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Andy Rubin Takes Leave From Essential as Probe Into 'Inappropriate' Google Relationship Goes Public, Report Claims (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Essential founder and CEO Andy Rubin has taken a leave of absence from his new company for "personal reasons" following a report on the circumstances of his 2014 departure from Google. According to The Information, Rubin left Google shortly after an investigation found that he had maintained an "inappropriate relationship" with a woman who worked under him and filed a complaint to HR. The nature of that relationship isn't detailed in the report, and Rubin's spokesperson Mike Sitrick denies the connection. "Any relationship that Mr. Rubin had while at Google was consensual," Sitrick tells The Information. "Mr. Rubin was never told by Google that he engaged in any misconduct while at Google and he did not, either while at Google or since." Rubin is said to have told Essential employees of his leave of absence on Monday after The Information informed Sitrick of its story.

13 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. Women are becoming a liability . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Hiring a woman these days seems to have become a liability for a company. Why on earth a company would expose itself to potential problems is behind my understanding.

  2. Color me shocked by butchersong · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Women find men in positions of authority over them attractive. Men find women subordinate to them attractive because authority and respect are strong aphrodisiacs for men...

    1. Re:Color me shocked by Junta · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Of course, that may be the case, but the fact remains that the woman reported it, which indicates either:
      -She did *not* find him attractive and was uncomfortable with unwelcome advances he was making
      -It was a consensual relationship that ended very badly, and she wanted to punish him through work

      Calling it an 'inappropriate relationship' is a nice neutral way of getting rid of the problem without having to weigh in on who is telling the truth and who is lying.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  3. Re: Ho Hum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He had a consensual relationship with someone. He was deemed to have never interacted inappropriately or caused any harassment. Their relationship violated a company policy that saw him requested to part. This isnâ(TM)t sexual harassment. You people on a witch hunt are going to seriously screw up a lot of lives before you finally stop this. It helps to read.

  4. Re: Ho Hum by Junta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "a woman who worked under him and filed a complaint to HR."

    Sounds like there's probably some disagreement about whether it was a mutual relationship or not. If it was just a violation of company policy, the woman wouldn't exactly be lining up to report it herself.

    Both outcomes are plausible, Rubin claiming it was mutual to save his reputation despite it not being harassment, or a sour end to a consensual relationship that caused the woman to file a complaint and screw things up for Rubin.

    We have about 0 data to go on to make an intelligent call here.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  5. You can't have your cake and eat it too by DeplorableCodeMonkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Feminists and feminism-inclined women want to be on all sides of the issue in a "heads we win, tails you lose" way. Don't believe me? Consider two facts about male-female interaction and how they approach them:

    Office time:
    1. Closing the door is dangerous.
    2. Not closing the door is sexist because it makes her feel less comfortable having an honest discussion.
    3. Women are always to be given the benefit of the doubt when they say something happened.
    4. Behind a closed door it's impossible, short of secretly recording (which isn't always legal), for a man to have any evidence to defend himself.

    Moral of the story: due your duty and fall on your sword if a woman wants to advance over you.

    Fraternization:
    1. If a woman wants to romantically pursue coworkers you are an awful person who thinks they own women for telling her to not shit where she eats, particularly if you threaten to fire her pursuant to an archaic policy that prohibits relationships.
    2. If a woman feels there are any consequences to saying no other than "totally cool, I get you" from the man, she's automatically a victim if he is nominally more powerful than her in the org chart. This holds true even if he's above her but in a totally unrelated group and actually protected by a manager with real authority over her.
    3. If a woman agrees, for any reason, to have sex or be in a relationship she is not expected to "put on her big girl panties and be a professional" instead of complaining about her one night stand or ex.
    4. If a man decides to call it off because he decides it is unprofessional, he is fully responsible and to be condemned and not lauded.

    Moral of the story: women get a total free pass short of sexually assaulting barely legal interns in full view of corporate counsel.

    1. Re:You can't have your cake and eat it too by The+Cynical+Critic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have a hard time understanding what's so balanced about the feminist idea of a relationship. What the woman says about the relationship is always treated as gospel and men are punished in some form regardless if the accusations are true or not while men may as well plead the 5th and stay silent considering how a differing view is always treated as being made up with malicious purposes. We've seen this happen time and time again over the year so as far as fears go it's like the fear of being run over when you walk into traffic without looking.

      All in all it feels like dating in the tech sector has become a serious liability for men when misconduct allegations are essentially a no-win scenario regardless if they're real or made up. When you consider all of this, mail order brides, while still a completely disgusting idea, begin to make some amount of sense.

      --
      "Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
  6. Re: Ho Hum by ITRambo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Thank you for the sensible post. I'm very tired of the current trend where the accused is always believed to be guilty, no matter what.

  7. Re: Ho Hum by interkin3tic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    He had a consensual relationship with someone.

    Who was his subordinate. Forget whether or not that's ethical for a minute: it's a fucking stupid move. A CEO having a relationship with an employee = a big liability and terrible PR.

    If Rubin had decided "Hey, we don't need to secure user data," what would slashdot's response be? Probably that he shouldn't be in charge of anything beyond a mop.

    That's the level of stupidity we're dealing with here.

    If you're defending this moronic decision, I have to ask why. Is it because it involves a personal fantasy of yours (eg "having a relationship with a woman")? Is it because this (gasp) is kinda-sorta-almost a progressive thing of maybe female employees are there to do a job, not for sex?

  8. Re:Not safe to relate to a woman in the workplace by e_pluribus_funk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    >Considering that many buisness decisions are made over coffee, this will slowly lead the to exclusion of women.

    Don't worry, the articles will be coming out shortly about how women are being frozen out of social events and the big boys club. Never mind that people have been fired for inviting women out to happy hours because it was "harassment".

    My informal, personal pledge from now on is to never help anyone professionally who even gives a hint of being of the SJW crowd; and I have zero tolerance for real harassment (and, AFAIK, have never been accused of harassment, but from what I've read from men working in HR, as a male in management, you've probably been accused and didn't even know it at least once in your career).

  9. Re:Matt Lauer says by e_pluribus_funk · · Score: 1, Insightful

    1. The left always eats it's own, sooner or later.

    2. Many folks on the left aren't actually ideological - they enjoy power and the trappings of power and just hitched their sails to where the wind was blowing. They don't actually believe in the social justice B.S. and powerful men without morals will use the women as their personal harems if they can regardless of their ideological bent.

  10. Re: Ho Hum by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So your argument is either that women don't have a brain in their head, or that they don't have the responsibility to choose their sexual partners without your approval.

    --
    If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
  11. Re: Ho Hum by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Can we just talk about this issue please?

    When people say that the victim should be believed, what they mean is that the assumption by those responsible for investigating should be that they are not lying and the claims should be checked out. It doesn't mean an assumption of guilt, merely that the claims are worth checking out (with consequences if they are malicious).

    All too often victims are told that they must have been "asking for it" or simply fobbed off and then decades later 20 of them come forward with the same story.

    Of course it's important for the investigation to be fair. Ideally the accused should remain anonymous initially. Unfortunately this tendency to dismiss potential victims means that eventually one is forced to go public and hope others also come forward, which is bad for everyone involved. If the accused is innocent they suffer reputation damage that an investigation could have avoided, and the lack of investigation often means that they are unable to clear their name definitively.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC