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Not the only issue people have issues with: > Ritter filed a lawsuit in November that alleged Schmidt, a former chief executive and chairman of Google, “forcib

Not the only issue people have issues with: > Ritter filed a lawsuit in November that alleged Schmidt, a former chief executive and chairman of Google, “forcibly raped” her while on a yacht off the coast of Mexico in 2021. > She also claimed they had sex without her consent during the 2023 Burning Man festival in Nevada. ref: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-03-06/former-google-chiefs-spying-sex-assault-lawsuit-sent-to-arbitration https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-03-06/former-goo...

bckr 4mo ago
When you have everything but can’t even keep your hands to yourself. Shameful.
- mschuster91 4mo ago
  It's a common issue. When you got everything you could possibly want in life or have enough money to buy whatever you want... then for quite a lot of people of either gender, the illegal and illicit becomes the next thing to obtain. For some, it's an increasingly worrisome amount (and type of) drugs, for others, it's women, and for a select few it's children.
  - saghm 4mo ago
    > When you got everything you could possibly want in life or have enough money to buy whatever you want... then for quite a lot of people of either gender, the illegal and illicit becomes the next thing to obtain. But with a society that empowers men more than women, and relative power disparities of all types lending themselves to behavior like this (plenty of people who don't have everything still have enough power to exploit those they have power over). In the abstract, sure, it might not be something inherent to men, but it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that in practice women are victimized by behavior like this at a system level that men are not. To any men who are dubious about this, I'd genuinely suggest asking the women who you have close enough relationships with to be comfortable having tough discussions if they'd be willing to tell you about experiences they've had where men have behaved poorly towards them in ways that wouldn't have likely happened to a man in their circumstances; I'm guessing that pretty much all of them will have experienced far more than you'd imagine. As a man, I'm relatively certain I can't recall any instance of ever experiencing the reverse of this though, and that's my point: going out of your way to try to frame this as a gender-neutral issue basically emphasizes theoretical concerns at the expense of the actual distribution of problems that people face in real life. When things are so slanted that in practice almost everyone in one group has experienced it but relatively few from another group has had the same experience, framing it in terms of that is important.
    - mschuster91 4mo ago
      > But with a society that empowers men more than women, and relative power disparities of all types lending themselves to behavior like this (plenty of people who don't have everything still have enough power to exploit those they have power over). In the abstract, sure, it might not be something inherent to men, but it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that in practice women are victimized by behavior like this at a system level that men are not. A valid and important point, yes. But then there's Ghislaine Maxwell. By all accounts, she is just as guilty as he was, some say even worse because she actively recruited victims for him. The fact that society gives less women that kind of power reduces the absolute number of women that abuse their power - but the level of depravity they can sink to those that do rise to power is just as bad as men's.
      - saghm 4mo ago
        I feel like the existence of victims of women doesn't detract from the overall point I was making, which is that overall the distribution of people who exploit people like this is overwhelmingly tilted towards men being the dominant source. The fact that you can point to specific counterexamples as a distraction from this is exactly what I'm trying to argue against being useful. For any significant source of mistreatment of an oppressed group in history (which I won't bother calling out examples of because they will readily come to mind), there were likely some members of the oppressed group who took part or at least didn't stand up for the others, but equating that with being the overall source of the mistreatment is at best misguided and at worst actively muddying the waters.
- delecti 4mo ago
  It seems that when you can have anything money could buy, you start to look at the things money can't buy.
  - johnnyanmac 4mo ago
    Why can't that ever be talent, or wisdom, or passion? So many filthy rich people. Seem to instantly go "hmm, what's some illegal stuff I can do despite so many legal things available to me". I'm sure all the above happened back in the day too, but: rich people of previous centuries would go to the arts to find meaning. Being part of an orchestra or theatre troupe or artist alley was a peak achievement. Now we just have boring dystopia where rich guys literally build bunkers for the end of days they are personally bringing about. What the hell happend?
dylan604 4mo ago
Trying to wrap my head around how one can still be around someone in 2023 after what happened in 2021. This confusion no way justifies what happened nor am I blaming anyone. I just don't understand it.
- jasonlotito 4mo ago
  [flagged]
- lazide 4mo ago
  Money. Usually the lawsuits start when the money is more likely to come from that, than from enabling the behavior.
  - lkey 4mo ago
    Rape apologia. 81% of women have been sexually harassed, at least 20% have been raped. Yet, weirdly, that hasn't changed the allocation of capital in the United States in their collective favor. But let's see what kind of person you actually are. Do you have a problem with suing, post-rape? What kind of society would you consider ideal? Keep in mind that the current criminal case closure rate of rape cases is 25% and has been dropping for the last 10 years.
    - lazide 4mo ago
      Uh huh. Or just noting Cash Rules Everything Around Me. Which I doubt was a fact lost on the complaintant - which if the crime occurred, might indeed make the circumstances worse eh? Which, notably, none of what you are saying even addresses eh? Do you think Trump has gotten where he is because these things are not happening? None of this excuses anything.
      - saghm 4mo ago
        > Do you think Trump has gotten where he is because these things are not happening? I don't even understand what you're trying to claim here. As best I can figure out, it sounds like you're saying that Trump made his money from suing people for sexual assault, but that's so absurd I can't even imagine someone trying to claim that as a troll. Even ignoring that, your argument seems to be "people in general are motivated by money, therefore this specific instance of a person acting where money could plausibly be a motivation is the only possible explanation". It informs quite a bit about how you view the world, but it's not a particularly compelling explanation.
dyauspitr 4mo ago
So we’re just going to believe her? Why?
- RIMR 4mo ago
  Please list all the reasons you don't believe her.
  - FunHearing3443 4mo ago
    Isn’t the burden of proof on the accuser?
  - dyauspitr 4mo ago
    There is no proof. She can retroactively at any point say she did not give consent to extract money. She was with him two years after the first time she was “raped”. She’s the only one that has made any such claims about him.
  - IncreasePosts 4mo ago
    At least the claim of Eric having a secret backdoor to Google servers letting him spy on whoever he wants seems unlikely. If he was spying on her putting spyware on her devices seems much more likely.
yubblegum 4mo ago
Seriously, I just skimmed that LA Times article and wondering why isn't HN discussing this claim made by her? quote: "She further alleged that Schmidt had built a “backdoor” to Google servers with a team of company engineers that allowed him to spy on her and anyone with a Google account."

