If Silicon Valley Wants to Be Decent, It Should Give Up NDAs

The disruptors of the world have deigned to be decent.

They are upset—very upset—about allegations that Justin Caldbeck, at Binary Capital, a well-regarded venture capital firm, behaved inappropriately toward female executives at companies in which he’d invested. What's troubling about this is not only what the alleged victims, who went public in a story that was published in the Information, say Caldbeck did. It’s also how Caldbeck and his firm initially responded when confronted with allegations that include groping one startup founder and sending another sexually explicit text messages. Before Caldbeck apologized and resigned, Binary sought to minimize the allegations, describing them as examples of Caldbeck’s “social interests” and noting that Caldbeck had not broken the law.