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Inside Uber’s Aggressive, Unrestrained Workplace Culture

• minimaxir 10y ago
  NB: there is a lot of new information in this article. It's a great read.
  • imkevinxu 10y ago
    TIL NB = "nota bene". > N.B. is an abbreviation for the Latin nota bene, which means "note well." It is normally used at the beginning of a sentence in order to inform the reader that the following words are of great importance.
    • minimaxir 10y ago
      I had to stop using NB professionally because people kept asking what it meant. :(
      • djsumdog 10y ago
        I have never seen it. Is it often used in legal text?
        • dboreham 10y ago
          Everyone in the UK would know what it means. I doubt it is particularly common in legal documents. Probably something to do with having a decent proportion (>0.001%) of the population educated in the classics...
        • mark212 10y ago
          no, not really. The most common latinism is "ibid" in its various forms, which is used to avoid repeating a full citation. NB is used more like "i.e." or "e.g." in the US, from my experience.
        • selllikesybok 10y ago
          It's more like a class signifier. People who have certain educational backgrounds, or read a lot of certain types of writing, are more likely to use it.
          • travmatt 10y ago
            Like the semi-colon; useful for showing you went to college.
      • SilasX 10y ago
        It seems to save a lot of hassle to just say "Note:" instead, rather than an obscure acronym that already has a non-obscure, short equivalent. Reminds me of a forum I was on, where people would edit posts and preface the edit with "ETA:" (edited to add). But virtually every time someone had to ask what it meant, and eventually people started using "Edit:".
        • mb_72 10y ago
          Perhaps NB is more of a European thing? I see it here often, but never did once in Australia. That said, I don't consider NB close to being 'obscure'.
          • ajdlinux 10y ago
            Am Australian, I don't see it here much but I think most white-collar workers would definitely have seen it.
            • mb_72 10y ago
              Perhaps you are right - my 'problem' is that my parents are of an age were they studied Latin at High School, and as a result some of their education rubbed off on me; I no longer remember where I learned 'NB' (and other Latin miscellanea). Try living with parents who liked making witty and snarky comments in Latin about one and one's brother when one was trying to survive life as a nerdy teenager! :)
      • selllikesybok 10y ago
        Evidently Mr. Ringo's an educated man.
  • djsumdog 10y ago
    And greatly depressing. That sounds like a terrible place to work. It's very Machiavellian-esque. So what I gather is that sexism isn't rampant, it's the work cultural in general that leads to varying degreases of hostile terrible-ism, with sexism just one of the many many symptoms of their horribly constructed work environment. It's like a tech company run like a Wal-Street high steaks trading firm. Or like Valve ... as a Wal-Street trading firm. This article also explains Uber's tendency to just ignore laws and see what they can get away with. So much of what they describe is what we see in their business. Frankly, I'd be worried about their self driving vehicles, and what shortcuts they took that may eventually kill someone. I wonder what other shortcuts they've taken. Maybe in a few years, Uber will go the way of MCI WorldCom when people discover their books are cooked.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • will_brown 10y ago
      >This article also explains Uber's tendency to just ignore laws and see what they can get away with. In many jurisdictions it was - maybe still is - much worse than just ignoring laws, but actively conspiring to break the law. For example in Miami-Dade County where being an Uber was illegal in both the criminal and civil context, during that period Uber sent emails to drivers in Miami-Dade with instructions/training on how to actively avoid getting caught, including, but not limited to: removing the Uber phones from windshields and having passengers sit in the front seat. There is another of Uber's dirty little secrets here in Miami-Dade and that is that Uber is used by drivers to exploit undocumented immigrants, which as far as I can tell Uber is aware of and encourages/facilitates. Moreover, undocumented immigrants can't get a drivers license in Florida; therefore, can't register as Uber drivers. It happens all the time in Miami that the actual driver does not match the Uber driver profile, from my talks with those drivers they are clearly getting exploited.
      • bubbleRefuge 10y ago
        Yes, but in SF there are Uber drivers who are undocumented but registered using fake SSNs. You can get this taken care of in the mission I'm told.
