Speaker 1: There's quite a bit of adult content in today's episode.
Speaker 1: If you're listening with young kids, this might be a
Speaker 1: good one to say for later. In early Kathy Kobrie
Speaker 1: was working at a startup called Cubican in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: It was just Kathy and the founder the Sky Sandy,
Speaker 1: toiling away together for years, and they just raised a
Speaker 1: round of funding. We're really really excited about the future,
Speaker 1: and the founder of the company, Sandy, through a friend,
Speaker 1: said that Mark Cantor was in between projects and that
Speaker 1: he would be available to interview for the position of CEO.
Speaker 1: Mark Cancer this is the name will be mentioning a
Speaker 1: couple of times this episode. He founded a software company
Speaker 1: back in the eighties that became known as Macromedia, which
Speaker 1: after he left, went public and was sold to a
Speaker 1: b for three point four billion dollars. Within certain circles
Speaker 1: in tech, he's pretty well known. Kathy and Sandy had
Speaker 1: dinner with Mark to see if they'd want to bring
Speaker 1: him on as CEO. Not long after, the three of
Speaker 1: them were on a conference call and Sandy had to
Speaker 1: drop off the call. The Mark said, Oh, I guess
Speaker 1: you know, because Sandy's on the Phone's just the two
Speaker 1: of us, and I said, you know, okay. He said, actually,
Speaker 1: this is a great opportunity because there's something I want
Speaker 1: to talk to you about privately. And I said, what's
Speaker 1: that and he said, he said, you know, I've been
Speaker 1: looking at the expenses of the company and you know,
Speaker 1: projecting it forward, and he said, I don't see a
Speaker 1: role for you in this company moving forward. He said,
Speaker 1: but but I have an idea. I have an idea.
Speaker 1: Um what we could do is, um we could have
Speaker 1: an arrangement the two of us, and the arrangement was
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have sex with him and then I would
Speaker 1: be able to keep my job. And then he also
Speaker 1: mentioned that he didn't have this rangement with another company
Speaker 1: that he ran and it worked very nicely. So admitted
Speaker 1: to doing something similar at it with a different woman
Speaker 1: where he had sex with someone, you know, so she
Speaker 1: could stay on the parel. And he was, you know,
Speaker 1: thinking maybe this might be a good arrangement. And I
Speaker 1: said that that, you know, under no circumstances was I
Speaker 1: interested or going to take him up on the offer.
Speaker 1: And I said, I'm so offended. I can't even believe
Speaker 1: you're saying this to me. What Kathy didn't know was
Speaker 1: that Mark had a history of harassment allegations dating all
Speaker 1: the way back to his time at the software startup
Speaker 1: that he founded that became Macromedia. He was asked to
Speaker 1: leave the company in the early nineties partly because of
Speaker 1: that behavior, According to a person with knowledge of the matter,
Speaker 1: and a year after the alleged incident with Kathy, another
Speaker 1: woman in the tech industry, says Mark went on to
Speaker 1: proposition her. You'll hear from that woman in a minute. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Akito and I'm Sarah McBride. And this week on Decrypted,
Speaker 1: we're tackling Silicon Valley's sexual harassment problem. It's a scandal
Speaker 1: that has completely consumed the industry over the last month.
Speaker 1: Over the years, Kathy Kbrey had told some friends and
Speaker 1: her two daughters about Mark Cantor's alleged advances, but that
Speaker 1: interview you just heard with us was the first time
Speaker 1: she spoke publicly about her experience. You'll be hearing from
Speaker 1: other women today too, women who came forward with their
Speaker 1: stories about other men over the last month of various
Speaker 1: news outlets, and one woman who went public years ago.
Speaker 1: These are women who step forward to expose what many
Speaker 1: have called an open secret and text tight knit male
Speaker 1: dominated community. We'll hear what life has been like for
Speaker 1: these women since then and whether they fear the repercussions
Speaker 1: of exposing this darker side of the industry. Will also
Speaker 1: be discussing what can be done to curb what's become
Speaker 1: to feel like an epidemic of abuse of power. So
Speaker 1: let's fast forward to March. A year after Mark cancer
Speaker 1: allegedly proposition Kathy Kobery, Wendy Dent was struggling to raise
Speaker 1: money for her media related startup, an app called Cinemas.
