Silicon Valley Venture
Capitalists Rape Interns and
Ideas: What Can Be Done About It
A ten year under-cover study of the
criminal rape-culture and tacit illicit
conspiracy of silence in Silicon Valley
A ten year study of the venture capitalists of Silicon Valley was conducted. This is what we learned.
We used an AI data gathering software application system that was allowed to self-breed and auto-populate, for a number of years, using automated web analysis, email text overlap algorithms, Web-DA and other legally acquired re-percussive data acquisition.
We conducted thousands of interviews and personal testaments and went under-cover inside venture capital offices. Cell phones were legally placed in speaker-mode during under-cover activities while calling out to conference calls with our team.
Part One of this report deals with the Sex Assaults. Part Two of this report deals with the Idea Assaults. Part Three of this report deals with the Summations and Psychological Analysis of the VC’s. This report will be expanded in new revisions online and offered in Brief, Medium and Long-Form editions. The current Long-Form addition comprises over 2000 pages and includes audio recording MP3 files.
Silicon Valley's Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins, and
most other VC's are rapists, sexual predators and political bribery
enthusiasts and nobody ever arrests them for it...
How you
can help the victims:
- Support a DOJ and SEC class
action lawsuit against the NVCA and Silicon Valley Venture Capital
Firms
- Donate legal support funds for the women at
http://www.lawless-lawless.com/
- Encourage other women
at Venture Capital firms to come forward
- Help
distribute the iPhone recordings of the harassment these women have
recorded on the job
- Call Reid Hoffman, John Doerr, Tim
Draper and other VC's on the phone and tell them what you think
-
Demand that your pension fund remove any investments in Silicon
Valley VC funds
By KATIE BENNER
Rachel Renock, the chief executive of Wethos, center, with her business partners, Claire Humphreys, left, and Kristen Ablamsky. Ms. Renock said they received sexist comments while seeking financing. Credit Sasha Maslov for The New York Times
Their stories came out slowly, even hesitantly, at first. Then in a rush.
One female entrepreneur recounted how she had been propositioned by a Silicon Valley venture capitalist while seeking a job with him, which she did not land after rebuffing him. Another showed the increasingly suggestive messages she had received from a start-up investor. And one chief executive described how she had faced numerous sexist comments from an investor while raising money for her online community website.
What happened afterward was often just as disturbing, the women told The New York Times. Many times, the investors’ firms and colleagues ignored or played down what had happened when the situations were brought to their attention. Saying anything, the women were warned, might lead to ostracism.
Now some of these female entrepreneurs have decided to take that risk. More than two dozen women in the technology start-up industry spoke to The Times in recent days about being sexually harassed. Ten of them named the investors involved, often providing corroborating messages and emails, and pointed to high-profile venture capitalists such as Chris Sacca of Lowercase Capital and Dave McClure of 500 Startups.
The disclosures came after the tech news site The Information reported that female entrepreneurs had been preyed upon by a venture capitalist, Justin Caldbeck of Binary Capital. The new accounts underscore how sexual harassment in the tech start-up ecosystem goes beyond one firm and is pervasive and ingrained. Now their speaking out suggests a cultural shift in Silicon Valley, where such predatory behavior had often been murmured about but rarely exposed.
The tech industry has long suffered a gender imbalance, with companies such as Google and Facebook acknowledging how few women were in their ranks. Some female engineers have started to speak out on the issue, including a former Uber engineer who detailed a pattern of sexual harassment at the company, setting off internal investigations that spurred the resignation in June of Uber’s chief executive, Travis Kalanick.
Most recently, the revelations about Mr. Caldbeck of Binary Capital have triggered an outcry. The investor has been accused of sexually harassing entrepreneurs while he worked at three different venture firms in the past seven years, often in meetings in which the women were presenting their companies to him.
Several of Silicon Valley’s top venture capitalists and technologists, including Reid Hoffman, a founder of LinkedIn, condemned Mr. Caldbeck’s behavior last week and called for investors to sign a “decency pledge.” Binary has since collapsed, with Mr. Caldbeck leaving the firm and investors pulling money out of its funds.
The chain of events has emboldened more women to talk publicly about the treatment they said they had endured from tech investors.
“Female entrepreneurs are a critical part of the fabric of Silicon Valley,” said Katrina Lake, founder and chief executive of the online clothing start-up Stitch Fix, who was one of the women targeted by Mr. Caldbeck. “It’s important to expose the type of behavior that’s been reported in the last few weeks, so the community can recognize and address these problems.”
