
Results of the GitHub Investigation - danielsju6
https://github.com/blog/1823-results-of-the-github-investigation
======
ender7
"We didn't do anything illegal, or that would leave us vulnerable to a
lawsuit" is about the only content that this blog post contains.

While Horvath characterized much of her woes as being gender-related [1], the
investigation could have classified most of them as either unprovable or
terrible-but-not-provably-sexist (in particular, the behavior of the Preston-
Werners).

I doubt it will ever be clear what actually happened. Theresa Preston-Werner's
response [2] spends more time avoiding topics than actually covering them. Tom
Preston-Werner likewise [3] makes sure to reinforce the fact that GitHub is
immune to lawsuit while providing no real details. I'm sure there are plenty
of GitHub employees who have a strong opinion, but enough of them seem to have
an ax to grind in one way or another that it's hard to trust that testimony.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-
describes...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes-
sexism-and-intimidation-behind-her-github-exit/)

[2] [https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215](https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215)

[3] [http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-
hel...](http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hello-
immersive-computing.html)

~~~
tptacek
You're right. It will never be clear what actually happened. I think Internet
message boards create the perception that outcomes like that are rare. They're
not: they're the norm. That's how it's supposed to be. We don't get to know
everything and we need to work within the limits of our knowledge.

~~~
ender7
The only problem for GitHub now is finding a way to attract talent. If your
best response to

"You have a hostile work environment."

is

"We don't have a _provably illegal_ hostile work environment."

then that doesn't inspire great confidence when evaluating it as a place to
work.

~~~
nailer
If you want to know if GitHub is a hostile work environment according to women
who work there, take a poll of current and past female employees, including
Horvath.

I did. So far it's working out in GitHub's favour. But maybe I missed
something, so do your own research.

~~~
sneak
[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458342995469688833](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458342995469688833)

[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347143086870528](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347143086870528)

[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347574672388096](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347574672388096)

~~~
lawnchair_larry
What a drama queen. Hard to take her seriously with these antics.

~~~
zorpner
Yes, this is a common rhetorical tactic used to dismiss the opinions of women
when they address issues of sexism publicly. Thank you for demonstrating this
disingenuous method of discourse so ably.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
No, but denouncing everything as sexism is. Her issue is with another woman.
That argument doesn't apply here. Unless you're suggesting that both me and
the founder's wife are sexist.

------
abalone
This anonymous post from an alleged GitHub employee adds some interesting
perspective.[1] It alleges Julie Ann Horvath was actually spreading rumors of
a personal nature about the founder's wife before any of this. In other words,
Horvath was the bully, and she really didn't like having the tables turned on
her.

If true, this would be a very difficult employee to keep at the company. She
should have been fired for inappropriate behavior rather than given an
elevated role (which she can now use to bolster her case). Very poor handling
and it does suggest a degree of naivety on the part of management.

Having said that, the founder's wife also admits that her actions were a role
in his departure.[2] It sounds like she had way too much free reign at the
company and was making people uncomfortable with her activism around her
startup. The fact that she presented herself to Horvath as having a lot of
influence and power within the company reflects that. Plus it's a fertile
ground for more serious transgressions into company privacy and so forth. Also
should've been nipped in the bud early on.

[1] [https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e](https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e)

[2] [https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215](https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215)

~~~
alelefant
This anonymous post is no better than the unsupported claims by Julie.
Unsupported claims on top of unsupported claims.

------
cjbprime
There appear to have been weirdnesses around the investigation, such as Julie
Ann Horvath (and other ex-employees) remaining uncontacted until it was
wrapping up:
[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/453298152569720832](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/453298152569720832)

So I don't know how much stock you can place behind the idea that the
investigators GH hired, who did not contact ex-employees competently, found
them blameless. The resignation probably speaks for more than the
investigation does.

~~~
hntaway
An anonymous post on medium by github insiders:
[https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e](https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e)

Unfortunate that it is anonymous, but it is still worth reading in my opinion.

~~~
bitlord_219
It's telling that nobody would attach their name to the article. Horvath's
already publicly laughed it off.

~~~
nailer
What was her alternate version of the missing events? It's hard to believe the
techCrunch story when it starts so late in the game.

If I was in a similar position I'd take it to court, but if for some reason I
wanted to do trial by media, I'd be gushing with detail.

------
brandon272
It sounds like Mrs. Preston-Werner was a regular presence at the GitHub office
and, according to Horvath, had extensive access to private information
throughout GitHub's systems despite the fact that she wasn't an employee. If
true, that should certainly be a privacy and security concern to any GitHub
customer or user.

~~~
awnird
This is incredibly troubling. How can anyone trust GitHub, knowing that non-
employees regularly had access to private information?

~~~
onotarti
In my experience it is pretty common for people who bring work home with them
not to be super-meticulous about preventing access to the content of the work
by their families. How many people do you know who sound-proof their home
office so their wife can't eavesdrop on their business calls?

~~~
epochwolf
I think I should point out this is a fireable offense in a number of
companies. I work with sensitive information every day. I'm pretty sure if
allowed someone outside the company to use my machine for anything, I would be
fired.

My dad works for IBM doing mainframe repair and installation. He's seen his
coworkers fired for allowing unauthorized individuals to use their company
laptops. They've gone even further in the last few years in making
unauthorized software a fireable offense.

Granted, two data points isn't a lot but there are companies that have
enforced policies to prevent sensitive information from leaking.

I should also point out both my dad and I do significant amounts of work from
home and we are both required by our companies to use full disk encryption.

~~~
danielweber
Without going to the extreme of secret+ classifications -- in which case you
cannot take things home without a secure home office, and move things between
them in secure containers -- I don't think employees are fired for failing to
lock their home office against their spouse or soundproofing their office
against their spouse.

