> I expect less VCs to take meetings with women, sadly.
Why? There's a really simple procedure that can solve these problems:
Don't hit on, feel-up, or try to have sex with people you're in a professional business relationship with. That goes double for people you hold power over (managers to employees, VCs to Founders, etc).
If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: record your meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders and/or don't meet alone.
I expect smart VCs that are interested in making money (as opposed to lording it over others or using their position to get sex) will continue to take lots of meetings with women.
> If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: record your meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders and/or don't meet alone.
It's not so easy. Bullshit accusations leaking on Twitter will be halfway to destroying your career before you even dig up the original recordings, and I doubt anyone will want to listen to your case anyway (if anything, they'll comb over your recordings with a tootbrush to prove you were guilty of this, and a bunch of other things). I too expect VCs to be less willing to expose themselves to such danger.
Do you know what amazes me about comments like yours? You don't have to agree with a course of action to accept the reality that certain things will happen.
> I expect smart VCs that are interested in making money ... will continue to take lots of meetings with women.
OK, so ON NET what do you expect to happen? Lets say I agree and the smart ones take the meetings, what about the dumb ones? Or the average ones? What is the net result of all those different levels of VCs? Less or more meetings for women?
Again, "You don't have to agree with a course of action to accept the reality that certain things will happen".
> "If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: record your meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders and/or don't meet alone."
Well, there are two problems with that.
1 - It puts the burden of proof on the accused. I.E. it totally throws out of the window what has become a de facto human right and an universally established legal one in every democracy: "Innocent until proven guilty", into a: "Guilty until you can shows us some footage that proves you are not guilty" (which let's face it, it's basically impossible if the accuser is lying on purpose and knows how to do things).
2 - In America I think you are free to record other people interacting with you or in your office/home (perhaps some American can clarify this), but in many other countries, specially in most of EU, that's a crime. You can't go around recording people unless they are of public interest and in a public situation or they expressly consent to it.
It may or may not be legal to record conversations in the U.S. depending on the state, and depending on whether or not other people consent to being recorded. California has 2-party consent law when it comes to recording conversations. In other words, it's a crime to record a conversation with another person and not tell them: https://www.google.com/search?q=california+conversaion+recor....
(Law enforcement is exempt from this restriction, of course).
As has been pointed out, no one is suggesting non-consensual recording. Starting a meeting with, "do you mind if I record this?" is hardly alien.
As for burden of proof, I don't see it. It's like saying that asking people to lock their houses is a burden, when thieves are the criminals.
If you are a VC having a meeting with a founder, arrange for for more than 2 people to be there, such as a co-VC, a co-founder, a secretary, or whoever. Are business meetings with 3 people suddenly a human rights violation?
The burden argument seems really disingenuous given the context. This is a business meeting, not picking dinner with your friends, and the process is full of negotiation, records, and witnesses. Would anyone protest writing down terms or having a secretary at the meeting to avoid the chance of a contractual dispute later?
> "As for burden of proof, I don't see it. It's like saying that asking people to lock their houses is a burden, when thieves are the criminals."
This is surely the poorest analogy I've ever read in my all life, comparing a burglar trying to enter your house with someone falsely accusing you of something.
What about the burden of proof you don't see if you go casually dressed to shop in some fancy shop and they falsely accuse you of trying to shoplift and you - oh bummer - didn't record everything?
You also don't see any burden of proof on you if you go to some corrupt country and the police falsely stops you for speeding and you didn't record your all trip after the moment you got there (though luck, if you didn't record everything is because you surely did something wrong)? You don't see that burden of proof on you, right?
> I expect less VCs to take meetings with women, sadly.
Why? There's a really simple procedure that can solve these problems:
Don't hit on, feel-up, or try to have sex with people you're in a professional business relationship with. That goes double for people you hold power over (managers to employees, VCs to Founders, etc).
If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: record your meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders and/or don't meet alone.
The previous comment didn't allude to illegal recording of conversations without consent. The suggestion was to ensure there was a record of all interactions.
If I'm a VC and I've scheduled a meeting at my office it is as simple as letting the party I'm meeting with know that I had planned on recording for my archives.
Nothing unusual or sketchy about the request, especially in a business setting.
Because VCs are all populated by serial harassers who now realize they can't get away with this crap?
Or are you saying these will be seen as false accusations and thus it'll scare off VCs who aren't run by mysogynist pieces of sh-t?
Because I'm not sure what the alternative is. If a VC is not in the habit of harassing women, they have nothing to fear. In fact, it'll give them an opportunity to court talented entrepreneurs driven away from the immoral part of the VC spectrum.
Everyone has plenty to fear. Any sexual harassment/rape accusations (no matter how untrue) are incredibly damaging, it's very biased towards the accuser.
The people who actually do this shit are scumbags, but there's plenty who will take advantage of this when things don't go their way, and reputation damage is worse than physical for a lot of people.
Sure, if you completely ignore the cultural context.
Rape and sexual assault (of women) is seen as one of the worst possible crimes[0] a man can commit in most Western societies[1]. These crimes are so heinous that even accusations are enough to destroy someone's career and social status, even if the accusations are dropped or proven false.
This is further complicated by these crimes generally being very difficult to prove without recorded evidence and eyewitnesses, creating a dilemma of either treating the accusation as fact (foregoing "innocent until proven guilty") or risking that a criminal can avoid consequences and may go on to repeat his crime. The media often favors the former, people close to the accused often prefer the latter, although even a disproven allegation can sow permanent doubt.
There aren't many crimes a VC could be falsely accused of that have the possibility of such dire consequences and such a low burden of proof.
[0]: The only crime I can think of that society treats as worse than sexual abuse of women is sexual abuse of children.
