[khaledtaha]

Let’s not do that. I’m incredibly appreciative of OPs transparency here. As a person who is susceptible to the same degree of stress and mental health toil, let’s not make the story about the investor but rather around the stresses of being a CEO.

[exolymph]

You can't control what people are interested in, what they want to know more about.

[gamechangr]

I bet Facebook executives beg to differ

[albatruss]

Sure you can, to a degree substantial enough to afford the entire advertising industry.

[fairity]

I agree that the problematic investor shouldn't be outed here. The investor isn't here to defend himself, and outing him will cause him irreparable (and perhaps undue) reputational damage.

[edit] Is giving the accused a platform to defend himself that unpopular of an opinion? Online shaming often gets out of hand and goes too far. I recommend this TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/jon_ronson_when_online_shaming_goe...

[birdyrooster]

What forum should he be outed in exactly?

[fairity]

There are a couple options that come to mind:

1) Contact the accused party and ask him for a written response. By giving him the opportunity to defend himself, you get a more balanced view and decrease the likelihood of cruel & unusual punishment.

2) Out the investor in private forums where data/information that arises after the publication of this article can be fully considered. YC and many other founder networks have investor databases for this purpose.

[munk-a]

1 isn't a terrible idea in most circumstances but with investors you're more likely to get a C&D than a fair response given the line of work and the importance of reputation to the process.

2 - no, I disagree strongly for two reasons:

Keeping information in a quiet private forum makes it inaccessible to people at large. This means the next CEO who runs up against this investor is mostly completely unaware of their past actions.

And, honestly, hackernews is probably the single most relevant forum you could find to discuss this on - it has a general lean toward tech but it is run by ycombinator which is specifically interested in all things investment.

[fairity]

> Keeping information in a quiet private forum makes it inaccessible to people at large. This means the next CEO who runs up against this investor is mostly completely unaware of their past actions.

I agree this is the downside of my proposed approach. But, the alternative is a world where someone's reputation can be irreparably damaged by unsubstantiated claims made by one person.

Do you want to live in a world where someone's reputation and livelihood can be destroyed by unsubstantiated claims? You may think I'm overstating the potential damage, but I think people generally underestimate the damage the internet mob can inflict on a person.

[munk-a]

There are some societal tools that exist to fight against baseless slander in a public forum but, tbh, the US has resisted adopting those.

I would rather live in a world where the powerful can be baselessly attacked compared to a world where the weak are unable to fairly attack them - if we need to err on one side or the other I prefer to put up with trolls and scammers.

[dylan604]

This is similar to how priests were quietly shuffled around parishes. Yes, the priest's activity were criminal so it's NOT 1:1 of a comparison. However, keeping shitty people protected by keeping the info private does nobody any good

EDIT: left out the keyword NOT in the 1:1 comparison

[kbenson]

The author didn't out them, and they were the people that feel wronged by them. Why do you feel the need to do what the author chose specifically not to?

[xyzzy_plugh]

Why not both?

[yowlingcat]

Well. It seems like you can't narrate the latter without the former. What would you propose?