  • jlebar 10y ago
    > NB: there is a lot of new information in this article. It's a great read. I hope those who were poo-poo'ing NYT for its earlier article being a softball will reconsider that criticism. Journalism takes more time than writing a comment on HN.
  • chambo622 10y ago
    Mike Isaac produces top notch reporting. Worth supporting NYT for articles like this and many others.
• fullshark 10y ago
  I hope Travis / execs are sincere and this was a healthy reality check, of course talk is cheap. Anyone know if Amazon culture changed significantly after the NY times article about their work culture came out?
  • st3v3r 10y ago
    From what I hear, no, not really.
  • shakil 10y ago
    The article came out in Aug 2015 and one of the things it identified was lack of paid parental leave. Amazon announced paternity leave in Nov 2015. You can decide if it was the article that triggered it, or this would have happened anyway.
  • the_cat_kittles 10y ago
    probably have to affect hiring or earning to effect some kind of change. my guess is it wont.
  • hn_throwaway_99 10y ago
    I have a question about this, though. It seems like many of the top, successful tech companies were started by "brilliant jerks": Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Travis Kalanick were all known for being brash, arrogant, hard charging and willing to do things anyone with a decent sense of ethics would reject (e.g. Jobs swindling Wozniak out of his share of an early payment, Zuckerberg hacking into the private email accounts of Harvard Crimson reporters by searching Facebook's auth logs, etc.) These leaders also seemed to mellow as they and their companies aged, perhaps realizing what gets you on top is not what keeps you there. Thus, I do hope Uber improves it's ways, but I also can't help but wonder if this very brashness that allowed Uber to develop such a toxic culture is also what let it (and other companies) beat out their competitors to begin with.
    • thomzi12 10y ago
      Yes, it helped. But how much jerkery are we willing to tolerate? And, for how long? Uber isn't an early stage start-up anymore.
• desireco42 10y ago
  I really have to commend Susan for bravery to come out and describe what has been happening to her. It is inexcusable behavior. Also, it seems that writing a blog post is way more effective then suit who would drag on for months. And one more thing, not to downplay managers contributions, but developers are the ones making things happen, we really need more credit for our work.
  • flootch 10y ago
    actually it's the drivers that add all the value, the devs are the folks that enable the cheating. Susan Fowler was responsible for keeping the trains running on time.
    • metaphorm 10y ago
      I think you should explain your position in more detail. What do you mean by cheating, for example?
      • flootch 10y ago
        Drivers have many anecdotes of: + initial bonuses not paid + hourly guarantees not paid New upfront pricing allows Uber to change prices on every single ride (implicit surge) while not paying driver's surge rates The FTC has fined Uber for telling drivers they could earn $90K a year driving Uber tells drivers it takes a flat 25% commission, but booking fees turn that commission into 40%. Uber cheats drivers.
        • metaphorm 10y ago
          but what you said is "the devs enable the cheating". that sounds like you're accusing the developers, specifically, of some kind of malfeasance due specifically to the developers. if you have something against Uber (there's a lot wrong with how they do business), you should state that, and state it clearly, and probably state it in a discussion thread where it would be more on topic. what you're doing here seems off topic.
• flootch 10y ago
  How many laws does Uber have to break, how many drivers does Uber have to cheat, how many assaults on riders and drivers have to be committed, how much predatory pricing does Uber have to commit, how many labor laws does Uber have to flout, how much full time jobs does Uber have to undermine, how many people, riders, pedestrians and drivers does Uber have to kill before this generation of engineers looks beyond the high tech goodness and high salaries they personally achieve to see the poison you enable by staying on with Uber? ethics/shmethics it's a great job at an important company!
  • civilian 10y ago
    Maybe half of these things apply to Lyft too, which really weakens your argument.
    • leereeves 10y ago
      Also to the taxi companies Uber and Lyft are replacing.
      • throwaway2390 10y ago
        Well, if software is eating the world, the people writing the software get to decide how it's digested. If we do that, that is. We could do what the physicists did and just pass off mass destructive power to the politicians, that worked out great. Or we could take some responsibility for ourselves and the consequences of our actions.
