A person who does this being "otherwise good" doesn't lessen the harm to women looking for jobs or investment. But it does go to the person's intent and overall desert of punishment.
That was still a risky move. The key (literally, one of the elements of sexual harassment) is whether the advance is welcome. I'm guessing that Bill used a lower-risk way of finding that out than sending a text message after a job interview.
That message was absolutely inappropriate. Women should be able to raise money without being hit on by investors.
My comment was in response to the idea that Dave was secretly different than his outward appearance. I don't know him, I don't know the situation. But I think otherwise good people can do things they should apologize for and stop.
I think there are both 1) sleezeballs who intentionally take advantage of their position and 2) men who don't realized what they're doing and need to use better judgement.
Without knowing details, there are at least indications in both McClure's and Sacca's pasts that they may (hopefully) be in the latter group.
And hopefully this will help both groups get smaller.
We make a conscious effort not to be influenced by early progress though, because there is no correlation between how far along a company is when they apply to YC and how well they end up doing.
Given how many reapplications YC gets, it seems that it should only invest in companies it thinks would do so well in the next 6 months that they won't apply in the next round.
If YC is getting fewer misses on companies that are rejected but go on to do well, how much of that do you ascribe to the selection process and how much do you ascribe to YC's increasing ability to get multiple passes at startups?