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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 compan

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
I do not want to defend Uber but all these things happened in all companies I worked for. They were bigger and in these companies "aggressiveness" is just fucking backstabbing everywhere. At least they went to Las Vegas. That is why... many others are the same but not successful to be in the news.
na85 10y ago
I could say the same thing about Facebook and Zuckerberg. The non-shitty companies are dwarfed in numbers by the teeming masses of shitty companies. Uber is not special here.
oculusthrift 10y ago
from what i've seen people think it is the next google/facebook and want to jump on the rocket ship before it blasts off. I really wanted to work there a few years ago but after hearing about their culture as well as the fact that they have thousands of employees now, that has changed.
- dllthomas 10y ago
  It's big enough that that's a bit uncomfortable for me, but it's also the case that the culture isn't very uniform. I believe Susan Fowler, but much of her story doesn't much resemble what I see around me in data at Uber; and the people I'm close to there not only wouldn't engage in this kind of behavior, they wouldn't stand for that kind of shit. We're all intent on holding management accountable on this (and FWIW, they're asking us to).
  - aioprisan 10y ago
    So a very non-uniform culture where you haven't seen the blatant sexism personally and the corporate policy of ignoring complaints against high performers (i.e. the CTO who should have been fired a long time ago for being complicit in other scandals) but somehow you do believe Susan Fowler.. how exactly are you intent on holding management accountable? Should everyone involved be let go, including the CTO and CEO? Do you really believe stuff like this bypasses them?
    - dllthomas 10y ago
      > the corporate policy of ignoring complaints against high performers I have seen someone let go for misbehavior in spite of an assertion (at the time) that they were a very high performer. This was not uniformly the policy, and it's not clear to me it was ever actual policy. Susan reports that she was told by other parties that this was the reason - but it is possible she was informed incorrectly. > the CTO who should have been fired a long time ago for being complicit in other scandals Could you clarify? I have no idea what you're referring to, and "Thuan Pham scandal" doesn't turn up anything that looks relevant for me in Google. I have tremendous respect for Thuan. With regards to this particular issue, it's clear he could have done better. At least, he missed a chance to fix this. We'll see what a more thorough examination reveals. > but somehow you do believe Susan Fowler I believe Susan Fowler honestly reported her experiences. I believe Susan Fowler because disbelieving her misses a chance to fix things. And I believe Susan Fowler because I don't see her having anything to gain - and plenty to lose - in offering us that chance. I appreciate her bravery. > how exactly are you intent on holding management accountable? I am intent on paying attention to the process, looking for honesty and integrity and meaningful change in response, and being vocal where it is lacking. Employees are asking - and Travis is answering - tough questions at the weekly staff meeting. If you have constructive suggestions, I welcome them. > Should everyone involved be let go, including the CTO and CEO? Do you really believe stuff like this bypasses them? Some kinds of involvement clearly deserve termination, but at this point we're still learning about what went on. There are possible answers that would have them out or me quitting in protest - and there are possible answers that wouldn't.
marklyon 10y ago
I don't know where you're located, but Uber has been rather transformative in DC. I don't know a ton of people who work there, but I do like the few I know in the DC office. I wouldn't expect them to stick around if the place was a shithole full of uninteresting busywork.
- edraferi 10y ago
  I've heard that the satellite facilities are a separate culture from the engineering staff. Operations has its own problems, but the engineering staff is much worse.
elastic_church 10y ago
> there are better and far more interesting and impactful companies to work at than an app whose primary purpose is to call a ride. Perhaps the Uber Eats logistics chain? The build tools? The god-knows-what side projects done with all that capital?
- tnecniv 10y ago
  > The god-knows-what side projects done with all that capital? They bought like half of CMU's RI to build a self-driving car.