bckr 4mo ago

When you have everything but can’t even keep your hands to yourself. Shameful.

mschuster91 4mo ago
It's a common issue. When you got everything you could possibly want in life or have enough money to buy whatever you want... then for quite a lot of people of either gender, the illegal and illicit becomes the next thing to obtain. For some, it's an increasingly worrisome amount (and type of) drugs, for others, it's women, and for a select few it's children.
- saghm 4mo ago
  > When you got everything you could possibly want in life or have enough money to buy whatever you want... then for quite a lot of people of either gender, the illegal and illicit becomes the next thing to obtain. But with a society that empowers men more than women, and relative power disparities of all types lending themselves to behavior like this (plenty of people who don't have everything still have enough power to exploit those they have power over). In the abstract, sure, it might not be something inherent to men, but it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that in practice women are victimized by behavior like this at a system level that men are not. To any men who are dubious about this, I'd genuinely suggest asking the women who you have close enough relationships with to be comfortable having tough discussions if they'd be willing to tell you about experiences they've had where men have behaved poorly towards them in ways that wouldn't have likely happened to a man in their circumstances; I'm guessing that pretty much all of them will have experienced far more than you'd imagine. As a man, I'm relatively certain I can't recall any instance of ever experiencing the reverse of this though, and that's my point: going out of your way to try to frame this as a gender-neutral issue basically emphasizes theoretical concerns at the expense of the actual distribution of problems that people face in real life. When things are so slanted that in practice almost everyone in one group has experienced it but relatively few from another group has had the same experience, framing it in terms of that is important.
  - mschuster91 4mo ago
    > But with a society that empowers men more than women, and relative power disparities of all types lending themselves to behavior like this (plenty of people who don't have everything still have enough power to exploit those they have power over). In the abstract, sure, it might not be something inherent to men, but it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that in practice women are victimized by behavior like this at a system level that men are not. A valid and important point, yes. But then there's Ghislaine Maxwell. By all accounts, she is just as guilty as he was, some say even worse because she actively recruited victims for him. The fact that society gives less women that kind of power reduces the absolute number of women that abuse their power - but the level of depravity they can sink to those that do rise to power is just as bad as men's.
    - saghm 4mo ago
      I feel like the existence of victims of women doesn't detract from the overall point I was making, which is that overall the distribution of people who exploit people like this is overwhelmingly tilted towards men being the dominant source. The fact that you can point to specific counterexamples as a distraction from this is exactly what I'm trying to argue against being useful. For any significant source of mistreatment of an oppressed group in history (which I won't bother calling out examples of because they will readily come to mind), there were likely some members of the oppressed group who took part or at least didn't stand up for the others, but equating that with being the overall source of the mistreatment is at best misguided and at worst actively muddying the waters.
delecti 4mo ago
It seems that when you can have anything money could buy, you start to look at the things money can't buy.
- johnnyanmac 4mo ago
  Why can't that ever be talent, or wisdom, or passion? So many filthy rich people. Seem to instantly go "hmm, what's some illegal stuff I can do despite so many legal things available to me". I'm sure all the above happened back in the day too, but: rich people of previous centuries would go to the arts to find meaning. Being part of an orchestra or theatre troupe or artist alley was a peak achievement. Now we just have boring dystopia where rich guys literally build bunkers for the end of days they are personally bringing about. What the hell happend?

