When the New York Times broke a story about sexual harassment in Silicon Valley last summer, Precursor Ventures founding partner Charles Hudson blasted out an email to hisportfolio companies letting them know behavior of that sort would not be tolerated.
The San Francisco venture capital firm, he said, had zero tolerance for sexual harassment or bias and expected people in its network to “carry themselves with high character.” If founders weren’t being treated equally with respect regardless of gender, he encouraged them to speak out.
Another investment company, R/GA Ventures, sent out tweets showing public support for the women in its portfolio — including one in the New York Times story — who spoke out publicly against sexual harassment, which it said was an effort to let the earliest silence breakers know it heard them and supported them.