Which is different from saying that the company would fire them if the spouse
used their inside-access to harm the company in any way.

------
jfc
These memos are often more about what isn't said:

> _The investigation found no evidence..._

This doesn't mean there isn't any evidence--it just means that their internal
investigation didn't find any. If read carefully, this statement tells us
nothing about the universe of evidence that exists, but only about what
_GitHub_ didn't find. A different investigator might come to a completely
different conclusion, or find other evidence (this is where the comment about
the investigators possibly not contacting key people could become important).

> _...found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of
> sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation_

So their internal investigation didn't find sexual or gender-based harassment
or retaliation. But did that investigation find other types of harassment or
retaliation?

> _However, while there may have been no legal wrongdoing_

"May have been none" or "there definitely wasn't any"? And then legal
wrongdoing vs. just plain wrongdoing? Disclaimers/"wiggle words" everywhere.

> _As to the remaining allegations, the investigation found no evidence of
> gender-based discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or abuse._

Again, we're seeing the term "gender-based" used as a modifier (also done in
P-W's response). This makes it appear as if their attorneys primarily want to
remove this controversy from the ambit of gender-based discrimination claims.

I'm not saying this memo is worse than any other corporate public statement.
But reading carefully, you often find that the statements don't tell you very
much, if anything.

~~~
facepalm
"This doesn't mean there isn't any evidence--it just means that their internal
investigation didn't find any."

How could you ever claim anything else, though? You can only make a claim
about the things you did find (including absence of things), not about things
you didn't find, because you can not know about them.

This is just another example of human communication depending on goodwill. If
some involved parties want to misinterpret everything they hear, there is no
way to stop them.

I think the emphasis on "gender based" stuff is because that was the gist of
Horvath's accusations.

~~~
jfc
Again, in my comment I mention that this memo is no different than other
corporate statements. My point is that some comments on here say "there is no
evidence", which is not what the memo says. Saying you didn't find something
isn't the same as saying that something doesn't exist.

~~~
kelnos
Right, but there is no actual way that you can say that something doesn't
exist; you can't prove a negative. There is absolutely no other wording you
can ever use. Pointing that out as some sort of indicator that it's possible
that there _is_ some evidence is a little silly, because... well, duh.

Ultimately it depends on whether or not you trust the investigator to be
thorough, and to be able to ferret out the truth where people lie and omit
details.

~~~
chippy
The investigator in this case is not about uncovering the truth of everything
- it's about investigating this specific case. They do not have an obligation,
for example, to mention that they found taxation irregularities during their
work.

~~~
kelnos
... what does that have to do with anything? We're not talking about that.

------
ChuckMcM
When these things conclude, as this one has, it is useful to check your own
response emotion (happiness? sadness? outrage? bitterness?). One of the harder
things for me to learn has been to critically evaluate my own judgement.
Generally I'm a very rational guy and can give you my reasoning from first
principles right up to the claim in question, when its wrong (the claim), I
find my tendency is not to listen. My rational brain is invested in learning,
my emotional brain is invested in being "right."

At the end of the day, neither Tom or Julie work at GitHub any more and what
ever they brought to the mix has been lost. They have both made statements of
pain and hurt, and their pain has been a burden on their friends as well. Will
GitHub be stronger or weaker after this event? Will Julie and Tom? Only time
will tell. Perhaps the best that can be said of this affair is that its
publicity might help others to recognize the dangers of their behavior earlier
before it becomes a problem.

------
chuhnk
This has to be an incredibly difficult moment in Tom Preston-Werner's life.
Regardless of what may have happened. To build a company from the ground up
and then have to walk away from it. I'm sure we all remember GitHub during its
infancy and the enthusiasm with which founders worked on it. A hugely
successful bootstrapped company.

~~~
kategleason
exactly, this is really tragic.

------
chrismonsanto
> The investigation found no evidence to support the claims [...] of a sexist
> or hostile work environment.

So, are they saying that Horvath was lying? I mean, there was a lot of
specific stuff she mentioned that seemed inappropriate. I don't want to get
into whether the behavior was "sexist" or not, but I think we can all agree
that if what she said was true, the work environment was hostile and
unprofessional.

~~~
danso
I think it's possible that Horvath was right about the poor actions of
management, and at the same time, very little of what she alleged seemed to
fall into the bounds of gender-based discrimination. A colleague who reverts
your commits because you wouldn't date him...that's not gender-based, that's
office-romance strife (though obviously, such strife can be exacerbated with a
gender imbalance at the company). I'm kind of interested in what happened to
_that_ engineer.

edit:

FYI: her detailed complaint to TechCrunch:
[http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-
describes...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes-
sexism-and-intimidation-behind-her-github-exit/)

re: The co-worker who couldn't handle being rejected by her:

> _The rejection of the other employee led to something of an internal battle
> at GitHub. According to Horvath, the engineer, “hurt from my rejection,
> started passive-aggressively ripping out my code from projects we had worked
> on together without so much as a ping or a comment. I even had to have a few
> of his commits reverted. I would work on something, go to bed, and wake up
> to find my work gone without any explanation.” The employee in question,
> according to Horvath, is both “well-liked at GitHub” and “popular in the
> community.”_

 _His “behavior towards female employees,” according to Horvath, “especially
those he sees as opportunities is disgusting.”_

And there was one more incident that would purportedly fall under sexism:

> _Two women, one of whom I work with and adore, and a friend of hers were
> hula hooping to some music. I didn’t have a problem with this. What I did
> have a problem with is the line of men sitting on one bench facing the
> hoopers and gawking at them. It looked like something out of a strip club.
> When I brought this up to male coworkers, they didn’t see a problem with it.
> But for me it felt unsafe and to be honest, really embarrassing. That was
> the moment I decided to finally leave GitHub._

The first one, of course, is bad. And there's possibly a case to be made that
if management knew about this engineer and let it slide, well, that does
create a hostile environment. Yet I don't think Horvath points out where she
complained about this guy's commit-reverting behavior to management.

The second thing, about hula-hooping, without context, it doesn't really mean
anything beyond what Horvath claims she was able to grok just by stumbling
upon the scene. I think during the original HN discussion, a Githubber said
that the hula-hooping happened during an in-office party. Either way, hula-
hooping and watching said-hula-hooping is hard to claim, on its face, as being
gender-discrimination.

The other stuff though, about the co-founder unfairly pressuring her partner
to resign, and the co-founder's wife claiming to have access to Github
employees' private data...Those could be things that the company frowns upon
enough to merit a resignation.

