The list isn’t publicly available, but is said to contain “prominent investors and businessmen,” according to the paper’s sources, and is a way of warning others.
“Some of them were very prominent names, you know? People who were famous investors,” one up-and-coming woman in tech told the Post. “Businessmen who were in the scene, I had seen them at parties before.”
The list, on top of names, is said to contain details of alleged acts of abuse which include drugging, sexual assaults, and rape. But it’s very selectively distributed, probably in part to protect the people who’ve made the allegations.
“I met some women who ran the ‘whisper network,’ it has hundreds of cases,” one woman who was asked to add her own account to the list after sharing it with others, told the Post. “I only found out about it because I started asking around.”
Women in the industry, sources said, often don’t go to the police because they fear retaliation from those they accused, which could damage their careers and professional relationships.
“I was worried that if I tried for justice in my case and I lost, I would be blacklisted from every investor in town,” one woman said.