At a start-up competition in 2014 in San Francisco, Lisa Curtis, an entrepreneur, pitched her food start-up, Kuli Kuli, and was told her idea had won the most plaudits from the audience, opening the door to possible investment. As she stepped off the stage, an investor named Jose De Dios, said, “Of course you won. You’re a total babe.”

Even if he said this, it's only rude, not completely false and doesn't sound like he is trying to trade business connections in return for a personal relationship. Being attractive definitely gives people a leg up in the world and if one presenter is noticeably more attractive than all of the others then holding everything else equal they will receive more plaudits from a typical audience.

It would still be very rude to point out those dynamics to the specific person after what may have been one of the highlights of their career. But this type of rudeness seems like a huge first world problem, and it is a problem far below what service industry workers in our very same first world country have to deal with on a day to day basis. It definitely shouldn't be conflated with the type of behavior we saw from Caldbeck.

Any events where people like Caldbeck gave or attempted to trade investment favors in return for personal attention are both harassment and possible violations of their fiduciary duty to investors. So it's good that people are cracking down on that. My wife raised money for her company and only had one potential investor act like that, though he immediately stopped when he found out she was married/married to someone in his extended network (He also lost any interest in hearing more about her company from that point in the conversation, so still sketchy).