Slashdot Mirror
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.
All these psychopaths that have been publicly outed in the last few weeks are a GREAT BEGINNING !!
Let's clean up the human race and put these predators in jail!
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...
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.
Andy Rubin is one of the biggest names in tech. This is essentially the downfall of Essential. It won't survive this.
The scandal angle I don’t care to read here, but hearing that a famous founder of a company is “taking a leave of absence” just a few weeks after the launch of their much-hyped device? That’s news for nerds, since it’s a klaxon call for anyone still working at Essential to abandon ship, and it’s a signal to the rest of us that Essential is essentially done at this point.
If you care about your carreer limit to a bare minimum all non work related relations. I for one, I'm growing more paranoid about having a coffee with a female collegue. And If I do, I always do in public.
Considering that many buisness decisions are made over coffee, this will slowly lead the to exclusion of women.
You should go and make your own news site, with hookers, and blackjack!
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
"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.
"a woman who worked under him and filed a complaint to HR."
She was expected to work at the same time! Now that is unreasonable
2018, Year of the Women
That sounds more fun than the year of the Linux Desktop
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.
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.
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?
I've worked for very big, very follow-the-rules companies for a long time. Almost every place I've been has had compulsory sexual harassment training regardless of whether or not we're too busy to harass anyone. And almost every place has a written policy banning relationships with subordinates, or puts so many rules around them that it's crazy to bother with them. The norm for big companies is also a zero-tolerance policy...if anyone reports anything, it's very likely that the company will cut the accused person loose rather than risk being involved in covering it up. Contrast that with recent examples like Uber where the HR department swept evidence-backed complaints under the rug to protect a "rockstar" manager. In my experience, the only departments that get a free pass in big companies with real HR departments and real legal counsel are the sales team -- and if it's egregious enough that they can't deny it even rockstar salespeople get let go too.
In short, it's just not worth it for a regular employee to get involved with anyone at work. People should be professionals and not go fishing in the company pond.
Ever heard of Android? He created it.
Define "safe". I see lots of police shooting unarmed black men in the news.
No, actually you don't see a lot of that. You've seen a few instances of that. What you don't see in the news is the even greater number of white men shot by police.
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.
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
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.
The word consensual should always be air-quoted when describing an inherently superior-subordinate relationship. That's why statutory rape is a law, even if the relationship is claimed to be consensual. That's why the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits an officer from having sexual relationships with an enlisted member in all circumstances. That's why some companies have rules against these types of relationships. There is an implicit inability to freely consent for someone in a subordinate position.
This is a gender issue.
It's not even that, any man or woman can get harassed by any other man or woman.
Ezekiel 23:20
Andy Rubin is one of the biggest names in tech.
Funny, when people say "one of the biggest names", I always think of Watt, Otto, Diesel, Siemens, Edison...as in, who the hell is this Rubin?
Ezekiel 23:20