Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/technology/women-entrepreneurs-speak-out-sexual-harassment.html?_r=0 <comment><USER3> This entire article is a smorgasbord of cringe:

> _During the recruiting process, Mr. McClure, a founder of 500 Startups and > an investor, sent her a Facebook message that read in part, "I was getting > confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you."_

One would think having the phrases "hire you" and "hit on you" in the same sentence when communicating with someone undergoing recruitment at your company would be reason enough to take pause for a moment, and maybe ponder why PR suicide seems like a good idea.

> _Mr. Canter, in an interview, said that Ms. Dent "came on strong to me, > asking for help" and that she had used her sexuality publicly. He said he > disliked her ideas so he behaved the way he did to make her go away._

???

> _Lindsay Meyer, an entrepreneur in San Francisco, said Mr. Caldbeck put > $25,000 of his own money into her fitness start-up in 2015. That gave Mr. > Caldbeck reason to constantly text her; in those messages, reviewed by The > Times, he asked if she was attracted to him and why she would rather be with > her boyfriend than him. At times, he groped and kissed her, she said._

That one's just downright pathological creepy in the extreme.

<comment><USER4> I think cringe is the wrong word. We cringe when we watch The Office and see people make social mistakes without meaning to. These are not unwitting social mistakes. This is people being assholes because they know they can get away with it.

Furthermore, not having met any of these people but speculating based on my experience, I would guess that their motivations go beyond just looking for sex and knowing that one time in twenty it will work. I think they also enjoy the nineteen out of twenty who are repulsed and insulted but don't -- correction, hopefully, _didn 't_ \-- think they could afford to call them on their bullshit. Very few people are genuinely indifferent to putting someone through an experience like that, but it's very common for people to enjoy it. Those are the people we call bullies, whether their acts are criminal or not. I'm sure the people described in the article took care to stay on the right side of the law, but reading this I can't help hoping that they made mistakes.

<comment><USER5> > _This is people being assholes because they know they can get away with it._

Nope.

These people are being assholes because they ARE assholes.

Never attribute to rational decision making what can be attributed to rotten character.

<comment><USER6> People aren't archetypes or labels; that's too black & white, un-nuanced thinking. Psychological and sociological reseach proved most people act however they're expected to within a given power dynamic circumstance, except for a few outliers which will go their own way, for anti- or pro-community.

This wrong "bad apples" analogy as it applies to police or genocide perpetrators also is dangerous because it's simply untrue. Well meaning people will commit atrocities if directed to by a superior authority figure; the Stanford Prison experiment and the Milgram experiments underscore this.

Instead, there must be social and business pressures brought to bear to prevent emboldened behavior with accountability. If there is boundaryless affluenza anarchy, spoiled brats will overtly behave however they wish. If there are consequences, the behavior will be reduced and become covert. There must be constant vigilance on the part of those stakeholders to enforce consistent accountability for professional/personal behavior.

<comment><USER7> Sorry but no. The two experiments you cite are ancient and riddled with holes, they are red flags for any psychologist worth their salt. The people described in this article are sexist assholes, plain and simple. You can argue all about how the environment they grew up in made them that way, but not that that's not what they are.

<comment><USER8> Milgram's experiment has been replicated several time, even in several cultures. Good to know social psychology researchers are not "worth their salt"

And yeah, actually, your culture and socialization is a big part of what you are. You can blame them, but refusing to try and understand how they became assholes means nothing will change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a watershed moment in the VC industry. The dam has finally burst, and we're now seeing the establishment of a new norm in which women who are being harassed go public rather than feeling compelled to hide it. Expect to see many men who were operating under the old norms getting ousted.

<comment><USER10> I expect less VCs to take meetings with women, sadly. Not because they are likely to be problems, quite the opposite I'd wager.

That's going to be the rather depressing and sad reality of the shakeout of this.

<comment><USER11> > I expect less VCs to take meetings with women, sadly.

Why? There's a really simple procedure that can solve these problems:

 _Don 't hit on, feel-up, or try to have sex with people you're in a professional business relationship with_. That goes double for people you hold power over (managers to employees, VCs to Founders, etc).

If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: _record your meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders_ and/or don't meet alone.

I expect smart VCs that are interested in making money (as opposed to lording it over others or using their position to get sex) will continue to take lots of meetings with women.

<comment><USER12> > I expect less VCs to take meetings with women, sadly. Why? There's a really > simple procedure that can solve these problems: Don't hit on, feel-up, or > try to have sex with people you're in a professional business relationship > with. That goes double for people you hold power over (managers to > employees, VCs to Founders, etc). If you're really truly worried about false > accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: record your > meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders and/or don't meet alone.

You simply expose your naivete.

[http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording- law](http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law)

Any recordings done without the approval of the other party are illegal (opening you up to legal actions) and are completely inadmissible in court.

<comment><USER13> If you're a VC, you can just ask if it's okay that you record the meeting for record-keeping or pick-your-reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> tuna-piano Wow, this seems terrible. For these women (and from the sounds of it, many more) to always have to second guess if an investor likes them for good business reasons or whether it's just because they're pretty. To always dread meeting a new business contact, knowing there's a small but substantial chance he'll make some awkward comment.

Some thoughts:

1\. Is this more common in silicon valley than elsewhere? (I've never seen any remotely similar male->female sexual harassment in the non-valley places I've worked)

2\. Is this more common among high-powered people than low-powered people (seems definitely so)?

3\. There's definitely a double standard here. I once worked (in tech) with a good looking former male model. There were many very suggestive comments made to him and about him, and they made him feel obviously uncomfortable. Of course, the women making these comments did so pretty openly and with humor, as female->male is not really considered wrong for sexual harassment.

4\. Obviously some of these remarks are worse than others. But many people do end up dating and marrying their coworkers (Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Phil Knight...). I think there is not a black-and-white line for suggestive comments to people you are connected with at work. The line is thick and grey, but wow do some of these guys not have any self-awareness.

<comment> tuna-piano I just want to elaborate on point #4. I chose those examples purposefully: Those three are all well-known business leaders who have dated or married their subordinates. Presumably, there was a point where Gates/Brin/Knight initiated or suggested to initiate romantic involvement.

If as it turns out the woman had not been interested, in retrospect, would the methods of initiation seem like sexual harassment? I believe it's very likely they might.

Again, there are clearly methods that are right and clearly some that are wrong. But I have a feeling the large grey area can be considered harassment if a woman turns out not to be interested, and adoringly recalled in a heart- warming wedding toast if they end up getting married.

<comment><USER14> If the women isn't interested, you stop. Seems like many men have a problem with rejection and accepting no, that's usually when it becomes creepy.

Had Gates asked his now SO out and she said no and then he politely went on his way like a respectful human being I really doubt anyone would cry sexual harassment.

<comment><USER15> > If the women isn't interested, you stop.

I feel like this is much easier said than done. Emotions can be complex and fickle. Many books have been written about how to woo a potential mate. There have been tales of love potions for hundreds of years. The dating scene is filled with people who use subtle manipulative behaviour to score.

What I'm trying to say is that it can be very hard to know whether someone is interested. And the success of your wooing efforts determines -- retroactively -- their creep factor.

<comment><USER16> It's pretty easy to tell if someone is interested in you. It's when you ask them on a date, and they say yes.

If they say no, the respectful thing is to drop it.

Do the respectful thing. This is really uncomplicated. There aren't any "ifs" or "buts" after that. The notion that this is the time to start wooing is absurdly wrong. That's the time to know you've been rejected, and move on.

Accepting rejection, incidentally, seems like something many of these VCs have trained themselves to be terrible at professionally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I feel deeply uncomfortable on 500 Startups positions on this ([https://500.co/making-changes-at-500/](https://500.co/making-changes- at-500/)) for four reasons:

1) 500Startups considered these issues to be serious enough to remove McClure from his role but didn't publicly disclose this. This meant that he presumably could continue to meet female founders and other WIT while still appearing to be in a position of power.

2) A number of LPs in 500 have stated that they were not told this change had happened and the reasons why. This suggests that 500 were trying to keep this as quiet as possible.

3) McClure continued to represent 500Startups in his official role after his apparent removal. A few weeks ago he was deeply involved in the launch of 500Melbourne in Australia.

4) Eight days ago Tsai tweeted "Binary Capital's Justin Caldbeck accused of unwanted sexual advances towards female founders. Where's the outrage?" while at the same time being fully aware that 500Startups was not disclosing McClure's behaviour.

500 Startups has done good work in the past on diversity but this appears to extend beyond McClure and they need to adopt full disclosure and address what from the outside could look like an attempt to cover-up inappropriate behaviour.

<comment><USER18> How do you know that this didn't all go down in last 72 hours?

<comment><USER19> Because they say as much right in the second paragraph?

"In recent months, we found out that my co-founder Dave McClure had inappropriate interactions with women in the tech community."

"In recent months" is a hell of a lot longer than "In the last 72 hours."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> News flash: finance guys have predatory attitudes toward women.

OK, not news at all. VC is part of the finance industry. No, it's not "disruptive" or in opposition to that industry in any way. Just look at who's putting all that money in before it's doled back out to entrepreneurs. Look at who has the power to force someone like McClure out. Yep, just a differently decorated branch office of Wall Street.

VC partners hew to the norms of their own industry, not the industries they invest in. The finance industry is a notorious bastion of the old boys' club preying on everyone else, with much of the dirty work done by hyper-aggressive young bloods vying to be among the very few elevated into the inner circle as its older members die off. _Of course_ VCs behave this way, just like TV/movie producers and all the other specialized branches of the finance industry. How could anyone have expected or believed otherwise?

