Wow. The whole co-founder thing is pretty disgusting.
> "he said that holding her out as a co-founder “makes the company look like a joke” and “devalues the company.” Mr. Mateen tried to justify the situation by saying “Facebook and Snapchat don’t have girl founders, it just makes it look like Tinder was some accident.”
There are so many things wrong with that, especially given that Tinder exists because she was the one pushing for it over the Cardify thing. (assuming that's true).
Sean Rad may not have called her names and been as over the top and insane as Justin Mateen, but he is very much in the wrong as well.
From the sound of it, Mr. Mateen didn't even earn his spot in the company. He was just "long time friends" with the CEO and so got a job as Whitney's boss. And then she is the one that gets shafted? I would be so upset.
Seriously, just skim it; it's not boring legalese:
>1. The founders of a red-hot technology startup named Tinder engaged in atrocious sexual harassment and sex discrimination against Whitney Wolfe, the young woman who co- founded Tinder and was the face of Tinder in magazines and in Tinder’s efforts to market the company to other young women. Tinder’s Chief Marketing Officer Justin Mateen repeatedly called Ms. Wolfe a “whore,” including in front of CEO Sean Rad, and he told Ms. Wolfe that he was taking away her “Co-Founder” title because having a young female co-founder “makes the company seem like a joke” and “devalues” the company.
>
>2. Mr. Mateen and Mr. Rad subjected Ms. Wolfe to a barrage of horrendously sexist, racist, and otherwise inappropriate comments, emails and text messages, including describing one person as a “liberal lying desperate slut” and others as “middle age Muslim pigs” and referring, for example, to “fucking” the wife of a prominent blogger, and a text depicting IAC Chairman Barry Diller as a penis. Although it is tempting to describe the conduct of Tinder’s senior executives as “frat-like,” it was in fact much worse- representing the worst of the misogynist, alpha-male stereotype too often associated with technology startups.
>
>3. Although Ms. Wolfe repeatedly complained to CEO Rad, he ignored her complaints, dismissing her as “annoying” and “dramatic,” and threatened her job. Ms. Wolfe finally broke down the night that Mr. Mateen called her a “whore” at a company event, and she offered to resign in consideration for modest severance and the vesting of her stock. Mr. Rad snidely rejected the offer and fired her.
Let's lock up all people who make penis jokes. The world has had enough of this shit. Let's outlaw fraternities, too. In fact men shouldn't be allowed to reveal their gender in public.
Thanks for the link. The exhibits really paint an appalling portrait of the guy. He's acting like an insecure 14 year old.
I don't want to downplay the situation but I feel like it's your responsibility as an adult to disengage from situations like this faster than she did. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess but the whole situation seems to have been really mishandled (and that's a feeling I'm getting from a court complaint from her side). Again, I'm not saying she asked for it or anything, just that pursuing an ongoing relationship might not have been the best idea.
In any case, that seems to be a terrible working environment. I also find it kind of ironic that the co-founders of an inherently social app like Tinder appear so poor at handling interpersonal/romantic relationships.
I don't want to downplay the situation but I feel like it's your responsibility as an adult to disengage from situations like this faster than she did. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess
Honestly, I don't think it's that simple; some people are so insecure, you can run away to a different country and they'll still find a way to spoil your day with their obsessiveness.
Would this have ended differently if she'd not pursued things after a couple of months, a month, a week?
I'm not convinced; all it takes is for the person on the other end to be even a tiny bit obsessive, and it's game over.
What might have helped is someone taking the guy aside and saying, "Mate, come on, you're taking this too far. I know you want to stay in touch, and that you still kinda like the girl. That's not healthy for you, though. You need to be the bigger person[1], and you need to move on."
[1] A minor bit of ego stroking can help
I genuinely believe that oftentimes, people don't realise that they're being scarily obsessive, and a trusted friend holding up a mirror can do wonders.
> I also find it kind of ironic that the co-founders of an inherently social app like Tinder appear so poor at handling interpersonal/romantic relationships.
Maybe it's not so surprising if your idea of human interaction is based on a binarized version of hotornot.com
I've never understood Tinder this way. To me, it's simply a pre-screening filter: you and everyone else throws out all the people who you would never want to date anyway, and then you're left with the set of people who have expressed mutual non-disinterest. From there, you get to know one-another as normal.
Basically, it's less like a dating service, and more like meeting someone on the street--with the proviso that you never have to question whether the other person feels attracted to you.
