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Results of the GitHub Investigation

• jpiasetz 13y ago
  Julie Ann Horvath has posted a bunch of interesting tweets about it starting here https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458340919721197568 https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458340919721197568
  • smtddr 13y ago
    Somehow, I don't think she's doing what is in her best interest right now. The guy has resigned and the tech media is totally on this story right now. Any small _preceived_ misstep and she could end up being labeled another "Adria Richards". Also, the question[1] in her current github background appears to represent a suggestive joke that I would have never guessed she'd be comfortable with. Not saying this is any kind of evidence of anything; just interesting that apparently there is a side to her that finds jokes like that funny. http://i.imgur.com/X8Wdgg0.png http://i.imgur.com/X8Wdgg0.png
    • rhizome 13y ago
      Why, because she's supposed to be sexless before she can be credible in a claim of sexual harassment?
      • deleted 13y ago
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      • smtddr 13y ago
        I wouldn't have a joke like that on any of my social profiles. If anything, this is in her defense since it's one data-point indicating she's not a stereotypical hyper-feminist-drama-queen(do these even exist?) looking to be offended by the slightest incident. She's easy-going enough to have something like that on her public profile and she _knows_ what people will think of first when they read that.
    • res0nat0r 13y ago
      All of these tweets I see from her account from the last ~45 minutes or so don't help her case at all. Taking these types of things public especially before any formal investigation occurs (which kicked off this whole scenario) usually does more harm than good.
      • hedwall 13y ago
        Did you not read the article? They claim to have finished a formal, third party lead, investigation.
        • res0nat0r 13y ago
          I did and understand everything that is going on, but reading her Twitter feed the last hour shitting on everyone and everything at Github (since they didn't find any criminal wrongdoing) doesn't make you look good or more believable, it actually does the opposite.
          • manish_gill 13y ago
            Yep, we should all just shut the fuck up if we feel we're wronged.
            • chippy 13y ago
              Yes. A lawyer would advise that yes, please do not say anything until we get to court.
              • res0nat0r 13y ago
                100% correct. If you are serious, you don't use Twitter or social media to advocate your case.
            • kelnos 13y ago
              There are good and bad ways to respond to the results of an investigation. I would argue that her response falls under the latter. She's doing herself a disservice by posting stuff like this.
    • nailer 13y ago
      The background is from the following scenario: DJ asks girl being interviewed what favourite position is, she responds 'CEO'. IIRC it was 'sway in the morning'.
      • msie 13y ago
        Hmmm, I thought it was a caller that asked that question, not the DJ.
        • nailer 13y ago
          Both correct: DJ speaks on behalf of caller who suggested it.
    • erikpukinskis 13y ago
      For what it's worth, I want to point out that many of us don't even think Adria Richards is an "Adria Richards".
• briantakita 13y ago
  Best of luck to everyone involved. Before casting judgement, please remember that everybody makes mistakes. The process of healing involves accepting this reality and recognizing everybody's humanity. In light of this, I would personally be honored to work with someone of Tom Preston-Werner's caliber. I hope he & his wife learn from this experience & grow as people.
• deleted 13y ago
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• leccine 13y ago
  What a surprise. Who thought that there is zero legal ground for her accusations...
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• gjvc 13y ago
  github is not seeing another penny of my money.
  • danielweber 13y ago
    Because Tom didn't demand they go balls-to-the-wall fighting what may be an inevitably losing battle to disprove something that isn't disprovable? I don't know what happened, but this outcome might be very much in Tom's well-considered best interests. You are making a no-win situation. EDIT: Heck, I don't even know if you are mad at GitHub for insufficiently defending Tom or insufficiently crucifying him
    • steele 13y ago
      gjvc is using their small slice of economic leverage to weigh in; the motivations are no one else's business unless gjvc volunteers this. Given the baiting questions you pose, what incentive does gjvc have to address your curiosity?
      • danielweber 13y ago
        It's not really "weighing in" to send up a confusing signal, despite (especially?) if it's very emphatic.
    • gjvc 12y ago
      https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/459358875213238272 https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/459358875213238272
• ChuckMcM 13y ago
  When these things conclude, as this one has, it is useful to check your own response emotion (happiness? sadness? outrage? bitterness?). One of the harder things for me to learn has been to critically evaluate my own judgement. Generally I'm a very rational guy and can give you my reasoning from first principles right up to the claim in question, when its wrong (the claim), I find my tendency is not to listen. My rational brain is invested in learning, my emotional brain is invested in being "right." At the end of the day, neither Tom or Julie work at GitHub any more and what ever they brought to the mix has been lost. They have both made statements of pain and hurt, and their pain has been a burden on their friends as well. Will GitHub be stronger or weaker after this event? Will Julie and Tom? Only time will tell. Perhaps the best that can be said of this affair is that its publicity might help others to recognize the dangers of their behavior earlier before it becomes a problem.
• deleted 13y ago
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• tqi 13y ago
  Slightly off topic: Is there anywhere that offers(for lack of a better term) open source HR policy for small companies to copy? Seems to me writing something like this can be fairly onerous for a small company, especially in terms of legal overhead, but is clearly important. Having a starting point would be very helpful...
• leccine 13y ago
  GitHub did the right thing and it turns out that Ms. Horvath accusations were without any basis. She not just damaged the gender equality efforts harder for everybody but raised visibility about how hiring females can damage your company's reputation. This is not the right way of fighting for the good case. A good example how to challenge the status quo: http://qz.com/192071/how-one-college-went-from-10-female-computer-science-majors-to-40/ http://qz.com/192071/how-one-college-went-from-10-female-com... I hope more people realize that we need more results and less artificially buffed scandals.
  • bitlord_219 13y ago
    How do you suggest she should have responded, rather than calling them out publicly?