~~~
courtneypowell
How is a woman who refuses to date another employee considered an "office-
romance?" Retaliation as a result of unwanted advances is considered
harassment.

sexual harassment definition:
[http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm)

~~~
danso
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that there was an actual romance. I meant that
this immature (and shitty) behavior was based in that domain of "romance" (the
existence or lack thereof, in this case) and not, from the face of Horvath's
description, automatically based on gender-discrimination.

From your link:

> _Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or
> isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it
> is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work
> environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as
> the victim being fired or demoted)._

1\. Did Horvath provide proof that this immature behavior was more-than-
isolated and unpunished? It would be easy for her to, as it would exist in the
git logs. But we don't know if it happened dozens of times, or just more than
one time.

2\. Reverting commits is still part of an engineer's job. She alleges that the
commits were unfair...again, this evidence would exist in the logs. But what
if the commits were justifiable, and the engineer was being snippy about it?
That doesn't really count as harassment.

3\. Was Horvath retaliated against by management (e.g. fired or demoted) for
being angry at her colleague? Her account doesn't claim that.

The link you posted says that harassment, and sexual harassment, is
illegal...But what Horvath describes is not harassment by the legal
definition, because the other engineer could claim that the reverts were part
of his job. Again, the commit logs, or even a description of them, are needed
to decide whether this constituted harassment beyond a coworker criticizing
another.

~~~
dasil003
> _I meant that this immature (and shitty) behavior was based in that domain
> of "romance" (the existence or lack thereof, in this case) and not, from the
> face of Horvath's description, automatically based on gender-
> discrimination._

Don't make up soft weasel words to describe it. It's sexual harassment plain
and simple. Also, this bit about classifying it as gender-discrimination seems
like pointless hair-splitting. Horvath felt wronged by many things, and she
probably felt those things would not have happened if she were a man, and I
think that's a fair assumption on her part. I'll leave it to the courts to get
into the technical classification of precisely if and how she was wronged.

~~~
gfodor
Sorry, reverting someone's commits out of spite because they rejected you is
not sexual harassment "plain and simple." Words have meanings. Furthermore it
is not "pointless hair-splitting" to say it is not gender discrimination. You
clearly have no understanding of what these terms mean and why it's important
to not let this type of drama bleed into the wider discussion about systemic
gender discrimination in tech.

[http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm)

"Harassment can include “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances,
requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a
sexual nature. Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and
can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal
to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general."

Harassment of someone who happens to be of the opposite gender does not make
it sexual harassment. Harassment of someone for rejecting you romantically
does not make it sexual harassment. If someone "feels" they would not have
been harassed the same way if they were a man does not make it sexual
harassment. (This is clearly false in this case, obviously, because the same
thing could have happened if it were an advancement by someone of the same
gender.)

Reverting someone's commit is not harassment of a "sexual nature" nor does it
include commentary on the person's sex or women in general. It has nothing to
do with gender or sexual comments, it has to do with an emotional reaction to
rejection and an immature pathetic response.

~~~
dasil003
Okay, good point, I stand corrected.

~~~
gfodor
major props, a response like this doesn't happen often on the internet

------
samstave
I have a question/observation that may be offensive, and it is not meant to be
- so pardon my ignorance if this is a misguided perception:

When this story first ran and I was reading JA Horvaths tweets in the
surrounding days - and reading whatever other articles related to this story
were - I got the impression that she didn't necessarily seem like the most
easy-going-innocent victim, and I wondered; what if she was actually a
difficult to work-with person?

This is in no way a defense of any actions of any party, it was just a
perception of the language, tone and content of the messages that Mrs. Horvath
used gave me the perception that she wouldn't be the most desirable co-
worker....

Now, I have nothing to substantiate such an opinion other than the tweets and
stories I read just left me with this impression....

So, could it be that while her allegations are true, she is also a participant
in the situation whereby she could have been acting poorly/using poor
judgement?

Finally, I recognize that the actions of the wife of the founder are the most
insidious, and a clear cause of concern, assuming they are in fact true...

~~~
jacalata
It certainly could be, but in general what she's accusing them of would be
wrong regardless of what a terrible person she could be. If someone is a bad
employee/co-worker you can fire them, but you can't bully/harass them out of
the place.

~~~
samstave
True. The weirdest accusation is that toward the wife... That just sounds....
strange.

------
ig1
This statement is pretty terrible.

The line "sexual or gender-based harassment" looks like it's been specifically
written to exclude other kinds of harassment, especially given that term is
used multiple times.

Employee harassment of any kind is unacceptable and if they're not willing to
admit that it's a problem and act as if it's something that should be brushed
under the carpet then it will continue to be a problem.

I appreciate that this might turn into a legal case so they're acting to
protect themselves, but it would be better if they hadn't put out any
statement rather than this weasel worded one.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Employee harassment of any kind is unacceptable

But generally not illegal except as a form of discrimination on an illegal
basis (as in, e.g., sexual harassment.) The line about sexual or gender-based
harassment is part of the detail leading up to the general statement of no
legal wrongdoing, which is followed by the statement about errors of
judgement, etc., that do not rise to the level of legal wrongdoing.

Harassment that does not constitute legally-prohibited discrimination would
fall into the category of error that they have expressly stated _did_ occur.

------
avenger123
We have a process for all this. It's called the legal system.

It's not perfect but it mostly gets the job done.

Has Julie Ann Horvath formally sued Github? It's not clear to me that she has.

It seems that she may have grounds for some kind of lawsuit. Why hasn't she
sued the company (if in fact there is no lawsuit)?

This to me is the most important question. At the moment, it seems this is
becoming a matter of public opinion.

I would rather it be moved over to the legal system where the rules of
engagement are much less malleable.