'disengage from situations like this' is a rather casual and insulting way to depict the idea of bailing out on founder/co-founder status on a startup you care about just because one of your cofounders turned out to be a piece of shit.
Arguably her course of action was the correct one. She tried to resolve things quietly by being an adult, and tolerated a little bit of abuse in the hopes that the job could keep working and the startup wouldn't be undermined - obviously she cared about it.
When it became clear that this shit wasn't going to stop, she resigned, and sued them. The best hope for Tinder as a company at this point is for the problematic founder(s) to be ejected so the company can be run by actual adults. For her to just roll over and quit would be unacceptable - they'd get to continue their abuse on other employees - and for her to just sit there and take it would also be unacceptable.
From what I understand of Tinder, it intrinsically plans on user's social insecurities in dating and other social media by removing risk from the situation.
I thought Tinder's inherent mutual interest-based design was a step in a good direction for online dating. I had to set my okcupid profile to "women only" and then eventually deleted it because I was really tired of men I have nothing in common with messaging and harassing me. Forget other sites - they weren't any better. Mutual interest is a powerful thing. If overanalyzing Tinder will help create better dating apps so be it, we'll all be better off for it.
disclaimer: I know a Tinder co-founder (not the one in question) but I'm married anyway, not in the dating pool ;)
Dumb apps, products and services do incredible complex social things and have involved consequences to our psychology all the time -- even without any specific intent from their owners.
It's not because the apps are smart and complex -- it's because WE, humans, are smart and complex.
If that's how it came across I probably really expressed myself improperly because that wasn't my point at all (English being my second language probably doesn't help and I really hesitated to post because I knew there was a chance I wasn't properly formulating my argument).
So let me clarify: I don't believe it was her fault in any way. Quite the opposite, I believe 100% that the guy is at fault here. My point was more related to the fact that we (myself included) tend to maintain relationships that are clearly unhealthy in hindsight. I probably should have chosen a better word than responsibility seeing as it was more a comment aimed at the apparent lack of capacity to adequately disengage from unhealthy situations a lot of adults seem to exhibit. We're not used to saying "no" and to moving on. I was only saying this because similar situations happened to me in which I wished later that I could have disengaged and saved me some heartache.
I believe (only from reading this complaint) that the behavior exhibited by Mateen is unacceptable and reprehensible and that he's clearly at fault. My intention was not to blame her but merely to express a general observation regarding a lot of relationship failures I witnessed. So if this came across as victim blaming I sincerely apologize. It wasn't the intent.
The finer points of their relationship are none of our business. That he took a the consequences of a personal relationship into the workplace, is where it becomes our business. Who's at fault in the relationship - none of our business. That no HR anything was available as a resource to mitigate the situation, is what is all of our business — and something that as an industry, we need to step-up to the plate to change. More from me on that, when I launch...
>>My point was more related to the fact that we (myself included) tend to maintain relationships that are clearly unhealthy in hindsight.
We don't have any indication that she lacked the capacity to disengage. She was dating her boss, and may have feared retaliation.
That's one reason dating your superiors or direct reports is a big no-no. The power dynamic can only be managed by the most mature couples, and even then it's a huge liability for the company.
The point is that reading something like this, the least interesting topic is what the complainant could have done differently.
The principle discussion is: never shoulda happened. Inappropriate, unacceptable. Not second guessing the strategy of someone in an impossible situation.
I have to disagree that it's the least interesting topic. A relationship is never a one way street and while in this situation one of the party clearly seems to be at fault, it's not always the case. Of course it never should have happened but it has and so the discussion about damage mitigation is still a valid one.
I wish I was taught any kind of disengagement skill when I was being bullied as a kid, even though it never should have happened (and since I can foresee the uproar here, I'm in no way implying the two are equivalent but merely noticing similarities).
It's a shame that "here are some tips to protect yourzelf from assholes" only come up after a case like this. Because in this context it does feel a little bit like victim blaming, even with all the caveats.
That's because it should read "here are some tips to avoid being an asshole". "Here are tips to protect yourself from assholes" is very much victim blaming no matter the context.
Sure, some of it - most of it - might be good advice (e.g. don't date cofounders/coworkers) but in the end that advice in itself won't do anything if the other person is an asshole. Whitney could have avoided a relationship and tried to defuse things as best as she could, but Justin could still have been an ass and harass her for rejecting him.
Victim-blaming implies someone has blamed someone else for their circumstance. Telling someone how to avoid assholes is not victim-blaming, its education that all [young] adults should receive, because it helps people make informed decisions and be responsible adults.
