[thadjo]

> Not paying these bonuses would have certainly resulted in a court case and publicity that Google perhaps thought, at the time, would be negative. So they probably rationalized that resolving the situation by a) paying a settlement to the victim, b) ending Rubin's employment and c) not having to go to court and face that bad PR was the prudent approach.

And we all agree that this 'prudent approach' was objectively terrible, right? Not just in the hindsight of post-#MeToo PR. At the time it was actually wrong and a bad thing to do.

Explaining the reasoning behind unethical behavior does not make it more ethical.