~~~
chippy
Quite so, and in most legal cases, both sides tend not to speak openly or
publicly until the case has finished.

------
rinon
Maybe it's just me, but I don't really think speculating on fights like this
from the outside without full and complete information is beneficial, or even
sane and rational. Can we just all agree that we don't know the full story
here, and that any and all players might be misleading or not telling the
whole story publicly? This is an internal issue. The only opinions I am
interested in are internal opinions of other github co-workers, and that only
if I was interviewing for a position at the company.

~~~
kalleth
This is the internet. There is no place here for your logic and reason.

~~~
vectorpush
I literally cringe whenever someone posts this hackneyed response.

------
joevandyk
Tom Preston-Werner's response: [http://tom.preston-
werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hel...](http://tom.preston-
werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hello-immersive-computing.html)

~~~
pistle
It would be nice to not see the harassment word prefaced with "gender-based."
This parsing, by Tom, without fuller disclosure of what mistakes were made
leads to the conclusion that there was some form of harassment, but that it
wasn't put forth in a manner which legally falls into "gender-based," which
would make github and Tom (& family) liable for those actions.

I still want to see the dramatization where the guy coder comes in professing
his love, gets spurned, then spitefully removes code.

Terms like hostile, gender-based, and discrimination all have pretty specific
requirements for proof.

At least HN an move forward unhappily and pull out the "tragic" word describe
everything. I'm not sure we all experienced catharsis, but "tragic" will have
to do.

------
sytelus
Can anyone tell what exact discrimination Horvath faced? I went through her
long interview and I can only read how she "felt" to be in "boys club" as
opposed to specific events that can be qualified as discrimination. For
example, she says her code was reverted and was apparently blaming that event
on her being a women. I can't imagine someone throwing good code away because
it was written by a women rather it seems much more likely that her code had
issues. Then there is series of rambling for founders wife sitting in front of
her every day. That doesn't feel like discrimination either but rather feels
like she was not looked upon as desirable employee there at higher level.
Overall I got an impression that she was turning whatever bad performance on
her part in to case of discrimination. May be I'm missing details but it is
very hard to identify events that can actually be qualified as
"discrimination" in her long rambling interview.

~~~
malandrew
It would be fascinating to see the commit in question.

If the commit has technical merit and should not have been reverted, why would
you not focus on demonstrating why the technical merit of the commit in
question? Claiming that a commit was reverted for personal reasons instead of
defending the technical merits of the commit strikes me as naïve.

A highly competent person who has produced some work product that was
challenged would typically either defend it on merit or assume they might have
produced a lesser work and seek to understand why.

My experience in all areas of competence I'm familiar with is that histrionics
like those observed thus far are often comorbid with demonstration of the
Dunning-Kruger effect in inexperienced individuals.

Zed Shaw is one of the few people I can think of that would be a counterpoint
to this observation, demonstrating high competence when acting histrionically.
You can just look at his contributions to open-source to see how good he is at
what he does.

JAH's github profile (for an engineer that worked there for a long time) seems
conspicuously sparse to me. There really aren't many projects there to
demonstrate superior mastery of HTML, CSS or git.

[https://github.com/nrrrdcore?tab=repositories](https://github.com/nrrrdcore?tab=repositories)

Looking further, like at her blog repo. There are .DS_Store files committed
(which would normally be in a local .gitignore or in your home folder
.gitignore file) and the first file I clicked on the in CSS folder has Jekyll
ruby errors printed to it:

[https://github.com/nrrrdcore/nrrrdcore.github.com/tree/maste...](https://github.com/nrrrdcore/nrrrdcore.github.com/tree/master/css)
(DS_Store file from 2 years ago still there)

[https://github.com/nrrrdcore/nrrrdcore.github.com/blob/maste...](https://github.com/nrrrdcore/nrrrdcore.github.com/blob/master/css/base.scss)
(broken blog post is 6 months old)

Assuming this is representative of the quality of her commits, Occam's Razor
suggest competence may be the reason for reverting the that css commit.

~~~
jdefarge
Exactly! I had the curiosity to check JAH's github profile too, and it raised
more suspicious towards her than I had previously imagined. For a fair
comparison, let's see a couple of female github repos (both frontend and
backend):

[https://github.com/pamelafox?tab=repositories](https://github.com/pamelafox?tab=repositories)

[https://github.com/kellabyte?tab=repositories](https://github.com/kellabyte?tab=repositories)

[https://github.com/gwenshap?tab=repositories](https://github.com/gwenshap?tab=repositories)

See? Any of those smart women above has much more quality code in their repos
with regular activity, even though not any of them works at github, that is,
they push code on their free time.

Finally, let's see a repo by another harassed geek girl:
[https://github.com/adriarichards?tab=repositories](https://github.com/adriarichards?tab=repositories)

Um... I definitely see a pattern here screaming too loud not to take notice.

------
fragmede
[http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/19/5526574/github-sexism-
scan...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/19/5526574/github-sexism-scandal-
julie-ann-horvath) for a bit of backstory.

------
harrystone
His wife says she didn't realize that soliciting contributions from her
husband's employees may not be appropriate.

She pretty plainly states that it never even entered her mind. That tells me
more about the atmosphere there than anything.