    • leccine 13y ago
      First of all, if you have problem with your employment you sit down with your manager or your peers and talk about it. If you can resolve the case right there great if not, escalate. If you still think that they mistreat you, get a lawyer. Going public with accusations that you can't prove is certainly not the way. Look at her now, you think that there is any company on this planet which is going to risk the same process that was done to Github on a maximum mediocre engineer? I don't think so. This pretty much a lose lose situation as I can see it. Not to mention the post from that anonymous employee who states that in fact Ms. Horvath was starting this entire scandal due to jealousy and trying to undermine other people's reputation. You really think that this is they way to go?
      • bitlord_219 13y ago
        When it's the CEO who you have a problem with, how do you escalate beyond him? > Look at her now, you think that there is any company on this planet which is going to risk the same process that was done to Github on a maximum mediocre engineer? I don't think so. She already has another job with &yet. I'm curious though, what makes you think she's a "maximum mediocre engineer"?
• deleted 13y ago
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• deleted 13y ago
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  • rhizome 13y ago
    That Horvath was not interviewed implies to me that the lawyers went down the list of legal markers for her claims and got answers from the principals here. As long as TPW and his wife didn't answer "yes" to any of them, they figured they could be cut loose with no splashback onto GH.
• rinon 13y ago
  Maybe it's just me, but I don't really think speculating on fights like this from the outside without full and complete information is beneficial, or even sane and rational. Can we just all agree that we don't know the full story here, and that any and all players might be misleading or not telling the whole story publicly? This is an internal issue. The only opinions I am interested in are internal opinions of other github co-workers, and that only if I was interviewing for a position at the company.
  • kalleth 13y ago
    This is the internet. There is no place here for your logic and reason.
    • vectorpush 13y ago
      I literally cringe whenever someone posts this hackneyed response.
  • erikpukinskis 13y ago
    I think it has merit, essentially a form of play. Kittens will act out various attacks on each other, even though there is no real threat. It allows them to work through various solutions to problems in advance, so that when they are in real danger they have already practiced, and will be able to learn more quickly. You are right that we don't, can't know the truth. So what we do is we map out a space of possible realities and talk through as many of them as we feel inclined to. We try to figure out where the line is that a founder's wife mustn't cross. We try to understand how common sexual harassment is, and what the probabilities are that any given accusation is truthful. These discussions aren't oriented towards reaching any sort of verdict. That is for the courts, and the coworkers. Instead what we need to do is a kind of cartography. Is there a mountain there? How big is it? What are the routes across it? I think these issues are supremely important, because I think sexism in tech is like a giant hole in our rowboat that we are constantly having to bail out, and I think our organizations will be much more efficient if we can get better representation of diverse skills and viewpoints. And I also believe that rare events can make an outsized impact on a project. And that with such issues you rarely get second chances. And I believe that some of the traps that exist are on a hair trigger, and are very difficult to see. So I think putting energy into "play" ahead of time is very important. You don't want to be going for the jugular only to realize you've never tried out your claws.
• jfc 13y ago
  These memos are often more about what isn't said: > The investigation found no evidence... This doesn't mean there isn't any evidence--it just means that their internal investigation didn't find any. If read carefully, this statement tells us nothing about the universe of evidence that exists, but only about what GitHub didn't find. A different investigator might come to a completely different conclusion, or find other evidence (this is where the comment about the investigators possibly not contacting key people could become important). > ...found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation So their internal investigation didn't find sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation. But did that investigation find other types of harassment or retaliation? > However, while there may have been no legal wrongdoing "May have been none" or "there definitely wasn't any"? And then legal wrongdoing vs. just plain wrongdoing? Disclaimers/"wiggle words" everywhere. > As to the remaining allegations, the investigation found no evidence of gender-based discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or abuse. Again, we're seeing the term "gender-based" used as a modifier (also done in P-W's response). This makes it appear as if their attorneys primarily want to remove this controversy from the ambit of gender-based discrimination claims. I'm not saying this memo is worse than any other corporate public statement. But reading carefully, you often find that the statements don't tell you very much, if anything.
  • theorique 13y ago
    But reading carefully, you often find that the statements don't tell you very much, if anything. It sounds like the lawyers earned their $600/hr then.
  • smrtinsert 13y ago
    > the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment. Seems conclusive enough enough to me.
  • joshma 13y ago
    From what I see, it was an investigation into gender-based discrimination/harassment claims, and the result of the investigation was that, well, no evidence of gender-based discrimination was found. Does that not provide very useful information to the reader? It would be irresponsible for the report to claim that no harassment of any form exists at GitHub, and irresponsible of us to accuse (or "wonder", which is just a wiggly way of accusing) the worst given its omission. > This doesn't mean there isn't any evidence--it just means that their internal investigation didn't find any. Of course the results of the investigation tells us nothing about things outside the investigation. Is that not assumed? How many 3rd parties does it take before this is not true? Apologies if I sound irate, it's just disappointing that accusations that seem to have little basis (huge disclaimer, purely based on news coverage and this published report) can cause a founder to leave his company.
• gregimba 13y ago
  I don't even know what to make of this. They say there was no evidence but he is still resigning.
  • antidaily 13y ago
    It's a distraction.
    • weixiyen 13y ago
      Only if it was true or partially true. If it was completely off-base and false, they'd be going after the person making the allegations like there was no tomorrow.
  • awda 13y ago
    They say there was no evidence of gender-based harassment, but I don't see them claiming "there was no evidence of harassment" either. Don't know enough to pass judgement.
  • steveklabnik 13y ago
    It says there's no evidence of gender-based $BAD_THING, but not that no $BAD_THINGs happened. One could argue that allowing a non-employee so much access to a private company is an 'error of judgement.' (Referring to Horvath's comments about Tom's wife)
  • ljklnfds 13y ago
    Dude's probably incredibly rich, he can spend the rest of his life on a beach. Why bother dragging through this? Just go buy a boat or something.