      • briandear 10y ago
        I drove Yellow Cab in Houston for a few tough months in Houston while I was in school and the taxi business is far worse than anything I've heard at Uber -- especially for those doing day-leases. The taxi business is more blue collar by comparison with Uber. I am definitely not defending Uber -- I am saying that Uber is getting this press because the situation affects educated (mostly white) liberal engineering type while taxi business practices often go unnoticed because taxi employees aren't typically the demographic that starts blogs or talks to The NY Times -- nor do they raise VC money thus entangling them in SV politics and media. I never once saw a female taxi mechanic -- the only female employees I ever saw were grizzled old dispatchers too tough to take any crap or the occasional girl out of college working as a marketing assistant. Operations was almost exclusively men -- the mechanics in the yard were all men. Pay attention to how taxi companies try to 'sell' cars to drivers at insane terms to were drivers would have to work 5 days out of a week just to pay the note. Try scratching a day lease car and watch how the repair costs get taken out of your money (despite also paying for "insurance" to cover such things.) Yoy get robbed when picking up a dispatch passenger and lose all your money -- too bad, you still have to pay the day lease. I get it -- drivers are independent contractors -- however any criticism of Uber ought to be tempered by a fair assessment of the industry they are ostensibly replacing.
• linuxkerneldev 10y ago
  " Occasionally, problematic managers who were the subject of numerous complaints were shuffled around different regions; firings were less common." Same strategy exhibited by certain religious organizations. Problematic individuals were transferred to developing countries or disenfranchised communities where more distinct power imbalances enable the crimes to go unpunished.
  • burrows 10y ago
    What factors motivate higher-ups to avoid dismissal?
    • alphonsegaston 10y ago
      Firing for this kind of behavior establishes a precedent against which subsequent actions/individuals can be judged. By avoiding dismissals, you keep in place the ambiguity and arbitrariness in which toxic, manipulative people can thrive.
      • erikpukinskis 10y ago
        I really think ambiguity is the source of all HR problems. There should be a clear list for each employee of which specific things will get them fired. And which things need to be done for them to otherwise not be fired. And which things need to be done for them to be promoted. Anything else you're basically saying: "If there is ever a lawsuit between this individual and the company, we will have to assemble the employment agreement in court from a variety of obscure emails and text messages." What amazes me is that even with that risk, it still seems to benefit the company to keep these things vague in order to keep promotions down, and to make it easier to fire people who are doing their jobs. But I guess the numbers add up.
    • ThrustVectoring 10y ago
      Personal power politics. They've got enough influence that the loss to the higher-up is bigger for dismissing than for basically handing out a slap on the wrist that basically tells the underling to not get caught.
• sitkack 10y ago
  Waiting for the Enron fall.
  • johan_larson 10y ago
    Because of a toxic culture or because of other problems? I don't think I've ever heard of a company brought down by cultural problems. At most, cultural factors seemed to have contributed to the problems, such as the issues caused by strict stack ranking at Microsoft, which punished teamwork. Some places are pressure-cookers and shark-tanks, but then some people love heat and pressure and are, you know, sharks.
    • throwaway2390 10y ago
      Enron was noted for their management philosophy of promoting the top X%, and firing the bottom X%, with the idea that they'll "naturally select" for good employees. Instead, they selected for people willing to do anything, including sabotage, betrayal, and lying, to get ahead. This worked out famously.
    • nostrademons 10y ago
      I think the studies on corporate culture have shown that it's critically important to have a culture (Built to Last has a chapter on "cult-like cultures"), but it doesn't matter (much) what that culture is. The idea is that culture is a unifying principle for the organization; it's a way for the company to clearly delineate what it stands for, attract people who believe in that too, and repel people who don't. The world is an awfully big place; for basically every repugnant belief you can think of, there is somebody, somewhere, who believes that it's common-sense. If you don't like it, work for or patronize a different organization. Lyft's entire differentiator is "We're not as evil as Uber."
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    • freyr 10y ago
      "Inside Enron... the prevailing corporate culture was to push every thing to its limits: business practices, laws, personal behavior." (WSJ) Sounds familiar. Enron's financial problems were deeply entwined with its cultural problems. A successful business can mask a bad culture for a while, but it's not even clear Uber is running a good business.
