Lessons from the Harvey Weinstein scandal

Writing this blog ruined potted plants for me

Harvey Weinstein's sexual assault scandal, which spanned decades before it blew open in October thanks to dogged reporting by Ronan Farrow, is a case study on how the rich and powerful shield themselves from accountability. They use power, intimidation, and money to pressure victims into silence, bystanders into enablers, and the rest of the world into apologists:

LESSON 1: Abuse their psyche

Weinstein, Brett Ratner, and Louis CK not only physically hurt their victims, they also target them psychologically.  They allegedly forced women to watch while they masturbate.  Experts say these exhibitionists purposefully look to shock their victims.  Because they are angry, they are acting revenge against women, imposing “sexualized hostility” or “eroticized rage” against their prey. That look of horror or humiliation on women is arousing to them.

LESSON 2: Implicate the victim's self-worth.

Weaponization of sexual assault for political goals

The cruelest thing about these acts is the way that they entangle and contaminate everything about the victims and their self-esteem:

"If you’re sweet and friendly, you’ll think that it’s your fault for accommodating the situation. If you’re tough, well, you might as well decide that it’s no big deal. If you’re a gentle person, then he knew you were weak. If you’re talented, he thought of you as an equal. If you’re ambitious, you wanted it. If you’re savvy, you knew it was coming. If you’re affectionate, you seemed like you were asking for it all along. If you make dirty jokes or have a good time at parties, then why get moralistic? If you’re smart, there’s got to be some way to rationalize this."

Apologists often diminish the 'assault' portion of sexual assault, saying something like: "the actress is only mad because it's ugly Weinstein, if Brad Pitt asks the same woman for a massage, she would probably say yes".  It's worth noting that massages are the mildest among the acts the guy allegedly did.  When abusers can become bigtime Hollywood producers, Oscar-winning directors, Senate frontrunners, and even President of the United States, what's there left to say; sexual assault has been weaponized in 2017.

LESSON 3: Public humiliation

This has been the most-used defense against abuse charges.  "Why did she wait so long to come forward? Is she just doing it for the money/publicity? Isn't it more likely that she just slept with whomever to get big acting roles?"   However, this argument falls apart when the allegations came from Hollywood's most prominent, established female stars: Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie:

Paltrow was 22 when Weinstein “summoned her to his suite at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel for a work meeting” that culminated in Weinstein touching her, “suggesting they head to the bedroom for massages,” the Times reports. Paltrow was “petrified,” she says, and alerted her then-boyfriend, Brad Pitt, who in turn confronted Weinstein, who then came back to Paltrow to threaten her to tell no one else. Weinstein allegedly “made unwanted advances” on Jolie, also in a hotel room, in the late 1990s. As she told the Times in an email, “I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did.”

It should be obvious, but apparently it bears repeating: It is rare that a woman would trade sex for professional success. It is the exceedingly common man who abuses women simply because he can get away with it.

LESSON 4: Private harassment. Throw money at the problem.

The Hollywood mogul hired spies and private investigators -- including ex-Mossad agents! -- to track and harass actresses and journalists who threaten to break the story open.  The Times of Israel tracked down Israeli Defense Forces veteran-turned-hired-spy Stella Pechanac aka Diana Filip, who met with Rose McGowan under false pretenses to extract information, determine whether she was planning to go public with her rape allegation against Weinstein, and even obtained the unpublished manuscript of the actress’s memoir. 

The filmmaker also hired Kroll, a corporate-intelligence giant, who was instructed to collect information on dozens of individuals, and compile psychological profiles including their personal or sexual histories. He also enlisted former employees to join in the effort, collecting names and placing intimidating phone calls.

When this didn't work, as a last resort the Hollywood mogul paid money to reach private settlements and entangle their victims in elaborate legal agreements to hide allegations of predation for decades.