    • egwor 13y ago
      boat's keep a man poor. Get a caravan ;-)
  • SpikeGronim 13y ago
    They say no evidence of illegality, but there is evidence of poor judgement. Without commenting on the specifics of this incident that's a valid reason to fire a CEO/co-founder/exec. I have no particular knowledge of what happened but if GitHub thinks he showed poor judgement then it is reasonable to ask him to resign.
• danielbraun 13y ago
  This is scary. I was just checking out Jekyll and stumbled upon his blog. Then I came here and saw this.
• ch4s3 13y ago
  >>the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment Isn't that like saying, well the hard proof isn't there but its clear you did do something wrong?
  • vezzy-fnord 13y ago
    Which is an important distinction to make, especially considering the original allegations were specific.
    • ch4s3 13y ago
      I get the distinction, but I guess I'm just skeptical about the attempt at face saving here.
• fragmede 13y ago
  http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/19/5526574/github-sexism-scandal-julie-ann-horvath http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/19/5526574/github-sexism-scan... for a bit of backstory.
• chrismonsanto 13y ago
  > The investigation found no evidence to support the claims [...] of a sexist or hostile work environment. So, are they saying that Horvath was lying? I mean, there was a lot of specific stuff she mentioned that seemed inappropriate. I don't want to get into whether the behavior was "sexist" or not, but I think we can all agree that if what she said was true, the work environment was hostile and unprofessional.
  • jmelloy 13y ago
    They're saying that the investigative team brought in to determine if there was anything they could be sued over found no evidence/email trail for the specific things that they could get sued over. "We didn't find an email trail that could lead to a lawsuit, and the co-founder in question immediately resigned" is a very far cry from "Everything she said was a lie."
  • deleted 13y ago
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  • falcolas 13y ago
    Note that the denial is couched in the terminology "there was no legal wrongdoing". Not that there was no wrongdoing, just nothing blatant enough (or which left evidence) that it broke laws.
    • tptacek 13y ago
      No, the denial says "no evidence exists to support the claim". That's a direct and testable assertion, not weasel words.
      • calibraxis 13y ago
        I'd like to see how you (or anyone here) propose to test it. This isn't science; it's a corporate press release. Do we know the name of the "full, independent, third-party" investigator(s)? Do we know who paid for them, their methodology, and whether they reported to Horvath, giving her oversight? Or are investigators the same, like software contractors?
• calcsam 13y ago
  And this is why you need strong/clear HR policies.
  • Agathos 13y ago
    "Don't give non-employees admin privileges on your system" doesn't really sound like an HR policy. It would have been a good policy, though.
  • sneak 13y ago
    Sure, at their size now. Not before, as policy beyond "use good judgement" at a small company is basically pointless. Your first dozen hires must all be good enough to write such policies...
    • drgath 13y ago
      FWIW, Github hasn't been a "small company" for quite some time. github.com/about/team says they are currently at 237 employees.
• cjbprime 13y ago
  There appear to have been weirdnesses around the investigation, such as Julie Ann Horvath (and other ex-employees) remaining uncontacted until it was wrapping up: https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/453298152569720832 https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/453298152569720832 So I don't know how much stock you can place behind the idea that the investigators GH hired, who did not contact ex-employees competently, found them blameless. The resignation probably speaks for more than the investigation does.
  • hntaway 13y ago
    An anonymous post on medium by github insiders: https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e Unfortunate that it is anonymous, but it is still worth reading in my opinion.
    • deleted 13y ago
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      • wlesieutre 13y ago
        Really? I must have missed the part where people were burned alive or had their heads chopped off.
        • wlesieutre 13y ago
          For reference, parent comment was along the lines of "Woah. This is crazier than Game of Thrones!" Maybe an attempt at humor, but it's really not.
    • TodPunk 13y ago
      This is probably the most relevant article of the 6 or so I've read in the comments. It shows both sides as human and lacking good social management constructs for the situation. Reading several weeks of Horvath's twitter feed and several articles where she's quoted, it's apparent to me that regardless of what happened at Github, she is a bitter and dramatic individual. That's NOT the kind of person that backs down to the adult-talk at the table. Again, I don't know what happened at github, and I honestly don't care. What I do know is that I would never hire Horvath regardless of what she could do for the company. Far too much risk, and exemplified with a terribly immature response even if everything she says is true.
• nakedrobot2 13y ago
  I doubt they are publishing the real story, there. What is a fact is that Mr. Preston-Werner is resigning. From there, we may only speculate. If I may speculate, I'd guess that there was some truth to the story told by "the other side", that there was some kind of harassment on the part of this man's wife (who was not employed there). That is all I can really guess. And the only real way to publicly resolve this would be for this man to resign - while he perhaps didn't personally do anything wrong, maybe his wife did, so he was in a sense the fall guy for that.
• Randgalt 13y ago
  Irrationality is sweeping the Tech world. I shudder to think where this will end.
• caiob 13y ago
  Are we still on this?
• brandon272 13y ago
  It sounds like Mrs. Preston-Werner was a regular presence at the GitHub office and, according to Horvath, had extensive access to private information throughout GitHub's systems despite the fact that she wasn't an employee. If true, that should certainly be a privacy and security concern to any GitHub customer or user.
  • kybernetyk 13y ago
    > If true, that should certainly be a privacy and security concern to any GitHub customer or user. We left github private repo hosting when they got VC funding. Because of such a scenario where we could be competing with a company that was funded by the same VC that gave GH money. Now in a perfect world that shouldn't be a problem because the VC should never access private user data. But well ... as you see it's not a perfect world and if a wife of an employee can browse through customer data than why shouldn't this be true for the guy who gave GH a few million dollars?
    • mhd 13y ago
      Wouldn't that rule out any corporation, too? Not much difference between VCs and large shareholders.
    • atmosx 13y ago
      You moved into a direct competitor or you rolled up your own infrastructure? I'm curious because if the company is not large, doesn't seem like much of a hassle having your own depository server.
      • jc4p 13y ago
        Not the person you replied to, but we're a large company and we're using Gitlab internally, it even hooks up to LDAP which is fantastic. We still use some private Github projects too.