• Tycho 10y ago
  Would there be any upside to a company like Uber cultivating a reputation like this deliberately? Obnoxiousness seems to be a characteristic quite ingrained into elite hacker culture.
  • technotony 10y ago
    Well they are getting a lot of publicity over this, that presumably has some marketing value. Can't imagine that's worth the legal risk, but as Oscar Wilde said "the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about" (I'm not sure this is true myself)
  • flootch 10y ago
    Regarding drivers, I feel there is an upside to the horrible treatment Uber doles out to drivers which is that Uber wants turnover, wants a driver to work for a year or so, and fears long term drivers who might have more of a claim to employment or be more invested in a lawsuit. > Obnoxiousness seems to be a characteristic quite ingrained into elite hacker culture That was not my experience with the elite developers I have known. I find that behavior endemic and distributed like a bell curve throughout society.
    • giarc 10y ago
      I live in a city where Uber is just rolling out (Calgary), and I can say new drivers is not something a company would want. Many don't know how to use the GPS, or connect with a customer. Just today I had set a pin to a pick up location. The driver took a wrong turn thinking I was at location X and not location Y. I called him and tried to direct him to where I was. He seemed to get lost, then he just canceled his trip.
    • dang 10y ago
      This account has been abusing HN by using it exclusively for political arguments. It has also been posting personal attacks. Neither of those are allowed here, so we've banned it.
  • trevyn 10y ago
• kposehn 10y ago
  [edit] Tomluck pointed out below that this post can be misinterpreted. I don't want to discount people's experiences - and there is definitely work to be done. But at the same time there is a lot of great things too, so we can have a healthy perspective. Thanks to those who are discussing it! --- I could go into detail about my experience at Uber (which is great), but a friend and coworker I really admire did a much better job. Here's her LinkedIn post: "Uber has been a lot in news lately, and not for all good reasons. While as an Uber employee, I think there are things (in fact, many things!) we can do better, one thing that I couldn't agree less with are the allegations of Uber being a discriminatory, anti-women culture. "While I am deeply saddened with what was recently brought to light, and being a woman, demand that the investigation is urgently, unbiasedly done, I also want to say that as a woman, an immigrant woman, I have never felt even an iota of discrimination, let alone harassment. "When I moved to the US about a year ago, with no job and plenty of dreams, Uber was one of the few companies that gave me a chance to prove myself in a new country. And, since then, I haven't just survived, but thrived here. I look forward to coming to work daily, making my contribution, and having a say in shaping a company that's changing so much around us. Again, I feel deeply sorry for the recent situation that came into light, but I stand against anyone who generalizes that Uber epitomizes a discriminatory culture for it couldn't be further from truth. "[Her] Disclaimer: These views are my personal views, and in no way linked to my employer's. I just feel an overwhelming need for sharing my personal experience working at a place that has given me so much in terms of learning and growth."
  • leereeves 10y ago
    The impression I got from the story I believe she's describing wasn't "discriminatory, anti-women culture" as much as "very bad manager" (to the point of sexual harassment) and Uber not doing anything about it.
    • flootch 10y ago
      It's not dark out at night, it's just that the earth has blocked the sun.
    • kposehn 10y ago
• branchless 10y ago
  A company that ignored / sidestepped taxi regulations globally, often making a profit out of devaluing working class peoples' taxi registration, apparently has lots of unpleasant people working for it. Colour me surprised.
  • psyc 10y ago
    Where does this expression come from? I've never heard it IRL, but on HN ... ye gads [0] [0] https://www.google.com/search?&q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+"color+me" https://www.google.com/search?&q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com...
    • digler999 10y ago
      Just a guess, but in the ~80s/90s, coloring books were popular for children. At restaurants, they would have single-page coloring pages for kids with a handful of crayons. The caption used to say "Color me well" or something. There was a 90's R&B band that was a play on this phrase called "Color me badd".
  • digler999 10y ago
    "devaluing working class people's taxi registration" read: a company that figured out their way around regulatory capture.
