Corporate sex scandals are the canaries in the coal mine of the business world. They are bad enough on their own. But more often than not, they also signal something amiss in a company’s culture — particularly when they come in multiples.

That was my first thought when reading about how Google paid the founder of Android $90m, while keeping quiet about a sexual misconduct claim. But it was a line in an internal email from Google chief executive Sundar Pichai that really got my attention: “In the last two years, 48 people have been terminated for sexual harassment, including 13 who were senior managers and above. None of these individuals received an exit package.”

That’s good, I guess. But really — 48 people? What does this say about Google? Indeed, what does this say about Silicon Valley in general? Toxic corporate culture, including the sexual mis-steps of the technologists, is related to the toxic business model of hyper-targeted advertising. Both display a tendency to do harm until they are fully exposed and force action.