      • matdes 13y ago
        Gitlab is a FOSS self hosted alternative to github.
• Ryel 13y ago
  To me it sounds more like... We dont have enough evidence to take legal action in this case, but our investigation found out something worse so we would like Tom to resign before it comes out publicly.
• gdonelli 13y ago
  It feels unconvincing, and unapologetic.
  • facepalm 13y ago
    Why should they have to be apologetic?
  • ggreer 13y ago
    I can't think of much else they could reasonably do in response to these allegations. Tom was a founder, President, and former CEO of GitHub. They effectively fired him. They apologized profusely and laid out specific ways in which they're trying to fix the problem. They hired a new HR head. They're starting to train and educate employees. What else would you have GitHub do?
    • gdonelli 13y ago
      Agreed. everything is right rationally, in fact I said it "feels". It feels cold. It lacks human touch, in my opinion of course.
  • EC1 13y ago
    They owe you nothing, especially a detailed series of events. He's resigning, they posted a note, the situation is over. What more do you want? Horvath essentially ruined this mans life through e-mobbing. Just look @ her tweets: http://recode.net/2014/04/21/julie-ann-horvath-on-github-investigation-how-do-you-sleep-at-night/ http://recode.net/2014/04/21/julie-ann-horvath-on-github-inv...
• chuhnk 13y ago
  This has to be an incredibly difficult moment in Tom Preston-Werner's life. Regardless of what may have happened. To build a company from the ground up and then have to walk away from it. I'm sure we all remember GitHub during its infancy and the enthusiasm with which founders worked on it. A hugely successful bootstrapped company.
  • kategleason 13y ago
    exactly, this is really tragic.
• joevandyk 13y ago
  Tom Preston-Werner's response: http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hello-immersive-computing.html http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hel...
  • pistle 13y ago
    It would be nice to not see the harassment word prefaced with "gender-based." This parsing, by Tom, without fuller disclosure of what mistakes were made leads to the conclusion that there was some form of harassment, but that it wasn't put forth in a manner which legally falls into "gender-based," which would make github and Tom (& family) liable for those actions. I still want to see the dramatization where the guy coder comes in professing his love, gets spurned, then spitefully removes code. Terms like hostile, gender-based, and discrimination all have pretty specific requirements for proof. At least HN an move forward unhappily and pull out the "tragic" word describe everything. I'm not sure we all experienced catharsis, but "tragic" will have to do.
• samstave 13y ago
  I have a question/observation that may be offensive, and it is not meant to be - so pardon my ignorance if this is a misguided perception: When this story first ran and I was reading JA Horvaths tweets in the surrounding days - and reading whatever other articles related to this story were - I got the impression that she didn't necessarily seem like the most easy-going-innocent victim, and I wondered; what if she was actually a difficult to work-with person? This is in no way a defense of any actions of any party, it was just a perception of the language, tone and content of the messages that Mrs. Horvath used gave me the perception that she wouldn't be the most desirable co-worker.... Now, I have nothing to substantiate such an opinion other than the tweets and stories I read just left me with this impression.... So, could it be that while her allegations are true, she is also a participant in the situation whereby she could have been acting poorly/using poor judgement? Finally, I recognize that the actions of the wife of the founder are the most insidious, and a clear cause of concern, assuming they are in fact true...
  • jacalata 13y ago
    It certainly could be, but in general what she's accusing them of would be wrong regardless of what a terrible person she could be. If someone is a bad employee/co-worker you can fire them, but you can't bully/harass them out of the place.
    • samstave 13y ago
      True. The weirdest accusation is that toward the wife... That just sounds.... strange.
• cheez 13y ago
  It doesn't really matter what actually happened. The well has been poisoned so just fire someone and get it over with. Now Github can get back to business.
  • ExpiredLink 13y ago
    > It doesn't really matter what actually happened. That's the annoying part of the story.
• thepumpkin1979 13y ago
  http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hello-immersive-computing.html http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hel...
• kategleason 13y ago
  :( this sucks. Github would not even exist without Tom Preston-Werner and I am really scared to see how it will exist without him. Tragic for all his users.
  • pyre 13y ago
    > I am really scared to see how it will exist without him Isn't that a little bit extreme? Do all the good things that happen at Github stem directly from Tom Preston-Werner? I can't claim intimate knowledge of Github the company, but I somehow doubt that this is a "Steve Jobs" type situation.
    • Maxford_Maxford 13y ago
      Come to think, I somehow doubt Steve Jobs was a "Steve Jobs" type situation.
• deleted 13y ago
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• vpv 13y ago
  So, guy who wrote GitHub and a ton of open source stuff is ousted from his own company and sacrificed for a person whos biggest accomplishment in open source is JavaScript for Cats? https://github.com/nrrrdcore/javascript-for-cats https://github.com/nrrrdcore/javascript-for-cats
  • sergiotapia 13y ago
    What an embarrassment if you ask me. Why should he leave if he's been found of no legal wrong-doing by a third party? These tumblr-twats warriors only break communities.
    • dragonwriter 13y ago
      > What an embarrassment if you ask me. Why should he leave if he's been found of no legal wrong-doing by a third party? Because you can do your job badly and be unsuitable to continue in it by exhibiting poor judgement without breaking the law.
      • sergiotapia 13y ago
        You're assuming he did his job badly. All I'm seeing is the investigation showing NO EVIDENCE OF WRONG DOING. You're taking her word over an investigations result.
        • dragonwriter 13y ago
          > You're assuming he did his job badly. No, I'm not assuming that. I am saying that's exactly what the report of the invstigation plus the actual concrete results suggests that Github determined based on the investigation. > All I'm seeing is the investigation showing NO EVIDENCE OF WRONG DOING. The investigation does not show "no evidence of wrong doing", instead, it found "while there may have been no legal wrongdoing, the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment" and that finding is cited as the direct reason for Preston-Werner's resignation.