    • cowardlydragon 10y ago
      Or, made an app, and are using VC funds to dump on markets forcing out incumbents, and then will hike prices. But go ahead and subscribe to your objectivist utopian view. Oh evil government, when will you learn?
      • digler999 10y ago
        > and then will hike prices. there's a reason why you get a flyer telling you how much a cab ride from JFK->Midtown costs and that cabs are only allowed to pick up passengers at the designated stop (creating 30m+ lines). But go ahead and believe theyre just "working class folks" and not scam artists.
• nullnilvoid 10y ago
  We all know that this is not news about Uber's workplace. It has been happening for quite a while. I bet those executives knew about it a long time ago. What has motivated executives to take it seriously now? Why now?
  • M_Grey 10y ago
    Someone publically and categorically called them on it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682022
    • ubernostrum 10y ago
      More importantly: someone who not only called them on it, but appears to have documentation to back up her claims. Which blows up many of the usual strategies a company would employ to discredit an ex-employee making such claims, and also threatens to trap them even further (the smart thing is to keep good records; the really smart thing is to only disclose part of what's in your records, let the other party respond and likely lie about something you have records of but didn't yet disclose, then nail them on the lie).
  • keypusher 10y ago
    Because now it's in the news, following the recent blog post.
• ilamont 10y ago
  Quoting from a 2014 Bloomberg column: Stories about the leadership’s dubious ethics -- or the ones about subprime autoloans or deceiving the press or sharing private user data for fun and games at a party --haven't really hurt Uber at all. Even reports of incidents that might make one think twice about using the service -- sexual assaults, a hammer attack -- haven’t gained much attention outside the close world of tech blogs. There’s only a slim chance that most consumers will ever know about this stuff and decide that they’d rather use, say, Lyft, an almost-identical service. So long as people continue to download the app there’s an even slimmer chance that the stories will hurt the company’s ability to raise money. 1. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-11-18/ubers-dirty-tricks-wont-hurt-it https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-11-18/ubers-dir...
  • jrowley 10y ago
    I think those specific incidents were carried out by the drivers (independent contractors) and they weren't formal employees. Not that I'm excusing uber of liability/responsibility.
    • giarc 10y ago
      I think the average person also understands that one bad apple doesn't spoil the bunch.
      • deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      • JBReefer 10y ago
        For the record one bad apple does in fact spoil the bunch.
      • Pigo 10y ago
        In other scenarios the apple would get some recompense after being spoiled other than "sorry we sent a bad apple to your bunch, that sucks".
      • 10y ago
• DrNuke 10y ago
  I think 2017 is time to start finding out the degeneration of this uber-capitalist model. A portfolio of on-call collaborations paying peanuts without any workers right does not make a job and is not safe for customers. Please stop defending the undefendable, bare naked social costs are too high.
  • cowardlydragon 10y ago
    Yeah, but dystopian slave labor business models really get the VC funding elites to hand over the dough to the MBA sociopaths running the place. I wish that was sarcasm.
  • 99_00 10y ago
    Just wait until they manage to secure a transportation monopoly. Then they'll start screwing customers and the competition too.
• aanm1988 10y ago
  > I am pleased with how quickly Travis has responded to this I'm not sure how much credit "Boober" deserves when he's the one in charge and has allowed it to get this point.
• iamleppert 10y ago
  I don't really understand why one would actually want to work at Uber. If you're a good engineer, there are better and far more interesting and impactful companies to work at than an app whose primary purpose is to call a ride. I know Uber has much larger ambitions, and transportation is a large portion of the economy, and thus very lucrative, but really...are you willing to sacrifice your ethics and morals just to create the world's best taxi service in the near term? To work in such a high stress, backstabbing and political environment, and for what? The vague promise of some RSU's? Because there are interesting engineering challenges in planning a route? Culture is clearly set at the top. The only way for Uber to move forward at this point is to make changes with this in mind. At this point, if I was on the board of directors, the only way to move forward is to get rid of Travis Kalanick. That will be the only message loud enough to signal to the rest of the world that Uber is going to change, and at this point, do they really even need him? It would be better to just fire him and replace him with someone else to just get him out of the picture. He's an embarrassment to the company and they can easily find someone just as capable from a business and technical leadership perspective, probably someone a lot better than him in fact who they can trust won't be making these rookie mistakes. One of the main roles of a CEO is to set the culture and to prevent PR disasters like what is currently going on. What else of value has he recently contributed that is worth keeping him on despite all these numerous scandals? If Uber does not do what is necessary to change their toxic environment, and to fix the now perception of toxicity, they will be eclipsed by one of their competitors in short order. You can go fast in a cut throat, winner takes all asshole culture, but you can go much farther with a happy team that enjoy working with one another.
