Scale of Sexual Harassment and Other Misbehavior by Men in VC Becomes Clearer (Jul 3, 2017)
This article dropped on Friday evening as I was logging off for the week, so I’m only getting to it now. But this article was something of a bombshell, detailing not just the scale of harassment, assault, and other misbehavior by men against women in venture capital, but also naming specific names including some who hadn’t been accused previously. There really seems to have been a tipping point in the last few weeks on this topic, where far more women are now willing to speak out about their bad experiences and name their abusers and harassers. That, in turn, has suddenly exposed many man within venture capital and their past bad actions. This was a much needed change, and although the venture capital world and companies like Uber remain single small pockets in which the real state of things is finally being revealed, I can easily see this movement spreading and penetrating much of the rest of the tech industry. Justice Brandeis’ famous quote about sunlight (publicity) being the best disinfectant seems apt here: the more of these cases come to light, the more some of the perpetrators (like Justin Caldbeck and Dave McClure) will be moved out of roles or dumped by their employers altogether. None of this represents an overnight change, but it does feel like things are finally moving in the right direction, and those who have been protected out of a combination of fear on the part of would-be accusers and collusion on the part of colleagues are finally being exposed to some real consequences. There’s clearly a long way still to go, but breaking the wall of silence feels like a big step forward. Increasing diversity still feels like one of the most obvious ways to prevent this issue in future – at many companies, the overwhelming gender dominance of men is clearly a big part of the cultural problem, even though women seem to have protected some of those accused as well, either covering up bad behavior or dealing with it too quietly (as in the case of 500 Startups). Update: on Monday, per Axios, Dave McClure was asked to resign completely from 500 Startups, and did so, a step which should arguably have taken rather sooner.
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