Because of retaliation. If they come forward, they’ll likely never work in the industry again. They’ll be seen as killjoys and “difficult to work with.” Which sucks because anyone who’s worked in tech knows women objectively perform better despite that CONSTANT harassment.

I have thoughts on that.

Because they've created a pass through where the parties are done by people in the same social ecosystem but who are not employees. If you filter at the parties before anyone gets employed you control for harassment lawsuits because the people who would report harassment never get employed.

Because filing a lawsuit would get you ostracized by the community, which means not just your friends but your potential employers.

NDAs (though the Speak Out Act limits the use of pre-dispute agreements in harassment cases); mandatory arbitration agreements (so the actual claims brought never see the light of day); and punitive confidentiality & nondisparagement clauses in settlement agreements (which bypass the Speak Out Act).

I wonder how much VC funding is allocated to settlements…

Bc people want to believe

They have too much money because they've never had to pay Actual Taxes

self selecting for meekness in hiring practices

NDAs mostly, I'd guess. That and never pick an argument with someone who buys judges by the barrel.

Others noted both social/career consequences and stuff like NDAs, but as someone who got out of a totalizing cult: many of the victims are true believers in a "millennialist" framework that is effectively a secular religion. It is their whole world. It's so easy to rationalize the abuse you get.