxic environment for women. In fact, I'd be somewhat surprised if the details in the description were not accurate. And even if the last statement was "and the coffee was terrible, tasted like corn candy," it would not lead me to say, "aha! So this is all BS!" That would be a fallacious argument (A is reasonable, but B is nuts, so A&B are false.) I would not dismiss the accusations, they are too serious, nor would I ever sympathize with or try to frame sexual harassers as victims of slander.
- mam4 5y ago
  How many clues exactly so you need to conclude she's overacting to normal vaguely annoying behaviors in semi professional settings (except the butt grabbing) and globally playing the victim card ? She is offended to literally everythin fashionable these days on the offense scale (sexisme, racisme/colonialism and evironmentalism), and literally comparing Elon Musk to her father who sexually assaulted her in her full letter..

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bell-cot 5y ago

If the 1% of males most inclined to such behavior were fixed, then the problem would be 99% fixed. Seems pretty reasonable for even a basic health care package to cover that little bit of surgery...

dang 5y ago
Flamebait like this will get you banned here. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
Interesting that we can’t delete flagged posts…
- dang 5y ago
  "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    Got it, but it was actually a joke. They used an interesting choice of words, and I found it hilarious.

ghufran_syed 5y ago

It would be terrible to be in the situation that the author of the letter describes, but I'm genuinely curious what any company can do? They should probably confidentially interview the people involved, but if the other party denies it, what do you do then? And given the incident described is sexual assault, shouldn't the police be the first avenue explored, not HR? If there is no independent evidence either way, it makes sense for HR to ensure the people involved don't work or live together - but who do you move if you have no evidence? Moving the person initiating the complaint could easily be described as "punishment" in hindsight - maybe you would have to move both people involved to new work assignments? But then you can still be criticised because one person got a "better" re-assignment then the other, based on post-hoc performance My point is not that SpaceX handles these situations as well as they can be handled (I have no idea if they do), just that even if people and companies try and do the right thing, they can and will still be criticised. That is NOT a reason for them not to try.

luis8 5y ago

I'll give my 2 cents as a male. Touching someone's butt or invading personal space without permission is wrong. I never dated a girl from work, but if I was interested in someone, I'll wait for the girl to initiate the encounter. Why? Now it seems that even trying to flirt could be interpreted as harassing. I wonder if it will end up like that eventually. Women will be the ones to pursue the encounter because males will be too afraid of crossing a line

InTheArena 5y ago
I would be very very cautious about any sort of relationship with anyone that you are working with. Any sort of denunciation makes the front page, and that can kill a career right quick. Go to a bar. Or a reading group. Or Tinder. Far less likely for something bad to happen.
- throwntoday 5y ago
  Conversely I would never enter a relationship with someone I met at a bar, or that uses Tinder. Work seems like a far better place to meet a partner, you get to know who they are without the haste of the other mediums you mentioned.
  - FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
    I know a couple that met on LinkedIn. That contains most of the information you'd actually care about (vs. "I like pizza"). But crucially, she approached him.
    - throwntoday 5y ago
      I met my ex on a stock trading discord. Similarly she approached me. Online seems a better place to meet people, I just don't think tinder attracts the quality of people I'm interested in given the apps focus on hookups.
alphabettsy 5y ago
It’s a bad idea to date at work regardless. Hardly anything worse than a breakup with someone you sit next to at work. The problems with making advances in the workplace are that it’s really not the place for it and if you’re going to do it you better be certain it’s in an appropriate way and that they feel comfortable rejecting your advances. Since those are hard things to be certain about it’s probably better to avoid it entirely at work.

akomtu 5y ago

What stops the victims from secretly recording such incidents? Modern mic recorders are microscopic.