Speaker 1: That's when she realized that someone commented on her Facebook
Speaker 1: post about International Women's Day. He wrote, go girl, So
Speaker 1: you know d R r L. I felt he was
Speaker 1: a role model to me in a sense that he
Speaker 1: was a pioneer of multimedia, which is the space that
Speaker 1: I'm in, and he he was someone that I was
Speaker 1: keen to meet because he's been doing exciting things. The
Speaker 1: man she's talking about is Mark Cantor, the same Mark
Speaker 1: Cantor who we heard about from Kathy Kybery. Wendy and
Speaker 1: Mark started exchanging messages on Facebook and decided to meet
Speaker 1: up in San Francisco at a falafel joint. That's when
Speaker 1: Wendy told Mark about her startup, and you know, he
Speaker 1: listens and said it was a strong idea, and he
Speaker 1: offered to be an advisor, and so I was really
Speaker 1: quite excited. It was a meeting going well. Wendy says.
Speaker 1: Mark offered to advise her on her company and write
Speaker 1: the computer code of her app. And I've been so stuck,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, that's so so great. I'm
Speaker 1: so happy about that because I haven't been able to,
Speaker 1: you know, get developers. I haven't been able to get funding.
Speaker 1: It was at that point he said to me, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone's going to want to get into your candies, and
Speaker 1: I want to get into your candy. And that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't forget. I will never forget hearing that and just
Speaker 1: being so stunned. And he said, you know, i'd like
Speaker 1: he said. I remember, he said I want to have
Speaker 1: sex with you. Um it wasn't that I kind of
Speaker 1: even repeat the way he said it, but he said
Speaker 1: to me, I want to have sex with you. And
Speaker 1: he said to me, your problem is you kind of
Speaker 1: have this air about you that you're unfaul this blue
Speaker 1: Wendy away was Mark really suggesting it would help her
Speaker 1: business to sleep around. I throwled off and I was
Speaker 1: just shocked, and I didn't quite no it was to
Speaker 1: make of it, but I wanted to keep the good
Speaker 1: meeting going and I wanted to be that it could
Speaker 1: be just about the tech it it could work, Wendy said.
Speaker 1: She tried to laugh it off, but then she received
Speaker 1: a series of Facebook messages from him. She shared screenshots
Speaker 1: of those messages with us. One said, Wendy, you're a
Speaker 1: sorceress casting a spell on me. Wendy ignored the messages
Speaker 1: and switched over to email, trying to steer the conversation
Speaker 1: back to her company. We reviewed those emails too. Mark replied,
Speaker 1: what's in it for me, and Wendy said, let me
Speaker 1: know your thoughts. Mark replied, yes, we can talk, but
Speaker 1: on the phone and added a smiley face. I felt
Speaker 1: then that he was basically pressuring and he was putting.
Speaker 1: He was putting a kind of set development deal on
Speaker 1: the table with how it felt and um, and I
Speaker 1: I was really on the I didn't want to respond.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how do. I didn't want to prove
Speaker 1: oky middle with any response. I just wanted a squide
Speaker 1: away and and not have anything more to do with
Speaker 1: him ever again. For some of you, Wendy's tale might
Speaker 1: sound familiar. She went public with part of it to
Speaker 1: Katie Benner of The New York Times, who named not
Speaker 1: just Mark Canter but also other women's stories about two
Speaker 1: very well known investors in the valley, Chris Soccer and
Speaker 1: Dave McClure. Dave is someone we even had on this
Speaker 1: show in the fall. Chris said in a blog post
Speaker 1: that he disputes the account but apologized for playing a
Speaker 1: role in making the industry inhospitable for women, and a
Speaker 1: blog post of his own, Dave wrote, I'm a creep
Speaker 1: and also resigned from the venture fund that he co founded.
Speaker 1: To the New York Times, Mark responded to Wendy's allegations,
Speaker 1: saying that he only said what he said because he
Speaker 1: didn't like her ideas and wanted her to go away.
Speaker 1: In a post on the publishing platform Medium, he said
Speaker 1: he wanted to apologize to Wendy for quote using a
Speaker 1: sexual innuendo to end our relationship. I'm wondering what the
Speaker 1: response has been like for you. Have women been reaching out,
Speaker 1: have men been reaching out? Have your friends been reaching out?
Speaker 1: To you. What's what's been their response? The reactions good
Speaker 1: and bad because um, instantly we had, I think, a
Speaker 1: feeling that we've broken it to do and we could
Speaker 1: talk about this and everyone believed me, no one believed him.