  • synicalx 10y ago
    Alleged sexual harassment aside, I actually feel much more at home working in an environment like this. By my nature I'm a very competitive person, I work best when I'm pressured to do so, I like money, and I like partying. That environment isn't for everyone, and that's fine - people need to fit the job just as much as the job needs to fit them. I'm deliberately not commenting on the sexual harassment stuff because quite frankly it's none of my business until the claims have been substantiated.
  • tlogan 10y ago
• aaron695 10y ago
  > Uber employees used cocaine in the bathrooms at private parties Oh my god!!!! At a private party no less. If you can't see the beat up here, vague allegations to run with a current theme that's getting press (clicks) you need to be more critical of the news and not blindly follow articles that just reinforce your preconceived ideas.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • mcphilip 10y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted, but calling out cocaine usage at a private all hands party in Vegas seems tabloidish to me, too, but it's buried far enough below the fold that I don't think it had much to do with clicks.
  • jsmeaton 10y ago
    You've cherry picked a single example that you don't necessarily disagree with and expect everyone to dismiss the entire article? That's not being critical.
    • aaron695 10y ago
      > Another manager threatened to beat an underperforming employee’s head in with a baseball bat. Do you really thing he threaten that or was making a joke? Was the employee ok with that and was this someone overhearing it? > a manager groped several female employees. (The manager was terminated within 12 hours.) Someone did something very wrong and was immediately fired. What more do you want? >One employee hijacked a private shuttle bus, filled it with friends and took it for a joy ride Do you reckon they used guns or baseball bats during the hijacking? This is a standard stitch up we've seen done to tech companies before. It's formulaic. Take vague behavior/mistakes/missteps that's not unusual in society, give a couple of examples as though it means something about this company and imply it means blah blah blah.
      • FireBeyond 10y ago
• walrus01 10y ago
  tl;dr: bunch of fratboys get too much VC money, run wild
• buddapalm 10y ago
  The fish rots from the head.
  • Terr_ 10y ago
    Yeah, I find unethical news out of Uber... unsurprising. I mean, most of their business-model has been based on willfully breaking local laws for profit, in the hope that they can grow into a bully that can ignore the consequences. With that at the core, it's no surprise that other areas exhibit the same rot.
  • gravyboat 10y ago
    Pretty much. All of these SF startup CEOs just rotate around companies and start new ones. The whole mentality there from the (moronic) angel investors to the people they hire as CEOs propagates and rewards the culture common at these shops.
• vacri 10y ago
  I am shocked - shocked! - that a company that has gone from zero to $70B in less than a decade by riding roughshod over people and engaging in shady tactics, that it should have a company culture that reflects the same!
  • victor22 10y ago
    Agreed that its obvious. Regular "hard working" concept will only lead to regular good results. Uber is reinventing a whole market. Also remember they're playing against a very crooked taxi industry that could easily hold back any player that tried to play by the rules.
    • cowardlydragon 10y ago
      "Uber is reinventing a whole market" aaaaand, that justifies... what? Murder? Blackmail? Genocide? Racketeering? Bribery? Where is your line in the sand? Wait, I know, you don't have one if you're chasing the F U Money. You know, drug traffickers are also reinventing the market, and forging ahead into a new commodity, and using "outside of the box" thinking like assassination and liquifying your competitors in drums of chemicals. Those unnecessary regulations like "laws" are just evil big government trying to control poor defenseless drug cartels.