LESSON 5: Charity as political cover

"The great mystery of evil is not that it persists but, rather, that so many of its practitioners wish to do so while being thought of as saints. Consider the fact that such a bizarre, oxymoronic accolade as the International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples once existed—and that it was created after his plans for agricultural collectivization resulted in the deaths of some four million Ukrainians. "

These people use wealth and charitable donations, often to progressive causes, for political cover.  Just like how Bill Cosby was a patron for Temple University, Weinstein was reported to have pledged US$5m to USC toward a scholarship fund for female filmmakers. He also championed Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, and donated to the campaign of Senator Elizabeth Warren. Weinstein’s palette of giving earned him the standing as a champion for progressivism.

LESSON 6: Admit defeat. Blame mental illness.

Louis CK blames his misunderstanding of the etiquette of masturbating in front of professional acquaintances.  A defender of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore compared him to biblical figure Joseph seeking an underage Mary for companionship.  Weinstein? He just says he’s a sex addict.

James Hamblin in the Atlantic:

Weinstein posed the conflict as a sort of infection that could be cured: “My journey now will be to learn about myself and conquer my demons.” In doing so, he downplays his own active role in harboring or cultivating these demons. “I came of age in the ’60s and ’70s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different.” The implication was that standards of decency and professionalism had shifted beneath his feet, and he is a naïve old dinosaur who can’t help how much he loves sex. The answer, apparently, is an overdue jaunt to rehab for “sex addiction.”

The acts detailed in the accounts of the many women reporting abuse by Weinstein were often tangentially sexual [....] But to consider these incidents sex is a mode of thinking that fell out of use even before the “’60s and ’70s.” Sex is defined by consent. This way of framing of Weinstein’s problem reflects no reckoning with the nature of the charges; it's a case of excusing something as sex when it is not sex. There are parallels in this misdirection to what happened with the Access Hollywood tape in which Donald Trump bragged about assaulting women, and it was reported in the news as “explicit sex talk.”

It's worth a final note that sex addiction is not real -- there is no such thing under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), the authoritative handbook for psychiatric diagnostics.  Regardless of the validity of sex addiction or how badly a patient wants to get better, mental health is not an excuse to sexually assault and shame and coerce victims into silence. 'Choosing therapy' is the powerful's way of admitting defeat, but in his own terms. If someone commits a crime, as Weinstein allegedly has, justice needs to be upheld.  Therapy is no substitute. 

Sex addiction is not real. Repercussions are.

Lessons on VC investing

Source: Techcrunch

Had an interesting meeting with a venture capital partner about investing in the tech space. 
Some insights:

• Setting up a fund is tedious.  Fund sizes are small ($30m is normal), fees are minuscule.  Establishment and running costs must be controlled to be sustainable.
• If you have $5-10m and would like to invest (while also learning/getting your foot in the door), you're better off coming in as an LP with a good manager.  The fees you're paying would be cheaper (2% of committed capital + 20-30% carry) than even hiring one decent person.  Ask for co-investment rights if possible.
• VC returns (even realized ones) look teriffic, maybe 3-5x all around.  But it's mostly just paper returns.  Many, many funds never generate enough returns to justify the opportunity costs.  If ever there's a chance to get cash back, take it.  Don't be greedy.
• By nature, many VC deals will blow up.  You're really investing in people, not companies.  People get distracted: they get married/divorced/kids/other personal situations.  So VC funds need to spread whatever they raise to 20-30 deals including follow-ons.
• The job of a VC is not just to do deals; they need to work with founders & management to "unlock value"(TM).  This is time-consuming and often underestimated.  Remember the old adage: fund managers spend 80% of their time with their 20% worst investments.

From Techcrunch:

"[The problem is that] VCs and LPs aren’t aligned. The current industry standard for VC compensation is “2 and 20 percent.” Meaning VCs get paid 2 percent of the fund size in management fees (salaries) and an extra 20 percent of any liquidation event that might happen. So VCs get paid even when they “fail” to return adequate returns. LPs only get paid when VCs do an amazing job (rare). The end result is that both parties have separate agendas that don’t necessarily overlap. The ancient “2 percent and 20 percent” should be killed off and replaced with something that endorses higher alignment. Let the VCs fight for their supper. 

