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Comment by zmitri | Hacker News Reader

It's pretty common. VC funds will run these checks on you, and most companies do as well when they even hire you. It's table stakes for any company committed to data security and safety.

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So, it sounds like the real error was Ito's failure to do some due diligence research on a potential funder, is that right?

The real error is acting like the most likely explanation is he just failed to do some utterly basic due diligence.

Well, that's what's unclear to me — the apology makes it sound like he just had no idea about this guy. From the other comments, it sounds like that's false, and he ignored warnings from his peers, which makes more sense to me.

No need to be hostile, I'm just trying to understand the situation :)

The situation is Joi is dancing around Epstein's rape conviction being ok with him.

Joi would love to pretend he (somehow) didn't know, but a colleague has come forward to say he warned him.

Are you insinuating he did the due diligence and ignored it?

He was literally told by his colleague (who today quit) that he should not associate with Epstein:

https://medium.com/@EthanZ/on-me-and-the-media-lab-715bfc707...

I was commenting based on my experience that 1) VC firms actually do ask you for permission to run background checks on you, look you up online, and know a fair bit about you 2) We run background checks on everyone we hire, and its fairly easy to do, because I believe it would be irresponsible not to.

I don't think there is one real error here as you put it, but it's been made public he was warned about him before and people he worked with would refuse to go to his properties when invited and told him why (citation: https://medium.com/@EthanZ/on-me-and-the-media-lab-715bfc707...).

Thanks, I think this is what I was missing. Failing to google a donor is a pretty bad oversight, but I think attributable to basically negligence. Ignoring the advice of your peers is more egregious, which looks like what happened here.

"Due diligence research" makes it sound complicated. Just Google the guy. I always look up potential business partners. And, in the past, I have discovered evidence of criminal activity that puts me on alert (nothing like Epstein though, just run-of-the-mill fraud.)

Yeah, seems like he already knew about Epstein's past, but accepted money anyway.

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