Very disturbing that mere allegation by any random person can bring down a COO of a major payment processor and cause future hiring troubles to a company that's going up against giants such as Visa. Do I smell a conspiracy?
Your preferred explanation of this event is that a baseless accusation of sexual harassment was orchestrated by the big payment processors as a means of torpedoing Square's already breathless pace? And that, despite the baselessness of that claim, a major architect of Square decided to hop off the train? That despite a huge investment of time, energy and ego, the mere whisper of an accusation was sufficient to send him running?
If I may posit a more likely scenario: Square hires human beings. And human beings, thanks to a technology stack built atop a basal ganglia, like to fuck almost at the exclusion of all other things. And, due to imperfections of this stack, sometimes higher order objectives are subjugated by that enthusiasm for fucking.
And that as a result, maybe someone just didn't keep their willy in their pants, they knew it, and decided to step aside before their complicated mess got slopped on the company they helped build?
I dunno – I feel like I like the "humans are imperfect" explanation a bit better.
Yes, because a conspiracy is more likely than one of the guy's at the helm of a company notorious for its poor working environment[0] actually turning out to, allegedly, being a douchebag.
This is why Billy Graham had a policy to avoid being alone with any woman other than his wife. Hard to do in a modern office, but a good rule for high power folks who might be a good lawsuit target. Works equally well for other partner combinations.
Its the same principal. A high powered person has an assistant they can trust to witness their interactions with people of the sex they would be interested in. Requires money, but then again, targets generally have cash.
You might want to read up on Billy Graham, you are confusing him with some other TV minister. I might not agree with all of his beliefs, but I do believe he held them honestly and dealt with others the same.
I would expect that tone of comment on other boards but not here.
In other words: if you start a company that innovates and competes against the big boys, you should have criminal and civil immunity, because any accusations against you are conspiracies.
Also, how are they going up against Visa? They don't issue their own cards, but rather, are competing against the likes of PayPal, Bank of America, and Authorize.net.
It is speculated that eventually Square will cut out credit cards, creating their own network (perhaps using ACH instead) to reduce their costs. This would be a threat to Visa.
It's not a random person, it's an unnamed person. Without any details, I'm curious why the possibility the the claims might be correct are not even considered.
That's my point exactly. In theory, even an unpaid intern has the power to bring down top-level executives by simply walking into a police precinct. For a competitor, it's a better and far quicker strategy than competing on product features.
This isn't even remotely true, most sexual assault cases result in no arrest or prosecution. Even in significant cases where a person of power commits sexual assault, they are likely to win their case -- the Diallo case comes to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Strauss-Kahn
Under the normal US definition, the only things that are workplace sexual harassment are quid pro quo and hostile work environment. IANAL, but I believe that while sexual assault can be used as evidence of a hostile work environment, I don't think that sexual assault is itself a criminal form of sexual harassment.
Sexual harassment tends to be civil. In most cases where some sort of sexual-related crime has occurred, there pretty much a guarantee that harassment occurred as well (think physical contact or labor-related crime such as extortion) though harassment can occur without a crime (unwanted verbal advances or comments leading to hostile work environment)
no it doesn't. eating a sandwich is not sexual harassment under any law. sexual harassment is is a defined law.
this is a dismissing tactic to imply that sexual harassment is some sort of pseudo law that isn't fair, with often the implication that it's a giant conspiracy to allow women and evil feminists to screw over men.
sexual harassment is a crime. it's a real crime. tech has a sexism problem.
Yes it does. In California, sexual harassment includes assault and that, most certainly, is a crime. So you could face both a civil complaint and a criminal charge (for the assault part of the harassment)
Note this quote: "The conduct of the harasser must either be severe or it must be pervasive to be sexual harassment. A single incident is probably not sexual harassment unless it is severe. For example, a single incident of rape or attempted rape would probably be sexual harassment (it would also violate criminal laws)."
While in this case there's not really enough information to make any kind of judgement, I feel it is important to point out that sexism can occur between people of the same gender and sexism is not strictly relegated the realm of how one gender is treated by another.
As others say, it varies by state, but sexual blackmailing (e.g. "screw me or lose your job") and unwanted sexual touching are illegal just about everywhere.
there is a persist, false, and negative meme that all sexual harassment is a fraud by feminists, and that men are now being systematicly oppressed by feminazi misanderists. just look into the "men's rights" orgs.
> Several months after our relationship began, I recommended that he interview at Square. He went through the interview process and was ultimately hired. I had no impact on his potential success at the company. At no point did he ever report directly to me, and I have seen his work product less than a handful of times.
As opposed to the much more persist, false, and negative meme that all buyer's remorse is sexual harassment, and that all men are potential rapists under the right circumstances. Just look into the "gender equality" orgs.
"In [Intercourse], she argues that all heterosexual sex in our patriarchal society is coercive and degrading to women, and sexual penetration may by its very nature doom women to inferiority and submission, and "may be immune to reform.""
Though Dworkin denied it, many, including female, critics, viewed it as such:
"Such descriptions are often cited by Dworkin's critics, interpreting the book as claiming "all" heterosexual intercourse is rape, or more generally that the anatomical mechanics of sexual intercourse make it intrinsically harmful to women's equality. For instance, Cathy Young says that statements such as, "Intercourse is the pure, sterile, formal expression of men's contempt for women," are reasonably summarized as "All sex is rape.""
So that's one person who wrote something that someone interpreted as "all sex is rape". Got any other evidence or is that it?
Feminism, like all groups, has many overriding ideas and then within that movement you'll have disagreements and there's be a tiny minority who take extreme uncommon views that the rest of the group don't share. "All sex is rape" is such a minority and extreme view. The majority of feminists don't think that at all (I might be wrong, so please, more evidence if you have it)/.
You can find gay men who don't support gay rights, I'm sure there were (at least one) black person in Deep South of USA who supported slavery. etc. etc.
That one person lead a small but notable movement that identified strongly with her beliefs.
I absolutely agree that probably the very vast majority of feminists don't think that at all, and my intent was not to claim so, though it may not have been clear.