... This may be hard for many VCs to read, but many of you out there should be killed off.  Low-performing funds shouldn’t be able to raise additional rounds. This burden is on the shoulders of the LPs. They should take a cold hard look at the performance of their funds. Instead of looking just on the return rate (IRR), public market equivalent (PME) should be used to see how they performed compared with the market. For example, if a fund returned 13 percent IRR in 2014, but the public market actually did 14 percent, is that a sign of high performance? Nope. LPs need to smarten up and stop reinvesting in additional rounds seeing actual returns."

Now is it a bubble? Well, VC-funded companies have a habit of boosting their performance in many ways.  For instance, several porftolio companies of a VC firm may buy from/serve each other to boost their headline GMVs/GTVs.  And there's also anti-dilution, which VCs use to artificially boost their company valuations -- without which, the valuations may be more modest.

The big question is of course, when it is going to burst....

Last wishes

When I die:

1.  I hope my kampung will throw a block party. But not like Saddam, dear God no.

Party in Minneapolis after Prince's death

2.  I hope Ross Douthat can write my eulogy:

"Hugh Hefner [...] was a pornographer and chauvinist who got rich on masturbation, consumerism and the exploitation of women, aged into a leering grotesque in a captain’s hat, and died a pack rat in a decaying manse where porn blared during his pathetic orgies.

Hef was the grinning pimp of the sexual revolution, with Quaaludes for the ladies and Viagra for himself — a father of smut addictions and eating disorders, abortions and divorce and syphilis, a pretentious huckster who published Updike stories no one read while doing flesh procurement for celebrities, a revolutionary whose revolution chiefly benefited men much like himself."

Whew!

Earth had life very early

Disko Bay in Greenland

New research found Canadian rocks that are nearly 4 billion years old with signs of primitive life.  At the time, Earth was only ~200 million years old -- still a baby (in geologic terms), and who knows what the climate/atmosphere looked like back then. 

Which goes to show the different kinds of (crazy hellish) environment where life started, and questions where else life may have/still exists in this universe...?

-*-

Rohingya Crisis, Explained in 6 Points

Rohingya refugees coming into Bangladesh by sea

1. They are the world’s most persecuted minority group

The Rohingya is an ethnic group, majority of which are Sunni Muslims, which has inhabited the Rakhine (Arakan) district of Burma (Myanmar) over one hundred years.  Before the recent violence, an estimated 1.1m Rohingya live in the country.  They are despised by the country’s Buddhist majority and live in apartheid-like conditions.  The government refuses to recognize them as an ethnic minority, describing them as illegal immigrants and interlopers from neighboring Bangladesh.

The refugee crisis has strained neighboring countries' capacity for compassion

Clashes in the Rakhine state between the inhabitants and military/security forces erupted numerous times since the 1970s.  Since 1982, when a new citizenship law was passed, the Rohingya has been stateless with no rights to vote, study, work, travel, practice their religion, and access to healthcare services.  According to the UNHCR, one out of seven stateless people in the world is Rohingya.

After renewed violence in the past five years, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya has fled to neighboring Bangladesh, as well as India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries.  The UN Secretary General has dubbed the attacks as "textbook definition of ethnic cleansing".

2. They have been in Burma for ages

19th century mosque in Akyab

Modern-day Burma was part of the British India empire back in during the colonial rule (1824-1948).  Migration of ethnic Indians/Bengali into Burma was not limited in any way, as they are considered one contiguous territory;  British policy actually encouraged Bengali inhabitants to migrate into the then-lightly populated and fertile valleys of Arakan as farm laborers, and in the early 19th century, thousands of Bengalis from the Chittagong region settled in the area seeking manual work in the paddy fields.  The British census of 1872 reported 58,255 Muslims in Akyab District (modern-day Sittwe/Rakhine district); by 1911, the Muslim population had increased to 178,647.

