We're coming up on two weeks now since this post was published, with no substantive response from Nonlinear (other than this). I think it would be good to get an explicit timeline from Nonlinear on when we can expect to see their promised response. It's reasonable to ask for folks to reserve judgement for a short time, but not indefinitely. @Kat Woods @Emerson Spartz 

I hope this doesn't seem heartless, but: Given the degree of contested narratives in this affair, can someone not-anonymous with access to Chloe confirm that this account speaks for her?

(i think it probably does, to be clear, but also think it's worth checking)

Thanks for this. I found the uncited claims about EA's "reputational collapse" in the OP quite frustrating and appreciated this more data-driven response.

I don't personally think posting this here is particularly helpful or adds much to the conversation.

Thanks for clarifying, I agree category #3 is the most dicey of the three.

How do you see these trials as differing from standard probation? Is it that the chance of a no-hire at the end is higher? Or the length? Or something else?

In general, I think it is helpful in discussing work trials if people (including the OP) distinguished between three different things that are commonly called work trials:

• Take-home trial tasks / timed online tests, which typically take somewhere in the region of 2-8 hours and are designed to be doable on a weekend or otherwise without work disruption.
• Short (usually 1-3-day) work trials prior to receiving a job offer. This is what I usually think of as being referred to by the term "work trial". While it's technically true that these "interruption of regular employment to complete" (quote from OP) I think it's generally pretty manageable to make this work by taking e.g. 1-2 days of vacation.
• Long (often several months) "work trials" that essentially act as extended paid probation. I've seen these at a few EA orgs and sometimes feel iffy about them, but IMO they're not all that different from standard probation practices in the US. They definitely require "those currently employed full-time [to] leave their existing job", though.

I'm not sure which of these the OP was including in her claim. Presumably not the first one?

One thing I'm confused about: Emerson is the one making threats, so how do I update on the rest of the Nonlinear team?

I was also uncertain about this, but Kat's comment above seems to indicate (though not outright say) that she supports the threat to sue.

Yeah, this seems right.

Most of the allegations in the OP seem comfortably out-of-distribution to me. (Unless the distribution includes FTX & Leverage, but we know how those went.)

I agree with this, and think it could have been a terrible day for EA if stuff like this surfaced later in a world where Nonlinear had become more influential. But thankfully* we're not in that world.

(* Thankfully assuming the allegations are broadly true etc etc.)