GitHub Founder Steps Down After Harassment Probe

[Bosonic]

Source: Wired

Tom Preston-Werner — founder of the immensely popular social coding site GitHub and its most prominent executive — has left the company in the wake of widely publicized sexual harassment investigation.

GitHub, a tech-industry darling whose coding software is used by millions of developers worldwide, launched the investigation last month after one of the company’s developers, Julie Ann Horvath, quit the company and claimed it had an oversized tolerance for inappropriate behavior.

Horvath’s allegations, published last month on TechCrunch, kicked off a debate over whether Silicon Valley’s tech companies are genuinely unfriendly toward women. In her TechCrunch article, Horvath said she was bullied after spurning one GitHubber’s sexual advances, and then harassed by the wife of a company founder, presumably Preston-Werner’s wife, Theresa.

“The investigation found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or hostile work environment,” GitHub said Monday in a short blog post. “However, while there may have been no legal wrongdoing, the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment.” According to the post, Preston-Werner submitted his resignation, and the company accepted.

Read more: http://www.wired.com/2014/04/tom_pw/

[Kelvin Mace]

1. Translation:

“The investigation found no evidence to support the claims against Tom and his wife of sexual or gender-based harassment or retaliation, or of a sexist or hostile work environment,” GitHub said Monday in a short blog post. “However, while there may have been no legal wrongdoing, the investigator did find evidence of mistakes and errors of judgment.” According to the post, Preston-Werner submitted his resignation, and the company accepted.

"Yeah, we're guilty as sin."

[TygrBright]

2. But.. but... libertarianism! Enlightened self-interest! No constraining "RULEZ"!

Isn't that the recipe for Workplace Utopia?

As GitHub is discovering, no. It's not.

There is a considerable difference between having (and enforcing) a basic framework of workplace regulation while at the same time promoting a positive culture of innovation and independence; and...

NO RULEZ!!!! NONE!! FREEDOMZ!!!

::sigh::

Expensive lesson.

It won't be remedied properly on the cheap, either.

But I hope GitHub makes the investment.

sadly,
Bright

[phantom power]

3. The github site itself is great, hope this doesn't impact their service.

[MicaelS]

4. Just the tip of the iceberg.

Seems like much of IT is just a giant sausage-fest, no matter the level of the man involved. I spend time on computer related websites, and many of the men there who work in IT, are hardcore Libertarian jerks.

Crap like this and then these companies complain they can't attract "qualified" women.