• stagbeetle 10y ago
  An honest thought: Is Uber an inherently "evil" company? Startups in the spotlight, like Uber, are under a lot of pressure to live up to their "darling" status, lest they risk losing investors and the snowball of problems that comes with. Doesn't Uber have to be unrestrained in its current state? Don't most darlings of today (Amazon, et al) have to move forward as quickly and fervently as possible, putting comparatively less important (see: human resources vs. market valuation) to the back-burner?
  • munchbunny 10y ago
    You're touching on some very well-trodden lines of thinking. It's the distinction between thinking of a situation as "morals aside, here's what's happening" and thinking of a situation as "high road and low road lead to the same place, but one is clearly better." This distinction and the conflation of the two perspectives is why Machiavelli has a bad name. Uber isn't inherently "evil" to the extent that its product and mission aren't clearly one way or another morally. But based on Ms. Fowler's blog post and the information that has come out afterwards, Uber has systematically done immoral things by creating a culture clearly hostile to women. And they knew about it and did nothing about it. In that sense, yes, they are being evil. In the long run, maybe this isn't enough to sink the Uber ship. Maybe keeping the brilliant jerks around was actually the right decision from a business standpoint. That doesn't stop Uber from being evil, it just means that they succeeded in the amoral sense. But you also can't draw any conclusions about whether neglecting HR was or wasn't advantageous, because there are too many factors at play. So at the end of the day, we make a value judgement that women should be treated equitably regardless of the situation (within sensible bounds), and Uber seems to have done the opposite in many big ways.
  • trjordan 10y ago
    A good thought. There is a real pressure to perform at the highest level. There's a naive view that lets you either ignore this kind of sexist behavior because the perpetrators are productive, or condemn it, possibly tanking the company in the process. However, Uber is not a small company, and there is lumpiness in their performance. In Susan Fowler's article, there's a real concern to turning over a large chunk of their employees, and the fact that they're women shows that this is a problem of sexism. That sort of moderate-scale bigotry is harmful to a company, and it's not something that you can necessarily read the whole culture from. Growth papers over a lot of things, but that doesn't mean the things that are happening are good and that they're condemned by all. Moving forward is important, but there's real short-term incentives for the managers of bigots and harassers to clean up their houses. It's reasonable that they made mistakes hiring too fast, but there's no real reason to tolerate that kind of behavior for any amount of time.
• bobbington 10y ago
  This is hardly newsworthy. I'm sure stuff like this happens at any company that big. Why do they publish pointless news like this. And as others have said why would you work for uber you hardly make any money
  • trjordan 10y ago
    > I'm sure stuff like this happens at any company that big. Not that gets written up in detail, with numbers, with much frequency. > Why do they publish pointless news like this. Sexism is real. Adding context and response to a large company's response is meaningful. > why would you work for uber you hardly make any money. That's just not true.
• rajathagasthya 10y ago
  This article links to a blog post [1] by a current female engineer at Uber, who says: > Why am I still at Uber? I am at Uber because Uber needs me. I don't understand how someone can say this. It's like worshipping a corporate entity. [1] https://medium.com/@hadrad1000/reflecting-on-susan-fowlers-reflections-e2dccb374b47#.gwyl18wzu https://medium.com/@hadrad1000/reflecting-on-susan-fowlers-r...
  • tnecniv 10y ago
    Sounds more like Stockholm syndrome than worship.
    • cortesoft 10y ago
      It sounds exactly like someone in an abusive relationship.
  • jetcata 10y ago
    They are trying to justify why they are still working for the company. Excusing the inexcusable because it's convenient for them.
  • carlineng 10y ago
    Really interesting. I was contacted by an Uber recruiter several days before this Susan Fowler blog was posted. I responded to him with a link to the article, and asked him if he was interested in working for my company. His response: "I am at Uber because Uber needs me - especially now." I'm guessing it's the canned response they've instructed all employees to use.
    • brazzledazzle 10y ago
      It could be something their leadership is repeating. I could see something like, "You can work anywhere but you're here because Uber needs you, especially now" being said in meetings and emails.