During the Second World War, the land of Burma (like many parts of Southeast Asia) was annexed by the Imperial Japanese Army.  Native Buddhists mostly sided with the Japanese, because they wanted British colonizers to leave.  On the other hand, the Muslim minority, who has made good living and planted roots as agricultural workers as well as other skilled laborers, mostly stayed with the British's side.  The British even armed its ethnic Indian populace, leading to mass killings in the hands of the Japanese.  Eventually Britain, of course, won the war and they remained until Burma's independence in 1948.

After the Burmese declaration of independence, the government passed the Union Citizenship Act.  The Rohingya, along with other minority groups, was initially provided a real pathway to citizenship.  However, after the 1962 military coup and the subsequent 1982 citizenship law, the Rohingya were marginalized and rendered stateless overnight. 

Since the 1970s, a number of crackdowns in Rakhine State have forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee.  During such incidents, refugees have often reported indiscriminate shootings, rape, torture, arson and murder by Myanmar security forces.  Burmese military dictatorship ended with the 2012 free elections, but many central figures of the military remained powerful.  For the victims that suffered atrocities under the military regime, the power that the military still wields means that human rights abuses are expected to continue.

Source: The Economist

3. The Burmese really, really hate the Rohingya

In case you're wondering, Burma's Buddhism is starkly different from familiar western perception of the religion.  Theravada Buddhism (practiced in Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka) does not recognize the Dalai Lama, and their teachings can be actually quite militant -- they are staunch defenders of blood purity and against minority groups.

Buddhist nationalist propaganda dehumanizes the Rohingya by calling them "descendants of snakes and insects".  In that manner, mistreatment of these people are considered OK as they are not really humans.  These views continue to be popular amongst the educated and the elites.  With state-controlled media, barrage of fake news and internet trolls, laypeople are generally ignorant of what's really happening to their neighbors. 

Hate pages are easily found on Google

There are many perceptions and historical factors that contribute to Burma's longstanding hatred of its Muslim minority:

1. They are just different: the Rohingya (Muslim, ethnic Bengali/Indian) starkly differ in appearance, with darker skins and foreign traditions vis-à-vis the majority of Burma (Buddhists, ethnically closer to Chinese)
2. The Rohingya do not control births.  This is difficult to show, since there is no state-sponsored healthcare service and no census for non-citizens.
3. The Rohingya are drug smugglers and criminals.  Again this is also difficult to prove, but in many cases marginalization doesn't leave them much choice. 
4. Finally, a widely held opinion among the elites and educated: the Rohingya are foreign-influenced, jihadi-inspired, overseas-funded, separatists eager to take over the country and overthrow its leadership.  During the years leading up to Bangladesh’s independence in 1971, the Rohingyas fought in the Mujahid insurgency. They wanted northern Rakhine, where Muslims were concentrated, to be annexed into Pakistan/Bangladesh, and Burma saw this as disloyalty and treason.  More recently local media highlighted ethnic Rohingya who were implicated with al-Qaeda and Taliban.

Massive fires in the Rakhine district, as seen from Bangladeshi borders

4. The government is mostly silent on the humanitarian crisis

Three factors may explain de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s silence.  The first is domestic politics.  From Darwin Peng in Harvard Politics:

Ashin Wirathu

"..The 969 Movement, a nationalist Buddhist movement led by monks including Ashin Wirathu, has grown increasingly powerful and is responsible for increase in Islamophobic sentiment among the populace. In addition to encouraging the Burmese to boycott Muslim stores, the movement has also incited violence.  In 2013, monks led rioters to burn homes in the Muslim neighborhood of Meiktila, which led to the deaths of more than 40 Muslims.   

In a country where nearly 90% of the populace practices Buddhism, Suu Kyi risks alienating a sizable proportion of the populace should she condemn the Buddhist nationalists.  Furthermore, many government officials are also sympathetic to the movement, including former President Thein Sein, who not only passed four “race and religion” laws that targeted ethnic minorities on issues like religious conversion and interfaith marriage.  Suu Kyi remains soft on the issue of Buddhist nationalism to avoid offending the monks, and her own government officials...."