The women’s experiences help explain why the venture capital and start-up ecosystem — which underpins the tech industry and has spawned companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon — has been so lopsided in terms of gender.
Most venture capitalists and entrepreneurs are men, with female entrepreneurs receiving $1.5 billion in funding last year versus $58.2 billion for men, according to the data firm PitchBook. Many of the investors hold outsize power, since entrepreneurs need their money to turn ideas and innovations into a business. And because the venture industry operates with few disclosure requirements, people have kept silent about investors who cross the lines with entrepreneurs.
Facebook founder and multi-billionaire Mark Zuckerberg got his start creating "Facemash" in 2003 on the Harvard network. The user compared...
It's clear that sexual harassment is rampant in the tech industry, but there are many industries where it is just as bad or worse. Mine was...
And so it was and still is. I commend women who stuck with their goals. I was not that strong. 1982. In college my engineering physics lab...
Gesche Haas, an entrepreneur who said she was propositioned for sex by an investor. He later apologized. Credit Sasha Maslov for The New York Times
Some venture capitalists’ abuse of power has come to light in recent years. In 2015, Ellen Pao took her former employer, the prestigious venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, to trial for allegations of gender discrimination, leveling accusations of professional retaliation after spurned sexual advances. Ms. Pao lost the case, but it sparked a debate about whether women in tech should publicly call out unequal treatment.
“Having had several women come out earlier, including Ellen Pao and me, most likely paved the way and primed the industry that these things indeed happen,” said Gesche Haas, an entrepreneur who said she was propositioned for sex by an investor, Pavel Curda, in 2014. Mr. Curda has since apologized.
Some of the entrepreneurs who spoke with The Times said they were often touched without permission by investors or advisers.
At a mostly male tech gathering in Las Vegas in 2009, Susan Wu, an entrepreneur and investor, said that Mr. Sacca, an investor and former Google executive, touched her face without her consent in a way that made her uncomfortable. Ms. Wu said she was also propositioned by Mr. Caldbeck while fund-raising in 2010 and worked hard to avoid him later when they crossed paths.
“There is such a massive imbalance of power that women in the industry often end up in distressing situations,” Ms. Wu said.
After being contacted by The Times, Mr. Sacca wrote in a blog post on Thursday: “I now understand I personally contributed to the problem. I am sorry.” In a statement to The Times, he added that he was “grateful to Susan and the other brave women sharing their stories. I’m confident the result of their courage will be long-overdue, lasting change.”
After the publication of this article, Mr. Sacca contacted The Times again to amend his original statement, adding: “I dispute Susan’s account from 2009.”
Many of the women also said they believed they had limited ability to push back against inappropriate behavior, often because they needed funding, a job or other help.
In 2014, Sarah Kunst, 31, an entrepreneur, said she discussed a potential job at 500 Startups, a start-up incubator in San Francisco. During the recruiting process, Mr. McClure, a founder of 500 Startups and an investor, sent her a Facebook message that read in part, “I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you.”
Ms. Kunst, who now runs a fitness start-up, said she declined Mr. McClure’s advance. When she later discussed the message with one of Mr. McClure’s colleagues, she said 500 Startups ended its conversations with her.
500 Startups said Mr. McClure, who did not respond to a request for comment, was no longer in charge of day-to-day operations after an internal investigation.
“After being made aware of instances of Dave having inappropriate behavior with women in the tech community, we have been making changes internally,” 500 Startups said. “He recognizes he has made mistakes and has been going through counseling to work on addressing changes in his previous unacceptable behavior.”
Lindsay Meyer in her home in San Francisco. She said a venture capitalist groped and kissed her. “I felt like I had to tolerate it because this is the cost of being a nonwhite female founder,” she said. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Rachel Renock, the chief executive of Wethos, described a similar situation in which she faced sexist comments while seeking financing for her online community site. While she and her female partners were fund-raising in March, one investor told them that they should marry for money, that he liked it when women fought back because he would always win, and that they needed more attractive photos of themselves in their presentation.
They put up with the comments, Ms. Renock said, because they “couldn’t imagine a world in which that $500,000 wasn’t on the table anymore.” Ms. Renock declined to name the investor. Wethos raised the $500,000 from someone else and is still fund-raising.
