5 ms·
The End of My VC Career
- whataretensors 8y agoAm I the only one who doesn't care about anybody's sexual past? Let a comedian be judged on comedy. Let a VC be judged on investments. For everything else there's the law. No reason to set up an extra judicial system based primarily on media headlines.
- danso 8y agoThe VC in this case had a sexual history that included sexual assault: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-18/will-britain-keep-investing-in-a-sex-offender-s-venture-fund https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-18/will-brit... > In 2012, police spotted London venture capitalist Stefan Glaenzer acting erratically on a subway platform. He was lurching around, high out of his mind, when he boarded a crowded train and rubbed his groin against a woman standing inside. After his arrest, Glaenzer, the multimillionaire former executive chairman of the online music service Last.fm Ltd., apologized and pleaded guilty to sexual assault, which put him on the U.K.’s sex offender registry. Of course, there's a worthwhile debate about how we should allow ex-convicts to be a part of society again. But the VC written about here wasn't someone who is accused of just having affairs.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ythn 8y agoI generally agree that we as a society need to be more forgiving of people's pasts. The #MeToo fad is more about bringing justice to offenders that escaped justice in the past, but this guy didn't get off scot-free for years like Weinstein, Spacey, etc. This case seemed like a one off thing where he made some poor choices and was punished by the legal system for it.
- wilde 8y agoThe legal system hasn’t been effective in many of these cases. Hell, some dude raped a chick with multiple eye witnesses at Stanford and only got 6months jail time. Additionally, the folks abusing people have used career pressure to keep folks from going to the legal system in the first place. (see Weinstein). If the abusers can use this pressure, I see no reason why victims shouldn’t respond in kind.
- DataWorker 8y agoIt’s hard to argue against this but the reality is that you’re advocating vigilantism. That has its own downsides and the wisdom of crowds leads to witch trials so there is a trade off to consider.
- eropple 8y agoUnequivocally no, he's not arguing for vigilantism. Words mean things and "social opprobrium" does not equate to "vigilantism." There is a distinction and a difference and it borders on mendacious (when not outrightly malicious) to conflate them.
- Retric 8y agoWhat in your mind separates a linch mob forming when someone gets out of prison an this? As far as I can tell it's identical behavior and they both fall under vigilantism.
- eropple 8y agoOne of those things involves a crime and the other involves people exercising their free right of association to not associate with that dude (and, transitively, to not associate with people who think it's a good idea to continue associating with that dude). The comparison you're making isn't apples and oranges, it's apples and lawnmowers. And it is why I left an out for malice: because that disingenuous comparison is used by real bad folks for real bad things.
- smt88 8y agoThere are enough talented people with no known history of sexual assault that we need not bend over backwards to keep the ones that do have such a history
- amorphid 8y agoI live in California, and I avoid searching our state's sex offender database. [1] If there's someone in my life that is a registered sex offender, I don't want to know about it. I just don't like fishing for reasons to not like someone. One thing I find very odd about the disclaimer [2] on California sex offender's site in general is this text in the site's disclaimer... Penalty for Registered Sex Offenders Who Enter this Website. Any person who is required to register pursuant to Penal Code section 290 who accesses the websites search functionality is punishable by a fine not exceeding $1,000, imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding six months, or by both the fine and imprisonment. (Penal Code § 290.46, subd. (k).) This penalty does not include viewing information on the Main page or within the links on that page. Why bother making it be illegal for a registered sex offender to search the database? [1] https://meganslaw.ca.gov/ https://meganslaw.ca.gov/ [2] https://meganslaw.ca.gov/Disclaimer.aspx https://meganslaw.ca.gov/Disclaimer.aspx
- dragonwriter 8y ago> Why bother making it be illegal for a registered sex offender to search the database? The stated rationale was to prevent it being a social networking service for habitual sex offenders to find people inclined to collaborate with them on further sex offenses. (Of course, it can still serve the same purpose for current or aspiring sex offenders who haven't been caught yet to network with those who have.)
- gervase 8y ago> Why bother making it be illegal for a registered sex offender to search the database? Unfortunately, it seems to be based on an intention to prevent its use as a "social network" of sorts, which could potentially lead to higher re-offense rates.
- cubano 8y ago> Am I the only one who doesn't care about anybody's sexual past? In general, I don't care either...however, if I was to see multiple under-15 charges I certainly would 1. like to be aware of the info and 2. keep my 14yo daughter away from this disturbed predator. Is their nothing in anyone's past that would give you pause?