  • 13y ago
• nhangen 13y ago
  Silly thing these gender based politics and acts of political correctness. I can guarandamntee you that if I was Tom and was innocent, mistakes in judgment aside, I would not be resigning from MY COMPANY. Is this the result of new board members coming in post-investment? If so, it's more reason to stay bootstrapped and free. If not, who is there to pressure him other than Chris? Edit: 4 downvotes without a single comment. Tech is really becoming a soup sandwich of misplaced frustration and angst.
  • emocakes 13y ago
    in regards to misplaced frustration and angst, pretty much, tech is mostly filled with frustrated, unattractive (physical and personality wise) middle aged men, who believe that the only way to find a mate is to swallow this liberal agenda so as to make themselves appear as more of a 'nice guy', and thus in their twisted little heads, becoming more attractive to members of the opposite sex. Typical beta mentality. edit: actually, I should say that tech is not actually like this, its mainly the illusion that reddit and HN present.
    • hackaflocka 13y ago
      Agree 100%. There are a couple of Betas tweeting her offering to employ her.
    • Gorkys 13y ago
      Or maybe there are some men who are aware that things aren't always as easy in the tech industry for women as they are for men. Because they, you know, listen to the majority of women in tech, who say this is in fact the case.
• bratao 13y ago
  Mrs. Preston-Werner says here (https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215 https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215 ) that the accusation and reason is that: "We learned that unnamed employees felt pressured by Tom and me to work pro-bono for my nonprofit."
• desireco42 13y ago
  To me this is lawyer speak for, yes it is true but if we admit, we would be liable. I would expect something like this from Bank of America or some other mega-corp, not github. Only good thing about this is that it is not happening on the front pages of TechCrunch and whatever else blog might be following events like this.
• roryhughes 13y ago
  Kicked out of his own company? Reminds me of Apple and SJ... Hopefully Tom will see a great future and make some out of the blue return.
  • mtkd 13y ago
    First came across Tom's code in the Grit gem (around 2008 possibly). Unfortunately people who can write inspirational and innovative code like that are not always the most perceptive to the complexities and risks of HR in a large organisation. I really hope mojombo gets back to building awesome again ... a VR coding environment - shut up and take my money ...
• sytelus 13y ago
  Can anyone tell what exact discrimination Horvath faced? I went through her long interview and I can only read how she "felt" to be in "boys club" as opposed to specific events that can be qualified as discrimination. For example, she says her code was reverted and was apparently blaming that event on her being a women. I can't imagine someone throwing good code away because it was written by a women rather it seems much more likely that her code had issues. Then there is series of rambling for founders wife sitting in front of her every day. That doesn't feel like discrimination either but rather feels like she was not looked upon as desirable employee there at higher level. Overall I got an impression that she was turning whatever bad performance on her part in to case of discrimination. May be I'm missing details but it is very hard to identify events that can actually be qualified as "discrimination" in her long rambling interview.
  • bitlord_219 13y ago
    You're missing details. I'd list them, but it'd be easier for you to just read her interview again, this time without skimming.
  • malandrew 13y ago
    It would be fascinating to see the commit in question. If the commit has technical merit and should not have been reverted, why would you not focus on demonstrating why the technical merit of the commit in question? Claiming that a commit was reverted for personal reasons instead of defending the technical merits of the commit strikes me as naïve. A highly competent person who has produced some work product that was challenged would typically either defend it on merit or assume they might have produced a lesser work and seek to understand why. My experience in all areas of competence I'm familiar with is that histrionics like those observed thus far are often comorbid with demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger effect in inexperienced individuals. Zed Shaw is one of the few people I can think of that would be a counterpoint to this observation, demonstrating high competence when acting histrionically. You can just look at his contributions to open-source to see how good he is at what he does. JAH's github profile (for an engineer that worked there for a long time) seems conspicuously sparse to me. There really aren't many projects there to demonstrate superior mastery of HTML, CSS or git. https://github.com/nrrrdcore?tab=repositories https://github.com/nrrrdcore?tab=repositories Looking further, like at her blog repo. There are .DS_Store files committed (which would normally be in a local .gitignore or in your home folder .gitignore file) and the first file I clicked on the in CSS folder has Jekyll ruby errors printed to it: https://github.com/nrrrdcore/nrrrdcore.github.com/tree/master/css https://github.com/nrrrdcore/nrrrdcore.github.com/tree/maste... (DS_Store file from 2 years ago still there) https://github.com/nrrrdcore/nrrrdcore.github.com/blob/master/css/base.scss https://github.com/nrrrdcore/nrrrdcore.github.com/blob/maste... (broken blog post is 6 months old) Assuming this is representative of the quality of her commits, Occam's Razor suggest competence may be the reason for reverting the that css commit.
• turar 13y ago
  It's interesting how many would still remember the incident in question, if it wasn't brought up like this again. My personal attention span must be pretty short, it took a couple of days for me to stop associating Github with that incident.
• ig1 13y ago
  This statement is pretty terrible. The line "sexual or gender-based harassment" looks like it's been specifically written to exclude other kinds of harassment, especially given that term is used multiple times. Employee harassment of any kind is unacceptable and if they're not willing to admit that it's a problem and act as if it's something that should be brushed under the carpet then it will continue to be a problem. I appreciate that this might turn into a legal case so they're acting to protect themselves, but it would be better if they hadn't put out any statement rather than this weasel worded one.
  • facepalm 13y ago
    Those were a big part of the accusations, though.
  • dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Employee harassment of any kind is unacceptable But generally not illegal except as a form of discrimination on an illegal basis (as in, e.g., sexual harassment.) The line about sexual or gender-based harassment is part of the detail leading up to the general statement of no legal wrongdoing, which is followed by the statement about errors of judgement, etc., that do not rise to the level of legal wrongdoing. Harassment that does not constitute legally-prohibited discrimination would fall into the category of error that they have expressly stated did occur.