Speaker 1: But at the same time it was horrible for me
Speaker 1: because he then started blaming me for it. He tried
Speaker 1: to justify it by saying my fault for a myriadic
Speaker 1: ridiculous reasons. And I didn't want to get into any
Speaker 1: slinging matches about face and I just wanted up, you know,
Speaker 1: going going out to my bed, combat covers the the
Speaker 1: rest of my life today. Wendy lives in Mexico. After
Speaker 1: that exchange with Mark, as well as a few other
Speaker 1: instances that involved unwanted advances from men in the tech industry,
Speaker 1: she left to look On Valley. She ended up learning
Speaker 1: to code herself, and just recently released cinemas to Apple's
Speaker 1: app store. Wendy worries that coming forward might make it
Speaker 1: harder for her when she's ready to start raising money
Speaker 1: for her company, but at least so far, she says
Speaker 1: she doesn't regret the decision to recap The tech entrepreneur
Speaker 1: Mark Cancer has faced sexual harassment allegations dating back to
Speaker 1: the early nine nineties, when, according to a person familiar
Speaker 1: with the situation, he was asked to lead the software
Speaker 1: company he co founded partly because of that behavior. We
Speaker 1: reached out to Mark for the story, and he said
Speaker 1: no one ever told him he was being fired for harassment,
Speaker 1: and said he was instead fired for smoking pot. We
Speaker 1: also heard from two women who say they were propositioned
Speaker 1: by Mark. For Kathy Kybree, Mark was potentially her incoming bus.
Speaker 1: For Wendy Dent, Mark could have been a mentor. Mark
Speaker 1: said that in conversations with Kathy, he talked about sex,
Speaker 1: and he did talk about his ex girlfriends too, but
Speaker 1: added quote I certainly never said to her you must
Speaker 1: sleep with me or else. As for Wendy, Mark acknowledged
Speaker 1: that he did tell her he wanted to have sex
Speaker 1: with her, but said he only said that to shock her.
Speaker 1: He said, quote, my sarcasm and contrarian logic is a
Speaker 1: key part of my psyche. He also said that he
Speaker 1: was angry that Wendy didn't offer anything in return for
Speaker 1: seeking his help with her company, and said he was
Speaker 1: not expecting sex. Before Wendy's story ran in the New
Speaker 1: York Times, two women came four with their experience involving
Speaker 1: a different man, a venture capitalist called Justin called Back.
Speaker 1: Their story ran on the text site The Information, and
Speaker 1: it's what sparked this most recent outcry over the harassment
Speaker 1: of female start up founders. We thought that this was
Speaker 1: a huge issue, but we couldn't have even imagined just
Speaker 1: how many more women would come and speak up. That's
Speaker 1: Lady Shoe, co founder of the travel startup Journey. Lady
Speaker 1: said she was groped by the venture capitalist Justin called
Speaker 1: Back when she and her co founder Susan Hoe were
Speaker 1: pitching him on their business. She and Susan recently spoke
Speaker 1: to our colleague Emily Chang. This is just stuff that
Speaker 1: happens all the time. I mean to whether it be
Speaker 1: a snide comment or just a hug that's like a
Speaker 1: little too grabby. Yeah. I think the unfortunate thing is
Speaker 1: that when it comes to behavior like this, it's it's
Speaker 1: almost at a point where, you know, when when we
Speaker 1: were initially um put in touch with red Albert Gotti,
Speaker 1: who was the porter who wrote the Information article, we
Speaker 1: both looked at each other and we didn't think that
Speaker 1: there was a story there we just said, wow, you
Speaker 1: know why, what what makes up this story so special
Speaker 1: that we feel the need to tell it and share
Speaker 1: this when every other day this happens to women across industries.
