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by st3v3r 3394 days ago
"Innocent till proven guilty surely?"

That's for the courts. Not for me hiring my executive team. I have enough damn headaches as it is; I don't need someone coming in and causing more. Especially because, let's be honest here, there's not exactly a shortage of people that could do that job.
1 comments
mildbow 3394 days ago
It's not just for the courts: I do believe in innocent until proven guilty.

Why? Golden rule: given a role reversal, I would like the same consideration.

Please note that the "headache" this seems to have caused is purely an external optics one. Not sure how great of a team you would have if you cut off members at first sign of issues.

Maybe the sort of dysfunctional mess Uber seems to have.

Internal, not external, optics are vastly more important in a company.

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x0x0 3394 days ago
Innocence of the men only, because you're implicitly accusing the women involved of lying. What about the golden rule?
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mildbow 3394 days ago
That's a good point. Thanks for bringing it up so I can clarify my position :)

It's not about calling one person a liar vs the other. Rather, it's about accepting that there are multiple sides to every story. Without an unbiased third party, it devolves into he said/she said.

If formal charges aren't brought forward (which would allow for more facts/third party analysis), then why should one person be denigrated? Should a hint of an accusation, sourced by third parties, be enough to fire someone over? If so, what does that firing actually solve?[0]

Anyway, I understand this is a trigger issue, esp. after Susan's post, but to over-react is as bad under-reacting: you want to fix the problem, and you can't do that when you are busy scapegoating.

[0] I'm talking about this specific case, not sexual harassment cases in general.

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x0x0 3393 days ago
This isn't a criminal court.

Your two sides dodge is the same thing used by sexual harassers: oh, well, if it wasn't on video, then I guess opinions differ!

This is more than a hint of an accusation: Google HR investigated, and found some evidence to create a belief that Amit acted improperly enough to warrant termination. That's far from a foregone conclusion (how many execs are fired for sexual harassment? Not many.)

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