~~~
kelnos
Yes, I agree, but I'm sympathetic: GH has always pushed the flat-hierarchy,
we-are-all-peers attitude. And I think that's cool in theory, but has
potentially bad side-effects like this one, where people feel pressured in
situations where they viscerally know they are _not_ peers, even if the
atmosphere tries to push that idea.

------
doktrin
I have not followed this case. However, this just rolled across my FB feed :

[http://www.businessinsider.com/julie-ann-horvath-github-
hara...](http://www.businessinsider.com/julie-ann-horvath-github-harassment-
twitter-2014-4)

Maybe I'm being uncharitable, but based on her [JAH] public statements I have
a hard time taking her version of events 100% at face value. The drama to fact
ratio feels high.

> _" Company perks : witch hunts, snow cones and silencing"_

> _" I am not a victim. I'm someone that a company's negligence pushed too
> far, for too long. I am living, breathing consequence"_

> _" Leaving GitHub was the best decision of my life"_

> _" Hmm still no mention of the man who bullied me out of our code base
> because I _wouldn't_ fuck him. Too popular to be accountable, I guess"_

Is Github _that_ awful? I'm not seeing it.

~~~
abvdasker
There's a strong current of spitefulness in those Twitter posts. While I
understand that Horvath is clearly livid, and obviously not without some
reason, that kind of public vitriol would make me question anyone's
rationality.

------
smrtinsert
I wonder why his wife had to be at Github at all. I've worked at half a dozen
startups now. Never would a spouse of either gender be in the office, and if
they happened to maybe communicate with anyone, it was only a quick
introduction and then they got out of your way.

I would consider it highly inappropriate.

~~~
kfcm
I've been in a couple Midwestern start-ups, and founder's spouses (wives, in
both cases) often did come into the office. Generally they were going
somewhere together, or whatever. Chatted several times, and it was no big
thing.

When they did ask how things were going business-wise, I got the nod from
their husband. Turns out, they were also on the hook (co-signatories) for much
of the start-up capital vehicles/loans/lines of credit.

Their money on the line, they own the company, IMHO.

------
jpiasetz
Julie Ann Horvath has posted a bunch of interesting tweets about it starting
here
[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458340919721197568](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458340919721197568)

~~~
smtddr
Somehow, I don't think she's doing what is in her best interest right now. The
guy has resigned and the tech media is totally on this story right now. Any
small __preceived__ misstep and she could end up being labeled another "Adria
Richards".

Also, the question[1] in her current github background appears to represent a
suggestive joke that I would have never guessed she'd be comfortable with. Not
saying this is any kind of evidence of anything; just interesting that
apparently there is a side to her that finds jokes like that funny.

[http://i.imgur.com/X8Wdgg0.png](http://i.imgur.com/X8Wdgg0.png)

~~~
rhizome
Why, because she's supposed to be sexless before she can be credible in a
claim of sexual harassment?

~~~
smtddr
I wouldn't have a joke like that on any of my social profiles. If anything,
this is in her defense since it's one data-point indicating she's not a
stereotypical hyper-feminist-drama-queen _(do these even exist?)_ looking to
be offended by the slightest incident. She's easy-going enough to have
something like that on her public profile and she __knows__ what people will
think of first when they read that.

------
bratao
Mrs. Preston-Werner says here
([https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215](https://medium.com/p/2fe173c44215) ) that
the accusation and reason is that: "We learned that unnamed employees felt
pressured by Tom and me to work pro-bono for my nonprofit."

------
gregimba
I don't even know what to make of this. They say there was no evidence but he
is still resigning.

~~~
SpikeGronim
They say no evidence of illegality, but there is evidence of poor judgement.
Without commenting on the specifics of this incident that's a valid reason to
fire a CEO/co-founder/exec. I have no particular knowledge of what happened
but if GitHub thinks he showed poor judgement then it is reasonable to ask him
to resign.

~~~
asuffield
For example, if you didn't actually do anything legally wrong, but made it
look an awful lot like you did by screwing up and being a dick about it, and
you're a company executive, then you can resign or get fired.

I suspect that this is not a million miles from what happened here: not actual
discrimination, but enough of a blunder to look like it.

------
cheez
It doesn't really matter what actually happened. The well has been poisoned so
just fire someone and get it over with.

Now Github can get back to business.

~~~
ExpiredLink
> It doesn't really matter what actually happened.

That's the annoying part of the story.

------
thepumpkin1979
[http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-
hel...](http://tom.preston-werner.com/2014/04/21/farewell-github-hello-
immersive-computing.html)

------
volune
What a crock of shit. People don't typically quit companies they built from
the ground up when they have "done nothing wrong".

------
kategleason
:( this sucks. Github would not even exist without Tom Preston-Werner and I am
really scared to see how it will exist without him. Tragic for all his users.

~~~
pyre
> I am really scared to see how it will exist without him

Isn't that a _little_ bit extreme? Do all the good things that happen at
Github stem directly from Tom Preston-Werner?

I can't claim intimate knowledge of Github the company, but I somehow doubt
that this is a "Steve Jobs" type situation.

~~~
Maxford_Maxford
Come to think, I somehow doubt Steve Jobs was a "Steve Jobs" type situation.

------
desireco42
To me this is lawyer speak for, yes it is true but if we admit, we would be
liable. I would expect something like this from Bank of America or some other
mega-corp, not github.

Only good thing about this is that it is not happening on the front pages of
TechCrunch and whatever else blog might be following events like this.

------
calcsam
And this is why you need strong/clear HR policies.

~~~
sneak
Sure, at their size now. Not before, as policy beyond "use good judgement" at
a small company is basically pointless.

Your first dozen hires must all be good enough to _write_ such policies...