• robbie526 13y ago
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR-Gw4bVcho http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR-Gw4bVcho please check this out...share this movement
• marincounty 13y ago
  "Because I would hear ‘We should hire more women!’ on almost a daily basis from the same people who kind of refused to respect me as a peer." I don't know what went on here, but I have heard these words before. And most of the time it has nothing to do with gender. (As to hn deleting comments--I don't understand the moderators. I posted something earlier about the divide between the rich/poor--and claimed something about the lack of modern Horatio Algiers. I guess it really bothers some of the fancy boys? I come back to this site and comments are magically removed. I commented in the article on Lenin. Yes--this is off topic; I'm just curious why whenever I bring up money, and how many rich boys fathers helped them out graetly; I am edited?)
  • theorique 13y ago
    "We should hire more women", when said to a person of the female sex, does not necessarily or automatically mean, "we should hire you".
• iandanforth 13y ago
  This makes me sad. My interpretation of these events was that a toxic employee instigated a witch hunt and was successful. By simple observation of numbers here, you probably disagree with this. But for the few of you that do agree with this point of view, take it as a reminder of the crucial role of hiring. You can easily hire the person who ruins your company's culture and causes your downfall.
  • bitlord_219 13y ago
    That is some impressive victim-blaming.
  • volune 13y ago
    totally correct. disgruntled employees should just keep their mouth shut and quit.
  • jleader 13y ago
    If losing one executive at a 200+ employee company "ruins the company's culture and causes [that company's] downfall", then that company and that executive have been doing it wrong! Regardless of the facts of the case and whatever damage it may have done to GitHub's culture, if this incident and this individual's departure are enough to cause GitHub's ruin and downfall, then that's evidence of an absurdly fragile company and culture.
• ender7 13y ago
  "We didn't do anything illegal, or that would leave us vulnerable to a lawsuit" is about the only content that this blog post contains. While Horvath characterized much of her woes as being gender-related [1], the investigation could have classified most of them as either unprovable or terrible-but-not-provably-sexist (in particular, the behavior of the Preston-Werners). I doubt it will ever be clear what actually happened. Theresa Preston-Werner's response [2] spends more time avoiding topics than actually covering them. Tom Preston-Werner likewise [3] makes sure to reinforce the fact that GitHub is immune to lawsuit while providing no real details. I'm sure there are plenty of GitHub employees who have a strong opinion, but enough of them seem to have an ax to grind in one way or another that it's hard to trust that testimony. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes-sexism-and-intimidation-behind-her-github-exit/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes... [2] https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215 https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215 [3] http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hello-immersive-computing.html http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hel...
  • tptacek 13y ago
    You're right. It will never be clear what actually happened. I think Internet message boards create the perception that outcomes like that are rare. They're not: they're the norm. That's how it's supposed to be. We don't get to know everything and we need to work within the limits of our knowledge.
    • ender7 13y ago
      The only problem for GitHub now is finding a way to attract talent. If your best response to "You have a hostile work environment." is "We don't have a provably illegal hostile work environment." then that doesn't inspire great confidence when evaluating it as a place to work.
      • danielweber 13y ago
        I can make that same accusation at any company you can think of, and the best response they could hope to give is "no, we aren't a bad place to work."
• caio1982 13y ago
  I really don't care about how it's published in the media, I mean, this last episode at least. It was clear since the very beginning when it broke out that it would be dirty, really dirty. It's a shame not only for the people involved but more specially for Github as an ecosystem. Such incredible company bleeding in the media... sad times... and when I say incredible company I don't mean incredibly owned or well run company, you know what I mean. I lost a bit of faith in them today anyway. Sad times...
• seanhandley 13y ago
  Hope that Julie publishes a detailed account. Sources I've read so far are vague and subjective as to what actually happened.
• volune 13y ago
  What a crock of shit. People don't typically quit companies they built from the ground up when they have "done nothing wrong".
• mariusmg 13y ago
  To me it seems Github fired him but allow him to "save face" with the resignation story.
  • barce 13y ago
    This is pretty much standard procedure. Depending on his contract, it saves github from paying severance.
• avenger123 13y ago
  We have a process for all this. It's called the legal system. It's not perfect but it mostly gets the job done. Has Julie Ann Horvath formally sued Github? It's not clear to me that she has. It seems that she may have grounds for some kind of lawsuit. Why hasn't she sued the company (if in fact there is no lawsuit)? This to me is the most important question. At the moment, it seems this is becoming a matter of public opinion. I would rather it be moved over to the legal system where the rules of engagement are much less malleable.
  • chippy 13y ago
    Quite so, and in most legal cases, both sides tend not to speak openly or publicly until the case has finished.
• deleted 13y ago
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  • avenger123 13y ago
    Has she filed a lawsuit? I would like to know.
• tdicola 13y ago
  So what happens when a founder leaves like this, do they give up their % ownership and the other founders gain what was lost?
  • jessaustin 13y ago
    I suppose it depends on how the articles of incorporation are written up, but I really doubt it would work that way. It's more likely that the leaving founder will become a sort of silent partner, retaining equity but not managerial input.
• smrtinsert 13y ago
  I wonder why his wife had to be at Github at all. I've worked at half a dozen startups now. Never would a spouse of either gender be in the office, and if they happened to maybe communicate with anyone, it was only a quick introduction and then they got out of your way. I would consider it highly inappropriate.
  • hackaflocka 13y ago
    His wife's twitter bio reads: "Obsessed with inspiring the tech community to support underfunded nonprofits." It's so much easier to pressure, oops I meant "inspire," people when you're the wife of the CEO.
  • kfcm 13y ago
    I've been in a couple Midwestern start-ups, and founder's spouses (wives, in both cases) often did come into the office. Generally they were going somewhere together, or whatever. Chatted several times, and it was no big thing. When they did ask how things were going business-wise, I got the nod from their husband. Turns out, they were also on the hook (co-signatories) for much of the start-up capital vehicles/loans/lines of credit. Their money on the line, they own the company, IMHO.