<comment><USER21> "toward women"? Toward anybody including each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> For everyone who is wondering why these people act the way they do, the answer is that their actions work _some of the time_. Otherwise, why would they do it if they continually strike out?

What one person might see as harassment, another might see as an exciting "chase". I've known women who have had guys be very aggressive (it's a fine line) and they were quite taken by it.

This of course is not excusing the behavior whatsoever. If you lack the social skills to see when you've crossed the line, the best approach is avoid the behavior all together.

<comment><USER23> > For everyone who is wondering why these people act the way they do, the > answer is that their actions work some of the time. Otherwise, why would > they do it if they continually strike out?

Eehhhh... I don't buy that.

I think some guys just literally have no real idea to create romantic relationships. The best they can come up with is trying to leverage their financial power with shitty pick-up lines.

<comment><USER24> You could not be more wrong. This absolutely works for some people, and both participants enjoy it.

<comment><USER23> This is probably what the dudes in the NYTimes article think to themselves, too.

<comment><USER22> You need to get out more. People have different preferences when it comes to sexual interactions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I give a lot of credit to women like Susan Fowler who were brave enough to speak out, with starting what feels a bit like a tidal wave. I hope we see similar light shone on institutionalized racism.

<comment><USER26> You'd rather say that she was sufficiently well connnected to make her voice heard. Even then she came public only after she had left the company and was employed elsewhere.

<comment><USER27> Indeed. Anyone who was old enough to understand the Clarence Thomas sexual harassment investigation can recall how much Anita Hill was dragged through the mud, despite having a compelling case.

I think the fact that Susan was not currently suing Uber was the primary reason why her story was believed by the general public. The critics who would howl "she's just trying to make false accusations for a payday" had no ammunition. Either that or things have dramatically changed for the better since the 90s.

<comment><USER25>
       > Either that or things have dramatically changed for
       > the better since the 90s.

I expect it is a bit of both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I had always heard the constant murmur of sexual harassment happening in the Valley, but I was never sure if there was any merit to it. I anecdotally had never seen anything that would even come _close_ to a situation like those described, so I kind of brushed it off.

But then articles like these come out. Wow. These are some of the kingpins of Silicon Valley shown sexually harassing with hard, factual evidence. I had no idea.

<comment><USER29> Aside, and not meant at you specifically, but: Next time you hear "a constant murmur" of harassment, racism, or other bad behaviour, _ _believe it_ _.

That constant murmur is the sound of a thousand stories like this that don't (yet) have the coordination to hit the pages of the NYT at the same time and become "credible". A month ago, there were dozens of female founders sitting on stories like this who were _still_ afraid to go public. And they were afraid because good, decent people like you, who "had never seen anything like it" would "dismiss it out of hand" if they told.

(Obligatory disclaimers: You don't need to believe every story 100% unconditionally, but "a constant murmur" = "multiple corroborating sources" and should not be ignored. Also, I want to praise rather than criticise the parent comment, because acknowledging why we were ignoring these stories is a vital first step to not ignoring the next one we hear.)

<comment><USER30> > Next time you hear "a constant murmur" of harassment, racism, or other bad > behaviour, _believe it_.

Um, no?

There's a constant murmur of racism in SV companies. I haven't seen that at all. In fact, the opposite. Doesn't mean there's no racism, but I'd rather have actual examples before I buy into that line.

There's a constant murmur of ageism in tech companies. I haven't seen that either. Plenty of people over 40, over 50 in tech. Fewer over 60, but this is a newish field still.

I've managed to go some 20 years in tech without seeing hardly any guys openly hit on girls at work -- except a couple of cases where they're now married. So why should I just " __believe it__ ", before reading stories like these recent articles?

<comment><USER31> Believe it or not, there is stuff happening that you are not aware of. If your first reaction to hearing such things is "Well I've never seen it, therefore it probably doesn't exist", maybe some self-reflection is in order.

<comment><USER30> Thanks for the tip. I didn't realize other stuff happens around me.

But still, there's lots of "constant murmurs" that don't pan out, and in many cases they're driven by agendas. It's easy to make or perpetuate claims when there's no attribution, no specific examples, etc. Just vague innuendos.

So if some vague innuendo is contrary to my personal experience, yeah I won't believe it as fact.

Kudos to these women for bringing VC sexism out of the realm of murmurs.

<comment><USER31> Sure, I'm not saying you should 100% believe everything you hear. Just that dismissing such things outright based on a lack of personal experience is also not the right way.

<comment><USER30> Dismissing would be wrong. Absolutely!

The poster above me said (and emphasized) that when there's constant murmurs, you should __believe it__. Very wrong. Keep an open mind, but don't "believe" it outright just yet.

<comment><USER32> You're not from the US (originally), are you :) Polarising is a cultural thing there. "You're either with us or against us".

(I guess it's a cultural thing from their two-party system or something)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Apologies" like Chris Sacca's [0] don't make you too hopeful.

      Often I have committed as their first limited partner and encouraged them
      to use my name and participation to attract other investment. I've
      introduced them to my fund's most loyal investors and made sure they have
      had the opportunity to make their case rather than get lost in an inbox.
      I've also connected them to our trusted service providers saving them the
      time and frustration I experienced when trying to get my first fund off
      the ground. Above all else, I've rolled up my sleeves and spent the time
      mentoring many of them in how to approach the business itself and how to
      navigate the inevitable challenges that arise.

Yea, that's what VCs do? Just apologize and take a bit of time to rethink stuff, nobody's going to be reassured by lame platitudes.

[0] [https://medium.com/@sacca/i-have-more-work-to- do-c775c5d56ca...](https://medium.com/@sacca/i-have-more-work-to- do-c775c5d56ca1)

<comment><USER34> What would be enough to you?

<comment><USER35> It would be a good start if he came to this realization on his own, instead of right after being contacted by the New York Times going "Hey, we're going to publish a story about your sexual harassment, do you want to dispute this account".

<comment><USER36> People make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes go back years, and sometimes a sudden traumatic event can snap someone out of the patterns of behavior they fell into.

The point is that it's probably a mistake to treat him the same way you'd treat certain kinds of felons. Part of that is to give him an opportunity to contribute in a positive way to the world, like everyone else. If he's genuine, then isn't there some way to do that?

<comment><USER37> Normally people have to do some penance before forgiveness, especially as the crimes grow more heinous. Continuing to live the rich and privileged life you were leading before, more or less untouched by the hand of justice, does not count for much in this dimension.

<comment><USER36> Certainly. But what does justice look like here?

If nobody knows or nobody's willing to venture a guess, then we should at least acknowledge that complete social ostracism is a massive penalty. Are you sure the punishment fits the crime? It seems more likely that there's a reasonable middle ground, but maybe someone has a persuasive argument to the contrary.

<comment><USER35> I don't see any sign that "complete social ostracism" is the actual outcome here, or even a plausible outcome.

<comment><USER36> His reputation is in ruins. It remains to be seen whether anybody will do business with him. Both of those combined equals social ostracism, so we should at least be sure it's warranted.

<comment><USER35> This sounds remarkably like the sort of sky-is-falling rhetoric I heard on this website when Brendan Eich was pushed out of Mozilla. He's now the CEO of a of a two-year-old startup with $7M in funding. I'd love to have my reputation ruined in the way Brendan Eich's was!

It is technically true that it remains to be seen whether anybody will do business with him, but I strongly suspect they will. For the purpose of accurately testing this hypothesis, note that he _already_ retired from both Lowercase Capital and _Shark Tank_ a couple months ago: [https://lowercasecapital.com/2017/04/26/hanging-up-my- spurs/](https://lowercasecapital.com/2017/04/26/hanging-up-my-spurs/)

There are a couple of projects listed there (Zach Braff's new ABC show, his new podcast, some different form of investing): we can see if those come to fruition.

<comment><USER38> Dragging my name into threads about harassment is lazy analogizing. Adding the post hoc, propter hoc fallacy (I got a CEO startup job and funding after being "pushed out", therefore because of that) is just dopey. I founded Brave, it was not just a job offered to me.

Nothing about my exit from Mozilla made fund-raising or building Brave easier than it would have been without my exit. If I had stayed at Mozilla and managed to sell the Brave plan internally (unlikely), I'd have had lots more funding and market power. What I've done has been achieved through careful planning, hard work, and help from the great team I recruited.

You can stop dragging my name into these kinds of HN threads now (two and counting!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> How is it that the old money industries of Wall Street and Hollywood, no vanguards of gender egalitarianism themselves, seem to have less flagrant sexual harassment issues? Do they keep them under wraps or are they just more mature by now?

<comment><USER40> The tech industry, for all it's faults and transgressions, is still a relatively progressive industry (emphasis on RELATIVE). "Old money industries" have been getting away with this type of behavior for decades, if not centuries. Women in those jobs probably see no point in reporting it or coming forward. Why would they? It's not going to make headlines that the secretary at Goldman Sachs gets propositioned for sex by top executives. She's just going to lose her job, in all likelihood.

So I would argue, it isn't that those industries have less flagrant sexual harassment. It's that you just don't hear about it. It doesn't make headlines.

<comment><USER41> See Wolf of Wall St for most vivid example. I'll also add it's extremely common in sales all over the country. Especially telemarketing, phone sales, boiler rooms, and so on. A large number of women I've talked to over the years in those positions say it's crazy. That movie even brought flashbacks for at least one I talked to who told me of huge parties with barbeque, pools, drugs, and tabs for employees for beer and hotel rooms. I actually went to the first half of one of that company's parties at her invitation. Too crazy and too many hard drugs for me so I left. I've seen similar stuff at corporate offices of what you'd consider boring industries where on the executive or senior level they'd waste company money on parties with dates, secretaries, hookers or whatever. Nowhere near as extreme as the Wolf but same problems.

