An Open Letter to Vivek Wadhwa
You aren’t being persecuted. You just don’t like being wrong.
Oh Vivek. Really, I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to believe you were simply misguided. At least, that’s what I thought. I even said it to the New York Times on February 25, 2015.
I told Farhad Manjoo in that interview that I started out as a huge fan of yours. I was glad to see a man speaking up on behalf of women in Silicon Valley. When I saw others attacking you on Twitter, I held off.
But as time progressed I saw you becoming more and more defensive, and displaying the disturbing signs of dismissing and gaslighting your critics. I saw you aligning with known misogynists and with those who go beyond trolling to outright harassment in the real world. So I became one of those critics myself, but perhaps a still less strident one. That’s covered heavily in the article above.
Meanwhile, on March 9, 2015, I was invited to appear on a podcast about women to discuss women in tech-in particular my remarks about you and about the context of the Ellen Pao Case.
On March 20, you decided to email me at an old email address, suggesting that you took great pains to try and track me down. Ordinarily I would not ever want to reveal a private email, but in light of your choice to stay visible in the women in tech debate despite multiple assurances you were stepping back; and in light of your choice yesterday to align with GamerGate and encourage their offline harassment of Randi Harper, I’m choosing to release our correspondence.
You are not misunderstood. No one should believe you to be ignorant, misguided, or lacking the ability to understand English and thus comprehend what your critics are saying. You bear full responsibility for your actions.
Here is what you wrote to me on March 10th.
Here is what I replied to you with, the same day.
And here was your reply, which I hoped at the time meant I’d helped you, but really turned out to be the literary equivalent of a middle finger:
Mr. Wadhwa, by my calculations, you owe me over $500 for the time I’ve spent teaching you how to listen to your critics and be a better person. You’ve chosen to ignore every single one of my points of advice, given freely in the desire to help someone I thought was an ally.
You have proven yourself over and over to be no ally of mine. So kindly remit my fee. I accept all forms of payment.
Very truly yours,
Melinda Byerley
