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by natch 2791 days ago
Co-worker or not, which you mentioned, is not all that helpful in determining whether this is OK or not.

Being outside of the workplace does not make a power relationship that is akin to slavery OK. (You could claim the woman is free to leave, but there are implied threats against doing so, such as an asymmetric implied threat to reputation, with email documentation, at a minimum).

Yes it is true that context matters. However, I think it's safe to say his ex-wife who shared the quote has more knowledge of the context than we do... and again, slavery is not an indicator of leadership to aspire to. Nor is paying massive rewards to such a person.

Edit: what part of this do you disagree with?

2 comments

Girl: My ex called me "My Love".

Andy: Strange. I prefer just "Love." Being owned is kinda like you are my property, and I can loan you to other people. I am glad you are no longer with that guy.

This is why context, as OP mentioned, is important.

>This is why context, as OP mentioned, is important.

But I agreed with the OP about context being important. So why are you telling me this?

The context, as the article mentioned, is that the screenshot is being used as evidence against him in a lawsuit.

He is said to have had several of these "ownership" relationships.

And you seem to be claiming that not only was a screenshot taken, but then someone came after the fact with photoshop and altered it to remove sentences from it, before submitting it as evidence.

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Ex-Wife: I'm suing Andy Rubin, here's an email he wrote.

Judge: Why is this stuff blacked out?

Ex-Wife: (makes up excuse) It mentions proprietary information.

Judge: OK, well just show me the original, and we can keep it out of the record, and I'll decide whether this thing is pertinent.

Ex-Wife: OK, here is the original.

Judge: That is not proprietary information. It doesn't need to be covered.

Ex-Wife: But covering it up makes my case stronger because it makes him look like a creepy jerk.

Judge: GTFO

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You really think this is what is going on? Seems like quite a stretch to me.

I'm not defending Rubin's situation regarding Google, but I don't think the evidence in his ex-wife's divorce suit is automatically relevant to what led Google to force him out. The email may have been used as evidence of infidelity, not necessarily of (other) sexual misconduct -- the article doesn't say one way or the othewr.
But I made no claims about its relevance to what led to Google forcing him out.

Can you respond to what I said, instead of something else?

What's to answer about what you asked? You're making an unjustified assumption about what the ex-wife knows or thinks about his extramarital relationships -- that because the email was in her lawsuit, that it insinuates the relationship is morally wrong (besides being adultery), i.e. "akin to slavery". We simply do not have the info or context to know otherwise.