So, yeah, I have probably over a hundred anecdotes especially in sales but in general saying the right-leaning, ultra-capitalist areas have a lot of it nobody cares to report. Plus, it gets worse in "right to work" (aka fire without cause) states where there's limited job availability or the man/woman being harassed has been at company so long them not getting a reference can be held over them. Lots of reasons not to report.

<comment><USER42> The other side of this coin is that many people have sex at work. So when a guy/gal comes in and sees this is the MO they may try to participate.

<comment><USER43> There's sex at work, but there's also just many relationships that start or get set up at work and lead to marriage. Put men and women together in an environment that already cements a shared general interest and you're going to see that. People who treat every fellow employee the same as an amorphous blob are operating under a strange way of viewing the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Buried lede: Dave McClure implicated and is out of daily operations at 500 Startups

<comment><USER44> /That's/ the lede you're taking away from this story? Some asshole's fall from grace?

<comment><USER41> Personally, I prioritize "A problem got solved" over "people are talking about problems." One thing I like about this article, the Uber situation, and so on is they're getting some results. The massive problem still remains and is the lede but that's another good one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> _Saying anything, the women were warned, might lead to ostracism._

The problem is that women are already being ostracized. When you can't get hired or you can't get VC money or you can't get business connections because the only time men will talk to you is to hit on you, you are already basically dead in the water as a business person.

How do we get out of this dead end?

<comment><USER46> > How do we get out of this dead end?

It's a chicken and egg problem. The biggest systemic factor is the absurd gender ratio, but if the consequences of that are self-reinforcing then the status quo remains.

Many people have the instinct to turn to anti-harassment policies and enforcement, but that's like trying to fight cancer with aspirin. It might help a little bit but it's no cure no matter how much you use, and too much will cause problems without solving any.

But "we need more women in tech" is just the problem statement. Nobody seems to actually know how to get there from here.

<comment><USER47> One obvious step is that we need to do what we do in every other subject: force all children to learn enough tech to figure out whether they are good at it or not by making it a required class. When schools do that, they find that tons of girls excel at programming, but probably never would have tried it if it hadn't been mandatory.

Dealing with harassment in the industry is also key, but even if that was eliminated completely it wouldn't close the gender gap that exists by the time kids graduate high school. And the educational bit is much more straightforward to implement, it just takes a lot of money to be thrown at the problem.

<comment><USER48> "forcing all children to..." is never an answer

<comment><USER47> Forcing all children to go to school has been an answer for a few generations now, and even with the crappy imperfect education system that we have, it's paid off immensely. I'm merely suggesting that tech is now important enough to warrant inclusion in that curriculum as a way of making it slightly more relevant and less crappy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Has anyone seen a policy on how to handle sexual harassment allegations in the work place? If it comes down to 'he says she says' do you fire someone even though you don't have evidence? Similarly, if you don't fire someone and new allegations come up later then it makes the employer look like they are an enabler.

<comment><USER50> > If it comes down to 'he says she says' do you fire someone even though you > don't have evidence?

If an employee of yours said they were raped by another employee, would you make them go to the hospital and get a rape kit before believing what they said?

If an employee of yours said they got mugged and lost their laptop, would you demand security camera footage before replacing it?

You should default to trusting your employees. You hired them! They are invested in the company, potentially with equity! Especially in at-will employment agreements, I think this should be much closer to "Management reserves the right to let go of anyone at any time for any reason" than the criminal standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt."

<comment><USER51> If you don't do any validation, this will be noticed and you will encourage false reports as a means of settling unrelated personal scores.

That management reserves the right to dismiss for any reason doesn't mean that dismissing based on bare unconfirmed complaints is reasonable, either morally or from a business perspective.

<comment><USER52> Where are you working that you can reasonably imagine this happening? The risks of someone making this claim are so, so high, yet you believe someone would do this just to 'settle unrelated personal scores'?

<comment><USER53> You'd think we wouldn't need a security camera in our break room to stop people from stealing other people's food, but we do. People do all sorts of petty crap. If you expect rational behavior, you're going to be disappointed.

<comment><USER41> I envy that. I eat out or hide my food just because they won't put a camera in ours. Too much stuff stolen. I did get a thief once by putting a special ingredient in it then leaving it _clearly marked with large letters and warning_. They probably thought, "Screw him. He can't prove nothing." Jokes on him. :)

Just did it once, though. I put a lot of effort into avoiding harming innocent people. The bar is getting lower and people are often tired so someone might grab it thinking it was a sample or something. Just too tired to be smart or something. So, continuing to avoid the fridge except looking for any freebies company provides. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Harassment goes both ways. I have worked in Silicon Valley for 8 years. I have heard women managers and even a CEO say and do inappropriate things. Not only did the woman CEO say horrible things about her employees, she was also a bad CEO.

<comment><USER55> I've watched a COO of NYSE listed company on stage at company meeting describe something bad as 'gay' with 0 repercussions

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> As I was trying to say in the techcrunch submission, without defending the real assholes, my honest takeout by the whole sexual harassment threshold in the bay area or the US in general is that you could never end up together or even married with a colleague in that paranoid atmosphere.

Which is exactly what I did where I live in Italy. Happily married and yes, after saying things to a colleague of mine that would have made me accused in the bay area.

</comment><comment><USER57> On the one hand, I cringe when reading such accounts, and wonder which one of the people around me are engaging in such behavior?

On the other hand, I'm glad these women are going public, as nothing scatters cockroaches like sunlight.

</comment><comment><USER58> I don't know if it is appropriate to say, but I think overt preference in hiring females is one of the biggest cause. Almost every tech company hire women with less qualifications to improve the the diversity. I know it is for the best, but in personal experience, it is very spoken thing between some males. Few interpret inside their head that the females are for them. I think it is evident even in snippets of this article: "I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you." It kind of means that she is not qualified to be hired, according to him, but.. I don't know, it is a complex relationship.

</comment><comment><USER59> Avoiding this situation is why I never meet women 1:1 outside of conference rooms, yet Mike Pence was roundly mocked for doing this.

<comment><USER60> Regardless of intent, this contributes to the problem.

A lot of mentoring and networking happens on a 1:1 basis, and if men refuse to meet women 1:1 in situations where they would meet with other men, then women will lose out on career opportunities.

<comment><USER61> This. In taking a new role several years ago, I had selected a woman to be part of my new leadership team. I was counseled by a peer (of sorts) to never take a closed-door 1:1 meeting with her; that it was simply too risky.

How the hell am I supposed to run a department without ever having a closed- door 1:1 meeting with 1/4 of my leadership team? I ignored the warning and things of course played out just fine, but it did give me some pause that people would think that simply having a meeting would be too risky to consider.

<comment><USER58> I also think the same way. In my experience, most single guys can be divided into two categories, ones who have predatory attitudes for girls or the ones who has fear talking to females. Both are actually bad for the girls.

<comment><USER62> Your experience seems to be unique, because there are lots of single guys who don't have both. As if you stated that being single is a deviance at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I remember coming across a 2011 article on similar behavior by a New York investor, where I could not figure out whether the writers were condoning the behavior, in an almost fawning tone, or highlighting a problem. [http://observer.com/2011/11/charlie-odonnell-women-in- tech-d...](http://observer.com/2011/11/charlie-odonnell-women-in-tech-dating- dealflow/)

Just read it again, it is beyond cringeworthy.

<comment><USER64> He's now an investor in The Wing

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Isn't there an inherent culture among men that dates all the way back to middle school, high school, and college that somewhat sets the tone for inappropriate behavior later in life?

These kinds of behaviours happen a lot and begin at a very young age. And they seem to be okayed by nearly everyone then. Why don't these things stop before they begin? I almost feel sorry for the men in these stories because the rules seem to have changed on them at some point and nobody told them when.

Let's be clear! These actions are not ok in any work setting at any work level in any industry in any situation of diversity or lack thereof. Further, these actions are not ok in college, in high school, or middle school and in any area of education.

Today the focus is on the investment industry, but it happens everywhere, from the bar to restaurants to company meetings. And these articles need to do generalize the environment beyond startup valley. Everyone should be put on alert. Even bystanders.

<comment><USER66> You can't tarnish all men with the same brush though. Not all men exhibit this behaviour.

<comment><USER8> You forgot the hashtag, mate. #notallmen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Made me think of this NYT article from 2010 which mentions the fundraising experience of a female CEO/Founder. [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/technology/18women.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/technology/18women.html)

Some gross anecdotes about Bay Area VCs showing naked pictures of themselves, asking about her husband's sexual performance, etc.

(For the record, the company she was trying to fund has been quite successful.)

</comment><comment><USER68> I've known Marc Canter for almost two decades now. I've been to his house, out to dinner with him, in classes he's taught, and at startups he's been a part of. I have never once seen him hit on anyone. He's also not a particularly powerful person in silicon valley. He is very socially awkward, however.

I'd, personally, like to see the proof before I condemn the man.

</comment><comment><USER69> I wonder how ubiquitous this behavior is? And how often it applies to reversed gender and same-sex scenarios as well? Do general demographics play a role? In any given male or female dominated industry, is the less dominant gender more likely to experience harassment?