~~~
drgath
FWIW, Github hasn't been a "small company" for quite some time.
github.com/about/team says they are currently at 237 employees.

------
ch4s3
>>the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment

Isn't that like saying, well the hard proof isn't there but its clear you did
do something wrong?

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Which is an important distinction to make, especially considering the original
allegations were specific.

~~~
ch4s3
I get the distinction, but I guess I'm just skeptical about the attempt at
face saving here.

------
mundanevoice
If you haven't read already, check this:
[https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e](https://medium.com/p/d96f431f4e8e) She did
a lot of wrong things: \- Dating a coworker is not one of the best practise.
\- gossiping around about your co-workers/founders character is the also not
the best thing to do. \- If you write shit code, your code will be removed.
She is definitely not known for her coding abilities. She is just a melodrama
queen who is bad at heart, opportunist, blackmailed founder to poison the
company atmosphere. \- You can create a healthy workspace shouting "Women
Women" every time. We work with women too. Our behaviour and respect is based
on compassion and professionalism. They are just like any other person in the
company. \- The real story must have been that she is a bad/mediocre developer
who was being reviewed which didn't turned out pretty well (Obv since she was
busy bitching against coworkers). The only good way she had to abuse and
insult the company publically , get sympathy and then a Job. She seems to have
good PR skills. (Pun intended) Again, here are some of her recent tweets:
[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347574672388096](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458347574672388096)
[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458345005866696704](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458345005866696704)

------
shiven
This is turning into a Soap-Opera-via-Social-Media... What happened to the
good old days of people suing for damages in a court of law and moving on?

Public _name-and-shame_ has its place in the grand picture of such incidents,
but the longer it stretches, relative to time on social media, the more sudsy
it turns.

------
omarhegazy
This fucking sucks, man. Tom's always seemed like an awesome guy.

As always, absolutely overblown PR messes like this are a result of faulty
communication.

Without proper context or research done about it by Internet warriors frothing
at the mouth, a one-off donation ruins Brendan Eich's once rich and successful
career. Partly because Internet warriors tend to make emotional judgments
before they properly study the evidence and contex and before they think
through things, but also because Eich ... never responded. He never let the
facts through, never let out an, "Oh, sorry guys. This donation was done
because of X and Y and Z (don't support marriage as a whole/don't want
government getting it's hands in things/etc.,etc.) and it doesn't reflect my
current views on sexual orientation or that people with certain sexual
orientations deserve less opportunities.", he never gave proper context and
evidence to suggest that he wasn't a bad character.

Similarly with this. People are (conveniently?) keeping facts back, giving
very vague stories, saying very little with a lot of words, etc., etc. If we
are to believe that this thing was a huge misunderstanding and GitHub doesn't
employ a bunch of mysognisitic, immature people, why hasn't Tom spoke up? I'm
sure that GitHub is internally a lot better than it's image on the Internet
right now is -- why doesn't anyone speak up?

Or is it really as bad as the Internet's image of it is?

------
ia
we have one side of the story, for fuck's sake. the other side--the github
side? it's lawyer-speak and completely devoid of anything that addresses the
specific accusations.

how so many ostensibly smart people can simultaneously lose their ability to
think critically is incredible. add the word "gender" to anything and people
lose their minds.

------
Ryel
To me it sounds more like...

We dont have enough evidence to take legal action in this case, but our
investigation found out something worse so we would like Tom to resign before
it comes out publicly.

------
tqi
Slightly off topic:

Is there anywhere that offers(for lack of a better term) open source HR policy
for small companies to copy? Seems to me writing something like this can be
fairly onerous for a small company, especially in terms of legal overhead, but
is clearly important. Having a starting point would be very helpful...

------
mariusmg
To me it seems Github fired him but allow him to "save face" with the
resignation story.

~~~
barce
This is pretty much standard procedure. Depending on his contract, it saves
github from paying severance.

------
gdonelli
It feels unconvincing, and unapologetic.

~~~
ggreer
I can't think of much else they could reasonably do in response to these
allegations. Tom was a founder, President, and former CEO of GitHub. They
effectively fired him. They apologized profusely and laid out specific ways in
which they're trying to fix the problem. They hired a new HR head. They're
starting to train and educate employees.

What else would you have GitHub do?

~~~
gdonelli
Agreed. everything is right rationally, in fact I said it "feels". It feels
cold. It lacks human touch, in my opinion of course.

------
caio1982
I really don't care about how it's published in the media, I mean, this last
episode at least. It was clear since the very beginning when it broke out that
it would be dirty, really dirty. It's a shame not only for the people involved
but more specially for Github as an ecosystem. Such incredible company
bleeding in the media... sad times... and when I say incredible company I
don't mean incredibly owned or well run company, you know what I mean. I lost
a bit of faith in them today anyway. Sad times...

------
zenbowman
It is shortsighted to think there is nothing we can learn from this. There are
certainly things we can learn.

1) A good lawyer is worth a 1000 tweets.

2) Getting deeply romantically involved with coworkers carries serious risks,
whether or not you believe a company has the right to restrict office romances
or not.

3) The fetishization of "we don't have any process!" is a mark of immaturity,
not Zen. One would think engineers of all people would understand the
importance of formalized process.

I don't think anyone walks away a winner here.

------
poissonpie
"This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper"

I think with the amount of coverage this story has gotten, everyone wanted
something big to happen. Instead, we just get something mundane in some
carefully crafted words that seem designed to give no information whatsoever,
while still ensuring nobody can be sued any further. I kind of get the feeling
that they are all trying to say "Nothing to see here....move along....cows
turn themselves inside out all the time".