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  If I wanted to work on Uber Eats, I'd work for Doordash. If I wanted to work on build tools, I could literally do that anywhere else. As far as working on a side project, why work on a side project when you can work where that is a core competency? (And yes, I'd say Uber Eats is a side-project. Everything that isn't directly related to getting a midrange Mazda to pick you up is a side project at Uber.)
ben_jones 10y ago
I have a friend who just graduated with a mathematics degree who is a bartender, and will likely remain a bartender for some time. He wishes to work in software development, but seemingly lacks the networking ability or the raw talent that comes from years of throwing yourself at the craft. Local companies aren't interested because they are either not interested in a developer with a math background, or likely do not have many open positions and are content with their influx of recruits from the local, and very large, university. He's mentioned a willingness to relocate, but I suspect he lacks the financial means to do so. Furthermore he has mountainous student loans which will soon need payment. I have not one iota of doubt he would do anything for a position at Uber with even a modest (<$75k) yearly salary regardless of location or any other benefits. And it is my belief this represents a vast majority of software developers around the world. Are you in your early twenties? Poor or in debt? Feeling unimportant? Come work for Uber. Did you start a family before you were financially prepared? Want to take care of them? Come work for Uber. Girlfriend break up with you for being an unemployed loser? Come work for Uber. If this is reminiscent of Wolf of Wall Street, you might be starting to get it. The world is full of poor and disenfranchised people who are willing to do many things that those in a quiet office with a white laptop embalmed with some special Apple, myself included, could likely not even imagine. To say working for Uber, who likely has as many fax pas as any conglomerate, is so horrid is absolutely laughable. Edit: The only difference now is that the finance wolves of yesteryear are now slinging code to mine and collect personal information, trigger mobile game purchases, etc.
- balladeer 10y ago
  I find it scary how USA reached here - the student loan phenomenon. Is it as common as I think it is or the Internet makes it looks like "everybody going to close is in huge debt"? Was it always like this? What happened when it changed? Isn't education is something that should not even be the last thing to be sold/given at such costs? I think it's same for public and private universities, right? I find it really disturbing.
  - gillianlish 10y ago
    If you want to understand the student debt bubble, you need to understand financial bubbles. Take any commodity that "everyone knows is valuable", figure out how to turn it into a financial instrument and re-sell it to a third party investor who has no relationship with either consumer or lender and knows nothing about the product, and then you can create a speculative bubble because everyone starts trading in derivatives of the commodity without knowing anything about it, the level of risk involved, or even who ows them money. This happened with Tulips, it happened with Mortgages, and now its happening with Education. There are a lot of good books on bubbles if you dig for them. All the Devils are Here is a good one. The Big Short is good too - once you realize some of those people who got rich betting against housing bubble, are now betting against the education bubble, and have been for 8 years but nobody listened to them (again).
lebanon_tn 10y ago
While I'm not in a position to defend what the culture at Uber is or isn't, it's shortsighted to say that the problem Uber is addressing isn't an important one. Giving people mobility can have a drastically positive impact on local economies, housing, the environment, etc.
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  They solved the Hail A Cab From The Street Problem. The actual ability to be mobile in a city for low cost was already solved with mass transit, and even calling a cab ahead of time. The App For Cabs, is useful compared to the previous world where you stood on the corner waiting for a taxi to stop, but to so say they are solving "mobility" for an great economic good is stretching it. It's a cab company that decided to ditch the cabs and to "contract" with "independent owner-operators" in an effort to circumvent the laws around cabs, and to avoid the hassles of actually having employees and capital expenditures. It's just the Web 2.0 business of plan of "let the users provide the content, and then sell it back to them", applied to physical objects.
  - JamesBarney 10y ago
    This is only true of the densest areas of a couple of the most dense cities.
    - jonathankoren 10y ago
      You can't get on the phone and call a cab and have it pick you up outside of a large city? That's just not true. My dad worked with a guy that had a suspended license that would commute to work every day in cab, in a rural town of less than 20,000 people.
      - amorphid 10y ago
        Calling a cab in San Francisco is a miserable experience, especially if you're calling from an area that attracts fewer rides. If you can get ahold of a dispatcher, there's no guarantee a cab will even show up. And after making the call, you have no way to assess how long a taxi may take to arrive. With Uber and Lyft, these are not problems. I've never ordered a taxi in a small town, so I can't comment on what that process is like.
ksvarma 10y ago
You made a great point. Truly for a great engineer, Uber should't be the only place. I am sure very soon those good bright ones will leave the place. Culture is very important for an Organization where -- "meaningful work and meaningful relationships that are obtained by striving for truth and excellence with great people" Quote from Ray Dalio's https://www.principles.com/#Part-3 https://www.principles.com/#Part-3 It takes a lot to build an organization and from how Travis ran Uber there is no sustainable effort in that direction.