    • Humdeee 10y ago
• seoknucklehead 10y ago
  Based upon the evidence that includes the CEO's public attitude and that of Uber as a company and the story told by the former employee about how her situation was handled, it seems like Uber is much more sorry that their culture was exposed than that they have that culture to begin with. Is this kind of company culture not becoming much the norm in today's hyper sexual society? I can't imagine that these kinds of things aren't happening all the time at other in-your-face branded startups. American Apparel is another company that quickly comes to mind with problems similar to Uber's.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• AzzieElbab 10y ago
  All these hunger games stories are getting more and more primitive, stupid and boring
• known 10y ago
  Uber/Amazon are losing money on their business and hence bad working conditions
• leoc 10y ago
  I'm still gobsmacked by the smoothness and ballsiness of ceremoniously appointing Eric Holder to deal with this sit-u-a-tion. Say what you want about Uber, they certainly didn't get where they are in spite of a lack of political smarts.
• praptak 10y ago
  "Those values have helped propel Uber to one of Silicon Valley’s biggest success stories." The alternative hypothesis is that they were the first with something that worked well enough at the time the public was ready to use it and the "values" is just attribution bias.
• bartread 10y ago
  "In what was described by five attendees as an emotional moment, and according to a video of the meeting reviewed by The New York Times, Mr. Kalanick apologized to employees for leading the company and the culture to this point. “What I can promise you is that I will get better every day,” he said. “I can tell you that I am authentically and fully dedicated to getting to the bottom of this.”" (Emphasis mine.) If culture flows from leadership then you already are at the bottom of it, buddy. </smartass>
• nailer 10y ago
  > The ride-hailing service particularly emphasizes “meritocracy,” the idea that the best and brightest will rise to the top based on their efforts, even if it means stepping on toes to get there. Whether this means: - Uber explicitly emphasizes stepping on toes as part of their workplace culture - The concept of meritocracy includes stepping on toes This is false and dishonest of the NYT. In the first case: Uber might be awful, but no company would emphasise mistreatment of others explicitly. In the second: that is not the commonly held meaning of meritocracy.
  • asdfologist 10y ago
    No, it's implicitly emphasized. Uber doesn't explicitly condone sexual harassment, and yet it's utterly rampant there. Actions speak louder than words.
    • nailer 10y ago
      That's exactly what I mean though! Uber might be awful and might implicitly emphasize trodding on others. But the NYT, by combining their internal explicit messaging re 'meritocracy' with 'expense of others' makes it sounds like their internal explicit messaging includes that - it obviously doesn't. Actions do speak louder than words. NYT doesn't need to make up the words.
• rmcfeeley 10y ago
  Has anyone read "The Circle" by Dave Eggers? I enjoyed it. Raised a lot of interesting questions that I think we're all going to be debating in coming years. Privacy, surveillance, transparency, etc. Genuinely surprised how rarely it comes up in these discussions about toxic corporate tech "culture"
• losteverything 10y ago
  To me its a reminder of how times have changed and a tale of caution. Pre internet there was no place (blog) to write about work. Now, one always has to be conscious that their coworker-friend or coworker-foe can tell the world stuff you would not tell. Reinforcing the keep quiet about everything mantra The other risk is that a decade from now the person making the blog will be known for that blog. To everybody. More caution will be required when coming in contact with that blogger. Pick your battles wisely
• uncrnhypcrt 10y ago
  the current uber hating seems like hive mind. without a doubt, the stories coming out of uber are not good. but i work at a unicorn and can unequivocally state that things are not vastly different here -- few to no female devs (and other specific roles too), little diversity, plenty of sexism, lots of politics, and huuuge assholes abound. if any of our stories happened at uber, it would be front page news. and my guess there is plenty of this around the industry. these firms get away with bad management by turning it around on employees... "if you see a problem, find a solution and fix it". this cuts both ways... no one blocks you from doing what you think is important (which is great), but equally no one steps in to play the role of mgmt when it matters (which sucks). in uber's case, the negative side to this culture is more on view than anywhere else. uber may be amongst the worst of the tech companies when it comes to this, but i certainly don't think they are an outlier.
• mgleason_3 10y ago
  Just start firing. It's really that simple. First, fire the head of engineering. Then fire the head of HR and anyone associated with this - unless they can show they were forced into it.