Many people I know (both female and male) have been come onto in a work environment by someone they are not interested in, or experienced an inappropriate scenario or comment, or experienced unwanted flirting or propositions. I think most people simply don't talk about it outside of their friend or social group.

</comment><comment><USER70> Wow, think for a second how hard is to be an entrepreneur. All the shit we have to deal with at so many different levels. These women goes beyond that, literally putting everything on the line. Much respect.

<comment><USER71> This has nothing to do with being an entrepreneur. The same behavior happens on all levels.

<comment><USER72> Entrepreneurs aren't protected the same way employees are, FWIW

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Scroll down to the bottom comments for real personal anecdotes and experiences; and contrasting perspectives.

The bottom comments are important to complete this discussion if you are willing to entertain different thoughts.

I won't say more here, because I want people to actually be able to find this comment. Unlike the ones at the bottom.

Cheers.

</comment><comment><USER74> I always knew women had an unfair disadvantage in this industry. But I never realized it was this bad. This is a whole different level then I imagined, and makes me want to throw up. On behalf of my gender (im a male if that wasnt obvious from my lack of awareness) I would like to sincerely apologise. Women, please keep telling us these stories. Please have the strength to "go public" with this information. It helped me realize the severity of the situation, hopefully it will spread.

</comment><comment><USER75> As a man, I really value these clear, blunt accounts. It's like a bug report with details - here's what I need to know to identify the problem, and begin addressing it.

</comment><comment><USER76> I would find it highly ironic if start up culture ends up adopting some variation of the "Mike Pence Rule" (which he got from Billy Graham) as a result of these incidents. Some of the comments sound like they suggesting similar things.

</comment><comment><USER77> It takes such incredible bravery to call out this kind of behavior in a palce that can feel too much like an old boys club. I'm in awe of these women. From Susan Fowler to Niniane Wang to Leiti Hsu & Susan Ho to the ones in this article. I don't know any of them but they are the catalysts of progress. It's up to all of us to make sure this is a turning point for an industry that needs to do so much better.

</comment><comment><USER78> About sexism - I think it's a problem of culture in general - it is not socially acceptable for a young lad to approach attractive lady and say "I'd like to mate with you".

(it requires courage, game, pre-frame...)

All these VCs and senior managers - they are in position of power - too bad their sexuality is so oppressed - they should get some training how to tactfully deal with it, how to tactfully approach potential partners and maybe introduce "get out of jail free card":

1) I know I'm in position of power

2) You know you are attractive

3) We both know it is inappropriate

4) But hey look, I like you, we could create a great team

5) Because I'm biased I won't be participating in the recruitment process

6) Your recruitment will be purely based on merit

7) If you want to date with me, that's great...

8) ...if not - I'll make sure my attitude won't affect you

9) And BTW I'm in a dating season now, so if you say "no" it's not big deal at all.

That's 9 bullet points, you can add 10th just because:

10) I respect you, if you feel offended for any reason that's OK too (it's OK to be not OK). I act with the highest degree of honesty, transparency and integrity. If you decide to report to TechCrunch remember to get my name right.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succ%C3%A8s_de_scandale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succ%C3%A8s_de_scandale) \- "there is no such thing as bad publicity"

<comment><USER79> Too bad several of those things are impossible - "my attitude won't affect you" \- "I won't be participating in the recruitment process" \- "its not a big deal". Because emotion is involved, there will be fallout from a 'no' (or even a 'yes'). And because of #1, they can't just not participate. Somebody will ask their opinion, or even take their silence as an opinion.

There's a very good reason people in a position of power are strictly _not to 'date' folks_ that work for them, or apply to work for them.

<comment><USER78> > And because of #1, they can't just not participate

1) I know I'm in position of power

The moment the "get out of jail free card" is used, there are no further comments so that silence is not an opinion.

> take their silence as an opinion

We can improve the exact wording, we can iterate on that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Visiting the page I'm getting this error: Invalid URL

The requested URL "[http://%5bNo%20Host%5d/2017/06/30/technology/women- entrepren...](http://%5bNo%20Host%5d/2017/06/30/technology/women- entrepreneurs-speak-out-sexual-harassment.html?"), is invalid. Reference #9.360e4cdb.1498896362.1047f8d

</comment><comment><USER81> No one noticed the photos with rather pin-up poses?

</comment><comment><USER82> Douchebags are always one too many but Silicon Valley, like every other human environment based on ambition and greed, is surely not the safest / shiniest congregation on planet Earth?

</comment><comment><USER83> > Lindsay Meyer, an entrepreneur in San Francisco, said Mr. Caldbeck put > $25,000 of his own money into her fitness start-up in 2015. That gave Mr. > Caldbeck reason to constantly text her; in those messages, reviewed by The > Times, he asked if she was attracted to him and why she would rather be with > her boyfriend than him. At times, he groped and kissed her, she said.

> "I felt like I had to tolerate it because this is the cost of being a > nonwhite female founder," said Ms. Meyer, who is Asian-American.

As abhorrent as Caldbeck's behavior was, what difference does being nonwhite make? It doesn't seem like white female founders don't get sexually harassed.

<comment><USER84> In this particular case, Caldbeck was exclusively (and clumsily) harassing Asian women.

<comment><USER83> Despite this aspect of the case, framing it as a problem of being "nonwhite" implies that Caldbeck's harassment extended to black or hispanic women for example, which it did not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Have things become worse or is Seattle different? I saw none of this behavior during my tenure at Microsoft (1996-2000). Admittedly I am a dude, though a lifelong feminist.

<comment><USER86> There was an interview with Sara Lacy(sp?) from Pando where she says that it changed when the founder demographic changed. Before, it was either nerds, or older, experienced people from Intel, Cisco etc. Now, the "bros" are starting companies.

She credits The Social Network with being a self-fulfilling prophecy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> One thing that always makes me very sad is to see women working nearby top males in a company to look nowhere like normal women, but more like top models. Sometimes this happens just because a very beautiful woman is also very smart, but given the frequency of this thing I bet that there are cases of a conscious bias to select hot women. Now if you hire on purpose beautiful women that's a pretty good recipe for disasters.

</comment><comment><USER88> Takes a lot of courage to do this. People that fight their employers can sometimes be seen a problematic during background checks and can be dismissed for BS reasons (or not providing a reason at all).

</comment><comment><USER89> I'm ashamed of my colleagues and my industry.

<comment><USER50> You can work to make it better! A lot of the recommendations in the Holder Report would be useful for any company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> Here we are, a moment where history changes, but human nature doesn't.

It is true: these women are brave and correct in action. The men failed in their professional responsibilities. Silicon Valley has the advantage of being the keeper of a market where the individuals in the labor pool have greater rights than their counterparts in Hollywood and Wall Street (where similar ongoings are typically kept hush-hush).

Yet what will be the outcome? Will the men with money now be afraid to take a professional meeting with a woman for fear of their own desires OR for fear that something negative will come of it? If the risk of a meeting may now include the risk of a lawsuit / losing your position and reputation, the calculus doesn't work out.

This could lead to a strange dystopian outcome: segregated funnels. Women VCs / Male VCs - some overlap may occur, but most end up meeting with their own gender.

Or not. Just a thought experiment on incentives and outcomes. Most likely we'll go back to regularly scheduled programming in a few months time. Some folks get kicked out, and a new batch will be there to replace 'em.

</comment><comment><USER91> These are horrible stories.

Interesting to see if folks on HN have had the experience of being attracted to an interviewee/interviewer, or investee/investor, and how they dealt with it given the complexities involved.

<comment><USER61> Of course I have. I've also found waitresses or bartenders or other people attractive. If there wasn't a drive for sex programmed into us (as a species), we (as a species) probably would have been out-competed in evolution.

How you deal with it is by ignoring it when it would be inappropriate to act on it (or at most, treat as a pleasant-but-valueless part of your day).

Now (being married and holding very strict views on monogamy) it's perhaps even more clear/easier than when I was single, but even then it was clear that you don't hit on your waitress as an example. That easily extends to interviewees and subordinates at work or anywhere else where someone can't freely and without consequence say "Hey, maybe I'm flattered, but I'm definitely not interested."

(For full disclosure, I have dated colleagues before and know of and support intra-company romances where there is no supervisory relationship. You don't have to close your eyes and pretend you will never find anyone at work to be subjectively attractive. You just have to not ever be an asshole about it, and that's not that hard a goal.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> Good. Hopefully this change sweeps across all occupations are areas of the US and abroad.

</comment><comment><USER93> Wealth protects you in America, and these VC's know it.

<comment><USER94> Where in the world doesn't wealth protect you?

<comment><USER95> Russia

<comment><USER94> Putin's keeping 'em in line

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> Yet another reason to NEVER move to silicon valley.

PROS:

* if you land a job at a Fortune 50 company you could end up making $300k after 5-6 years if you are a badass. These are all big ifs.

* lots of sunshine

* easier access to venture capital

CONS:

* high taxes

* real estate is 10x inflated compared to most of the rest of the country

* actually, everything costs more there. The valley also has the highest gasoline prices in the country. Even food is more expensive there.

* the top employers have, in the past, colluded to illegally not hire each other's developers

* illegal sexual harassment appears to be a cultural norm

* housing shortages

* weird local politics (social justice warriors are actually a thing there)

\---

In summary the valley looks like a great place for founders (if male) but horrid for employees.

