As Google goes, so goes Silicon Valley. That formulation took on new meaning after a New York Times report revealed the tech giant shielded Android founder Andy Rubin from sexual misconduct complaints. According to one of the Times reporters who broke the story, Google set the standard that allowed other tech companies in Silicon Valley to misbehave. "The fact that Google had this strange culture protecting men when they did something wrong, people felt really sheltered throughout the valley," Katie Benner said Friday in an interview on Cheddar. "A lot of this was an open secret ー many, many people knew." Rubin departed Google ($GOOGL) in October of 2014 and received a stunning exit package of $90 million. Google has a history of misconduct ー from Sergey Brin's affair with a co-worker to Alphabet's CLO David Drummond's secret child with a colleague. Benner said Rubin's behavior shouldn't come as any surprise. "By the time you get to Andy Rubin you created this incredibly permissive culture so it should be no surprise that this happened," she pointed out. Google's CEO Sundar Pichai responded to the Times story in an email to employees, saying the company investigates every single misconduct claim and revealed it has fired 48 people over the last two years for sexual harassment, including 13 "senior managers and above." None of them received an exit package. To Benner, Pichai's email signified a major shift in the narrative. "I think this statement was incredibly important," Benner said, "Because clearly there was a fear not only outside of Google but inside of Google." "People were incredibly upset by the idea somebody could do something so wrong, where the company itself found the allegation credible, and still be paid tens of millions of dollars," she added. Benner credited the #MeToo and Time's Up campaigns, which have sparked a massive social movement against sexual misconduct, for pushing companies to hold themselves accountable for the actions of employees. "We're seeing companies like Google make much stronger statements than they have before," she said. "And come out with much stronger actions saying, 'No matter what we did in the past, that is over.'" For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-ny-times-reporter-who-broke-the-andy-rubin-story-on-googles-response-to-sexual-harassment).