[1]: This isn't about the relative severity of legal punishments, or in any way a judgement on what crime is "less bad" than another, just how people (and the media) generally react to people being charged with these crimes.
Are you suggesting the false sexual harassment / rape accusations never happen? I think there are some athletes from Duke who were subject to character assassination and would entirely disagree with you.
It is a significant number. For example in Hardvard campus 20% of the allegations were determined to be false[0]; but this is a controversial subject and the numbers all over the place[1] from state to state and even more from country to country but overall most quote numbers that are not an insignificant number.
You are placing normative (meaning "you should do") moral judgements on a descriptive (meaning "this will happen") moral statement.
My prediction isn't what SHOULD happen, but what I think WILL happen. My personal opinion on what is morally right? As I'm not a VC, utterly unimportant and redundant.
I think you're right. It's "unlawful" but handled civilly.
While looking up the relevant law, I looked through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex and various other things, and discovered that there is an explicit exception written in to the law for members of the Communist Party. So you can totally discriminate against any commies who might try to work for you. Not really relevant here, but so weird I just had to share.
Jeez, the Cold War was a strange time. The exception seems especially weird since political party affiliation wasn't a protected class in the law to begin with. I guess that meant you legally could say, "We only hire non-Communists, regardless of sex/race/religion/...; and white Communist Jain men of Estonian origin."
I wonder if it was just a "safeguard" against members of CPUSA claiming their membership was a religious affiliation.
It sounds like it was an amendment introduced by a confused lawmaker who wanted to make sure the law wouldn't stop companies from firing Communists. The amendment was then accepted on the basis that it didn't make any difference (since as you note party affiliation isn't protected in the first place), so it wouldn't do any harm to include it.
Unfortunately I suspect you're right, at least in the shortish term. The culture in general does seem to be making progress in (fits and starts) this area, but it's gonna take a while.
this response would be as short lived as it is short sighted -- not taking into account that eventually.soon their bias would be measurable and again turn into ethical and PR nightmares for VC's that dont find a way to manage their male problem
Any VC whose reaction to this is "oh I guess I should avoid taking meetings with women because I just can't know what goof will cause me to get sued" is probably already making some women uncomfortable.
If you cannot understand how _stupidly easy_ it is to have a completely non-sexual, non-harassing conversation with a member of the opposite sex, you most definitely should read up on some stuff. I mean this in the most non-snarky way possible.
Wouldn't it be nice if half the population weren't completely turned off by the idea of talking to anyone in tech?
Sales at my company is female dominated, I'm in building next door so I run into them all the time, I just treat them as any other member of staff, politely but otherwise as an amorphous blob.
I don't socialise with work mates outside of work events either, lines get crossed when you do in a alcohol orientated culture like mine.
It's worked fine for me for 19 years employed.
Had one female former colleague assume I was gay because I never hit on her (and she was attractive).
Nope, just not interested in bollocking up a good work environment, it was interesting to watch the dynamic though.
My simple rules for work.
Treat everyone equally, small stuff matters, I went out for coffee and went and asked the cleaner if he wanted one, he looked surprised.
Don't gossip ever, just don't. Leave the conversation if someone else starts.
Be on time, meet deadlines, let boss know as soon as you know you won't.
Be professional, you might know a customer for years but they are still Mr Smith until they say 'call me Bob'.
When a boss makes what you think is a poor decision (business reasons, moral reasons etc) get it in writing.
Always send a recap email after meetings, misunderstandings cost less the earlier you catch them (much like bugs).
Great list. Its interesting how good ideas for how to conduct yourself in a business environment will naturally exclude creepy and/or harassing behavior AND will also leave far less room and opportunity for false accusations to take root.
Its not foolproof by any stretch, but it's excellent risk management on multiple fronts.
I've been working since I was 18 and in 19 years I've seen a lot, experience is learning from your own mistakes, wisdom is learning from other peoples.
It's really not that difficult to maintain a professional attitude, it's a skill like any other it's just the modern workplace isn't always conducive to it, frankly I'd prefer a more formal workplace than informal all things been equal.
The risk is that some go-getter will use a harassment thread as leverage over you. No matter how saintly are you, in the current culture nobody is going to believe you if you're a man accused of harassment - so why open yourself up for the possibility?
There should be no one on one meetings for any plausible business venture. Both sides needs to have multiple players to protect all interest and keep discussions to the subject at hand.
I would suggest than anyone who does get into such meetings simply demand the presence of multiple persons. This isn't a buddy lending money to another.
Scenario with a female founder: "Listen, I want to meet you but as we have an at least one woman present policy for any meetings with female founders, adn all the female partners are booked for the next week, I'm afraid I can't meet you".
Vs with a male: "Hells yes I'd love to catch up for coffee, I love your idea. Unfortunately, it will just be me as everyone else is busy".
> One example was the Americans With Disabilities Act, and we told the story of a Los Angeles orthopedic surgeon named Andrew Brooks. When a deaf patient came to him for a consultation, he realized that the A.D.A. required him to hire a sign-language interpreter for each visit if that’s what the patient wanted. The interpreter would cost $120 an hour, with a two-hour minimum, and Brooks wouldn’t be reimbursed by the insurance company:
> That would mean laying out $240 to conduct an exam for which the woman’s insurance company would pay him $58 — a loss of more than $180 even before accounting for taxes and overhead.
Why? There's a really simple procedure that can solve these problems:
Don't hit on, feel-up, or try to have sex with people you're in a professional business relationship with. That goes double for people you hold power over (managers to employees, VCs to Founders, etc).
If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: record your meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders and/or don't meet alone.
I expect smart VCs that are interested in making money (as opposed to lording it over others or using their position to get sex) will continue to take lots of meetings with women.