A spreadsheet containing the names of “over a hundred” alleged sexual predators in Silicon Valley includes prominent investors, businessmen and people linked to some of the technology and artificial intelligence industry’s biggest companies, The New York Post reported, citing sources.
The private document is part of a so-called “whisper network” used by women in Silicon Valley to warn one another about alleged sexual misconduct, according to several insiders who have seen it.
The allegations recorded in the spreadsheet reportedly range from drugging and sexual assault to rape.
‘Some Of Them Were Very Prominent Names’
One tech worker in her 20s said she was stunned when she first saw the names on the list. She eventually added her own account of alleged sexual misconduct after being approached by women familiar with the network.
“Some of them were very prominent names, you know? People who were famous investors. Businessmen who were in the scene, I had seen them at parties before”, she said.
The woman said she only learned about the network after asking around.
“I met some women who ran the ‘whisper network,’ it has hundreds of cases,” she told The Post. “I only found out about it because I started asking around.”
The accounts reportedly circulate privately because some women fear that going to police or publicly accusing powerful figures could damage their careers.
“I was worried that if I tried for justice in my case and I lost, I would be blacklisted from every investor in town,” she said.
When Work, Friendship And Parties Overlap
Several incidents described by sources reportedly took place inside so-called “hacker houses” which are communal spaces where young founders, investors and tech workers live, socialise and build professional connections.
The same people sharing a kitchen or attending parties can also become business partners, investors, colleagues or links to future employers.
One Silicon Valley insider described what they claimed was a pattern in which friendship is used to establish trust before personal boundaries are pushed.
The insider alleged that some men deliberately target people they see as isolated or vulnerable, including younger women and people who have recently moved to the US or Silicon Valley.
The source stressed that both perpetrators and victims are not necessarily confined to one gender.
Yehong Zhu, founder of the app Zette, has publicly described her own experience after accusing a former member of the San Francisco hacker house Genesis of rape and assault.
Zhu filed a police report in December 2021. She said the man fled and has not been located or arrested, despite remaining in contact with people in their shared social circle.
“I kept saying no [to him],” she told The Post.
Zhu said that after the alleged rape, one female friend expressed concern about the impact her accusation could have on the man’s reputation. She also said a house organiser discouraged her from going to police and suggested creating a committee and holding a vote when she sought to have the man removed.
Zhu ultimately contacted police and lawyers and reached out to people who knew the man in an effort to locate him.
Some, she said, refused to get involved.
“We invested together. We did business together,” she said.
A Very Different Response At Launch House
Another former resident of Launch House, a founder community in Beverly Hills, described a contrasting experience after she suspected she had been drugged at a gathering.
The woman, who spoke anonymously, said she could not remember portions of the night and later learned that a friend had helped her to bed.
“I had the chills and I was sweating at the same time, almost like I had the flu. And I was outside on the patio in the sun, I could not move,” she told The Post.
She said other women subsequently told her that the same man had touched them inappropriately or made unwanted advances.
The women approached the founders of the house together.
“They got rid of him immediately, he was kicked out of the house,” the woman said.
She said co-founder Brett Goldstein and another founder spoke to the women, changed the locks and offered assistance in contacting police.
She ultimately decided against reporting the incident because she could not remember what had happened and did not believe she could establish it through witnesses.
“I did stay on and felt safe in the house,” she added.
But she claimed the man later targeted both her and the company online, including through private messages.
“I worry that if I find any type of success that is in public, he’s going to come back and make me feel even worse,” she added.
Goldstein told The Post that Launch House no longer operates in the same form. He said its conduct and incident-response policies had been developed with outside HR and safety experts.
“We developed Launch House’s conduct policies and incident-response procedures with input from a relevant HR executive, a DEI & Safety consulting firm … anyone running an in-person experience has a responsibility to continuously improve the safety of their operation”, he said.
Warnings About Closed Tech Communities Have Existed For Years
The allegations described to The Post are not new, with concerns about sexual misconduct and the risks of tightly connected social and professional communities having circulated for years.
In 2022, AI researcher Keerthana Gopalakrishnan wrote about sexual pressure within Effective Altruism circles.
She questioned the use of community mediation in sexual-assault complaints and argued for clearer distinctions between coercion and consensual polyamory.
