[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?

[m0zg]

Typo: "go" -> "to"