Day #2: What its like to be attacked by Pando – Marc Canter – Medium

I really respect Sarah Lacy and Paul Carr.

They fight a good fight and bring attention to a lot of important issues. They exhibit clean transparency by disclosing who their investors are — and they’re resented for their brutal tactics — and yellow journalistic behavior — as long as their victims deserve it.

So yesterday they decided that I deserved it. And not just me. My wife.

That’s when this shit got totally out of control!

From the moment when the NYTimes decided to include me in a piece of sexual harrasment, I had been working on doing something pro-active — that would go beyond an apology. I know how lame apologies are and why they’re simply not enough.

It was when danah boyd wrote a wonderful piece and laid out these four tenets that I thought: “I like the tone of danah’s appeal — it seemed completely logical and reasonable to me and that’s the tone under which I want to reply.”

But that was never ALL I wanted to do.

In addition to an apology what I had INTENDED on doing was:

• launch some sort of affirmative action effort where women’s participation and “seat at the table” could be “forced” or coerced or somehow facilitated in our industry
• show real world acion that I was doing something in MY company — by recruiting female board members to my board and female engineers to our team
• do a public “call for action” to 50+ of the major and independent male CEOs in our industry — to “do the same” — hire female engineers and recruit female board members

But that all takes time. I was working “behind the scenes” to formulate the right response and line up more than a few examples of…… and I just couldn’t get it done — in time. Time ran out. Once Pando starts attacking your wife (for defending me) I knew that the time was NOW to AT LEAST get a sincere apology — out.

So I did.

But no dear reader — that’s not enough — and it won’t be. Apologies are never enough. One must be judged on their actions.

People who know me know that I would never do something on purpose to make someone feel uncomfortable. That’s not who I am.

I’m not a sexist! In fact I’m very pro-women. One of my former co-founders is transgender, I’ve helped female run companies and I hang out with some of the most intelligent and strong women we have in this industry.

It’s not that I’m a sexist, but I was making some women feel uncomfortable and that is wrong! I’ve realized that what I perceive of — as acting “unfiltered and ourageous” really puts women on the spot and makes them feel uncomfortable. That’s not good thing! I won’t do that again. I promise.

I really do.

I act outrageous to get attention. That’s what Silicon Valley has taught me — its all about attention. And now I have it.

Yesterday’s Medium article garnered almost 12k reads. So now I’m continuing this “attention orgy” with a followup. And I’ll do more. As long as I can help achieve change — I will.

My bad behavior and false assumptions is based upon this thing I do — which is unfiltered, sarcastic, snarky contrarian logic. I try to turn situations around — to show just how absurd the reality is. That’s what I did with Wendy Dent.

But taken out of context — it looks bad.

The grabbed quote that Katie Brenner decided to use left a lot of the “supposed” sexual flirtation — out. This is not to try and justify my bad behavior, but to point out that I’m not some horrible person who holds sex out as a favor for money or power.

For one — I HAVE NO money or power to give!

Secondly — I have no intention of making people feel bad — and that’s what really hurts. The women that I’ve made feel bad.

That’s who I want to apologize to.

Thirdly — I actually don’t have a copy of the thread between me and Wendy Dent. She deleted it. But saved a copy to send to the press. They (NYTimes, USA Today) have copies — but not me. So its very hard for me to defend myself — but that’s NOT what this is about. I’m NOT defending myself or trying to justify my behavior! I just wanna set the context straight for the context. The interacton with Wendy was like 2+ years ago — that much I do remember. Taking things OUT of context is what Steve Bannon does.

Finally — I’m GLAD that I was included in Katie’s piece. I’m going to use all this attention and negativity to do something positive and help move our industry forward.

It was a shock to me to be included in the same article talking about real sexual manipulation and coercement. It was a shock to me to be included with folks who act that way — and live that way — on a regular basis.

Katie Brenner’s piece in the NYTimes was not intended to JUST reveal VCs bad behavior, but to make a statement on Silicon Valley culture. I am part of that culture — whether I like it or not.

I am not an investor. I tried to explain this to Katie and I also pointed this out to Paul Carr. Somehow several reports were made that I’m some investor and important person. I’m not.

I USED to be important and that’s all that mattered to the NYTimes.

So here I am:

• being hated and reviled for making a crude remark
• being added to a Blacklist and list of sexual harrassers
• and then a thread where my wife defended me — gets highlighted by Pando — and gets taken out of context!

This is classic Steve Bannon yellow journalistic behavioral results. This is how Trump got elected.

As long as we’re outting people, lets be clear as to what happened.

Damn straight apologies are not enough! Its about action. So please judge me by my present and future action. That’s all I can ask.

Apologies are an easy way to trying to put a story behind you. That’s not what I’m going to do.

When we launch our product I’ll be taking to the road — and in every city I visit I expect somebody to Google me and this horrific set of events will come up. I hope that folks will then attend that local event we put on — and ask me: “So Marc — how have YOU been taking this set of events and taking ACTION for change?”

Hopefully what I’ll be able to say is:

• we’ve recruited these women to be on our board
• we’ve hired these females to be engineers (its easy enough to do that for marketing and sales folks — but important to hire technical women as well)
• we’ve built a product that women (both young and old) can utilize to express their feelings and beliefs — in new ways — utilzing AI and ChatBots
• I’ve personally helped out THESE female run companies — so please check THEM out!
• And I’ve helped out these orgs, these efforts and these principles
• …..all real action. Not talk, promises or apologies……….

That’s what I’m going to do.

Hopefully people will also ask me: “And how have you CHANGED towards your attitude towards women?”

That’s when I will tell them that: “I’ve realized that acting outrageous to get attention is not a good thing. That making women (or men) feel uncomfortable — is not cool — and that I have NOT done ANYTHING like that — ever since I was mentioned in a NYTimes article. I’ve realized that I was wrong and I’m sorry for making anyone feel uncomfortable!”

People who know me know:

• that I’ve hired Blacks and Women — going all the way back — to the 1980's
• that I’ve worked with people of all ages — and have never shown any discriminatory policies to any: based upon sex, age or race
• that I’ve put in untold hours and weeks into efforts to fight for user’s rights of their data, identity and privacy rights, and built a front-end for people to share their media (ourmedia.org) and an organization to help formulate standards for “micro-content” (structuredblogging.org)
• I wrote a book on how to create an open, distributed “Open Mesh” for multiple networks to thrive and interact — while no one network dominates.
• I support many distributed networking and open source efforts and even supported a nascent standard called FOAF — when it first emerged. FOAF (friend of a friend) was supposed to be a standard for inter-connecting social networks together.

So please bear with me. I’m working on change. That takes time. And please don’t be attacking my wife or family.