All adults maintain responsibility for their own actions. That goes for both the assholes and the victims. Ideally, everyone would get exactly the same training, because everyone has the capacity to be either an asshole or a victim.
Of course we know that in our particular society (as in many others) women are at higher risk for being abused, and men are more likely to be the abuser. So it seems like there should still be an equal amount of education, but that men should probably receive greater feedback about how (and why) not to be an asshole, and women should receive greater feedback on how to protect themselves from assholes.
So are police victim-blaming when they give advice about the number of cars stolen from petrol station forecourts (because people fill up, then go and pay, but leave the keys in the ignition and the doors open) and suggest that people should be a bit careful?
Certainly in this thread any advice is victim blaming.
But that doesn't make the advice useless or pointless or harmful.
And it's certainly on topic for HN - psychology of dealing with difficult people applies to work and suppliers and customers and regulators and yes, unrepentant assholes.
maybe not so much 'least interesting' as 'not the right moment'. It's kind of like bringing up that one should avoid dangerous neighborhoods right when someone got mugged and killed.
It's a valid point, and it doesn't mean you're blaming the victim, but it's perhaps not the best time bring it up, and people might easily misconstrue what you're saying.
This isn't an article about sexual harassment though. It's one side of the story, involving an obviously messy inappropriate relationship.
Is it wise for two founders to date? I'd say no. She must share some of the blame, and who's to say what his side of the story is, and what exhibits he has showing her in a bad light?
EXCUSE ME, this is very MUCH a story about sexual harassment.
One founder was removed from the "Founder's Suite," because it was believed that having a woman as a founder would work against the company's valuation/brand-equity. That is black and white sexual harassment. It is discrimination based on gender. Period.
Secondly: Founders date. Employees date. Subordinates and Managers, date. It happens. It's not "should they," it's that "they do" and there are appropriate methods to mitigate this. What is personal, is personal—and what is professional, is professional.
HR departments have methods to mitigate this. Startups being "above" or "too cool" to engage HR professionals early in their lifecycles, are to blame for most of these kinds of problems. GitHub, now Tinder, and many others I can't think of off the top of my head. HR exists to keep the personal, personal—and the professional, professional.
There is NO blame for a relationship going sour, at the professional level. None. Our industry has a ways to go. We all need to be in on that, together.
This isn't an article about sexual harassment though... She must share some of the blame
In your world, calling someone a whore in front of their co-workers is both acceptable and not sexual harassment?
It's nonsense to suggest that somehow he was forced hurl such insults at her.
The only person responsible their own actions is that same person; you don't get to abdicate responsibility for your actions just because you dated someone.
>>You're still ignoring the fact that this is one sides account of an obviously messy situation.
Because it's irrelevant.
>>What happened before he called her a whore? Did she bait him, did she harass him, did she cheat on him, etc etc
It was his choice to call her a whore in front of their colleagues (and note: this is just one example from the harassment claim, there're plenty of unsavoury actions quoted).
Words said or past actions don't give you the right to demean someone at the workplace.
>>My point was when you date someone, there's often blame on both sides when things turn sour.
Which, again, is irrelevant to creating a hostile working environment.
When you're a grown-up, you accept responsibility for your actions, and that the only person making decisions about what you do is - guess what? - you.
If you've had a messy breakup, well, honestly, that really really sucks.
It absolutely does not give you the right to harass the other person.
* This is only one side of the story.
* It's completely plausible that she did bad things as well.
* It's for the court to decide. Not random internet lynch mobs based on biased one sided information.
Hopefully your black and white view of the world changes someday.
It looks like somebody put an iPhone on a photocopier to take screenshots. Is that what happened? Is there a legal reason why this was done versus using the home button/power button combo?
It may well have been taken using the usual screenshot mechanism, but legal documents often end up in printed form, passed around and photocopied. People working on the case may not have the original image files, only paper copies or (gasp) scans of the same.
You'd be amazed how much stuff is printed out and trucked around for lawsuits.
Some of these are definitely screenshots as they have the ellipses to indicate the other party is typing. It seems like these are scans of printed images in some cases.
That's well put. Jesus Christ, I didn't realize it could get this bad. This is like if someone took the usual sexism stories, magnified them beyond all possible imagination, and made it reality. Somehow I must've been lucky, but I don't feel like I've ever met anyone who would act anything like this...
(To be fair, I'm reading one side of the story via the link above, but assuming that the facts there are actually true...)
http://www.rezlaw.com/News-Events/06-30-14_Complaint_with_Ex...