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Im going to assume that this is just damage control to handle the media accusations. Ive never been an Uber employee but have been apart of previous large SV co

Im going to assume that this is just damage control to handle the media accusations. Ive never been an Uber employee but have been apart of previous large SV companies that were driven by what I perceived to be management structures plagued (or driven?) by in-fighting and unethical behaviors. Perhaps Im being presumptive about Uber's internals but from my experience once you define a company culture its almost impossible to turn it around in any meaningful way. From what I hear about Uber internally and externally it smacks of the same cultures of places of the past like Zynga or Groupon. It seems to me watching SV over the years companies of this profile follow a pattern of hype, exuberant growth and then an unabated fall over a long period of time after which the CEO gets thrown out and the company survives on life support. I guess we'll see if Uber is different.

cavisne 10y ago
Its an interesting point, interacting with both Zenefits and Uber I got the same impression, the "bros" from the early days were being pushed out by the "pros" from Yammer (Zenefits) and FB/Google (Uber). However this doesn't seem to have helped at Zenefits, and I guess it didn't help at Uber either. Even more concerning is I would guess (and Linkedin corroborates this a bit) that the SRE org where this harassment occurred was basically lifted from the Google org tree.
- chris11 10y ago
  I'm not sure if this is necessarily indicative of harassment at FB/Google. I've heard rumors that SRE at Uber was pretty bad. I had classmate who interned out in the bay area and was thinking about working in SRE. They mentioned that Uber was poaching a lot of engineers to do SRE work with crazy high offers. But they wouldn't stay around a long time because apparently both the technical and non-technical cultures were pretty bad. Sometimes jobs can be a lot a lot worse than you expected, and you can't really change much as a new hire.
  - GauntletWizard 10y ago
    I just quit Uber SRE after only six months. There was a combination of really bad tech and really bad culture - There was a huge seniority culture despite the face that nobody had been there for more than three years. There was a focus on 'big impact' that felt just like a recent article[1] about feature mills - Despite being, you know, the division charged with keeping things going. They'd drilled and drilled on solving simple problems, but hadn't fixed the engineering reasons why those problems kept showing up. And they couldn't keep technical staff who knew what they were doing. The people I actually liked and respected at Uber were leaving in droves. Even new hires barely stuck around - A full third of my new hire orientation class left before me. And, oh, yeah - I had three managers in that six months. One was fired, one quit precisely at his one year, and the third had 70 direct reports. If you see candidates coming from Uber, tenure past a year is a warning sign. I knew a few I'd want to work with again - A lot more I wouldn't. [1]https://hackernoon.com/12-signs-youre-working-in-a-feature-factory-44a5b938d6a2#.9b8uajv1g https://hackernoon.com/12-signs-youre-working-in-a-feature-f...
- zubat 10y ago
  Google has had some cases like this which (so I've heard through the grapevine because how else) were settled and NDA'd. It's a jungle out there...
- HappyTypist 10y ago
  Definitely have happened at Google, difference is their HR dept is not inept and does something.
  - uwnigga 10y ago
    >>their HR dept is not inept and does something their HR dept is FULL OF FEMINAZIs and does something. FTFY.
usaar333 10y ago
> s but from my experience once you define a company culture its almost impossible to turn it around in any meaningful way You do see it happen. Dropbox was known to have a bro-y, male dominated engineering culture in 2013 and earlier, but since then has become significantly more diverse due to cultural changes. (To be fair though, it never suffered cloak-and-dagger problems described in Fowler's post, making it more plausible to alter the culture)
ookblah 10y ago
IMO company culture has to come from the top or at least be enforced from the top, because when there's a lot of pushback or things going wrong there needs to be a clear authority who can determine who or what is "right". From the claims, if you can go all the way up to the CTO and still not have a resolution then it's beyond hope at that point. They can't claim ignorance. In this case they valued performance > integrity.

cavisne 10y ago

Its an interesting point, interacting with both Zenefits and Uber I got the same impression, the "bros" from the early days were being pushed out by the "pros" from Yammer (Zenefits) and FB/Google (Uber). However this doesn't seem to have helped at Zenefits, and I guess it didn't help at Uber either. Even more concerning is I would guess (and Linkedin corroborates this a bit) that the SRE org where this harassment occurred was basically lifted from the Google org tree.

chris11 10y ago
I'm not sure if this is necessarily indicative of harassment at FB/Google. I've heard rumors that SRE at Uber was pretty bad. I had classmate who interned out in the bay area and was thinking about working in SRE. They mentioned that Uber was poaching a lot of engineers to do SRE work with crazy high offers. But they wouldn't stay around a long time because apparently both the technical and non-technical cultures were pretty bad. Sometimes jobs can be a lot a lot worse than you expected, and you can't really change much as a new hire.
- GauntletWizard 10y ago
  I just quit Uber SRE after only six months. There was a combination of really bad tech and really bad culture - There was a huge seniority culture despite the face that nobody had been there for more than three years. There was a focus on 'big impact' that felt just like a recent article[1] about feature mills - Despite being, you know, the division charged with keeping things going. They'd drilled and drilled on solving simple problems, but hadn't fixed the engineering reasons why those problems kept showing up. And they couldn't keep technical staff who knew what they were doing. The people I actually liked and respected at Uber were leaving in droves. Even new hires barely stuck around - A full third of my new hire orientation class left before me. And, oh, yeah - I had three managers in that six months. One was fired, one quit precisely at his one year, and the third had 70 direct reports. If you see candidates coming from Uber, tenure past a year is a warning sign. I knew a few I'd want to work with again - A lot more I wouldn't. [1]https://hackernoon.com/12-signs-youre-working-in-a-feature-factory-44a5b938d6a2#.9b8uajv1g https://hackernoon.com/12-signs-youre-working-in-a-feature-f...
zubat 10y ago
Google has had some cases like this which (so I've heard through the grapevine because how else) were settled and NDA'd. It's a jungle out there...
HappyTypist 10y ago
Definitely have happened at Google, difference is their HR dept is not inept and does something.
- uwnigga 10y ago
  >>their HR dept is not inept and does something their HR dept is FULL OF FEMINAZIs and does something. FTFY.

usaar333 10y ago

> s but from my experience once you define a company culture its almost impossible to turn it around in any meaningful way You do see it happen. Dropbox was known to have a bro-y, male dominated engineering culture in 2013 and earlier, but since then has become significantly more diverse due to cultural changes. (To be fair though, it never suffered cloak-and-dagger problems described in Fowler's post, making it more plausible to alter the culture)

ookblah 10y ago

IMO company culture has to come from the top or at least be enforced from the top, because when there's a lot of pushback or things going wrong there needs to be a clear authority who can determine who or what is "right". From the claims, if you can go all the way up to the CTO and still not have a resolution then it's beyond hope at that point. They can't claim ignorance. In this case they valued performance > integrity.