dylan604 4mo ago

Trying to wrap my head around how one can still be around someone in 2023 after what happened in 2021. This confusion no way justifies what happened nor am I blaming anyone. I just don't understand it.

jasonlotito 4mo ago
[flagged]
lazide 4mo ago
Money. Usually the lawsuits start when the money is more likely to come from that, than from enabling the behavior.
- lkey 4mo ago
  Rape apologia. 81% of women have been sexually harassed, at least 20% have been raped. Yet, weirdly, that hasn't changed the allocation of capital in the United States in their collective favor. But let's see what kind of person you actually are. Do you have a problem with suing, post-rape? What kind of society would you consider ideal? Keep in mind that the current criminal case closure rate of rape cases is 25% and has been dropping for the last 10 years.
  - lazide 4mo ago
    Uh huh. Or just noting Cash Rules Everything Around Me. Which I doubt was a fact lost on the complaintant - which if the crime occurred, might indeed make the circumstances worse eh? Which, notably, none of what you are saying even addresses eh? Do you think Trump has gotten where he is because these things are not happening? None of this excuses anything.
    - saghm 4mo ago
      > Do you think Trump has gotten where he is because these things are not happening? I don't even understand what you're trying to claim here. As best I can figure out, it sounds like you're saying that Trump made his money from suing people for sexual assault, but that's so absurd I can't even imagine someone trying to claim that as a troll. Even ignoring that, your argument seems to be "people in general are motivated by money, therefore this specific instance of a person acting where money could plausibly be a motivation is the only possible explanation". It informs quite a bit about how you view the world, but it's not a particularly compelling explanation.

dyauspitr 4mo ago

So we’re just going to believe her? Why?

RIMR 4mo ago
Please list all the reasons you don't believe her.
- FunHearing3443 4mo ago
  Isn’t the burden of proof on the accuser?
- dyauspitr 4mo ago
  There is no proof. She can retroactively at any point say she did not give consent to extract money. She was with him two years after the first time she was “raped”. She’s the only one that has made any such claims about him.
- IncreasePosts 4mo ago
  At least the claim of Eric having a secret backdoor to Google servers letting him spy on whoever he wants seems unlikely. If he was spying on her putting spyware on her devices seems much more likely.

yubblegum 4mo ago

Seriously, I just skimmed that LA Times article and wondering why isn't HN discussing this claim made by her? quote: "She further alleged that Schmidt had built a “backdoor” to Google servers with a team of company engineers that allowed him to spy on her and anyone with a Google account."