As I explained here

http://paulgraham.com/wids.html

we'd already been planning this event before that article.

I get a feeling that Valleywag probably had less to do with this conference than you think. I would guess that this topic is something that Jessica et al have clearly been thinking about, and I wouldn't be surprised if I learned that something like this had been cooking for a while.

It does appear that way, but pg had said that they'd been planning this before all the controversy, so it's just a case of unfortunate timing.

See email snippet at the bottom of this post: http://paulgraham.com/wids.html

pg was already planning to run this conference before the whole press thing happened. See http://paulgraham.com/wids.html (towards the end)