[asto]

Poor guy is hard up for cash and getting it up here might get someone in authority at YC to fix the problem. As for lynch mobs, her twitter profile shows no signs of such a thing. That's 1 for Reddit/HN and 0 for her as far as maturity is concerned.

Lastly, I wouldn't care even if some internet lynch mobbing were going on. Between being broke for no fault of mine because x behaved irresponsibly and making x's life miserable so that I can be slightly better than broke, I would pick the latter.

[edanm]

The problem with mobs is that they don't bother to first check that the complainant has a point. You've only heard one side of the story - why do you assume it's all you need to hear?

[asto]

If the facts provided on the reddit post were untrue (such as the email replies), they would have been refuted by now.

[edanm]

Not true.

Say you run a business. Someone posts false allegations about you. Do you:

1. Answer them, and risk: a) inflating the story and keeping it in the press, b) being treated negatively by many bloggers/internet pundits who don't believe you because you're a company vs. an individual, c) risk saying something that will later hurt you in court?

Or:

2. Listen to the advice of your lawyers, who tell you that it's best to keep silent?

[asto]

If somebody makes a statement of fact saying a certain person sent him an email and gives exact strings from that email, merely saying "That was not in the text of my email" will hardly be a legal problem.

I would have agreed with you if the statement was a subjective one such as "The CEO of the company was being racist or was biased because of my gender". Refuting such a thing is hard and you may inadvertently say something that hurts you later but this is not such a case.

Also, she hasn't quite been silent. She clarified the amount due on this thread (unless you want me to believe that was a part of some grand conspiracy). A similar clarification on the content of the emails could have been made if that guy made those lines up.