Speaker 1: Susan and Lady couldn't have known how much of an
Speaker 1: impact their story would end up making. Justin Caldbeck initially
Speaker 1: denied the allegations, then apologized, and ended up leaving the
Speaker 1: venture capital firm Binary Capital that he co founded. You know,
Speaker 1: obviously all the women who came out in the New
Speaker 1: York Times, and I just think, wow, we are hopefully
Speaker 1: in a world, are starting to become in a world
Speaker 1: where speaking out against sexual harassment does not equate to
Speaker 1: dropping a nuclear bomb on your career. You know, I
Speaker 1: I breathe this. We've had the sigh of relief where, Okay,
Speaker 1: we made the right decision, made the right decision, We
Speaker 1: made the right choice. As Susan and Lady, as well
Speaker 1: as Wendy and Cathy consider the long term consequences of
Speaker 1: their decision to go public, there are actually very few
Speaker 1: people they could look to for past experience. It was
Speaker 1: almost unheard of to actually attach her name to an
Speaker 1: allegation of harassment in the Insulated world of tech, but
Speaker 1: Geisha Has is one of the few women who did
Speaker 1: live through this. A few years ago, her story ran
Speaker 1: on the gossip site Valley Wag. It involved receiving an
Speaker 1: email from an angel investor called Pavel Kurda. He said,
Speaker 1: I like you a lot. I will not leave Berlin
Speaker 1: without having sex with you. Deal that was back in
Speaker 1: and the story went viral. The investor, Pavo Kurta, ended
Speaker 1: up apologizing in the aftermath. In terms of negative things, um,
Speaker 1: there got death threats on Twitter where someone would say
Speaker 1: I will cut your throat. You find what probably what
Speaker 1: hurt more were when you read through the comments of
Speaker 1: articles and there's this Facebook plug in, and you can
Speaker 1: see that there are people that you have mutual friends
Speaker 1: with their real humans and them dissing you, them saying
Speaker 1: like your damn's own distress, You're doing it to advance
Speaker 1: your career, and just constantly constantly attacking you. Um. Then
Speaker 1: someone created a Facebook page that said I want to
Speaker 1: have sex with Keisha Has. They pulled personal images from
Speaker 1: my Facebook profile and photoshop the guy's face on my
Speaker 1: fiance's face. Were you depressed in the aftermath? Definitely? Yeah?
Speaker 1: For how long I'd say maybe two three months. It
Speaker 1: was mainly social anxiety where whenever I would be with
Speaker 1: other people, I could not help but extremely wonder what
Speaker 1: they were thinking about me, and I myself was extremely
Speaker 1: judging myself about everything. Like suddenly you or new normal
Speaker 1: is like all these strangers know who I am and
Speaker 1: they either want to kill me hit me. I think
Speaker 1: I'm scum or they think I'm a hero. And so
Speaker 1: that suddenly is your new reality and it takes a
Speaker 1: little while to like process it in a way that's healthy.
Speaker 1: I'm balanced, said She's still glad she came forward and
Speaker 1: that the overwhelming response to her story was positive. Geisha
Speaker 1: also said she didn't let the aftermath and all its
Speaker 1: distractions stop her from pursuing her mission of helping more
Speaker 1: women launch successful ventures through her company called Dreamers and Doers.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that are associated with
Speaker 1: um successful diversity and inclusion efforts, and I think of
Speaker 1: m combating sexual harassments falling under that umbrella is developing
Speaker 1: accountability not just for reaching metric, but for people who
Speaker 1: create environments that are run counter to those values. That
Speaker 1: voice might be familiar to our regular listeners. It's why
Speaker 1: von Hutchinson, the diversity consultant we spoke to in our
Speaker 1: episode about affirmative action in the startup Penny And when
Speaker 1: why Van talks about accountability, she's talking about imposing real
Speaker 1: consequences for the people who create these hostile work environments.
Speaker 1: Companies actually have to to make the tough, the tough choices, right.
Speaker 1: It's easy to sign a pledge, It's harder to establish
Speaker 1: robust accountability measurement mechanisms in your organization. It's harder to
Speaker 1: engage a third party on Budsman to review your claims
Speaker 1: of harassment. It's harder to fire that superstar partner. So
Speaker 1: I'm looking for companies to make decisions like that. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm very happy that the people who are coming
Speaker 1: forward are being believed and and that companies are and
Speaker 1: and VC firms are taking concrete action. When we saw
Speaker 1: sort of the downfall what happened with Binary Capital, I
Speaker 1: think it's sent a real message. It's tempting to say,
Speaker 1: let's just get rid of the handful of bad apples
Speaker 1: and everything will be fine. Most men in the tech
Speaker 1: industry don't try to sleep with their employees, their mentees
Speaker 1: and the founders of the companies they fund. But these
Speaker 1: kinds of stories we've been talking about today is just
Speaker 1: a very extreme manifestation of a much more subtle and
Speaker 1: pervasive sexism in this male dominated industry. I've had women
Speaker 1: tell me they will walk into pitch meetings and vcs
Speaker 1: will ask them, do you want to have kids? Do
Speaker 1: you want to have more kids? Do you think you
Speaker 1: can hire men? Um Men don't get asked those questions.
Speaker 1: Men don't get asked if they want to have kids.
Speaker 1: That's our colleague Emily Chang, who was the one who
Speaker 1: interviewed Lady in Susan earlier. Emily's also writing a book
Speaker 1: about women in tech, so she's been doing a ton
Speaker 1: of reporting on this topic. When you talk about women
Speaker 1: who work at these tech companies, they might be and
Speaker 1: often are the only woman on a team of engineers.
