While Hollywood, New York City and Washington D.C. have been rocked by recent sex-harassment scandals, roping in a herd of celebs and pols from Charlie Rose to Roy Moore to Sen. Al Franken and Garrison Keillor, two prominent West Coast addresses have also been put on the national Men-Acting-Badly map.
Here’s our running update on some of the folks who’ve been caught up in that net:
SILICON VALLEY
Andy Rubin/Google
November 2017
As the Googler behind the Android smartphone software, Rubin achieved a rock-start status in the Valley before stories in The Information emerged that he’d been the subject of an internal Google investigation in 2014 after a female employee complained about what the New York Times called “an inappropriate relationship with a female subordinate while he was at Google.” Rubin, who took a leave of absence from the start-up he now runs, had done nothing wrong, said a spokesman. “Any relationship that Mr. Rubin had while at Google was consensual and did not involve any person who reported to him,” Michael Sitrick told The Times. “Mr. Rubin was never told by Google that he engaged in any misconduct while at Google and he did not, either while Google or since.” The Times, which spoke with someone “with knowledge of the matter,” said the “inquiry found that the relationship was inappropriate because the woman worked on the Android team while Mr. Rubin was leading it.”
Steve Jurvetson/ Draper Fisher Jurvetson
November 2017
A perennial member of Forbes’ “Midas List” of Tech’s Top Investors and once named “Venture Capitalist of the Year” by Deloitte, Jurvetson stepped down from his perch at DFJ after the company caught him lying about what, according to Recode, were “serious allegations” of inappropriate behavior with women he worked with. The company’s investigation “found, in part, a pattern of dishonesty with women, according to other sources, including extra-marital affairs that, in the eyes of some, crossed into the professional world. Jurvetson also contributed to a difficult work environment, a source alleged. The complete circumstances that forced Jurvetson from his job are still in dispute, although both sides say his decision to depart was mutual.” Neither the company nor Jurvetson commented about the allegations reported by Recode. In a statement, Jurvetson said he “left because of the acrimony that arose between DFJ partners in the wake of the investigation.”
David Drummond/Google
November 2017
According to a report in The Information, Google’s top lawyer had an extramarital affair with a female subordinate in his department. “The two had a child together,” said the story. “When the affair was disclosed to Google’s human resources department, the woman, a paralegal, was moved into the sales department. She later left the company; Mr. Drummond still works there.” Drummond currently serves as senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer for Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company.
Robert Scoble/tech blogger at Scobelizer
October 2017
As New York Magazine put it, “Silicon Valley has a culture problem. The list of allegations of sexual harassment, assault, and discrimination against women in the tech industry seems to grow daily. Today’s addition: Blogger and former Microsoft tech evangelist turned major player in the world of AR/VR, Robert Scoble.” The story describes a post on Medium in which journalist Quinn Norton alleges Scoble attacked her at a 2010 tech retreated called Foo Camp. The story said the blogger “turned on her after he was pried away from a ‘drunkenly disoriented’ woman he was making out with at the campsite.” According to Quinn, “without any more warning, Scoble was on me. I felt one hand on my breast and his arm reaching around and grabbing my butt. Scoble is considerably bigger than I am, and I realized quickly I wasn’t going to be able to push him away.” The magazine said that Scoble later apologized for his inappropriate behavior, writing on Medium that “I must admit my own role in sexism in this industry and world. I am flawed too, and am working to fix those flaws.”
Travis Kalanick/Uber
June 2017
The most high-profile sexual harassment scandal in tech involves Uber, the once high-flying ride-hailing startup whose co-founder and CEO, Travis Kalanick, resigned from the top spot in June. His exit from the San Francisco company came after a firestorm sparked by a blog post by Susan Fowler, a former Uber engineer who says she was sexually harassed by her superiors while at Uber, and that management failed to take action. She also said sexism was rampant in Uber’s culture. Kalanick’s leaked emails, in which he referred to employees possibly having sex while on a company trip, didn’t help matters.
Justin Caldbeck/Binary Capital
June 2017
The co-founder of San Francisco-based Binary Capital, a venture capital firm, stepped down after being accused of sexual harassment by six different women. The allegations include grabbing one woman’s thigh under a table; offering another woman a position at a company he was considering funding; and sending another explicit text messages. Caldbeck later sent handwritten notes to his accusers, according to Wired, and “others to whom he now thinks he may have acted improperly, as well as emails to women who’ve been critical of him in the media. But some recipients of Caldbeck’s ‘apology’ emails are not convinced. They believe the disgraced investor is exploiting the public discussion around sexual harassment to recast himself as an ally,” said the story in Wired.
Dave McClure/500 Startups
July 2017
In July, the CEO of 500 Startups apologized, called himself a creep and quit the Mountain View-based tech incubator he helped launch after the New York Times reported that he had hit on a job candidate he was trying to recruit. He admitted that he had made advances toward multiple women, and said his female co-founder had asked him to resign. Later that month, a reporter alleged that another 500 Startups partner groped her.
Amit Singhal/Google & Uber
February 2017
A Google engineer hired by Uber, Singhai was asked to resign when Uber discovered he did not disclose allegations of harassment at Google. Singhai left his job at Uber as its SVP of engineering because, according to Recode, “he did not disclose to the car-hailing company that he left Google a year earlier after top executives there informed him of an allegation of sexual harassment from an employee that an internal investigation had found ‘credible.'” Singhal was asked to resign by then-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, who also later stepped down. Sources at Uber told Record that the company did “extensive background checks of Singhal and that it did not uncover any hint of the circumstances of his departure from Google. Singhal disputed the allegation to Google execs at the time.” And, in a statement to Record’s Kara Swisher, Singhai denied the allegation while acknowledging the dispute with Google: “Harassment is unacceptable in any setting. I certainly want everyone to know that I do not condone and have not committed such behavior,” he wrote in an email. “In my 20-year career, I’ve never been accused of anything like this before and the decision to leave Google was my own.”
Staff writer Levi Sumagaysay also contributed to this report.