</comment><comment><USER97> _> Lindsay Meyer, an entrepreneur in San Francisco, said Mr. Caldbeck put $25,000 of his own money into her fitness start-up in 2015. That gave Mr. Caldbeck reason to constantly text her; in those messages, reviewed by The Times, he asked if she was attracted to him and why she would rather be with her boyfriend than him. At times, he groped and kissed her, she said._

Nice! Here's grade-A material for the 46. President of the United States of America /s

edit: added /s because it apparently wasn't obvious to some out there. Further clarification: This is a sarcastic comment on the fact that the USA have a president who has publicly admitted to sexually harassing women. With that person at the helm of the nation, how can anyone be surprised by others behaving similarly?

</comment><comment><USER98> This is a little off-topic so mods, please flag/move as needed. (Wasn't sure if I should make this an Ask HN or not).

I feel I may be a victim of a false accusation of sexual harassment. I am really not sure how to proceed at this point. I have not put up a fight for fear that I could loose my job (which may already be in the works at this point). Management has not used the term "sexual harassment", only the verbiage that "I have made a female employee feel uncomfortable".

As I am currently in a temporary internship position due to end in a few months, I am not so concerned about this job, but this experience has made me very concerned about being falsely accused in the future of sexual harassment or rape. Should I just avoid all interaction with women at work completely? How would I do this with a female boss? (refusing to meet with her in private?)

Any advice is welcome.

<comment><USER99> Take legal advice, not HN advice.

<comment><USER98> Good idea! Thank you! Being this is an internship ending in a few months, I feel it might not be worth it, but definitely in the future, when a permanent position or clean criminal history may be at stake, I think a legal consultation would be appropriate. I just wonder, is there anything I can do to reduce such risk other than just being extremely cautious when speaking to women?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> > a volunteer organization who went directly from "I don't think I can see a > movie tonight" to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" with nothing > in between.

She tried to tell you gently in the way girls are taught to reject men while still being nice to them. If you reject dude other way, some tend to t get insulted anyway.

You did not get it, so she informed you flat out about how she really think about the situation. You got angry :).

Don't force us to walk super tight balancing act where being nice is too subtle, but telling it flat out is wrong and there are maybe two magical phrases (different for every guy) that are allowed. For one, not every girl has such super high social skills. For the other, there is no way to win in that situation.

<comment><USER101> Communications that are subtle and ambiguous are highly likely to be misinterpreted, and it is not reasonable to assume that the recipient reached the intended conclusion. Depending on what the above poster meant by escalating to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" I may or may not agree with the above commenter's statement that the person being approached acted irrationally.

If the person being approached followed up the ambiguous rejection with something along the lines of, "I don't want to go out with you, please do not approach me again" then that's a totally reasonable response; it's escalating from a soft "no" to a hard "no".

If the person being approach said something to the effect of, "you're harassing me with repeated advances after a rejection" then I'd consider that behavior to be irrational. The person who approached communicated denial in a very ambiguous manner that could easily be interpreted as asking for an alternate time to go out. It isn't rational to call a co-worker a harasser for asking somebody out after giving an ambiguous denial. Granted, if they continued to make approaches after giving an unambiguous denial, like the one written in the 2nd paragraph, then by all means this is harassment.

<comment><USER100> I assumed literal "you are making me uncomfortable" \- I think it is best to go with what parent wrote. The "you're harassing me with repeated advances after a rejection" does not sound how real people talk.

I also think that saying whatever gets the person away is rational - <USER2> it might be rude in context. I mean, you assume that saying something insulting or exaggerated is irrational, but that is not how we judge rationality in other contexts.

My experience was that when collegues started bullshit (not harrasment but they had many jokes about women targeted at me), being nuanced and nice and "rational" did not made situation better. Just longer while they had fun and I definitely did not. Answering in hostile rude way right away turned out to work much better - issue largely ceased to exist.

I think that the expectation that women should be the nice one is what creates a lot of problems. It is teaching girls ineffective communication (which leaves them thinking only two options are HR or leave). People on the spectrum honestly don't get nice, people who test boundaries don't see nice as boundary and jerks find nice funny.

<comment><USER101> I really doubt you truly mean "whatever gets the person away is rational". Is it okay for me to call anyone who asks me out harassers in order to discourage subsequent approaches? There's a vast difference between a firm rejection and accusing a co-worker of a fire-able offense - potentially even a crime. If somebody is insulted by the former then the have their only their own insecurity to blame. On the other hand, even if no complaint to HR is made the latter statement is going to make people stress over the possibility of losing their job, potentially even facing legal repercussions.

> I think that the expectation that women should be the nice one is what > creates a lot of problems. It is teaching girls ineffective communication > (which leaves them thinking only two options are HR or leave). People on the > spectrum honestly don't get nice, people who test boundaries don't see nice > as boundary and jerks find nice funny.

This is essentially what I'm trying to say. The hesitation to unambiguously accept or reject advances and instead expect people to communicate indirectly by "reading the signs" is an inherently broken situation because it's inevitable that those ambiguous signs will be misinterpreted at some point.

<comment><USER100> > Is it okay for me to call anyone who asks me out harassers in order to > discourage subsequent approaches?

The word harassment does not even appear in parent comment. Neither is HR. You added it to shift the topic which is an open and easy to see lie. "You are making me uncomfortable" and "fire him hr please" are not nearly the same.

For that matter, rational is different category then "fair". Unfair or even unethical dudes don't get to be called "irrational" (unless someone defend their harassment by calling them dumbass).

> This is essentially what I'm trying to say.

In this story she unambiguously informed him that he is making her uncomfortable. That is not even as open rejection as can be, but also feedback on what the reason for not continuing conversation is. You are extrapolating her rejection to entirely different things as words says. That is expecting her to walk the fine line, guess in advance how you re-interpret words and come up with answer perfectly tailored to your personality.

She tried nice as overwhelming majority of dudes would understand correctly, did not worked, she started to be direct. But she apparently should not be too direct.

<comment><USER101> > The word harassment does not even appear in parent comment. Neither is HR. > You added it to shift the topic which is an open and easy to see lie. "You > are making me uncomfortable" and "fire him hr please" are not nearly the > same.

Please re-read my original comment in this chain, I'm dealing with two hypotheticals depending on what exactly is said.

> In this story she unambiguously informed him that he is making her > uncomfortable. That is not even as open rejection as can be

If that's what occurred then this is the situation I describe in the 2nd paragraph, which I explicitly write is a reasonable thing to do.

> but also feedback on what the reason for not continuing conversation is.

Depending on what exactly is phrased it may also be feedback conveying "there is a good chance I am telling HR you're harassing me." Again, as per my original comment I'm describing my opinion of the situation depending on what exactly is said.

> You are extrapolating her rejection to entirely different things as words > says. That is expecting her to walk the fine line, guess in advance how you > re-interpret words and come up with answer perfectly tailored to your > personality. She tried nice as overwhelming majority of dudes would > understand correctly, did not worked, she started to be direct. But she > apparently should not be too direct.

I am not expecting any line to be walked. She should not avoid trying to be too direct, but just the opposite. This whole problem likely arose because the first response was interpreted overly optimistically (thinking she wanted to see the movie on a different day, when she just wanted to say "no") and interpreted the second response overly pessimistically (thinking there's a good chance she was going to report him or her to HR, when she just wanted to say "no"). Again, indirect speaking is exactly what I'm attempting to dissuade because it creates situations such as these.

<comment><USER100> > Depending on what exactly is phrased it may also be feedback conveying > "there is a good chance I am telling HR you're harassing me." Again, as per > my original comment I'm describing my opinion of the situation depending on > what exactly is said.

Well then, leave her alone.

However, she literally said "you are making me uncomfortable". That is neither threat nor rude. It is literally direct and honest communication.

You are not trying to dissuade indirect speaking, you are complaining that she started to talk directly when indirect failed.

<comment><USER102> And it invites him to try to make her feel comfortable until she freaks out and goes to HR or NYT. Sometimes it's better to just say no. You don't owe explanation to anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> I have a confession to make.

With few exceptions, I cannot work with a woman without thinking about having sex with her. It's not like I'm trying, it's more like the thought is a blinking red light and I can't help but look at the thought. Then I realize the thought is absurd, but it's already happened. This normally doesn't leak out, but for some women, I will give them "eyes" and usually feel bad about it afterwards. But that can be persistent, and for the woman, must be kind of creepy feeling.

I'd love for this to not be the case, but after years of it, I'm at a loss as to how a man changes this somewhat foundational part of the brain.

The women for whom I don't have that thought almost always follow remarkably strict professional conduct to a T. The equivalent for a man would be top- button done up and formal slacks every day, never smiling. I actually really like working with these women because it's kind of a relief.

<comment><USER104> Does the red-light blink around your sister or Mom?

Put your female colleagues in the sister compartment of your brain.

<comment><USER103> Maybe this is easier if you've had a sister. I never did. And I can't sit across the table from a skin-flashing admin assistant and think of her like my mom, who is in her 70s. It doesn't work.

<comment><USER105> The fact that you use the term "skin-flashing" here is a little concerning. Perhaps it was just meant as a shorthand for attractive woman, because otherwise you've taken a woman's choice of dress and behaviour and made them part of your neurosis. Unless of course she is giving you the Basic Instinct treatment (is that too old a reference for this site?), in which case I'm entirely out of advice for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER106> Yes, this is it, I think. I knew this guy, many years ago, who bragged about walking up to random women, and asking if they'd like to have sex. He said that he got slapped a lot, but also had lots of sex. I think that he was just BSing, but who knows?

<comment><USER107> I don't see the relevance. Asking a random stranger for sex is certainly outside of our normal social conventions, but this is not the same as using your power and position to coerce someone into having sex with you.

