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Nasir and Matt discuss the story of a woman's claim of sexual harassment at the software company Github. They then answer the question, "Is it a good idea to get a patent before I start my company or wait down the road?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: Matthew Staub, and this is our business legal podcast where we cover business in the news with our legal twist and also answer some of your business legal questions that you can send, the listener, to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. MATT: Exactly. Use my full name. NASIR: Matthew Staub. Now, everyone’s going to look you up on the phonebooks. MATT: Yeah, it was a big mystery before. Everyone didn’t know what my full first name was but you let everyone in on the secret. NASIR: I forgot you were using a pseudonym, you know, for that. Well, what do we got? We’ve covering GitHub but my first question is, do you know what GitHub is? I’m just curious. MATT: Uh, you know what, I don’t know what GitHub is. NASIR: It’s a trick question because, I think, only geeky programmers even have heard of the company because it’s a pretty neat innovative tool. It’s basically a great way to basically create a repository and post your code online for others to add onto it. But I think the best feature is also being able to create some kind of version control over the code because, you know, when you have multiple people working on it, it allows you to kind of go forward and back and test it and so forth – not that I’m very intimately familiar with it but I think I’ve participated in one GitHub project and that’s pretty much it – just to kind of learn how it works. I think it’s fascinating and I’m sure there’s others out there but they’re pretty much the guys to go to when it comes to version control when it comes to your programming. MATT: Okay. So, that’s why I haven’t heard of it. NASIR: Yeah, exactly. It was a trick question. MATT: I thought you were setting me up so it sounds like I’m ignorant of everything. Okay, I’m fine with not knowing what that is until right now. NASIR: Yeah, I figured that. MATT: But the underlying story that involves GitHub – or the GitHub scandal, I suppose – involves a sexual harassment issue - male coworker and a female coworker. Of course, as all these are the facts are in dispute so we don’t really know. You’re going to get a he-said, she-said, like you will in pretty much every situation. But this woman, Julie Ann Horvath, is claiming she was harassed by leadership for two years – two years of harassment she put up with, one of which being the cofounder – pretty high up exec there – Tom Preston-Werner – he gave her verbal harassment. His wife got involved at some point, too. She said it’s not fully privy to all the facts. And then, there is another issue, too. I don’t know if this is the same person. NASIR: I think it’s a different person. MATT: I think so, too. I just wasn’t sure. It was ambiguous. Another male person basically, one of her coworkers, a male coworker approached her, wanting to date her, and she declined. And then, according to her, that led to him undermining her work and a whole slew of problems even though, if you hear from the other end, that’s not the story. This basically gets to harassment in the workplace. We joke about it at times through The Office, but this is a pretty serious issue, especially if what she’s alleging is true. NASIR: Yeah, absolutely. GitHub is in the tech startup industry. Even though they’ve been around for a while, I think they would still be considered a startup company. I think what’s important to know is that, in Silicon Valley and the like and these companies, women are hugely underrepresented. You know, think about the stereotypical programmer and so forth – they tend to be men and those are the ones that are being hired right now. And so, even the women programmers out there and the women in the...