alphabettsy 5y ago
It’s illegal in some places.
- caymanjim 5y ago
  Specifically, it's illegal in Florida, where the offenses allegedly occurred. Florida is what's called a "two-party consent" state, meaning that it's illegal to record any non-public conversation (phone call, in-person, Zoom, etc.) without explicit consent from all parties involved. Other states allow single-party consent in some or all circumstances.
  - JJMcJ 5y ago
    Also California is two-party.
- akomtu 5y ago
  Why on earth does it matter? That recording can be used in many ways, anonymously or not, in a court or in an informal investigation. You don't even have to use it, and if you don't use it, it simply doesn't exist.
  - caymanjim 5y ago
    Or as grounds for terminating your employment. Or as evidence in a criminal trial against you. Or in a civil lawsuit against you. Or to discredit you for breaking the law. The only beneficial way it could be used is in the court of public opinion.
    - akomtu 5y ago
      All of that may happen if you're careless. And, BTW, you're already being recorded all the time or occasionally by security cameras, your phone and various hardware.

Isinlor 5y ago

...

230149dsad232jj 5y ago
The number of harassment at any company should be 0. You may not have meant it this way, but your comment makes it sound as if the goal should be to keep harassment down to some average number.
- rowanG077 5y ago
  And crimes rates should be 0. We should also have infinite food and drink. People shouldn't get ill. Etc. Etc. Most people would rather deal with reality then criticize from an impossible dream world standard.
- Isinlor 5y ago
  Yes, it must be 0, but people are people. You get 10 000 employees, probably some 7-8 000 of them are men, so the remaining 2 000 women will receive a lot of crap. Proportionally more than if the split was 50/50, so SpaceX needs to adjust for that. Same is true in areas dominated by women, if you are the only guy in a group of female nurses you will almost certainly receive the most physically draining work the whole time for the same pay. You will also hear a lot of sexist jokes about men, and quite likely receive potentially unwanted sexual attention.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Zero-tolerance policies are their own form of hell. Issues should be reasonably and earnestly managed. At some point, noise, misinterpretations, and false reports will emerge and form a floor. One strives toward but does not insist upon ideals.

gremloni 5y ago

Just because they “felt” harassed doesn’t mean they truly were. Probably just opportunistic vultures to be honest and they probably have a gear to grind against Elon.

csb6 5y ago
> probably just opportunistic vultures What is your inside information as to the incidents described in the article? Can you bring evidence that contradicts what they’ve claimed? Otherwise you are just speculating.
dang 5y ago
Commenting like this will get you banned here. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't post like this again. Edit: actually, you've been violating the site guidelines so often and so badly that I've banned the account. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29561080 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29561080.

magwa101 5y ago

Unions give employees collective bargaining power and collectively have power to make changes when management will not.

nope96 5y ago

"Lioness has listed an NFT artwork for auction in tandem with this story." Wow, that's kind of tacky. "Owning this NFT is a chance to own part of a story that will make waves and shift culture." $26,585 reserve price? Really? https://foundation.app/@lioness/~/118513 https://foundation.app/@lioness/~/118513

falcolas 5y ago
Sounds like the latest version of GoFundMe, playing to the Cryptocurrency and NFT trend to cover living and lawyer costs.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  To supplement your lowly apple project manager salary
gok 5y ago
6.9 ETH? Seems...Musky?

philonoist 5y ago

This article is blatantly following the same bland pattern. It doesn't take an ML Engineer to know why women in EU, AUS and whatever similar country have disparate pattern of complaints when it comes to this category. After all, these countries are very much similar to USA in terms of dating culture, culture of inappropriateness, legality, efficiency of law and order, etc. I feel like giving up on US-feminism. Look at the comments of HN, reading transcripts after transcripts of women detailing their stories at the courts and on internet, courts dismissing the case with "but this is not harassment at all!" and embarrassingly saying myself the same. And then I have to feel guilty myself for just being a male with phrases like "bro culture", "scrotes", "casual misogyny", "masculinity, ew!" and so on. There is a separate book when it comes to workplace jargon. When I see many careers ending dead on track in my personal life, Reddit, 4chan and Quora... Edit: proofreading

seoulmetro 5y ago
Modern feminism has been poisoned. But that doesn't mean feminism isn't still a great goal to work towards. Sadly most people don't realise what's poison and what is not. And there's a whole lot of poison out there.