<comment><USER106> I consider them both to be sociopathic. Asking random women for sex is arguably also coercive.

Edit: I note that smart robbers and rapists scope potential victims by making innocent requests. Then escalating.

<comment><USER108> > Asking random women for sex is arguably also coercive.

Asking is coercion now? I'd like to hear that argument.

<comment><USER106> "That's a damn fine coat you're wearing ..." ;)

<comment><USER109> That sounds more like a compliment. You're jumping through hoops.

<comment><USER106> The next question is "May I borrow it?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER110> I hope this becomes more and more common, leading to actual protections against it, and not the "We're totally serious about combating harassment and sexism, this time, for reals" response that it seems has the the norm for the past several years.

</comment><comment><USER111> I deeply, and with all moral conviction i can muster - detest people who have so much power they can abuse it, while i having no power and no chance to abuse it, at least get the chance to redocrate my inability and envy as moral outrage and principles. That is detestable. Very.

</comment><comment><USER112> If this is what happens in Silicon Valley, I wonder what happens in Wall St firms.

<comment><USER113> ...men on WS go after models not nerdy looking chicks interested in math and finance? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER114> This is silly. Don't reduce me to some risk averse weakling because I'm not willing to put my neck out for strangers for little to no reward. If you're like that, and you regularly go to Africa to help people, more power to you. I'm not. Most people are not.

<comment><USER115> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14676851](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14676851) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER116> Clearly the valley has no problem with social isolated tech-types rising to power- and not advancing socially. Sorry, this is not just a moral problem- its the problem of a socially self isolating caste coming by rise to power back into human contact and then abusing it.

<comment><USER117> The people accused of harassment in this article are VCs, not "social isolated tech-types", so I don't think your statement is relevant at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> It's an explosive combination of socially maladjusted nerds who suddenly ended up in positions of power in a location/industry with rather few women for them to influence with that authority + a new wave of progressive women trying to break into a male dominated space.

It's going to be a rickety ride for sure.

On a personal note, part of me was refusing to believe that someone like the partner at Binary was even possible in this day and age, I had never run into this myself and concluded this must have been a caricature at best. I must admit I was wrong to assume that, turns out those people are real. Hopefully there are very few of them, but I might have to change my mind on that one too soon.

<comment><USER119> > socially maladjusted nerds who suddenly ended up in positions of power

A lot of people who are socially awkward when they're young work hard to overcome it. Some just naturally grow out of it.

But some find a "trick" to avoid having to overcome it.

The trick is simple: be an asshole. Being an asshole doesn't require any actual social skills, and very few people will challenge you. Most people just go along to get along since they don't want to risk the social cost or spend the energy to raise the issue. It's a great way to superficially escape social awkwardness without having to actually work at it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER120> Let's use this opportunity to clean out the stink. Including the fact that [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsmarr/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsmarr/) made Friendster (somewhat) popular by taking users registrations to hack into other user accounts.

Register your email and password here: Now we will use your registration details on the major sites to scrape all the data we can. Huge violation that Joseph Smarr has never answered for.

<comment><USER121> lol why are you talking about this 10 years later? aren't there bigger atrocities...

</comment></comment><comment><USER122> How much of this is actually illegal? In workplaces you have legal recourse but in this situation it doesn't seem like there's anything you can do except blast their name out there for everyone to see.

<comment><USER51> The groping is probably illegal independent of workplace context, the stuff done in hiring is as illegal as if it was done during employment, much of rest is probably not illegal.

<comment> tuna-piano I'm not commenting on the ethics of this, but the woman who was "groped" stated that she consented to it. I know this may seem distasteful, but whether she allows the kissing/groping because she's attracted to him or because she just needs his help, it's still consent in my mind:

"I felt like I had to tolerate it because this is the cost of being a nonwhite female founder,"

<comment><USER51> Toleration, as described there, is not consent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER123> I really hope that stories like this will let us stop blaming specific companies like Uber and accept that this is a problem with our industry. We're never going to be able to fix this as long as we keep sticking our heads in the sand and pretending it's not a systemic issue.

<comment><USER41> As with all corporate evils, it will require leadership from the top down establishing clear standards of behavior with strong enforcement. Simultaneously, external pressure via media, lawsuits, and missing key talent can be applied on companies not doing it or reinforcing those half-assing it.

<comment><USER72> Not sure I agree- because investors aren't in the same category as employers, it's harder for a founder to get any sort of justice for discrimination or harassment. AFAIK, the bar for a lawsuit is much higher.

Also, most of these firms aren't huge organizations- they're small management teams with a couple partners and associates / analysts. From what I can tell on Crunchbase, Binary Capital was just Justin Caldbeck and Jonathan Theo before it imploded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> HN Women. I am a male and I am genuinely curious. Is the following SH or does the position of power the person holds make it SH or does the environment (workplace) make it SH.

""I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you.""

<comment><USER124> A bit worrying that this is ambiguous, but I would say that it is largely because of the position of power. Like someone mentioned earlier, "hire" and "hit on" should never be in the same sentence.

And as a common courtesy I believe people shouldn't be hitting on their co- workers in the workplace in the first place. That makes everyone uncomfortable.

<comment><USER42> But there is this [https://www.popsugar.com/career/More-Couples-Meet-Work- Than-...](https://www.popsugar.com/career/More-Couples-Meet-Work-Than- College-1002109)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER125> PSA: If you are an honest man who manages or works with women in any capacity, please keep complete audio records of your time at work. File storage is cheap, a false charge will cost you your livelihood and damage the reputation of your entire industry. If you live in a jurisdiction which requires more than one present party to consent to recording, run for your life.

P.S. not at all insinuating that the accusations here are necessarily false.

<comment><USER126> This is illegal in many states

<comment><USER125> Just realized it's illegal in California, what a sorry and oppressive place California is. Most of the wonders in California appear to be natural, and stand in spite of human intervention rather than because of it.

<comment><USER27> Yeah it was the naturally occurring silicon deposits that got SV started.

Film reel trees are the natural resource that got Los Angeles to be the entertainment capital.

Excellent sun coverage with access to ample water from snowpack helped the Central Valley dominate the nut industry... Well that is true!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Did PM earn more or less than Programmers - <AUTHOR> I was a programmer for 15 years of my life. In my previous job, I did management for 2 years. On that time, I saw how I could add more value as a Project Manager by ensuring that all the people are aligned and that the focus is the correct one, than as a developer. My expectations where that as a PM, salaries will be higher, as the impact and responsability is higher. But what I am finding right now is the opposite, where I could earn more as a Developer.<p>Is that the case everywhere, or is just a perception issue? <comment><USER2> Your location is the answer. In the US, engineers make more in the tech hubs like SF, NYC, Seattle. It is not true everywhere, in Austin TX for example, PM's make more money.

In europe, PM's rank higher so they make more money than engineers. I think Australia is the same.

Happy to hear about other countries/continents...

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think you will find a standard answer. Depends on the company, the team, your experience level, how technical the PM role is, etc...

PM salary could be higher or lower but from I've seen, broadly speaking the roles earn about the same...Sometimes you will see developers base salary higher but then PMs can get larger bonuses.. but meh I would say on average they are going to be very close to the same when you look at total comp, ceteris paribus.

There might be a supply and demand issue in some markets. No offense but 'ensuring people are aligned and the focus is correct' is not very hard, at least not harder than grinding away developing. If there is a shortage of developers vs. the number of roles needing them but there's enough guys who can do the PM-babysitting type roles then in those markets developers earn more.

I know companies that would fall apart in a minute if the administrative assistants and secretaries weren't there on the ball. The company seriously depends on them being good and they get paid the least. Responsibility and impact is subjective.

Anything goes when it comes to higher levels of experience or legit superstar PMs or developers, they will be able to get paid the most. So if you are a talented and experienced developer but not able to be a standout PM, well that's that.

</comment><comment><USER4> PMs generally earn more than developers.

Top developers can sometimes earn more than PMs. Especially in SF/NYC where developer salaries are crazy high.

</comment><comment> UK-AL In technology focused companies and tech startups, a lot of the time top developers will earn more.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't have experience in a lot of companies but the typical PM in my opinion is a waste of space. At least, that's been my experience so far. Regardless of money earned, I'd rather be doing anything else.</comment>


Codes of Conduct 101 + FAQ - <AUTHOR> http://ashedryden.com/blog/codes-of-conduct-101-faq

<comment><USER2> I'd love to see the community educated in more appropriate behavior overall. I'd also love to not be treated like someone that a code of conduct needs to rescue society from.</comment>


How to Perform Your Own Lean Mobile Usability Testing - <AUTHOR> http://uxmag.com/articles/how-to-perform-your-own-lean-mobile-usability-testing

<comment><AUTHOR> You have a great idea for an app or a new feature for your responsive website. Yet your company doesn't have the bandwidth or research budget to test it through "official channels," or worse, your client doesn't believe in testing altogether.

But don't give up! You can get all of the tremendous benefits of customer feedback by doing your own lean mobile usability testing with 10-15 potential customers per day for about $20. This article will show you how.</comment>


Swifty Configuration for iOS - <AUTHOR> http://www.codingvelocity.com/2016/01/30/swift-configuration.html <comment><USER2> If you just want to switch between build configurations, a `#if DEBUG` compiler directive is going to be easier and more efficient.