vonmoltke 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 personally wanted to work at Uber ATC because it is one of the fee places I could work on radar signal processing outside of government work (and SV). If the crappy interview homework hadn't turned me off the company already, all this shit would.
et-al 10y ago
> are you willing to sacrifice your ethics and morals just to create the world's best taxi service in the near term? All the things you mentioned subsequently are completely valid reasons for people to join Uber, but on top of that they just sprinkle some mental gymnastics to try to explain away wrongdoing the company has done. And don't underestimate the allure of money. Think of all the smart and extremely driven people that go into investment banking. As stressful as working in a tech company is, I don't think it compares to Wall Street (contrary to David Fincher's depictions). Work 80 hour weeks, but retire at 35 with your fuck you money. Personally, I had a chance to work for an oil company out of college. $80K starting, six figures within five years, and stocks that were actually worth money. However, the cognitive dissonance I'd have to wrestle with was too much for my former hippie self. Someone else still took the position, though.
tzs 10y ago
> 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. Isn't the interestingness of the engineering work independent of the interestingness of what the company does? E.g., if your area of interest is large databases, would it matter if the company is using its large database to store car ride data, or to store physical inventory, or to store weather data?
- ajdlinux 10y ago
  I suspect that really depends on exactly what makes you and your brain get interested in a particular piece of engineering work.
trjordan 10y ago
If Uber fired their CEO, would you think they're going to turn it around? 8 months ago, Travis raised $4.6B for the company. That's certainly a real contribution. If you're looking for victories that are primarily from the CEO more often than once a year from a company that size, you may need to look a bit harder.
home_boi 10y ago
1. Interesting tech problems 2. Smart coworkers (well before this came out) 3. Good compensation (I heard for top tier applicants, they give something like MSFT total comp as salary with a ridiculous amount of paper money) 4. Assumed less bureaucracy compared to Big Cos because of unicorn/start up status 5. Ability to develop the first X in the new ride sharing/autonomous car industry Uber would be a good fit for someone who specifically wants to work at a big_unicorn with large scale technology problems. Most engineers wouldn't be able to accurately evaluate the ability of the leadership of tech companies, so that negative is out the door. For the ethics portion, that's subjective. For the cut-throat nature of the company, I heard that it was worse than most tech companies but not terrible (60+ hr/wks) like some financial companies.
- oculusthrift 10y ago
  I know 3 is wrong since I got offers from both companies. At least for new grads. Uber's Salary offer was actually pretty terrible compared to the other companies and they wouldn't budge on anything except stock options which are monopoly money. And when I say terrible, i mean the stocks were worth half and the salary was 12k less.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - philjr 10y ago
    Comparing compensation for experienced engineers and new grads between companies isn't apples to apples.
    - konceptz 10y ago
      I believe the parent of your post is referring to offers from both companies when he was a new grad. Inclusive of both offers.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    Anecdotally, they have made some crazy high offers, even to new grads (I didn't interview, but I have it at one reliable remove). Given the other stories about how they operate, I wouldn't be especially shocked if their starting offers varied wildly over time, even on no particular basis.
edblarney 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. " Uber is changing the world. For better or worse. 99% of other startups are irrelevant, and will go out of business soon. Also - working at Uber, many will get rich. They are a big company, with tons of money, they are spending huge on highly specialized things that most other startups couldn't ever touch, and there is 'financing' for cool, niche things. Self driving cars, big data, transportation things. Food delivery. And just the scale of it is interesting. Finally they have a kind of job security that goes beyond what most startups would offer. I have no love or hate for Uber, I mean I don't like them for some reasons, but there are plenty of reasons for people to want to work there.
erikpukinskis 10y ago
> the only way to move forward is to get rid of Travis Kalanick ... do they really even need him? My opinions aside on whether Travis is a healthy CEO for Uber, there are real costs to employee turnover. And that is true at the CEO level just as anywhere else. And there are actually some benefits to a post-crisis employee. Sure, a new person they hire probably won't have Travis's specific flaws. But the same can be said of a post-crisis Kalanick. He's actually pretty likely to not make a similar mistake again. Unless, of course, it becomes a pattern. Certainly Kalanick has demonstrated a pattern of ethical lapses, so if that's the thing you're trying to optimize against he should go. Is there a more specific pattern of ignoring sexual misconduct? Well, probably also yes in Kalanick's case. But my point is he needs to go because he's demonstrating a pattern of poor performance, not because there needs to be a head on a spike for people to trust Uber again.
