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.
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.
