‘ BOYS WILL BE BOYS’
Tech industry seethes in the wake of sexual harassment reports
Female start- up founders who have come forward with stories of unwanted physical contact and repeated propositions for sex by venture capitalists have received support from Silicon Valley. But not from everyone. There’s talk of witch hunts and fake news as the resignations of Justin Caldbeck and Dave McClure have some men and women questioning whether these investors were judged too swiftly and too harshly and if they are serving as scapegoats for years of frustration over unchecked sexism in tech.
And this isn’t just happening behind closed doors and in anonymous online posts. A few are speaking out publicly.
“How is it that men should pay with their careers for a moment of weakness?” says Michael Petraeus, a start- up entrepreneur who calls McClure’s ouster a “crucifixion.”
According to Petraeus, McClure’s personal missteps have been blown out of proportion when stacked against his professional contributions to the tech industry. And Petraeus insists his is not a fringe view, that others feel as he does, they just don’t dare talk about it.
“Should Dave McClure pay for his mistakes? Most likely yes. Should he have to step down into the shadows of the company he made? Hell no,” said Petraeus, founder of a digital technology company, Corpus Caeleste. “I don’t understand why a guy, who is an otherwise great businessman who helped over a thousand companies around the world, should have his professional life erased simply because he likes to sleep around.”
Chris Sweis, an entrepreneur and investor, called McClure’s ouster “the public neutering of a goodman.”
To Michael Kimmel, a sociology and gender studies professor at Stony Brook University, the idea that men can’t be expected to control themselves around women in business is an antiquated view at odds with the tech industry’s perception of itself as progressive.
“This is the classic ‘ boys will be boys’ argument,” Kimmel said.
Stanford University law professor Michele Dauber, who says Silicon Valley has a tendency to ignore or excuse bad behavior, calls it “bro apologetics.”
Encouraged to push the boundaries in business, some men in Silicon Valley figure the normal rules don’t apply to them.
They lure women with promises of funding to a late- night rendezvous in a bar where they can try to grope and kiss them, women who have described these advances say. They pressure women to get a hotel room after a business meeting. They send them sexually explicit text messages in the middle of the night.
A survey found six out of 10 women had experienced unwanted sexual advances.
Complaints of frat- house antics from the mostly male line- up of venture capitalists have been whispered in the industry for years. But naming the victims and the perpetrators has called greater attention to the immense power venture capitalists have over the women who come to them for financial backing.
Under public pressure, Caldbeck resigned, bringing Binary Capital to the brink of collapse, after six women detailed his sexual advances as they met with him.
A week later, female tech entrepreneurs described how McClure, founder of a firm that provides funding, training and connections to start- ups that pass through its doors, also made unwanted advances during business dealings. After giving up the reins of 500 Startups, he resigned.
One prominent venture capitalist, Vinod Khosla, said this week that he does not believe sexual harassment is that common in venture capital.
“It’s a reality because it’s perceived as a reality,” Khosla said, according to Recode.