Silicon Valley has apparently become so rife with seedy characters that tech workers are now distributing a spreadsheet of “over a hundred” alleged sexual predators in the industry, the New York Post reports.
The list isn’t publicly available, but is said to contain “prominent investors and businessmen,” according to the paper’s sources, and is a way of warning others.
“Some of them were very prominent names, you know? People who were famous investors,” one up-and-coming woman in tech told the Post. “Businessmen who were in the scene, I had seen them at parties before.”
The list, on top of names, is said to contain details of alleged acts of abuse which include drugging, sexual assaults, and rape. But it’s very selectively distributed, probably in part to protect the people who’ve made the allegations.
“I met some women who ran the ‘whisper network,’ it has hundreds of cases,” one woman who was asked to add her own account to the list after sharing it with others, told the Post. “I only found out about it because I started asking around.”
Women in the industry, sources said, often don’t go to the police because they fear retaliation from those they accused, which could damage their careers and professional relationships.
“I was worried that if I tried for justice in my case and I lost, I would be blacklisted from every investor in town,” one woman said.
News of the list’s circulation comes after renewed attention into the frat-like culture dominating the AI industry. The New York Times recently published an investigation numerous sexual harassment cases and rape allegations stemming from “hacker houses,” large mansions where as many as dozens of ambitious young tech workers live — and oftentimes party — together while pursuing their careers.
As much as they are reputed for fostering hedonistic lifestyles, these hacker houses also are typically backed by some of the industry’s top figures, giving them a chance to mingle and network with them. One prominent hacker house called the AGI House racked up 37 incidents logged by police since 2022, and a member of its progenitor house, called Genesis, was accused of rape and assault.
Yehong Zhu, who leveled the accusation, told the Post that she was discouraged by a house organizer from going to the police, and that many in the industry refused to help her track down the alleged attacker when he fled.
“We invested together. We did business together,” Zhu, who founded the app Zette, said of the people who refused to help or turned their backs on her.
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