“WE HAVE A little problem,” Jason said. He was standing in the doorway of Mack’s office, and his face was scrunched into an expression that Mack couldn’t quite figure out. It didn’t look good, though.
“What’s that,” Mack said.
“Invisibletechman,” Jason said.
“Again?” Mack said. “What the fuck, seriously. What does this guy have against me?”
“Honestly, I have no idea, but it’s fucked,” Jason said.
Mack went to @invisibletechman and read the tweet at the top of the page. Y’all gotta listen to this—told you shit at TakeOff didn’t smell right. Mack clicked on the link and immediately heard sound coming out of his computer.
“You, uh, might want to turn that down,” Jason said. “Or put on headphones.” Mack rolled his eyes but plugged in his headphones and listened. It was a recording from Casper’s good-bye party of Isabel’s outburst.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Mack said. “Someone recorded that?”
Jason nodded. His face was grim. “Yeah. And this is officially not good for us,” he said. “People are going to start calling and emailing—so just pass everyone on to me. I’m going to say we’re investigating and have no comment, and I’ll tell people off the record that we suspect that it’s a doctored recording.”
“Wait. Do we think it’s a doctored recording?” Mack said.
Jason shrugged. “It could be a doctored recording. We just don’t know yet.”
“Ah,” Mack said. “Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
“There’s nothing you really can do, unfortunately.”
At that moment, Mack’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it—an unknown number was calling. He held the phone up to Jason. “Look,” he said. “It’s already starting.”
“Don’t answer it, obviously,” he said. “Sit tight. Don’t stress about this too much—I know that’s easy for me to say, but really. Don’t.” He leaned over Mack’s desk and fist-bumped him. “We got this.”
Mack gave him a weak smile and then watched him go. He wanted to believe that everything was going to be okay—but how was that possible? He thought back to the first day in this office. He’d started the company in one of the incubator spaces on the third floor, but after hiring five people, they had officially outgrown it, and coincidentally, there was a photo-retouching app that was moving out of the seventh floor. The new office had seemed impossibly, gloriously big. That first day, when it was just the six of them still, he bought Nerf guns and that afternoon they had a huge Nerf gun fight. He remembered that Isabel had gotten really into it, shooting the balls and laughing hysterically every time she hit someone. As the space had filled up with tables and computers and people, they’d had fewer and fewer Nerf gun fights, and now he wasn’t sure where the Nerf guns even were.
His phone was vibrating not just with phone calls and texts but also Twitter notifications.
Can’t believe this news about @mackmcallister.
If allegations against @mackmcallister are true, entire NYC tech scene should be asking itself some tough questions.
@mackmcallister accused of sexual harassment by employee in public. Is this the end for @takeoffapp?
Isabel still hadn’t been identified, he realized. Well, that was fucked up. Why should he have to bear the brunt of this?
And then, just when he was about to ping Jason about this injustice, he got an email from Katya Pasternack.
Hi, Mack, given that this recording leaked this morning, I decided to go ahead and publish my story. Here’s the link. Let me know if you have any additional comment—I’d be happy to update or even write a new piece.
Oh, fuck yourself, Mack thought. He clicked the link.
TakeOff Founder Mack McAllister Accused of Sexual Harassment by Ex-Employee
Isabel Taylor is currently exploring legal options.
By Katya Pasternack
The female employee heard on an explosive recording accusing TakeOff founder Mack McAllister of sexual harassment that has been making the rounds of startup Twitter this morning is McAllister’s former assistant Isabel Taylor, TechScene can exclusively reveal. McAllister, the 28-year-old founder of one of the hottest companies in the New York startup scene, was accused by Taylor in front of the entire company at a recent event for a departing employee. Taylor told TechScene she is considering filing a lawsuit against McAllister. She agreed to allow her name to be published.
“Mack and I were in a casual relationship for a few months, but as soon as I started dating someone else”—reported to be Magic Bean founder Andrew Shepard, who did not respond to TechScene’s request for comment—“he suddenly started freaking out.”
Taylor claimed that she was forced to quit her job after McAllister “humiliated” her at a meeting with several colleagues in what she said was retribution for rebuffing his attempts to get back together with her—which allegedly included sending unsolicited sexually explicit text messages. “I didn’t want to quit my job. I loved TakeOff. I even used to love working for Mack. But no one should be treated the way I’ve been treated.”
When reached for comment, a TakeOff representative denied Taylor’s claims and said, “Isabel and Mack had a brief, adult, consensual relationship that ended amicably.”
TakeOff is reportedly close to closing a round of Series A funding, led by Gramercy Partners, that sources say would value the company at $600 million. A source close to Gramercy Partners said that the firm “had been prepared to make a substantial investment, but now they’re reexamining everything” in light of the news. A spokesperson for Gramercy had no comment.
Photo: The texts that McAllister allegedly sent to Taylor. Click to reveal.
Audio: The recording of Taylor’s accusations.