Julie Horvath “Satisfied” With GitHub Transparency

GitHub has published a blog post detailing the results of an investigation into the allegations of Julie Horvath. New GitHub CEO Chris Wanstrath explains that the more transparent post is a follow-up to last week’s update, which he deemed “the least open and least transparent blog post GitHub has ever written.”

Though it holds back on specifics because of confidentiality, the new blog post addresses Horvath’s accusations one by one. It relays the results of an inquiry by third-party investigator Rhoma Young, who presented her analysis to GitHub’s board. “[Young] identified three key issues that she focused her investigation on: the claims about Tom and his wife, the claims about the male engineer, and the general culture and working environment at GitHub,” Wanstrath wrote.

According to the blog post, the results of the independent findings show that Horvath’s claims about former GitHub CEO Tom Preston-Werner and his wife are legitimate. However, the blog post asserts that there was no evidence to support the allegations about a specific engineer and code deletions or about the general cultural environment at GitHub.

“There was no information found to support Julie’s allegation that the engineer maliciously deleted her code. The commit history, push log, and all issues and pull requests involving Julie and the accused engineer were reviewed.”

Even though it did not support all of her allegations, Julie tweeted that she was “satisfied” with the post and Wanstrath’s honesty. “I’m glad to not be called a liar,” she told me. “That feels good. Although I firmly disagree about the objectiveness of the investigation, I do believe that GitHub’s workplace culture is toxic and hostile and I’m glad it is no longer my problem.”

In a series of direct messages, Horvath called the objectivity of the investigation into question, alleging that Young did not contact some of the people Horvath suggested, though the blog post specifically mentions reaching out to “people Julie asked her to speak with.”

GitHub representative Liz Clinkenbeard would not comment on Horvath’s dispute: “Everything we’re sharing about that is in the post for now – if that changes I’ll let you know!”

According to the blog post, GitHub has just hired an “experienced” HR representative, which is the first step in building a company with enough structure that employees feel protected. In our startuppy, social media-drenched times, people forget that there are actual legalities involved in building a business. Some rules — namely around workplace protocol — should not be broken when moving fast and breaking things.

When asked if she had enlisted a lawyer and whether she would take actual legal action against GitHub, Horvath did not comment.

Image via ipom/Flickr