Speaker 1: All the rest of them are men. And these women
Speaker 1: are constantly fending off advances and comments of all kinds,
Speaker 1: And they tell me that it's exhausting, Like it's exhausting
Speaker 1: to have to navigate that and negotiate that and preserve
Speaker 1: the relationship and politely saying exactly, that's hard in any
Speaker 1: situation to politely say no, but when it's in your
Speaker 1: work environment and it's happening all day long, all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, it was about a month ago that the
Speaker 1: story from the information came out, and you know, I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: had you heard of stories like this happening before around
Speaker 1: sexual harassment? Yes? I guess what I would say is
Speaker 1: every female entrepreneur, every female in tech, it seems to me,
Speaker 1: has a story at least one story, and some of
Speaker 1: these women have many stories. And it might be being
Speaker 1: sexually harassed, someone grabbing your thighs, someone trying to case
Speaker 1: to you, But more often it is uh, something incredibly
Speaker 1: small that you might that might not seem so bad
Speaker 1: in isolation, but at it all together and it is
Speaker 1: a big deal. That brings us back to Kathy Kobrie
Speaker 1: story from the top of the show. Cathy said she
Speaker 1: ended up telling the founder, Sandy, who didn't want to
Speaker 1: be interviewed for today's episode, about what Mark Canter said
Speaker 1: to her, and Mark didn't end up sticking around the
Speaker 1: company for long. He said he left Cubican after only
Speaker 1: a matter of weeks, even before ever signing an official
Speaker 1: employment contract. Kathy ended up leaving Silicon Valley and tech
Speaker 1: all together. Today. She lives in a sleepy town called
Speaker 1: Carmel on the central California coast and works part time
Speaker 1: for a nonprofit. This is the first time that you're
Speaker 1: speaking about this on the record. Are you scared? Are
Speaker 1: you are you nervous? What are you worried about? Of
Speaker 1: course makes a steps. But the reason I'm doing it
Speaker 1: because I have twin daughters and when it was happening
Speaker 1: to me, when I hung up the phone, the first
Speaker 1: thing I thought about is like, you know, this is
Speaker 1: what my girls are gonna be up again, and it
Speaker 1: just it breaks my heart. Have you ever told your
Speaker 1: daughter is about what happened? Oh? Yes, Oh I told him.
Speaker 1: It's embarrassing, you know, because they heard me talk about
Speaker 1: how excited I was abound him to joining the company,
Speaker 1: and then when he was gone, I had to give
Speaker 1: some explanation and so I told them and they cried.
Speaker 1: And I told my daughter yesterday that I was doing
Speaker 1: this interview today and she cried. What do you think?
Speaker 1: She cried, Cathie m because she knows how humiliated it
Speaker 1: made me feel, and she knows how many thousands of
Speaker 1: hours I've worked. But I've been reading these stories about
Speaker 1: women who have come forward, and they're definitely in in
Speaker 1: more of a position. You know, they're actively raising funds
Speaker 1: and they're afraid to be labeled as you know, trouble
Speaker 1: or you know, I don't want to do business with terror,
Speaker 1: and I think that they're braver than I am. But
Speaker 1: I'm just doing this pretty much for my daughters who
Speaker 1: are coming up into the world and want to be
Speaker 1: in business and to think that they would have to
Speaker 1: endure something like this. If I am speaking up in
Speaker 1: some small way makes it better or easier for them,
Speaker 1: I guess it's going to be worth it. And that's
Speaker 1: it for this week's episode of Decrypted. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Do you have a story you'd like to share with us?
Speaker 1: You can get in touch at Decrypted at Bloomberg dot net,
Speaker 1: or you can find me on Twitter at McBride SG
Speaker 1: and I'm at aki Eto seven. If you haven't already,
Speaker 1: please subscribe to our show wherever you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and while you're there, leave us a rating and a review.
Speaker 1: This goes a long way to get the show in
Speaker 1: front of more listeners. This episode was produced by Pia
Speaker 1: got Cary, Liz Smith, and Madness Henriksen. A special thanks
Speaker 1: to Isabel Gottlieb and Nicole Grant, who helped us with
Speaker 1: a ton of research and reporting for today's episode. Be
Speaker 1: sure to catch Emily Chang, who you also heard from today,
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Television's Daily techt Show at two pm Pacific
Speaker 1: five pm Eastern, every weekday. Alec McCabe is head of
Speaker 1: bloom Podcasts. Because we wanted to get you this episode
Speaker 1: as soon as possible, we'll be taking a break next week.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you soon. M