Wendy Dent, 43, whose company Cinemmerse makes an app for smart watches, said she was sent increasingly flirtatious messages by a start-up adviser, Marc Canter, as she was trying to start her company in 2014. Mr. Canter, who had founded a software company in the 1980s that became known as Macromedia, initially agreed to help her find a co-founder. But over time, his messages became sexual in nature.
In one message, reviewed by The Times, he wrote that she was a “sorceress casting a spell.” In another, he commented on how she looked in a blue dress and added, “Know what I’m thinking? Why am I sending you this — in private?”
Mr. Canter, in an interview, said that Ms. Dent “came on strong to me, asking for help” and that she had used her sexuality publicly. He said he disliked her ideas so he behaved the way he did to make her go away.
Some entrepreneurs were asked to not speak about the behavior they experienced.
At a start-up competition in 2014 in San Francisco, Lisa Curtis, an entrepreneur, pitched her food start-up, Kuli Kuli, and was told her idea had won the most plaudits from the audience, opening the door to possible investment. As she stepped off the stage, an investor named Jose De Dios, said, “Of course you won. You’re a total babe.”
Ms. Curtis later posted on Facebook about the exchange and got a call from a different investor. He said “that if I didn’t take down the post, no one in Silicon Valley would give me money again,” she said. Ms. Curtis deleted the post.
In a statement, Mr. De Dios said he “unequivocally did not make a defamatory remark.”
Often, change happens only when there is a public revelation, some of the women said. In the case of Mr. Caldbeck and Binary, the investor and the firm have apologized, as has Mr. Caldbeck’s previous employer, the venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, which had received complaints about him.
“We regret we did not take stronger action,” Lightspeed said on Twitter on Tuesday. “It is clear now that we should have done more.”
Lindsay Meyer, an entrepreneur in San Francisco, said Mr. Caldbeck put $25,000 of his own money into her fitness start-up in 2015. That gave Mr. Caldbeck reason to constantly text her; in those messages, reviewed by The Times, he asked if she was attracted to him and why she would rather be with her boyfriend than him. At times, he groped and kissed her, she said.
“I felt like I had to tolerate it because this is the cost of being a nonwhite female founder,” said Ms. Meyer, who is Asian-American.
But even after she reached out to a mentor, who alerted one of Binary’s investors, Legacy Venture, to Mr. Caldbeck’s actions, little changed. Legacy went on to invest in Binary’s new fund. Binary and Mr. Caldbeck declined to comment.
“We failed to follow up on information about Mr. Caldbeck’s personal behavior,” Legacy said in a statement. “We regret this oversight and are determined to do better.”
Follow Katie Benner on Twitter @ktbenner.
By Joe Tacopino
A Silicon Valley venture capitalist has been sued for $40 million by a woman who claims he used her as a virtual sex slave for 13 years.
Michael Goguen, who had worked for a firm that funded Google and Paypal, “sexually and physically” abused Amber Laurel Baptiste over more than 13 years after picking her up at a Texas strip club, her lawsuit alleges.
Baptiste, who claims she was brought to the United States from Canada by human traffickers at 15, said she endured “countless hours of forced sodomy” from the tech titan. The former stripper said Goguen made her endure demeaning sexual acts, sodomized her for “six hours at a time,” and forced her to call him “king” and “emperor.”
Filed in San Mateo County, Calif., on March 8, her suit details a life of torture and servitude as she was jetting around the globe to serve as the millionaire’s plaything. She claims Goguen had promised to save her from human trafficking but instead became an even worse predator himself.
Goguen, who was forced to step down from his position at Sequoia Capital, did not deny that the two had a sexual relationship but insisted the sex was consensual. He filed a countersuit against Baptiste claiming she is an “exotic dancer . . . looking for a payday.”
The venture capitalist said Baptiste was obsessed with him and sought to extort him because she was jealous of his wife. In his countersuit, Goguen provides pages of texts and emails in which she apparently refers to him as “Prince Charming,” “My Beautiful Love” and “the sweetest man in the world.”
The suit includes Bapiste’s descriptions of the “amazing sex” the two had together and photos that she allegedly sent him in which she is seen playfully posing in her underwear.
Baptiste is demanding $40 million, saying the two agreed on the amount to compensate her for the horrors she had suffered. Goguen, who has already paid her $10 million, said she is “a woman scorned” and a victim “of her own delusions.”
He claims that when he tried to end their relationship, Baptiste became bent on vengeance, threatening to ruin his life and reputation. He said that he had no choice but to pay her the $10 million, but that she refused to relent and demanded more money.
