Hacker News Reader

msghacqon My Apology Regarding Jeffrey Epstein

Ito did know Epstein was a child sex rapist. Ethan Zuckerberg urged Ito not do deal with Epstein at the time and he ignored him: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-...

msghacqon My Apology Regarding Jeffrey Epstein

A 16 year old can't be a prostitute (they can't consent to have sex with an adult). It's called child rape, and yes most people consider that to rank particularly high on the moral failings list.

msghacqon My Apology Regarding Jeffrey Epstein

It wasn't just the university though. Ito also allowed Epstein to coinvest in his personal startup investments. He also visited his houses (which were decorated somewhere between provocatively and illegally based on residence). Ethan Zuckerman also directly confronted Ito and was ignored: https://medium.com/@EthanZ/on-me-and-the-media-lab-715bfc707...

msghacqon My Apology Regarding Jeffrey Epstein

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...

msghacqon My Apology Regarding Jeffrey Epstein

There's nothing classy about this. It wasn't until the latest batch of Epstein information came forward that Ito said anything. Epstein was raping children during the period Ito was raising money from him, coinvesting with him and visiting his houses! There's not excuse for that.

msghacqon My Apology Regarding Jeffrey Epstein

Epstein's conviction for raping a minor was public information at the point that Joi Ito raised money from, coinvested with and visited his homes. Far more information is included in Ethan's MIT resignation post:

He should step down from the boards of the Media Lab and The New York Times. Far more information is provided in Ethan's resignation letter than in Ito's "apology":

http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-...

There's no way Ito didn't know about this, it would come up with a simple Google search. Investors do diligence.

msghacqon My Apology Regarding Jeffrey Epstein

He should step down from the boards of the Media Lab and The New York Times. Far more information is provided in Ethan's resignation letter than in Ito's "apology":

http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2019/08/20/on-me-and-the-...

msghacqon On me, and the Media Lab

There is, but unfortunately only one of three pilots recorded names in the flight logs. Still, there is a lot of documentation.

msghacqon On me, and the Media Lab

There are pictures with Prince Andrew's arm around 16 year old Giuffre with Maxwell present. How many 16 year olds find themselves in that situation? The Lolita Express (Epstein's plane) had a bed installed in it. That's not normal. Flight logs put Giuffre on the plane with everyone she's accused. Epstein used Alan Dershowitz (also accused of molesting children with Epstein) to bury all of this information and killed himself when it came to light.

The accusations are not questionable at all.

msghacqon On me, and the Media Lab

I don't think it takes religion to see this as a bad thing. Just simple empathy and common sense. Even with zero empathy for the victims, its seems like terrible business sense to associate with a child sex trafficker. People in general care about their reputations.

msghacqon On me, and the Media Lab

Good points but it's not true that Epstein didn't have women involved. His #2 was Ghislaine Maxwell, she recruited girls and participated in the abuse. He also had Heidi Klum, Naomi Campbell, Barbra Walters and numerous other high profile women in his orbit, on his planes and at his houses.

msghacqon On me, and the Media Lab

> Merely knowing/being friends with the guy though should not be reason for disgrace without further evidence of anything bad on one's part.

I think being friends with a convicted child sex trafficker should be cause for disgrace. That's something most normal people would not do.

msghacqon On me, and the Media Lab

Joi Ito wasn't at "some party" with Epstein. He raised money from him after Epstein was convicted for child sex trafficking. He also allowed Epstein to co-invest in his startups. He also visited his houses... During this time period Epstein continued to rape children (two new suits were just filed on Tuesday that state this).

Joi Ito has a deep relationship with a child sex trafficker, people are rightfully upset.

msghacqon On me, and the Media Lab

I would say taking money from, investing with and visiting the houses of a convicted child sex trafficker is a really bad idea if you want to keep your and your institution's reputation intact. It's also recently come to light that Epstein continued to rape children during this time period (post-arrest). Two new lawsuits were just filed against his estate for it.

msghacqon On me, and the Media Lab

Joi Ito took money for MIT from Epstein after he became a convicted sex offender. He also allowed Epstein to co-invest in his startups and visited his houses (which were decorated with extremely provocative and possibly illegal photos). All investors do enough diligence that he would have known about the conviction before working and socializing with him.

msghacqon On me, and the Media Lab

I agree but this is also big. Joi Ito admitted to visiting Epstein's houses as well. He also let him co-invest in startups with him. It's unclear which startups in particular Epstein was an investor in though.

msghacqon On me, and the Media Lab

Nathan Matias is also leaving for the same reason: https://medium.com/@natematias/leaving-the-mit-media-lab-ea3...

msghacqon Joi Ito raised money from and invested with Jeffrey Epstein

I don't think that's the important part of this post. It's the first place that confirms that Ito and MIT raised money from Epstein; a fact they've denied in the past [1]. It's also the first mention that Ito allowed Epstein to co-invest in his startups.

* [1] https://twitter.com/David_Ingram/status/1162457071633293312

msghacqon Joi Ito raised money from and invested with Jeffrey Epstein

I don't think the lede is that he's giving back the money now that all of this has become public. I think the lede is that Ito raised money, coinvested with and visited multiple homes of Epstein after Epstein became a convicted sex offender.

msghacqon I Tried Emailing Like a CEO

When people say that there is a difference between Buzzfeed and Buzzfeed News, I’ll point them to this article to prove that there’s isn’t.

msghacqon Defining a Distinguished Engineer

I wonder how this posts overlays with Jess' experience at GitHub. She only worked there for a couple of months and I've heard from insiders that there was a lot of tension. It would be great to hear her side of the story and see if this post was partially a comment on GH's culture or her own growth after the experience.

msghacqon Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

"America’s political climate is changing; among other things, the 2016 presidential election brought up the issue of wealth inequality in this country and made people consider more closely the structural forces that define class here."

What on earth does the 2016 election have to do with wealth inequality (or unions for that matter)? Inequality has been on the rise for decades and Clinton was also a member of the 1%. This seems like a non-sequitur.

msghacqon Kickstarter’s staff is unionizing

It will be interesting to see what this does for developer salaries at Kickstarter. If, as a top performer, I get penalized by joining the union then obviously Kickstarter looks less attractive to me. For unions in our industry to work they are going to have to be very explicit about how they are going to raise developer salaries.

msghacqon GitHub Status – Incident on 2019-03-12

I know several people who have quit recently and more on the way. Can you comment on Nat wanting to do away with the EQ interviews?

msghacqon GitHub Status – Incident on 2019-03-12

Yes they ask about diversity and feminism and call that eq. As another poster linked, you can see that’s their #1 cultural bullet point: https://github.com/about/careers

msghacqon GitHub Status – Incident on 2019-03-12

It stands for “emotional quotient” and they ask you a bunch of questions about diversity, feminism... They watch your responses for tone and vocabulary and can veto your hire if they deem you insufficiently enthusiastic. The motto is: “eq > iq”. You can imagine why MS might not be keen on this.

msghacqon GitHub Status – Incident on 2019-03-12

I’ve been hearing from friends at GitHub and MS that things are on fire internally. The GitHub employees are in semi-revolt because they think Nat is integrating too fast with MS. Many people have quit or are being pushed out. It may actually be for the best because the post-founder/pre-buyout team was pretty mediocre. Nat is also trying to crack down on some of the more overt activism in the company. They do “eq” screenings for political fit during the interview process and he’s trying to get them to stop. They also have a brand new head of product and engineering. Product was taken from Jason Warner about two months ago and placed directly under Nat. Sounds really bad and I don’t expect much turn around.