
Burning Man sexual harassment accusation leads to resignation of Alphabet exec - MilnerRoute
https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Alphabet-Executive-Resigns-After-Harassment-13350037.php
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thrower123
Holy Harambe, I'd be careful about browsing sfgate without a heavy duty ad-
blocker in place. UBlock Origin is just reeling off blocked requests on this
article - by the time I finished the counter is up to 25k. I snuck a peak with
my protection off in incognito mode, and I haven't seen a page blasted with
such ads and autoplays and other shit in a very long time.

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owlninja
I am normally not a fan of HN comments about the website and not the story,
but this site is horrendous!

Try anything else: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/30/technology/alphabet-
execu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/30/technology/alphabet-executive-
sexual-harassment-resigns.html)

~~~
samfriedman
The SFGate article is a literal reposting of that NYTimes story, and they
state as such by the bottom. I think the link should be updated to point to
the Times in this case.

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olliej
It’s not an accusation - he literally admitted he did it, and just labeled it
as a “poor judgement” moment.

It is unclear if he thinks the poor judgement was harassment, or thinking he
could get away with it.

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tosser0001
Reading the article he claims that she had interviewed but was not hired, he
assumed she knew she wasn't hired, and so presumably, in his mind at the time,
his sexual advance was not on a potential employee.

There's no evidence in the article indicating how much any of this is true.

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ravenstine
Sorry to make an off-topic comment, but the SFGate website is insufferable.
There's about 3 videos playing at once, one of which I think is an ad, a
dynamically loaded chum box, a subscribe-now modal that navigated me away even
when I clicked the X, and it the page is clearly redrawing too often since
scrolling and highlighting seems jumpy.

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warent
Apparently he deleted his Twitter account as well.
[https://twitter.com/rdevaul](https://twitter.com/rdevaul)

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908087
Executives at privacy-invasive corporations sure do seem to value privacy when
they're the ones being looked at.

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detaro
duplicate of at least
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18347386](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18347386)

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
Isn't using Burning Man for networking and for discussion of business in
itself problematic, as it excludes a significant (majority?) of the population
that would prefer to avoid going to alcohol/drug/sex fueled parties?

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ChuckMcM
Burning man, golf courses, bdsm parties, bridge games, yes all are problematic
when they are "where business gets done." I have called out inappropriate
venues for deciding workplace things in the past, my experience is that the
person who arranged the situation understands it is inappropriate and they
either don't care, or they want it that way.

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jandrese
Of all of the places where you shouldn't discuss business, Burning Man is near
the top.

The whole situation is weird. The victim applied for a position and was
rejected. A week later she finds the guy who rejected her at Burning Man (on
accident?) and he apparently gets the wrong idea about why she is there. It's
pretty clear the guy needs to leave his job regardless if he was willing to
reconsider her application if she took him up on the offer. Google doesn't
need a casting couch manager.

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ChuckMcM
I completely agree, I was just responding to the GP comment not the story as a
whole.

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olivermarks
So no 90 million employee payoff for this mid ranking fellow then?

I know nothing of the case but this feels like another 'I was at a party two
years ago and someone made an unwanted advance' allegation.

Did the accuser subsequently join Google? Was her job competitive to the
accused and was he inappropriate at work after this alleged event?

Given Google being conceived and founded at Burning Man and their founders
'interesting' relationships with partners running Youtube etc the whole
premise of HR decisions based on allegations appears to be very one sided
towards any accuser.

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aylmao
The article says it:

> He said that X decided not to hire Simpson before she went to Burning Man
> and that he did not realize she had not been informed.

Also, the guy admitted it was "an error of judgement". When the accused admits
he was wrong, I don't think it's an "accusation" as much as a fact.

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olivermarks
Right, but is X subsequently a Google employee anyway?

My concern is how vulnerable the average male is to being fired for making
past unwanted passes/propositions at women. In many cases this may well be
merited if the guy is jerk - and this may be the case here - but in many other
instances this seems all to easy to abuse from an accusing perspective

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aylmao
We're all vulnerable to smear and false accusations. Anyone could claim right
now that you sold company secrets to a competitor, yet we don't worry about
that because most people are not liars or jerks and would face repercussions
themselves if proven wrong.

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olivermarks
'we don't worry about that because most people are not liars or jerks and
would face repercussions themselves if proven wrong.'

...you would hope, yes.