------
briantakita
Best of luck to everyone involved. Before casting judgement, please remember
that everybody makes mistakes. The process of healing involves accepting this
reality and recognizing everybody's humanity.

In light of this, I would personally be honored to work with someone of Tom
Preston-Werner's caliber.

I hope he & his wife learn from this experience & grow as people.

------
tdicola
So what happens when a founder leaves like this, do they give up their %
ownership and the other founders gain what was lost?

~~~
jessaustin
I suppose it depends on how the articles of incorporation are written up, but
I really doubt it would work _that_ way. It's more likely that the leaving
founder will become a sort of silent partner, retaining equity but not
managerial input.

------
smrtinsert
Also, can they get rid of Gravatar now?

~~~
markjaquith
They kind of did. You just start with a Gravatar, but can upload your own
image.

------
EGreg
"The investigation found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his
wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or
hostile work environment."

"We still have work to do"

Which is it? A non acknowledgement acknowledgement?

------
thedaveoflife
The best thing about this article is that it hopefully signals that we will no
longer have to here about this anymore. As much as I love using GitHub, I hate
hearing about the internal politics of their executives and engineers.

------
logn
This is a misleading title and not the actual title on the page.

------
xrt
Think this might make those "Fork me on GitHub" badges a little less popular?
I sincerely hope so.

------
lifeisstillgood
it's not idea Sunday but: a wearable video recording device that documents
everything.

It may sound crazy but it would be interesting to me to find out how much of
my rather boring life is actionable / illegal or distasteful

~~~
graup
Devices like this exist.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelog](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelog)
[http://getnarrative.com/](http://getnarrative.com/)

------
drunkcatsdgaf
Im over using anything with this much drama, I want features, not headline
news.

------
pandatigox
Weird that just a few months ago, Tom became the first President of Github.

------
rajacombinator
What a load. Good luck with your hiring goals for 2014...

------
seanhandley
Hope that Julie publishes a detailed account. Sources I've read so far are
vague and subjective as to what actually happened.

------
gjvc
github is not seeing another penny of my money.

~~~
danielweber
Because Tom didn't demand they go balls-to-the-wall fighting what may be an
inevitably losing battle to disprove something that isn't disprovable?

I don't know what happened, but this outcome might be very much in Tom's well-
considered best interests. You are making a no-win situation.

 _EDIT_ : Heck, I don't even know if you are mad at GitHub for insufficiently
defending Tom or insufficiently crucifying him

~~~
steele
gjvc is using their small slice of economic leverage to weigh in; the
motivations are no one else's business unless gjvc volunteers this. Given the
baiting questions you pose, what incentive does gjvc have to address your
curiosity?

~~~
danielweber
It's not really "weighing in" to send up a confusing signal, despite
(especially?) if it's very emphatic.

------
marincounty
"Because I would hear ‘We should hire more women!’ on almost a daily basis
from the same people who kind of refused to respect me as a peer."

I don't know what went on here, but I have heard these words before. And most
of the time it has nothing to do with gender.

(As to hn deleting comments--I don't understand the moderators. I posted
something earlier about the divide between the rich/poor--and claimed
something about the lack of modern Horatio Algiers. I guess it really bothers
some of the fancy boys? I come back to this site and comments are magically
removed. I commented in the article on Lenin. Yes--this is off topic; I'm just
curious why whenever I bring up money, and how many rich boys fathers helped
them out graetly; I am edited?)

~~~
theorique
"We should hire more women", when said to a person of the female sex, does not
necessarily or automatically mean, "we should hire _you_ ".

------
andyl
Kicked out of his own company - ouch. Taking VC and giving control to
outsiders is Russian roulette.

Writing and adhering to HR/conflict-of-interest policy is a no-brainer. A
board who cared for the interests of its founder would not leave this as a
trap for the founder to step in.

I note with interest that the other accused was given a promotion.

------
superduper33
"There was no investigation." \- Julie Ann Horvath

[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458342995469688833](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458342995469688833)

------
hackaflocka
Theresa Preston-Werner's twitter bio reads:

"Obsessed with inspiring the tech community to support underfunded
nonprofits."

Mostly, her own nonprofit, I imagine.

------
hackaflocka
3 recent tweets from the wife that indicate that she might be batshit crazy:

TheresaPrestonWerner ‏@tpdubs2 Apr 10 Best meal I've ever had. @ The Meatball
Shop [http://instagram.com/p/moWCO4njNA/](http://instagram.com/p/moWCO4njNA/)

TheresaPrestonWerner ‏@tpdubs2 Apr 10 Building out a team and getting to work
with insanely great people makes me the happiest founder ever.

TheresaPrestonWerner ‏@tpdubs2 Mar 27 First time in 2 weeks that I feel like
I'm not just performing being excited, but I really am insanely excited to
change the world!

(people who express themselves with such extreme language, usually are batshit
crazy. not taking sides here, the Horvath lady also seems to be batshit crazy
from a reading of her tweet stream.)

~~~
fizx
> people who express themselves with such extreme language, usually are
> batshit crazy

Quick question: Would you consider "batshit crazy" extreme language?

~~~
hackaflocka
Best, ever, happiest founder ever, changing the WORLD

------
leccine
What a surprise. Who thought that there is zero legal ground for her
accusations...

------
emocakes
github raped me! now lets start the misandric shitstorm.

------
hackaflocka
This is what happens when you hire people for their gender (Horvath) or race.
Injudiciously applied 'Liberalism' is the core problem here.

------
caiob
Are we still on this?

------
leccine
GitHub did the right thing and it turns out that Ms. Horvath accusations were
without any basis. She not just damaged the gender equality efforts harder for
everybody but raised visibility about how hiring females can damage your
company's reputation. This is not the right way of fighting for the good case.
A good example how to challenge the status quo: [http://qz.com/192071/how-one-
college-went-from-10-female-com...](http://qz.com/192071/how-one-college-went-
from-10-female-computer-science-majors-to-40/)

I hope more people realize that we need more results and less artificially
buffed scandals.

