A former Bay Area tech CEO was fired earlier this year after allegedly enslaving, torturing, and sexually abusing his assistant. He claims the pair had a consensual relationship that people would “celebrate” if it were fictitious.

Former Tradeshift CEO Christian Lanng denied the allegations levied against him and the billion-dollar company he co-founded that were made by a former employee in court Thursday.

"The shocking and vile claims in the lawsuit are categorically false, and I reject allegations that I subjected someone to any form of abuse during my tenure as CEO or at any other time of my life,” Lanng told The Messenger.

In the complaint, an unidentified woman alleged that Lanng sent her into “a dark abyss of unwanted sexual horror," according to The Mercury News.

  • Azzu@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    Based on the article they were together before working together. Because of that, while there may of course be elements where some position of power was abused after they started working together, it’s quite unlikely that everything here was against her will.

    This is likely a case where both people have been shitty to each other in some way.

    • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      The ex-CEO said that he was dating the woman who sued him before hiring her at Tradeshift in 2014, which he called a “grave error of judgment." He also noted that the “plaintiff went on to work for Tradeshift for approximately five more years after our relationship ended.”

      This raises so many red flags to me.

      I can’t comment on the alleged activities, and we don’t know her financial or emotional situation in 2014 when she was hired, but it sounds waaaay more complicated than “boss treats random new chick as sex slave”.

      I hope she’s in a better place now (mentally and emotionally).

  • indomara@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Man… being into kink is dangerous if you have money and there’s a scorched earth breakup. I have heard people in kink circles say that having a contract signed by both parties offers some protection, but here it is being used against him in court. Eeek.

  • cozy_agent@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Why are CEOs always shit? Someone must’ve done a study into the type of people who want to be CEO, majority probably being psychopaths.

    • time_fo_that@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I’ve seen a few studies on this, I’d have to dig up some sources but socio/psychopaths do tend to seek power… So CEO rates of socio/psychopathy are significantly higher.

    • Mostly_Gristle@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Regardless of what they sell or their stated ethos, once a corporation becomes publicly traded its only purpose becomes maximizing profits for its shareholders. The prevailing attitude in that section of the business world is that, if you can save a million and one dollars by dumping toxic waste on a children’s playground, and the fine from the EPA is going to be one million dollars even, then it is your holy and sacred duty to poison those children for the sake of delivering that one dollar to the shareholders. In fact, failing to prioritize shareholder profits is the only thing corporations ever get in real trouble for.

      People who thrive in this type of environment, let alone rise to the top, tend not to be good or moral people who are bothered by things like a conscience or a sense of compassion. To run a publicly traded corporation you need a person who can cause enormous amounts of suffering and blight in the world, and then go home and sleep comfortably and unbothered, soothed by the belief that everything is permissable as long as they made a line on a graph go up slightly.

  • chitak166@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Supporting the disparity in wealth is supporting abuse of women.

    What do all rich men do with their money? Use it to abuse women.

    • VubDapple@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Reminds me of a quote from Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow:

      “Don’t forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death’s a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try ‘n’ grab a piece of that Pie while they’re still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled “black” by the professionals, spring up everywhere. Scrip, Sterling, Reichsmarks continue to move, severe as classical ballet, inside their antiseptic marble chambers. But out here, down here among the people, the truer currencies come into being. So, Jews are negotiable. Every bit as negotiable as cigarettes, cunt, or Hershey bars.”

  • joystick@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Don’t know either of them, but have to doubt her unwillingness based on the fact that any reasonable person I know would never sign or do that if they weren’t into it.