I never thought of it that way. I always thought of it as “don’t shit where you eat” because I ain’t at work to make friends. I’m here to get shit done.

They were dating before he hired her, also mentions that hiring her was a mistake

Honestly best take. There’s a lot to this story I’m sure and I think it needs to be discovered in a court.

I’m hopeful it’s a truly fair court case as everyone has their right to their day in court.

It’s never that simple, sure. Which means it isn’t as simple as saying categorically “you can not”.

While the dom/sub fantasy is a common one, we need to remember that it has to stay a fantasy.

This was the real world, with a real world power dynamic in the workplace. That made consent dubious. And the number one rule of this sort of relationship is that CONSENT MUST BE CERTAIN.

Anyone with half a fucking clue would would not have this kind of relationship with an employee.

This is entirely based on a quote of him saying they were dating. Did she coberate that? Did anyone else? Is there a known history of their relationship or just this guy saying it exists?

This is the kind of nuanced response I was struggling to draft in my mind. I hope no one was abused. If she was, I hope she is vindicated.

The ex-CEO said that he was dating the woman who sued him before hiring her at Tradeshift in 2014, which he called a “grave error of judgment." He also noted that the “plaintiff went on to work for Tradeshift for approximately five more years after our relationship ended.”

This raises so many red flags to me.

I can’t comment on the alleged activities, and we don’t know her financial or emotional situation in 2014 when she was hired, but it sounds waaaay more complicated than “boss treats random new chick as sex slave”.

I hope she’s in a better place now (mentally and emotionally).

Baseless assumptions.

He’s talking about 50 Shades of Grey. Which is a work of fiction that has been systematically pointed as problematic.

I’ve seen a few studies on this, I’d have to dig up some sources but socio/psychopaths do tend to seek power… So CEO rates of socio/psychopathy are significantly higher.

Regardless of what they sell or their stated ethos, once a corporation becomes publicly traded its only purpose becomes maximizing profits for its shareholders. The prevailing attitude in that section of the business world is that, if you can save a million and one dollars by dumping toxic waste on a children’s playground, and the fine from the EPA is going to be one million dollars even, then it is your holy and sacred duty to poison those children for the sake of delivering that one dollar to the shareholders. In fact, failing to prioritize shareholder profits is the only thing corporations ever get in real trouble for.

People who thrive in this type of environment, let alone rise to the top, tend not to be good or moral people who are bothered by things like a conscience or a sense of compassion. To run a publicly traded corporation you need a person who can cause enormous amounts of suffering and blight in the world, and then go home and sleep comfortably and unbothered, soothed by the belief that everything is permissable as long as they made a line on a graph go up slightly.

Unless they were born or raised with empathy, which is an obvious no, nothing bad happens to them if they’re terrible. A ton of enjoyable things happen, even.

At that point, you’re weighing the opportunity to do whatever you feel like at no consequence against doing what other people tell you to do for none of your own benefit (the only measurement that matters). Technically at a moderate cost to the one reigning themselves in. Under the looming threat of nothing if you do not comply.

I know the question was purely rhetorical and born out of the same frustration that I have. But I wish we’d drop this weird notion the more humanitarian of us seem to default to, like people who do this shit just haven’t had the golden rule properly explained to them yet. They know. And they’ve figured out it’s currently a farce.

There’s nothing terrible here. More just “stupid.”

Reminds me of a quote from Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow:

“Don’t forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death’s a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try ‘n’ grab a piece of that Pie while they’re still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled “black” by the professionals, spring up everywhere. Scrip, Sterling, Reichsmarks continue to move, severe as classical ballet, inside their antiseptic marble chambers. But out here, down here among the people, the truer currencies come into being. So, Jews are negotiable. Every bit as negotiable as cigarettes, cunt, or Hershey bars.”

Fear and power do a lot, and there is a whole legal section about how contracts signed under duress against the person’s interests are not legally binding.

Like you, this is the first I’ve heard of this so I don’t have any opinions at this time.

“we all know she enjoyed it till she didn’t”

Fuck you

This is a vile take, and you should reexamine your empathy

Unfortunately manipulation, coercion, grooming, etc do exist.

“This person can’t have been abused because they signed a contract”

Tell me you’re a sex pest without saying it

Typical privileged attitude.

Agreed.