- jforman 8y agoIf instead of worrying about their "sexual past," how about worrying about their "past abuse of women"? Because that is absolutely relevant to job performance as a VC.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- outside2344 8y agoI agree with you that someone's consensual sexual past shouldn't matter. But this is not someone's sexual past, it is assault on another human being, and yes, criminal records should matter.
- arkades 8y agoThe problem with that being that many states have been expanding their definition of “sex offender” in a harsh-on-crime theme that, over the years, has morphed it into something unintuitive. When you tell me someone is a sex offender, I think they’ve committed a crime against another human being and should be treated accordingly. I don’t think “this person got caught taking a piss in the woods off the side of the highway” (which, in fairness, is why NYS only requires level 1 - low risk, nonviolent, non predatory - offenders to register for 20 years rather than for life - wouldn’t want to be cruel and hound a public urinator for More than two decades).
- draw_down 8y agoActions have consequences.
- leggomylibro 8y agoThis is a complex topic, but it seems like there are a couple of questions about the character of people who work in executive roles which should fundamentally matter in due diligence discussions. Do they implicitly respect the agency of others? Do they see people as individuals with their own goals and the fundamental right to decide what those goals are? These people make a lot of decisions on behalf of others, and I believe that asking those questions isn't that far off from asking: can you trust them to act in the interests of their employees, clients, and customers? Or at the very least, are they likely to have some sense of fiduciary duty towards the people who they agree to perform work for? So, from my perspective, "a private mistake which we all agree was not business-related" sounds...well I don't know the right word, but who is 'we' in that phrase? And I don't know which institutional investor balked at the fund based on the perceived character of its decision-makers, but I appreciate that they considered that angle in their process.
- tptacek 8y agoI thought "private mistake" was an extremely weird argument, too. It can't possibly be right; any of us can think of "private" crimes that would preclude someone's continued involvement with a VC firm. So, really, the implied argument he's making is that sexual assault is some kind of lesser crime.
- ScottBurson 8y agoI read it as drawing a distinction between sexual assault committed against someone with whom the firm has an actual or potential business relationship (e.g. hitting on a founder when she pitches you) vs. one committed against someone with no such connection. Certainly the law would not distinguish these two — I didn't read him as suggesting that — but one's business associates might.
- tptacek 8y agoThere's not much of interest in this story. Glaenzer was caught, by police witnesses, sexually assaulting a woman in a London train. He was convicted. He retained his role at the VC firm he cofounded for several years, but discovered that institutional investors --- the people who fund VC funds --- were unwilling to allocate capital to a firm that included Glaenzer. He left the firm. The job of a VC partner is about trust, judgement, and persuasion. Flagrant violations by partners redound to the reputation of the whole firm. When you understand just what it is a VC firm is, how they're essentially middlemen simultaneously pitching themselves to operators and to capital, it becomes clear how important reputation is. Really, it's all there is. Without it, you can't do the job.
- cpach 8y agoIndeed. Seems like a pretty clear-cut case to me.
- endlessvoid94 8y agoThis is the kind of article that makes me want to go into the mountains for a week.
- bob_theslob646 8y agoIk this article was so poorly written, even the format for an interview was not there.
- brighteyes 8y ago> I suggest that by remaining in his position he took very few consequences, and that in almost any other walk of life a person with less privilege would automatically lose their job after being convicted of sexual assault. Is this actually true? If, as a random example, a waiter in a restaurant were convicted of sexual assault on the subway (as in the story here), how would the owner of the restaurant even know about it to fire him? I think things work exactly the opposite of how the author of this piece does. The person under question here had his career end because he was famous in his field. But 99% of people are not famous. Rather than "privilege" shielding him, being rich and famous was his downfall.
- lainga 8y agoThrough the increasingly popular (and unreliable, and hard-to-dispute) background check service that SV has created. https://checkr.com/ https://checkr.com/
- codingdave 8y agoBackground checks have been around for a long time, and a new service has little to do with their availability to employers. The actual answer as to how an employer would know if their employee had gotten in legal trouble is the time they would miss as they got arrested, jailed, bailed, and then worked through the legal process.
- brighteyes 8y agoBeing jailed or otherwise detained for any amount of time, sure. But otherwise, working through the legal process wouldn't be something a regular employer knows about. You would have more errands to run than usual perhaps, that's about it. Another example: as a programmer, if I run into legal trouble with the IRS and they sue me, or if my neighbor sues me for damage to their property, how would my employer know? (I'm not saying it's good that employers might not know this. I'm just baffled by the article taking it as a given that practically all employers would.)
- irrational 8y ago