[m0zg]

I might be wrong, but I don't think there's any law that forbids having consensual sex with employees. It's unethical if they're his direct reports, sure, but I don't think it's illegal. I'm sure if I had _fifty billion dollars_, I'd have to fight off women like zombies in a movie even though I'm already married.

[dredmorbius]

There is a potential criminal risk if a relationship can be construed as nonconsensual, coerced, or quid pro quo.

More generally, there's a tremendous civil liability, both personally to the principles involved and the firm, through such activity. A liability which may be entirely independent of the apparent (or actual) consensuality at the time, and which might be filed by non-participants (e.g., other employees perceiving sexual favouratism or discrimination).

A principle function of a corporation is as a risk-externalising, and limiting, legal structure. (This is literally stated in some forms of organisation, as with an LLC: limited liability corporation.) The principle job of management and oversight is to maximise the reward-to-risk ratio.

Company founders openly and documentedly treating the employee pool as their personal coital resource is a risk in the extreme.

[ellard]

Consent is murky at best when there's a large power discrepancy between two co-workers. See: everything that's been going on with Hollywood in the past couple of years

[thu2111]

The law has no concept of "large power discrepancy" affecting the notion of whether sex is legal or not, if there's no violence or force involved.

The attempts in recent years by a small group of feminists to broaden the definition of non-consensual sex to include "I had sex with that rich guy because he could give me an attractive job but later regretted it" just degrades everything, especially women. It causes people to stop believing them when they say they were coerced by a powerful man. After all, Weinstein's accusers settled, didn't they? And his ex employers picked up the legal bills. Rumoured to be because he had tons of evidence that the complainants had willingly accepted their side of the "deals" and that such arrangements were commonplace throughout the industry.

[johnhughesco]

Did it occur that the employee might be attracted BECAUSE of the power discrepancy?

[IfOnlyYouKnew]

Sort of: "I 'want' to have sex with him because I don't get to decide not to have sex with him and keep my job"

[nostrademons]

There's no criminal law against it, but it opens you up to civil suits from aggrieved parties (who can be either participants in the affair or bystanders who feel they were given a raw deal because of the relationship). Hiring, firing, and performance management is supposed to be based on your performance at doing your job, not because your boss dumped you and now dislikes you. Sexual harassment and discrimination suits are both relatively easy to document and tend to be viewed sympathetically by juries.

[m0zg]

You're assuming there are "aggrieved parties". To the best of my knowledge nobody was "aggrieved" by Sergey at least. He probably had them sign something before the "massage" or else I'm sure we'd see some lawsuits.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not justifying sexual harassment in any way. But it's not "harassment" if it's wanted and consensual, and it's not _automatically_ unethical if the employee is not in his chain of command or even if they are, if they aren't forced into it, and there's no punishment for declining. If they make advances on their own and are merely not turned down (see e.g. Rosenberg, who IIRC wasn't in his chain of command), that's stretching the definition.

[nostrademons]

The "aggrieved party" doesn't have to be a party within the relationship. Anyone else in the org can make a case that their career opportunities were impeded by the existence of a superior/subordinate relationship within their reporting chain. People in a romantic relationship are assumed to not be impartial when it comes to things that may affect their romantic partners, which means that it's pretty easy to make a case that an executive's decisions were biased by the affair in a way that may harm your career. So if you were Rosenberg's teammate and she got placed on a hot project like Google Glass while you were passed over for the position, you could make the case that your career was harmed because she's sleeping with the head of Google X.

[m0zg]

No aggrieved parties stepped forward. And you can make whatever "cases" you want, but if no one was "aggrieved" you don't really have a case.

>> you could make the case that your career was >> harmed because she's sleeping with the head of Google X

Funny how otherwise "progressive" people automatically assume that the only reason women would sleep with their boss is to advance their careers. The romantic component doesn't factor into it at all.

Thankfully, simply making a case is not enough under US law. You have to prove it as well. Best I can tell Rosenberg did not experience any meteoric career rise. Nor would there be any way to accomplish that without drawing attention: Sergey is not in charge of promotions, committees are.

In fact, as an ex-Googler, I'm not sure Sergey was in charge of _anything_ at Google for the past 15 years. He had his hobby projects, but he was as checked out as a founder can really be. He's literally probably there for the dating pool. :-)

[nostrademons]

I'm also an ex-Googler, and was at Google when the Rosenberg affair broke. Sergey was nominally head of Google X (the reporting org that Google Glass was in) at the time. Whether he was actively doing anything other than boning his employees is another matter; I had a number of friends in X (including in Glass) and his job largely seemed to be to cheerlead various X initiatives at the time.

And the role of HR and legal is to minimize the company's risk. Just because the risk doesn't materalize doesn't mean the risk wasn't there. The way sexual harassment claims usually play out (if both parties have competent lawyers) is that the company pays out a significant sum of money and then both sides sign non-disclosure agreements and waivers to further liability. The point isn't to go to trial, the point is that the threat of facing a sympathetic jury incentivizes both parties to work out a settlement.

There was one very obvious aggrieved party in to the Brin/Rosenberg affair in Hugo Barra, Android's VP and spokeperson and Rosenberg's ex-boyfriend who quit to head Xiaomi's international efforts right as the affair broke. Presumably Google gave him a generous severance package to not disparage or sue the company, which is why you haven't heard him disparage or sue the company.

[m0zg]

He can't be "aggrieved", because his relationship with her would also be unethical, and because _she dumped him to be with Brin_. I'm pretty sure Barra wasn't entitled to her sexual favors, so there's no leg for him to stand on in that argument. I can see how he'd be pissed off enough to leave though.

[nine_k]

This is reasonable, but it's very hard to be outside the sphere of influence of a company's top officer, even if you are formally not a direct report. At the very least, it is risky for that top officer, because it would be hard to shake off any accusations of coercion, were they brought up. And, of course, actual coercion becomes much easier, within certain range.

[saagarjha]

> He probably had them sign something before the "massage" or else I'm sure we'd see some lawsuits.

This sounds quite unlikely.

[m0zg]

Why? That's exactly what a playboy billionaire should ask his sexual partners to do in year 2020 when consent can be "withdrawn" retroactively and a male is considered guilty unless proven otherwise.

[saagarjha]

Why would you ever sign one of those?

[m0zg]

Go get boned by a playboy billionaire I suppose? Why do people sign prenups? A better question is, would you, if you were a billionaire, risk having sex with someone you don't know all that well unless you can 100% incontrovertibly prove there was consent?

[damnyou]

Yes, it's probably not illegal, but it should still cause the exec to be fired.

[d1zzy]

He's not an exec, he's a founder (which together with Larry and Eric controls over 50% of shareholder voting power). He'd have to fire himself.

[vecter]

That's not entirely true. The board has the power to fire executives (that's one of the purposes of having a board, for executive oversight). You're correct in that those three could theoretically vote to change the board, but doing so also has other drastic consequences. That also takes time and process, and it's possible the board can make a move before they have the time to see that process through.

[cdumler]

Consent requires no coercion, meaning that both parties are fully informed of all relevant information and both are in a legal capacity to do so. It is guaranteed that employees are not in a position to be fully informed because they will not have the same access to company information and employee resources.