See "Build configuration statement" on this page:

[https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/documenta...](https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/documentation/Swift/Conceptual/Swift_Programming_Language/Statements.html)

If you want runtime configuration (change the URLs after building), it's usually a better idea to use a separate .plist file instead of the Info.plist (since Info.plist is usually reserved for data you need to communicate to the operating system). If you need compile-time generation, you can set that up as a "Build phase" in Xcode (any Build Phase script will have access to the same macros you're injecting into your .plist).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tips, I'm still ramping up on ios development and the apple eco system with a deadline I barely managed. I'll take this into consideration for the next Sprint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> With this approach I thing I'd prefer to use a separate config file. Just in case Apple ever wants to add the same variable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good call, thanks for taking the time to read and comment</comment></comment>


Advanced Event Timeline With PHP, CSS & jQuery - <AUTHOR> http://tutorialzine.com/2010/01/advanced-event-timeline-with-php-css-jquery/

<comment><USER2> I am not trying to nay-say this (As it is rather light weight/simple) but when I read the word "Advanced" I was anticipating it being at least as functional/extensible as the <http://www.simile-widgets.org/timeline/> widget.

</comment><comment><USER3> Use with caution. Much of the content (everything beyond the headlines) is inaccessible unless the user trusts js, and it's not obvious that there's more to see.</comment>


Show HN: Simple Hacker News Client for Emacs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/clarete/hackernews.el I wrote this small client to read hackernews from my favorite editor. It's currently using an external HTTP API [0] but I'm working on my own proxy [1].
I'd love to actually scrape and cache all the info I need using lisp. However, my time constraints are keeping me away of that goal. I could definitely use some help here! :)
I'm also planning to add support for comments and posting new things. Any feedback is highly appreciated! Thank you!
[0] http://api.ihackernews.com/ [1] https://github.com/clarete/rhn <comment><USER2> The best thing since the excel facebook browser:

[http://mashable.com/2011/07/03/hardlyworkin-excel- facebook/](http://mashable.com/2011/07/03/hardlyworkin-excel-facebook/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Are things like these just proof-of-concepts, or are there many people out there that use these? It's things like this that are just promoting the joke that "Emacs is a great OS, but lacks a good text editor." (Honest question)

<comment><USER4> I use emacs for email and news reader (gnus), Irc (rcirc), jabber (jabber.el), twitter (twittering-mode), calculator, password storage (PGP encrypted file), and sysadmining (remote/sudo file editing with tramp).

And I use it as my primary development envrionment. I get the same text editor capabilities if I'm writing a tweet, email or code. And yes, vim is a far superior editor. Luckily emacs implements that as well (evil or viper).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just get an error message: "Bad news, bro: url"

</comment><comment><USER6> In case anyone else is tempted: I tried to add the "new" page, and additional pages of the main results - however the API that drives this ( [http://api.ihackernews.com/](http://api.ihackernews.com/) ) has been failing to return those pages for several hours now. I'm assuming that the functionality was dropped at some point...

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, bad news. I'll work on polishing the new proxy support that is almost done in another branch, so we'll be able to use more reliable services for now.

And then, when I have some time, I'll write the full thing on lisp! Thanks for the heads up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does this integrate with gnus, or is it standalone? In any case, I'm surprised I haven't seen something like this sooner. Nice work.

</comment><comment><USER8> Just sent a pull request - I'd use this if it linked to comments. Otherwise this is exactly what I want!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah! Thank you for the contribution, I'll apply your patch and release another version as soon as I get the chance to open my computer!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love how the first item in the screenshot is "Does everyone hate MongoDB?". Good old HN.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great to see well documented emacs lisp code that I can learn from. I've been wondering how you make clickable and coloured text in a buffer.

</comment><comment><USER11> Very nice. But no font locking... I didn't see anything in the code to indicate anything that matches the screen shot.

<comment><USER10> It looks exactly like the screen shot on my computer.

<comment><USER11> Weird, I just get plain text. This links work, but no color.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If I were to create a mobile app for HackerNews, what would be the best way to go about doing that in terms of API to use?

<comment><AUTHOR> So, hackernews.el is actually a very simple front-end for the guy that really has to deal with hackernews. I'm using a library that I built on top of `ruby- hackernews`, you can see what I did here: [https://github.com/clarete/rhn](https://github.com/clarete/rhn)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Serious question: does anyone know of a similar command-line/vim alternative?

<comment><USER14> w3m works great for hacker news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> im new to emacs. can someone pls tell me, how will i update as and when new features have been made available to this package?

<comment><USER16> If you install it through the package manager (by running M-x package-list- packages and then selecting it from there) you can update it through that as well (hitting U will select all updates). See eg: [http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_package_system.html](http://ergoemacs.org/emacs/emacs_package_system.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Nice

</comment><comment><USER18> sweet

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you man!</comment></comment>


How eBay Worked With The FBI To Put Its Top Affiliate Marketers In Prison - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/ebay-the-fbi-shawn-hogan-and-brian-dunning-2013-4 <comment><USER2> Shocked to learn that Brian Dunning has done this. I've been listening to his Skeptoid podcast for years. I always pictured someone of modest or middle class means because he solicits donations to help keep the podcast going. I didn't think he was also making millions from fraud. Ironically, 'consumer frauds' is one of things he has listed on his website as a target of his skeptical inquiry.

Found this blog post with court documents and background: <http://www.skepticalabyss.com/?p=291>

EDIT: Found this old blog post by Brian Dunning: <http://skeptoid.com/blog/2011/10/05/a-partial-explanation/>

"Cookie stuffing refers to a web site writing a cookie to your browser without your knowledge or permission. ... It's a scary-sounding term, but it's fundamental to the way Internet advertising works. ... Cookie stuffing is more than just a standard practice; it's an essential component of the mechanics of serving ads effectively."

<comment><USER3> Wow, that's a whopper. (the bit about cookie stuffing being normal)

As I understand it, they would do something like this: on every 1 of 10,000 page views (to Digital Point's forums, or other sites), they would embed a page from eBay (as the source of an image), which had their affiliate code in it. The visitor was none the wiser.

Keep in mind digital point gets a _ton_ of traffic. Though only a small percentage had a cookie dropped, it added up to many.

Purely through coincidence, some of these people would later buy something on eBay in the next 30 days, earning them a commission. Its hard to argue they earned the commission, TOS or otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ahh this brings back some memories.

The articles mentions the guy who made the cooking stuffing software. He was pretty active on a private part of a forum I'm still part of.

Anyway eBay went after the forum as well, and promptly deleted his account and all the threads mentioning eBay. They also moved their servers offshore and deleted pretty much every thread that mentioned eBay in it.

I do remember he wrote a massive long thread about how the FBI raided his house and seized all his computers. He said the FBI agents weren't even told why they were conducting a raid on him and actually felt kind of sorry for him. He charged a pretty hefty price for the software ($500/month for the basic plan), but it was pretty advanced. They figured out that they could spoof referrers in flash, so rather then have a 1x1px image file, it was a tiny .swf file.

People were banking on that though, eBay first, then Amazon. You could buy shitty porn traffic and parked domain traffic for literally $1-2/1000 uniques visitors and stuff them all with cookies.

It was also round the same time Craigslist cracked down on affiliate marketers. People were literally getting hundreds of conversions a day on rebill offers like credit ratings and dating verification offers. One guy fled to South America so Craiglist and the FBI couldn't find him as he was literally making 6 figures a day.

I probably have said too much, but now everyone is pretty smart now. Facebook were the last ones to smarten their act up since their whole system/backend had so many loopholes in there it wasn't funny. Plus their security team only worked Monday-Friday, so if you noticed up until 2012, there would be a bunch of spam on your feed during the weekends.

<comment><USER5> I also tend to believe that these companies sanctioned this activity until they were against it. A year after they claim to have started investigating it, they invite one of the guys to a private dinner where he is the only non- eBay employee in attendance, and treat him like a king. Its a contradiction.

Very interesting stuff. That must have been a fun forum at the time, when easy money was to be made like this. Thanks for the insight.

<comment><USER6> _I also tend to believe that these companies sanctioned this activity until they were against it._

Why? It provided absolutely no value to them. Actually worse, it cost them affiliate fees on sales that rightfully would have been affiliate fee free.

There is no scenario where it makes sense that eBay (edit: wow originally wrote Amazon) would endorse this.

 _they invite one of the guys to a private dinner where he is the only non- eBay employee in attendance, and treat him like a king._

Have you considered that maybe his sense of truth is a little skewed?

<comment><USER5> So eBay is cutting him a check for $1 million to $2 million per MONTH. This equates to $2 million to $4 million a month in profits for eBay that they share 50% with the affiliate.

When his traffic drops, the affiliate manager calls him and asks to do whatever it takes to get his numbers back up. It looks bad on her. "Why is affiliate revenue down 20% this month?" her boss asks.

She doesn't even CARE that it's crappy traffic. She needs affiliate revenue to rise and rise every month no matter what.

Every person at eBay doesn't have to act in the best interests of eBay, just in the best interests of their job at eBay. I'll believe that there were dozens of people at eBay who were encouraging him to do whatever he could to get his numbers up, no matter if it was white hat, grey hat or black hat. They didn't care.

And then suddenly one day someone cared.

I'm not saying its right to defraud them. I'm saying I can believe they condoned it at one point.

<comment><USER6> Saying "one rogue account rep sanctioned this" (which even that I deeply doubt) is quite a world removed from saying that the company sanctioned it, which was your original statement.

<comment><USER5> I'm not saying the rep was "rogue". I'm saying eBay set up their affiliate program to encourage affiliate sales "no matter what" and then in 2008 they started caring for quality of affiliate links when they didn't care before. Let me try this another way.

