when they are very common in EA orgs, like living together and being open to unconventional and kind of unclear boundaries and pay arrangements and especially conflicts of interest from dating coworkers and bosses
The brief relationship Alice had with Drew did not feature prominently in this post and/or what I take to be the central list of complaints. Nor did the main problematic issues in that paragraph seem to be a typical example of what I consider to be abuse of power in a romantic relationship qua romantic relationship:
Alice and Chloe reported a substantial conflict within the household between Kat and Alice. Alice was polyamorous, and she and Drew entered into a casual romantic relationship. Kat previously had a polyamorous marriage that ended in divorce, and is now monogamously partnered with Emerson. Kat reportedly told Alice that she didn’t mind polyamory “on the other side of the world”, but couldn’t stand it right next to her, and probably either Alice would need to become monogamous or Alice should leave the organization. Alice didn’t become monogamous. Alice reports that Kat became increasingly cold over multiple months, and was very hard to work with
(Tbh I’m a bit confused about the wording of that paragraph; it’s unclear to me from the paragraph why Kat couldn’t just request that Alice and Drew not date each other because dating employees is often a bad idea. From my lights, that will be a reasonable albeit hypocritical position, much more reasonable than asking someone to change romantic preferences writ large[1]).
I can imagine something like the following message to be invasive but understandable: “I noticed that the two of you appear to be getting close to each other. I really don’t want to pry into your personal life, but from my past experiences, coworkers in small companies usually shouldn’t date each other. Nonlinear doesn’t currently have a policy against employees dating each other unless one is a direct report of the other, but we should still consider this question. This is especially the case as we are only 5 people and one of you might manage the other going forwards. I know that this is hypocritical of me as Emerson and I decided to cofound this nonprofit after dating, but realistically increasing the number of romantic entanglements in this 5-person company is a risk factor.”
I strongly think that, like with FTX, we should wait two weeks (or more) before forming opinions and reaching conclusions, as more information comes out[1]. But I want to quickly highlight footnote 7, as I think it might be relevant for some people and a bit buried
After this, there were further reports of claims of Kat professing her romantic love for Alice, and also precisely opposite reports of Alice professing her romantic love for Kat. I am pretty confused about what happened.
I really don’t know if the new information will be better or worse for Nonlinear, I just expect the picture to become clearer in a few weeks, and to be better to look for lessons then as opposed to now
Lorenzo, what if we view this situation as a kind of manipulation, similar to what we saw in the Kat incident when Alice’s reputation was targeted? Could it be possible that Kat has intentionally involved an employee in a romantic relationship to exert more control? While it’s a bit of a stretch, I’m curious if anyone has observed any similar behavior from Kat in the past. It might help shed light on her motivations here.
Sorry if this is repetitive, but I really mostly “strongly think that, like with FTX, we should wait two weeks (or more)” before evaluating the evidence and looking for what we can learn from this case.
The brief relationship Alice had with Drew did not feature prominently in this post and/or what I take to be the central list of complaints. Nor did the main problematic issues in that paragraph seem to be a typical example of what I consider to be abuse of power in a romantic relationship qua romantic relationship:
(Tbh I’m a bit confused about the wording of that paragraph; it’s unclear to me from the paragraph why Kat couldn’t just request that Alice and Drew not date each other because dating employees is often a bad idea. From my lights, that will be a reasonable albeit hypocritical position, much more reasonable than asking someone to change romantic preferences writ large[1]).
I can imagine something like the following message to be invasive but understandable: “I noticed that the two of you appear to be getting close to each other. I really don’t want to pry into your personal life, but from my past experiences, coworkers in small companies usually shouldn’t date each other. Nonlinear doesn’t currently have a policy against employees dating each other unless one is a direct report of the other, but we should still consider this question. This is especially the case as we are only 5 people and one of you might manage the other going forwards. I know that this is hypocritical of me as Emerson and I decided to cofound this nonprofit after dating, but realistically increasing the number of romantic entanglements in this 5-person company is a risk factor.”
I strongly think that, like with FTX, we should wait two weeks (or more) before forming opinions and reaching conclusions, as more information comes out[1]. But I want to quickly highlight footnote 7, as I think it might be relevant for some people and a bit buried
I really don’t know if the new information will be better or worse for Nonlinear, I just expect the picture to become clearer in a few weeks, and to be better to look for lessons then as opposed to now
Lorenzo, what if we view this situation as a kind of manipulation, similar to what we saw in the Kat incident when Alice’s reputation was targeted? Could it be possible that Kat has intentionally involved an employee in a romantic relationship to exert more control? While it’s a bit of a stretch, I’m curious if anyone has observed any similar behavior from Kat in the past. It might help shed light on her motivations here.
Sorry if this is repetitive, but I really mostly “strongly think that, like with FTX, we should wait two weeks (or more)” before evaluating the evidence and looking for what we can learn from this case.