~~~
bitlord_219
How do you suggest she should have responded, rather than calling them out
publicly?

~~~
leccine
First of all, if you have problem with your employment you sit down with your
manager or your peers and talk about it. If you can resolve the case right
there great if not, escalate. If you still think that they mistreat you, get a
lawyer. Going public with accusations that you can't prove is certainly not
the way. Look at her now, you think that there is any company on this planet
which is going to risk the same process that was done to Github on a maximum
mediocre engineer? I don't think so. This pretty much a lose lose situation as
I can see it. Not to mention the post from that anonymous employee who states
that in fact Ms. Horvath was starting this entire scandal due to jealousy and
trying to undermine other people's reputation. You really think that this is
they way to go?

~~~
bitlord_219
When it's the CEO who you have a problem with, how do you escalate beyond him?

> Look at her now, you think that there is any company on this planet which is
> going to risk the same process that was done to Github on a maximum mediocre
> engineer? I don't think so.

She already has another job with &yet. I'm curious though, what makes you
think she's a "maximum mediocre engineer"?

~~~
leccine
Well beyond the CEO is my lawyer and you get gather proof and build a case.
She just exploded and left, making accusations nobody can prove. Again, that
anonymous post just made it clear that she did not tell half of the story.

Just by going through her public gh profile.

------
nhangen
Silly thing these gender based politics and acts of political correctness. I
can guarandamntee you that if I was Tom and was innocent, mistakes in judgment
aside, I would not be resigning from MY COMPANY.

Is this the result of new board members coming in post-investment? If so, it's
more reason to stay bootstrapped and free. If not, who is there to pressure
him other than Chris?

Edit: 4 downvotes without a single comment. Tech is really becoming a soup
sandwich of misplaced frustration and angst.

~~~
emocakes
in regards to misplaced frustration and angst, pretty much, tech is mostly
filled with frustrated, unattractive (physical and personality wise) middle
aged men, who believe that the only way to find a mate is to swallow this
liberal agenda so as to make themselves appear as more of a 'nice guy', and
thus in their twisted little heads, becoming more attractive to members of the
opposite sex. Typical beta mentality.

edit: actually, I should say that tech is not actually like this, its mainly
the illusion that reddit and HN present.

~~~
hackaflocka
Agree 100%. There are a couple of Betas tweeting her offering to employ her.

------
vpv
So, guy who wrote GitHub and a ton of open source stuff is ousted from his own
company and sacrificed for a person whos biggest accomplishment in open source
is JavaScript for Cats? [https://github.com/nrrrdcore/javascript-for-
cats](https://github.com/nrrrdcore/javascript-for-cats)

~~~
bitlord_219
Why do you consider this relevant?

~~~
cpncrunch
It would appear to be relevant because she describes herself as an engineer,
and because she thought the reverts of her code and bad performance reviews
were due to sexism.

~~~
bitlord_219
Are you saying that good engineers can't have a sense of humor?

~~~
cpncrunch
No.

------
turar
It's interesting how many would still remember the incident in question, if it
wasn't brought up like this again. My personal attention span must be pretty
short, it took a couple of days for me to stop associating Github with that
incident.

------
foohbarbaz
What an ugly mess!

Somewhat related: I am amazed now much gossiping goes on in an entirely male
work group behind other people's backs. Males are definitely worse than
females in that regard. I would not be surpised if allegations were true. A
bunch if primadonna devs can be nasty to work with. Just stay away and
separate work and life.

~~~
sergiotapia
Eh no, in my personal experience in a workplace where there are majority women
you -will- get cliques and you will hear some nasty rumors go around. Women
enjoy spreading gossip and harassing each other.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hmlPtRu1SQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hmlPtRu1SQ)

------
roryhughes
Kicked out of his own company? Reminds me of Apple and SJ... Hopefully Tom
will see a great future and make some out of the blue return.

~~~
mtkd
First came across Tom's code in the Grit gem (around 2008 possibly).

Unfortunately people who can write inspirational and innovative code like that
are not always the most perceptive to the complexities and risks of HR in a
large organisation.

I really hope mojombo gets back to building awesome again ... a VR coding
environment - shut up and take my money ...

------
nakedrobot2
I doubt they are publishing the real story, there. What is a fact is that Mr.
Preston-Werner is resigning. From there, we may only speculate.

If I may speculate, I'd guess that there was some truth to the story told by
"the other side", that there was some kind of harassment on the part of this
man's wife (who was not employed there). That is all I can really guess. And
the only real way to publicly resolve this would be for this man to resign -
while he perhaps didn't _personally_ do anything wrong, maybe his wife did, so
he was in a sense the fall guy for that.

------
iandanforth
This makes me sad. My interpretation of these events was that a toxic employee
instigated a witch hunt and was successful. By simple observation of numbers
here, you probably disagree with this. But for the few of you that do agree
with this point of view, take it as a reminder of the crucial role of hiring.
You can easily hire the person who ruins your company's culture and causes
your downfall.

~~~
jleader
If losing one executive at a 200+ employee company "ruins the company's
culture and causes [that company's] downfall", then that company and that
executive have been doing it wrong!

Regardless of the facts of the case and whatever damage it may have done to
GitHub's culture, if this incident and this individual's departure are enough
to cause GitHub's ruin and downfall, then that's evidence of an absurdly
fragile company and culture.

------
Randgalt
Irrationality is sweeping the Tech world. I shudder to think where this will
end.

------
danielbraun
This is scary. I was just checking out Jekyll and stumbled upon his blog. Then
I came here and saw this.