The second factor is the military.  By constitution, the Tatmadaw (Myanmar defense forces) has a number of seats in the parliament and discretion to declare a state of emergency.  It also controls important ministries in the government and many other centers of power.  The country’s leadership is managing a delicate balance of power and cannot afford to upset the balance.  In this sense, the Buddhist nationalists and the military have joined forces in their decision to persecute the Rohingya as “deadweight” and “interlopers”.  The government is stuck trying to keep up with the alliance, although many indications also show that the three generally agree on the matter of the Rohingya.

Third, it's just about popular views. There's every indication  that the elites and the majority of the population do not care for the rights of Muslim minority.  More moderate viewpoints see citizenship as the key question: that citizenship rights shouldn't be awarded without extensive scrutiny -- dare I say, extreme vetting.

5. World powers are also silent

It's not because of lack of forewarning.  From Kate Cronin-Furman in Foreign Policy magazine:

"... in 2005, the member states of the United Nations endorsed the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) framework, which obligates the international community to protect civilians from mass atrocities when their governments are “unwilling or unable” to keep them safe. R2P was borne out of collective guilt over the mass slaughter of civilians in Rwanda and Bosnia and promised a new era of “timely and decisive” atrocity response. In pursuit of this goal, early warning efforts to identify the precursors of mass atrocities became a focus for both international and state actors.
[…] The plight of the Rohingya suggests that early warnings do little to prevent atrocities against vulnerable groups. The high risk of mass atrocities was clear from the escalating communitarian violence, the documented uptick in online hate speech beginning in 2012, and the tightening of official restrictions on the Rohingya’s movement and activities."

Simultaneous humanitarian crises in South Sudan, Central Africa Republic, Syria and Yemen, have desensitized the world in the face of potential genocide.  UN Security Council permanent members China and Russia, which are battling dissidents within their own borders, refuse to invoke the R2P lest it would be against them in the future.  Furthermore, in the aftermath of the NATO-led 2011 Libya intervention, where R2P was explicitly invoked by the UNSC, decision-makers are concerned they might be making a bad situation worse. 

Money politics is also a concern.  China has been the largest investor into Burma.  Fmr US President Obama, refusing to let the country fall under the Chinese sphere of influence, made official visits to the capital in 2012 and 2014, praised the country's fledgling democracy, and lifted decades-long sanctions.  It is clear that complex geopolitical games are in play, and unfortunately, the Rohingya and human rights are not pieces in the puzzle.  Meanwhile, Donald Trump's America First is willfully abandoning the world stage, showing apathy and paying diminished attention to human rights issues.

The government and the military, with dominant national support, branded the Rohingya as Islamic militants.  Tapping into international counter-terrorism narratives simultaneously bolsters the legitimacy of the military operation against the Rohingya and undermines their status as innocent victims of state abuse.  Amongst the Burmese people, the rhetoric aborts empathy for the Rohingya by declaring them militants and potentially dangerous.

The neighboring governments most directly affected by the refugee crisis, Bangladesh and India, have generally just allowed the Rohingya into their borders -- but as matter of policy, they declare that the refugees cannot stay permanently, which is understandable given the heavy burden and lackluster, unsustainable conditions of the camps.

6. Finally: you can help

You may donate through UN High Commission on Refugees, Global Giving, or ACT (Indonesia).

LOLvest

So Jared Kushner, the unpaid White House aide who's now tasked with handling Middle East peace, opioid addiction crisis, and American innovation(TM), used to be a Baltimore-area slum lord.  But he dumped all those in favor of a $1.8bn Fifth Avenue building that can only attract investment from shady origins.  No wonder DC elites don't care much for them....

More Soviet Jokes

From CIA declassified files:

A Soviet worker stands in a long liquor line.  He says to his friend, "I've had enough of this.  Save my spot, I'm gonna go shoot Gorbachev."  Two hours later he returns to claim his spot in line.  His friend asks, "Did you get him?"  "No, the line there was even longer than it is here."