Creating a Safe Space for Founders
Adjacent’s Blacklist and Solidarity Pledge
Recently I went to a lecture hosted by a prominent university to hear from CEO Sarah LaFleur of MM.LaFleur, a clothing company for working women, and Brynn Putnam of Mirror, a mirror that acts as a “nearly invisible home gym”. These women radiated confidence and competence, and I felt simultaneously awestruck and inspired. Their success made my own feel a little more achievable. The start-up world, perhaps, was finally changing.
The accompanying happy hour showed me how far this equitable, empowered reality is. A man, who looked to be somewhere between sixty-five and seventy, came up to me and asked about my company. I spoke passionately about my start-up Adjacent, a virtual incubator that democratizes access to entrepreneurship for people around the world.
He immediately said that he was interested in investing, and invited me to his investment office in Connecticut which was, he noted, very close to his private beach. We could swing by the beach on the way to his office. And, Connecticut was such a nice place I should really stay with him a few days and we could explore the area together.
It became increasingly obvious that he was not at all interested in my company.
So I left. He followed.
I said good-bye and gave him a handshake, but he grabbed my arm and went in for a kiss on the cheek, which landed half on my lips.
I shook with anger as I walked away that night. But what could I do? For each action he did, I could already hear the version he could spin. He invited all of the people he invested in to the beach. I kept talking to him, which must mean I was interested. The half-kiss was an unfortunate accident.
This has not been my first experience in New York’s start-up ecosystem of a man that has tried to use his position to sleep with me. I knew there were almost certainly other women that he had harassed, and perhaps some that he had done more to. But to have half a chance at seeing this one individual ousted from his position of power, I would need numerous women to come forward, time, energy, and a lot of money.
And what would I achieve? In the tech world there has been a handful of men ousted from their positions because of sexual misconduct. These men have re-emerged months later with new, high profile jobs. YCombinator has created a reporting form, but it is unclear what actions they will take to those who are reported.
There will continue to be those who abuse their power in the entrepreneurial system as long as there is only a small risk of punishment years down the line. To truly change the system, there needs to be clear, immediate punishment. As my co-founder Sal and I create a virtual incubator where entrepreneurs can meet investors, we understand there is the potential for abuse. Instead of waiting for abuse to happen, we are taking steps to make sure that punishment for sexual harassers is engrained into the foundation of our company from the outset.
To this end we have created a Blacklist and an accompanying Solidarity pledge. We will collect reports of sexual abuse or harassment from anyone on the Adjacent platform whether they are in a private community or the global community. Adjacent partners with universities, corporations, and other private communities which might feel pressured to sweep sexual assault or harassment away. We’re saying now that we will stand as an outside reporting mechanism for entrepreneurs even if it means losing the business of these institutions.
Once there are three reports on any one person, we promise that this person will be blocked on the Adjacent platform. We also promise to not secure funding or conduct business with this individual or any company which this person is affiliated. Although in a perfect world it should be one report to dismiss a person, we want to balance the need to exclude sexual harassers with the potential that there could be abuse of the reporting system.
Money is powerful, but it runs dry. Investment on the other hand compounds. As Adjacent expands, we believe one of the most powerful ways to stop the power of sexual abusers in the tech system is to block them from access to the best deals. No woman or man should have to wonder whether the cost of gaining investment will be their safety. We want Adjacent to first and foremost be a place where entrepreneurs feel safe.
We understand that it will likely be harder to expand and keep such a stringent moral code. But if we can succeed we will be doing something more meaningful than publically chasing after every bad actor in the press, which has become the go-to move of the #MeToo movement. Instead, we’re setting up an ecosystem where harassers will find that they will quietly find themselves blocked from opportunity and cut off from positions of power.