• smrtinsert 13y ago
  Also, can they get rid of Gravatar now?
  • markjaquith 13y ago
    They kind of did. You just start with a Gravatar, but can upload your own image.
  • srik 13y ago
    https://github.com/blog/1803-switch-your-picture-with-ease https://github.com/blog/1803-switch-your-picture-with-ease
• harrystone 13y ago
  His wife says she didn't realize that soliciting contributions from her husband's employees may not be appropriate. She pretty plainly states that it never even entered her mind. That tells me more about the atmosphere there than anything.
  • kelnos 13y ago
    Yes, I agree, but I'm sympathetic: GH has always pushed the flat-hierarchy, we-are-all-peers attitude. And I think that's cool in theory, but has potentially bad side-effects like this one, where people feel pressured in situations where they viscerally know they are not peers, even if the atmosphere tries to push that idea.
• andyl 13y ago
  Kicked out of his own company - ouch. Taking VC and giving control to outsiders is Russian roulette. Writing and adhering to HR/conflict-of-interest policy is a no-brainer. A board who cared for the interests of its founder would not leave this as a trap for the founder to step in. I note with interest that the other accused was given a promotion.
• ia 13y ago
  we have one side of the story, for fuck's sake. the other side--the github side? it's lawyer-speak and completely devoid of anything that addresses the specific accusations. how so many ostensibly smart people can simultaneously lose their ability to think critically is incredible. add the word "gender" to anything and people lose their minds.
• emocakes 13y ago
  github raped me! now lets start the misandric shitstorm.
• abalone 13y ago
  This anonymous post from an alleged GitHub employee adds some interesting perspective.[1] It alleges Julie Ann Horvath was actually spreading rumors of a personal nature about the founder's wife before any of this. In other words, Horvath was the bully, and she really didn't like having the tables turned on her. If true, this would be a very difficult employee to keep at the company. She should have been fired for inappropriate behavior rather than given an elevated role (which she can now use to bolster her case). Very poor handling and it does suggest a degree of naivety on the part of management. Having said that, the founder's wife also admits that her actions were a role in his departure.[2] It sounds like she had way too much free reign at the company and was making people uncomfortable with her activism around her startup. The fact that she presented herself to Horvath as having a lot of influence and power within the company reflects that. Plus it's a fertile ground for more serious transgressions into company privacy and so forth. Also should've been nipped in the bud early on. [1] https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e [2] https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215 https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215
  • cpncrunch 13y ago
    It does sound like ineffectual people management. By the sound of it there were potentially a number of employee problems at the company, which they basically just ignored. The fact is that if someone is a bullying douchebag, they're probably going to continue with the same behaviour. (I'm not making any comments as to exactly who was the bully here, as it depends who you believe).
  • alelefant 13y ago
    This anonymous post is no better than the unsupported claims by Julie. Unsupported claims on top of unsupported claims.
  • carterehsmith 13y ago
    Popcorn time! Seriously. So, she thinks someone undid her commits because… something. Is it possible that her code was… inadequate? Obsolete? Had bugs? Because, guess what, no line of code could ever be changed without someone calling names. Consider this: - OMG I am Mexican and this Asian guy undid my commits. He did it because he is racist! Call Techcrunch. - OMG I am 23 and this 45-year old guy undid my changes. Guess I should call the papers and complain!!! - OMG I am 45 and this 23-year old guy undid my changes. Guess I should call the papers and complain!!! - OMG I am gay and this coworker undid my changes. He did it because I am gay and he is straight and he is intolerant!!! - So I am Armenian and this Turkish guy undid my changes. WHAT THE HELL he did it just because I am Armenian! He hates me! - OMG I am a woman and this guy undid my changes. He did it because he hates women! Call the police!!! - OMG I am a man and this woman undid my changes. She did it just to because she is feminist bi0tch!!! - OMG I prefer functional programming, but this imperative-programming guy undid my changes! WTF what a horrible workplace can I sue someone about this? Guess what. On a large project, any piece of code may be changed by any number of people. Usually because someone found a bug, or improvement is needed. If you claim that someone changed your code _because_ you belong to some minority or whatever group, you better have some proof. In this case, if I was Ms Horvat’s employer, I would ask her to either prove her allegations, beyond reasonable doubt, in a court of law, or shut up and apologize. Maybe I would sue her for libel, too.
• foohbarbaz 13y ago
  What an ugly mess! Somewhat related: I am amazed now much gossiping goes on in an entirely male work group behind other people's backs. Males are definitely worse than females in that regard. I would not be surpised if allegations were true. A bunch if primadonna devs can be nasty to work with. Just stay away and separate work and life.
  • sergiotapia 13y ago
    Eh no, in my personal experience in a workplace where there are majority women you -will- get cliques and you will hear some nasty rumors go around. Women enjoy spreading gossip and harassing each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hmlPtRu1SQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hmlPtRu1SQ
• hackaflocka 13y ago
  This is what happens when you hire people for their gender (Horvath) or race. Injudiciously applied 'Liberalism' is the core problem here.
• lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  it's not idea Sunday but: a wearable video recording device that documents everything. It may sound crazy but it would be interesting to me to find out how much of my rather boring life is actionable / illegal or distasteful
  • graup 12y ago
    Devices like this exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelog http://getnarrative.com/ http://getnarrative.com/
• EGreg 13y ago
  "The investigation found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or hostile work environment." "We still have work to do" Which is it? A non acknowledgement acknowledgement?
• logn 13y ago
  This is a misleading title and not the actual title on the page.
• drunkcatsdgaf 13y ago
  Im over using anything with this much drama, I want features, not headline news.
• hackaflocka 13y ago
  Theresa Preston-Werner's twitter bio reads: "Obsessed with inspiring the tech community to support underfunded nonprofits." Mostly, her own nonprofit, I imagine.
