Bingo!, the lawsuit is coming regardless, Horvath made sure to leave enough of a paper trail for it.
I think this whole situation looks like a misunderstanding snowballing into a tsunami. Founder's wife takes her for drinks, gets drunk, talks of her ass and says inappropriate stuff. I would just chalk it to drunkenness and forget the whole episode. It would've ended right there.
Guaranteed lawyers have already contacted her after hearing about this assuring her she has a big settlement waiting, which she probably does. Github will just want to make this go away and prevent her from shit talking the brand anymore and money is the answer
Damage to their brand is temporary. If they behave themselves in a civilized manner from here on in, the media will soon forget this incident and move on to the next scandal.
On the other hand, if the lawsuit is for enough money, it can bankrupt the company: a huge award to the plaintiff, lawyer fees, executives tied up in court instead of running the company, etc. Their investors may not be interested in covering big losses; they might cut their losses and move on to the next up and coming company.
I don't think we are talking about the same thing. Depending on who you read, Github is a $750m company. What's the payout going to be - $2m? $5m? This isn't going to bankrupt them.
San Diego Sea World and the killer whale or Blackberry & Palm mobile devices are examples of irreparable brand damage.
What's the going price for a Microsoft Zune player?
Github has a value of $750m on paper. That doesn't mean that the company has any significant revenue stream out of which it can pay a $5M settlement. And $5M would be 5% of their recent $100M Series A funding, so it would a large chunk of their working capital. In any case, if that $5M goes to the plaintiff and lawyers, it won't be going to pay the yearly cost of 25 developers.
They also need to protect their company from a potential lawsuit.