Sequoia Capital released a statement that called Goguen’s departure from the firm the “appropriate course of action.”A philanthropist, Goguen was lauded for donating $2 million to fight online child pornography and sex trafficking where he lives in Montana.
Goguen is not the only business leader who’s faced backlash over sexually inappropriate behavior.
Dov Katz, head of the computer vision and machine learning group at Facebook-owned Oculus, has been charged in King County for attempted commercial sexual abuse of a minor. The 38-year-old tech exec allegedly attempted to contact what he believed to be was a 15-year-old girl for sex. The fictitious 15-year-old was actually an undercover police officer with the Tukwila Police Department, a city just south of Seattle.
The news was first reported by KING 5, which said that Katz was arrested by Tukwila Police on Wednesday. Katz is to be arraigned on January 5th, and bail was set at $125,000. An Israeli citizen who resides in California, Katz is forbidden to have contact with any minors, except in the presence of a responsible adult, according to charging documents. Katz allegedly responded to an online advertisement that offered sex in exchange for money, an ad which was posted by undercover police officer posing as a 15-year-old girl.
By Samantha Conners - APT
Michael Goguen, Google's married senior investor, “sexually and physically” abused Amber Laurel Baptiste with constant anal sex over more than 13 years after picking her up at a Texas strip club. His company: Sequoia Capital, has had other run-ins with cheating married executives, escorts and tax evasion schemes, per legal filings.
Eric Schmidt, the head of Google, proclaimed that he would have a “open marriage” where he could have sex any time, with anybody, and is documented in a ream of news articles and video regarding his fifteen million dollar “sex penthouse” in New York.
Sergey Brin, another head of Google, is featured in numerous news articles for his “three way sex romp” with multiple Google employees forcing one employee to move to China to escape him. A married Google senior executive named Hayes, who helped rig Google's searches for political clients, was murdered on his “sex yacht” by his prostitute, which other Google executives had used.
Ravi Kumar, another VC associated with Google Executives, was also murdered by a pack of hookers and pimps that frequented his Silicon Valley home.
Valley Girls was a private escort service that used Stanford Co-eds to service the sexual kinks of Google executives.
Ellen Pao famously sued Google founding investor John Doerr, and his company Kleiner Perkins, for sexual abuse.
Google employee divorce filings hold the Silicon Valley record for use of the word “abuse” as one of the reasons given in the legal papers filed to initiate the divorce.
The list of kinky, twisted, bizarre sexual antics of Google executives, and their investors, goes on for pages and pages...
Google seems to attract the most twisted, perverted, morally decrepit men in the world. One has to wonder why, of all the large companies on Earth, only Google got to place the majority of it's people in the White House? That's right, Nike doesn't have it's people in the White House. Macy's doesn't either. Neither does Chevron, or John Deere tractor or any other company on Earth.
Only Google, exclusively and uniquely, had all of their people placed in the White House and top federal agency lead positions. What's up with that? Were they selected because of their technical skills or their ability to make people bend over?
An addiction to dirty sexual perversions are not the only illicit trends that Google folks display. The Google investors are members of a financing cartel called the National Venture Capital Association
(NVCA). This group of frat boy elitists got busted for running the “Angelgate” scandal in which they were documented rigging, colluding, black-listing and contriving the whole Silicon Valley start-up industry.
Then they were caught again when Eric Schmidt, Mr. “Sex Penthouse” and the head of Google, wrote emails ordering a conspiracy against Silicon Valley engineers. This “No Poaching” conspiracy got the Silicon Valley VC's sued in a class-action lawsuit, which the VC's lost. The Google founder's best friend: Jacques Littlefield, kept the world's largest private fully functional military tank squadron, in fully operational status, hidden in vast warehouses in his Silicon Valley estate in Woodside, California.
He said he had this arsenal: “just in case”. Does Google make white frat house men insane or does it draw the crazy ones to it?
The FBI is finally crunching down on these people. After so many years of the White House ordering the FBI to leave the Google VC's and Silicon Valley perverts alone, it was just getting plain embarrassing for the FBI. The audacious impunity with which Google, and it's friends, engaged in tax evasion, importing hookers, bribery, stock market rigging, anti-trust schemes and other crimes has become so overt, in the media, that it was created a spotlight on federal law enforcements avoidance of prosecution of the shenanigans of the Google crowd.
