[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.

[marcinzm]

Except the powerful will simply use those tools to baselessly attack the weak especially those that pose problems to them. They, after all, have the money and influence to pay for much more professional attacks than the weak can scrounge together.

[fairity]

I don't see this as a case where a weak party is unable to fairly attack the powerful.

Even without outing the investors, many founders are currently doing the necessary research to identify the investor and will blacklist him.

I think we should keep in mind that:

1) The accusations are currently unsubstantiated

2) The reputational damage to the investor is already significant and largely irreversable

3) Outing the investor here will significantly increase the reputational damage to the investor

Given the above, I really don't see how it's fair to out the investor before substantiating the accusations or giving the investor time to respond.

[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

[fairity]

> Keeping the info private does nobody any good.

I'm saying that we should keep the identifying info private until the accusations are substantiated.

The internet mob is merciless, and will very likely ruin this guy's reputation once he's outed.

By outing the guy, you are presuming him guilty and inflicting steep punishment when he could be innocent.

[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?