• deleted 13y ago
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• hackaflocka 13y ago
  3 recent tweets from the wife that indicate that she might be batshit crazy: TheresaPrestonWerner ‏@tpdubs2 Apr 10 Best meal I've ever had. @ The Meatball Shop http://instagram.com/p/moWCO4njNA/ http://instagram.com/p/moWCO4njNA/ TheresaPrestonWerner ‏@tpdubs2 Apr 10 Building out a team and getting to work with insanely great people makes me the happiest founder ever. TheresaPrestonWerner ‏@tpdubs2 Mar 27 First time in 2 weeks that I feel like I'm not just performing being excited, but I really am insanely excited to change the world! (people who express themselves with such extreme language, usually are batshit crazy. not taking sides here, the Horvath lady also seems to be batshit crazy from a reading of her tweet stream.)
  • fizx 13y ago
    > people who express themselves with such extreme language, usually are batshit crazy Quick question: Would you consider "batshit crazy" extreme language?
    • hackaflocka 13y ago
      Best, ever, happiest founder ever, changing the WORLD
  • kmonsen 13y ago
    The meatball show is legendary, can't blame her for that one. Many people talk about their coworkers as insanely great, I think that is common tech language. I don't think this is extreme language.
• deleted 13y ago
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• omarhegazy 13y ago
  This fucking sucks, man. Tom's always seemed like an awesome guy. As always, absolutely overblown PR messes like this are a result of faulty communication. Without proper context or research done about it by Internet warriors frothing at the mouth, a one-off donation ruins Brendan Eich's once rich and successful career. Partly because Internet warriors tend to make emotional judgments before they properly study the evidence and contex and before they think through things, but also because Eich ... never responded. He never let the facts through, never let out an, "Oh, sorry guys. This donation was done because of X and Y and Z (don't support marriage as a whole/don't want government getting it's hands in things/etc.,etc.) and it doesn't reflect my current views on sexual orientation or that people with certain sexual orientations deserve less opportunities.", he never gave proper context and evidence to suggest that he wasn't a bad character. Similarly with this. People are (conveniently?) keeping facts back, giving very vague stories, saying very little with a lot of words, etc., etc. If we are to believe that this thing was a huge misunderstanding and GitHub doesn't employ a bunch of mysognisitic, immature people, why hasn't Tom spoke up? I'm sure that GitHub is internally a lot better than it's image on the Internet right now is -- why doesn't anyone speak up? Or is it really as bad as the Internet's image of it is?
• rajacombinator 13y ago
  What a load. Good luck with your hiring goals for 2014...
• thedaveoflife 13y ago
  The best thing about this article is that it hopefully signals that we will no longer have to here about this anymore. As much as I love using GitHub, I hate hearing about the internal politics of their executives and engineers.
• shiven 13y ago
  This is turning into a Soap-Opera-via-Social-Media... What happened to the good old days of people suing for damages in a court of law and moving on? Public name-and-shame has its place in the grand picture of such incidents, but the longer it stretches, relative to time on social media, the more sudsy it turns.
• xrt 13y ago
  Think this might make those "Fork me on GitHub" badges a little less popular? I sincerely hope so.
• zenbowman 13y ago
  It is shortsighted to think there is nothing we can learn from this. There are certainly things we can learn. 1) A good lawyer is worth a 1000 tweets. 2) Getting deeply romantically involved with coworkers carries serious risks, whether or not you believe a company has the right to restrict office romances or not. 3) The fetishization of "we don't have any process!" is a mark of immaturity, not Zen. One would think engineers of all people would understand the importance of formalized process. I don't think anyone walks away a winner here.
• superduper33 13y ago
  "There was no investigation." - Julie Ann Horvath https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458342995469688833 https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458342995469688833
• mundanevoice 13y ago
  If you haven't read already, check this: https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e She did a lot of wrong things: - Dating a coworker is not one of the best practise. - gossiping around about your co-workers/founders character is the also not the best thing to do. - If you write shit code, your code will be removed. She is definitely not known for her coding abilities. She is just a melodrama queen who is bad at heart, opportunist, blackmailed founder to poison the company atmosphere. - You can create a healthy workspace shouting "Women Women" every time. We work with women too. Our behaviour and respect is based on compassion and professionalism. They are just like any other person in the company. - The real story must have been that she is a bad/mediocre developer who was being reviewed which didn't turned out pretty well (Obv since she was busy bitching against coworkers). The only good way she had to abuse and insult the company publically , get sympathy and then a Job. She seems to have good PR skills. (Pun intended) Again, here are some of her recent tweets: https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347574672388096 https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347574672388096 https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458345005866696704 https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458345005866696704
• deleted 13y ago
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• doktrin 13y ago
  I have not followed this case. However, this just rolled across my FB feed : http://www.businessinsider.com/julie-ann-horvath-github-harassment-twitter-2014-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/julie-ann-horvath-github-hara... Maybe I'm being uncharitable, but based on her [JAH] public statements I have a hard time taking her version of events 100% at face value. The drama to fact ratio feels high. > "Company perks : witch hunts, snow cones and silencing" > "I am not a victim. I'm someone that a company's negligence pushed too far, for too long. I am living, breathing consequence" > "Leaving GitHub was the best decision of my life" > "Hmm still no mention of the man who bullied me out of our code base because I _wouldn't_ fuck him. Too popular to be accountable, I guess" Is Github that awful? I'm not seeing it.
  • abvdasker 13y ago
    There's a strong current of spitefulness in those Twitter posts. While I understand that Horvath is clearly livid, and obviously not without some reason, that kind of public vitriol would make me question anyone's rationality.
• poissonpie 13y ago
  "This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper" I think with the amount of coverage this story has gotten, everyone wanted something big to happen. Instead, we just get something mundane in some carefully crafted words that seem designed to give no information whatsoever, while still ensuring nobody can be sued any further. I kind of get the feeling that they are all trying to say "Nothing to see here....move along....cows turn themselves inside out all the time".
• pandatigox 12y ago
  Weird that just a few months ago, Tom became the first President of Github.