There are companies out there that pay salespeople a percentage of total revenue they get customers to buy, regardless if the order is profitable for the company. So salespeople offer 50%-75% discounts for their products to customers in order to get customers to buy, the salesperson makes the commission off the full retail price before discount, and the company loses on every sale with -75% gross margin. It's a fast-track to bankruptcy. No sane company would do this right? That company was called Ecomom. It happens that companies do things against their interest without knowing it as long as top line sales go up.

Companies give people license to do things in their own interest that are NOT in the companies interest all the time.

<comment><USER7> Right, I agree with you. It's easy to imagine an affiliate rep who is incentivised by affiliates doing well, i.e. they get paid based on affiliate sales. You can even imagine some ebay affiliate reps being "ok" with a description of how they're generating their hits because they're incentivised by the affiliates doing well. Until someone upstairs figures out what's going on. Then, of coure, the affiliate rep is completey clueless about what happend and is _shocked_ that someone would do this!

What a scam both ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Much of Hogan's apartment was a clutter of screens, hard drives and > keyboards — which the FBI confiscated.

That must have been some very advanced and dangerous looking screens and keyboards.

Why do we still accept this kind of confiscation of unrelated goods, while throwing big objections if the police had confiscated jewelery, clothes, or anything other non-connected but expensive items? By now, for all the tons of electronic items confiscated during raids, has any single screen or keyboard ever been part of the evidence provided to a court?

<comment><USER9> I'm sure a lot of laptop computers containing screens and keyboards have been used as evidence. It may be a little too much to ask FBI agents to only take that which contains data, when it's not necessarily always completely apparent.

<comment><USER10> Indeed. Newer computers can look like a plain old monitor and have an entire system onboard. This is typically obvious when it's a mac, but would an FBI agent pick out this System76 computer as not being "just a monitor"? Who knows

(<https://www.system76.com/desktops/model/sabc1>)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "The problem with affiliate marketing is that there isn't much money in it."

A better statement would be: "The problem with the eBay affiliate program is that there isn't much money in it."

This is not a problem with affiliate marketing in general.

<comment><USER12> Actually there's a bit of truth in it.

The dirty secret is that 90% of affiliate revenue is generated by coupon sites. For the most part retailers are giving away money that they probably would've generated any way w/o the affiliate.

<comment><USER13> The dirty secret is that 90% of _e-commerce_ affiliate revenue is generated by coupon toolbars. Its like what Shawn Hogan did, except it involves every single e-commerce affiliate program instead of just one.

<comment><USER14> Not toolbars. 3 words: Retail Me Not. They are going public this year w/ a whisper valuation of $2 Billion.

Search any merchant + coupons and they are there. It's like printing money.

<comment><USER15> I know someone who occasionally uses that site, but only searches it for things like a free shipping code _after_ deciding to purchase a particular item from a particular online vendor.

How effect, really, are any of these affiliate programs? Are online retailers actually able to measure how much _new_ business the affiliates are really bringing in?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> More accurate to say to "put two fraudsters in prison". Hopefully they'll keep on putting fraudsters in prison.

<comment><USER17> I agree, but the line that defines fraud is scarily unclear, IMO.

Should the Airbnb founders be sent to prison for spoofing interest in Craigslist ads and breaking their TOS? If the consensus shifts to yes, then our industry will become a very scary place to invest time and energy.

<comment><USER18> Tricking people for profit is the definition of fraud. It says a sad thing about the industry that shady practices like that are considered important enough that it would be "scary" to have to abstain from them.

<comment><USER19> > _Tricking people for profit is the definition of fraud._

This would make 90% of all applications/websites fraud. Most free(gratis) Windows software tricks you into installing spyware & toolbars. Almost every app on your phone tricks you into giving away personal data. Almost every website tricks you into being tracked across multiple websites.

<comment><USER5> 90%? Are you sure you're not exaggerating that a little bit?

Yes, tricking people for profit IS fraud. Tracking you across the web like Adsense does is NOT fraud. The act of stealing someone's contact list like Path does is NOT fraud either (but may be a different crime).

And very very little of web sites or applications engage in fraud. The world does a pretty good job of blocking these things, the way Chrome won't even let you go to a web site that has been known to deliver viruses. And yes the FBI should arrest these people.

<comment><USER20> I don't think that's an outrageous exaggeration.

[http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google- intentional...](http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google- intentionally-trying-to-minimize-the-fact-that-these-are-ads/)

But going beyond that, even when differences are not subtle as in that blog post you still have a large swath of people who won't be able to distinguish ads from non-ads. Just go in the heart of a large city and observe the web- surfing habits of some regular Joe Shmoe and you'll be pretty astounded with his ad-detection heuristics. Large internet companies know and understand this very well, and indeed design their products as such. Heck, when I'm designing webapps I do this too, I guess I'm just cognizant about what actually I'm doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "So eBay installed a tiny "gif" file on its homepage. A gif is simply an image file. This one was so tiny no one could see it. It sat there invisibly."

<comment><USER22> Does anyone get what the author actually means in the "invisible gif" paragraph? Makes no sense to me how this could actually have helped to decide if the traffic was real or malicious :/

<comment><USER23> For the hack to work, the victim's computer had to get a cookie from ebay. The widget caused this cookie to get downloaded to the victims computer, but only this cookie. Normal visits from legitimate users get everything on the page. Adding a small invisible file meant that a normal user would get this file as well as the cookie but the malicious widget would only grab the cookie.

Finding out how many IP's were legit vs bogus was then a simple matter of going through the http logs making sure all gets of the cookie had matching gets of the gif. Cookie gets without gif gets were fraud.

<comment><USER22> With cookie-stuffing the cookie is normally "generated" by loading a page in an invisible iframe. The loaded page is actually the same you would land on if you clicked normal advertising, with "everything on the page" - including an invisible gif. Visibility or Invisibility of the iframe doesn't change anything to the loading of this file. That's why it doesn't make sense to me.

Or did they use another method to place the cookie I don't know about?

<comment><USER24> You could trigger cookie setting with the img tag. <img src=[http://affiliate- link-to-ebay.com>](http://affiliate-link-to-ebay.com>); would set the cookie on most browsers.

I don't know if that works anymore because my "affiliate" time is well long over but I guess this loophole has been fixed long since.

IIRC iframe was a little problematic with some websites as they had frame break out scripts [1] - so you had to be creative.

The golden wild west times ... I somehow miss them. Money was lying on the information super highway - you just had to pick it up ;)

[1] something like <http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/framebreak.shtml>

<comment><USER22> Ebay didn't use frame breakers, so much I know ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 'Top Affiliate Marketers' is linkbait. He committed fraud. Cookie stuffing is illegal from any angle.

</comment><comment><USER26> Excellent. Fraudsters deserve jail time. Cookie stuffing is clearly fraudulent.

</comment><comment><USER27> domainx.tld cannot set a cookie on ebay.com. Did they just iframe ebay (with affiliate ID) and get caught? Or did they use some other method?

<comment><USER28> Iframe of the affiliate link. eBay sets the required cookies.

<comment><USER17> Wait, so they just rendered an iframe of a random product on ebay that contained their affiliate information on a bunch of widgets they hosted ... and this lands you in prison?

Lets imagine I publish an eBay widget (I don't) to promote products I think people should buy. Lets say the widget just renders products in my sidebar. Lets say thousands of blogs then install this. Would I be then bound for prison?

I'm struggling to understand this murky situation based on how you described it.

<comment><USER29> Yes, this entire story makes no sense. They just attacked their own affiliate base and tried to paint it as a good thing.

Did these two people featured in the story do anything that was against US Federal law? Did they violate the eBay affiliates agreement (and that can't result in criminal charges anyhow)?

I've read through all three pages of the story twice, and all I'm seeing is eBay wanted to have their cake and eat it too. They even conspired with these two to help generate more affiliate revenue which eBay admits to.

Sounds a lot like another Aaron Schwartz-type pile of bullshit to me. eBay is going to enjoy their exodus of affiliate salesmen.

<comment><USER30> You pay me $100 for every 10 people I get to fill out a card with their mailing address asking for a catalogue from your company.

I take 1000 of the cards and put random people's names and addresses on them and send them in, once a week every week.

Fraud.

<comment><USER29> But thats not what the article claimed they did, and thats extremely hard to do with eBay's affiliate program.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> My takeaway from this is: stay the hell away from affiliate marketing.

<comment><USER32> No just don't commit fraud.

<comment><USER11> Best answer I've seen yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I came really close to getting into cookie stuffing back in its heyday. I'm really glad I didn't. No one gave a second thought to it 5 years ago. I never once saw the words "fraud" and "cookie stuffing" on the same page.

Around that time I worked on finding ways to do untraceable cookie stuffing. Bouncing people through SSL to kill the referer, using Flash, etc. I even found a security hole in IE that gave me access to cross domain iframes. That was killer because you could load another site in an iframe then use JS to click an affiliate link or manipulate the page, making it appear completely legit.

Luckily it never went past research. I registered a domain and planned on creating a cookie stuffing service but never finished it and never did any actual cookie stuffing.

</comment><comment><USER34> Their whole story reads as an elaborate squeeze page. "Earn $10 Million a Year on Ebay now!"

</comment><comment><USER35> Real Quick: Just wondering, what if you made a browser extension that replaced all the links a user saw on every page they visited to affiliates links from Amazon and Ebay? Would that work?

</comment><comment><USER36> And the bankers.... O yah nothing happens to them. 28 million wasn't enough apparently

</comment><comment><USER37> It just sounds like ebay's affiliate scheme is/was wide open to abuse.</comment>