Pando Editor Sells Site, Quits Journalism, Citing Sexual Harassment and Threats in Silicon Valley.

via slashdot:

Former TechCrunch writer Sarah Lacy started PandoDaily in 2012. But now she’s “selling the company, quitting journalism, and ditching Silicon Valley after 20 years,” reports Business Insider, citing Lacy’s blog.She says her decision comes from years of sexual harassment and threats in her two decades covering Silicon Valley. “I have absorbed so many more stories than I have reported, more than I can ever report, about the dark side of Silicon Valley,” she said in the blog post

“It’s a place where I’ve been lied about, where VCs have arm-twisted editors to fire me, where billionaires have threatened those doing business with me to cut all ties. It’s a place where I’ve had people turn on me again and again and again simply for doing my job. It’s a place I’ve been betrayed by people I trusted. It’s a place where one-time friends threatened my children because I wrote about things they did.”

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Some incidents she mentioned were related to Uber’s threatening her over her reporting of the company’s misconduct.
Lacy’s blog adds that “of course I’m not the only one, and my experience was far from the worst: In the last few years I have been overwhelmed by stories of sexual assault and harassment told by so many incredible women in the Valley…”

The blog post also notes journalistic travails she’s faced over the years. (“We withstood a combined threatened $400 million in baseless legal fights.”) But in a reminiscent passage, she also calls Silicon Valley “a place where I’ve gotten to know some of the most fascinating people on the planet and made many lifelong friends. It’s a place where people have believed in me enough to give me millions and millions of dollars to build my own companies….

And yet…”

 

 

 

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