lovealmond 10y ago
I joined Uber as an engineer last year. For me the deciding factor was they have really interesting problems to work on, wonderful team, impact that i can have from my work & they move fast(minimal bureaucracy). Pay was the last thing on my mind (they pay decently). My team mates are very accommodating, they taught me lots of good stuff. Professionally this has been amazing for me. Speaking for myself, I haven't had much stress than what i had in my previous companies. For me stress used to come from bureaucracy, which TK does a good job of keeping it to minimum. You speak of ethics & morality, let me ask you about a cause which is very close to my heart. How do you feel about tech in general where diversity is big issue. Black & Hispanic engineers are in low single digit percentage (ex: FB/Google 1-3% [1][2])? Can i call someone not ethical for working in such tech companies, which does not provide equal opportunity in the name of meritocracy? I think issues should not be treated in complete black & white. HR messed up in doing the right thing, that does not mean everyone working there does not condone this and support such abhorrent behavior. [1] https://www.google.com/diversity/ https://www.google.com/diversity/ [2] http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/driving-diversity-at-facebook/ http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/driving-diversity-at-fac...
- snowwrestler 10y ago
  How's the diversity at Uber? To the best of my knowledge no one knows, and there is reporting today that it's because Kalanick personally prohibited measuring it. How is a company going to manage toward improving a metric if they're not even measuring it?
  - flukus 10y ago
    > How is a company going to manage toward improving a metric if they're not even measuring it? What makes you think they want to improve it? If they're after the best it's probably counter productive.
    - exo762 10y ago
      I could not word this better than you. Notion of diversity being a better metric than actual performance is makes sense only if you see companies as a vehicle for hiring, not a tool of delivering value.
Natsu 10y ago
This is the part I don't understand. Quoting from the current version of Mike Isaac's NYT article: "Uber’s aggressive workplace culture spilled out at a global all-hands meeting in late 2015 in Las Vegas, where the company hired Beyoncé to perform at the rooftop bar of the Palms Hotel. Between bouts of drinking and gambling, Uber employees used cocaine in the bathrooms at private parties, said three attendees, and a manager groped several female employees. (The manager was terminated within 12 hours.) One employee hijacked a private shuttle bus, filled it with friends and took it for a joy ride, the attendees said." We are also told that the NYT has non-public information on this from their 30 interviews, reviews of internal emails, chat logs and tape-recorded meetings, of which, precisely one person is willing to attach their name to this, due to fears of reprisal. Given that the NYT just claimed to have evidence of a felony, shouldn't the police be involved here? I mean, it's very clear in my opinion that the NYT is trying to tell us that all that confidential information they can't show us somehow proves that Uber was complicit in that incident, so I'm really wondering when something will hit the courts? Or is there a case already going on that I don't know about?
- jakebasile 10y ago
  Even if they do have evidence of a crime, journalists are usually loathe to reveal sources.
  - Natsu 10y ago
    You'd think someone here would go to the cops, no?
    - mrep 10y ago
      Can you describe in which persons case you would go to the cops and what you would try and get the cops to do about it?
      - Natsu 10y ago
        Any of the three anonymous witnesses the NYT mentions as having seen the cocaine could have contacted the cops.
luca_ing 10y ago
> I don't really understand why one would actually want to work at Uber. You make good points. There's one that I'd like to add: For me the biggest red flag is that this company's business model is based on blatantly ignoring laws that inconvenience them. And I should sign a contract with them? Yeah. no.
xiaoma 10y ago
>"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." It's no Space X, but giving people a cheaper, more reliable cab that can be used for carpooling seems more meaningful than spending one's time working for a company whose primary purpose is getting people to click on ads.
- monodeldiablo 10y ago
  It's depressing how often I hear this sentiment. So I'll just repeat: Those are far from the only two options available. Advertising makes up about 20% of the US economy. Is it really so hard to believe that there are rewarding, ethical jobs available in that other 80%?
  - xiaoma 10y ago
    Of course not. It's just that a lot of the biggest software companies—Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Snapchat and to an extent, LinkedIn—are advertising companies
    - Fej 10y ago
      Twitter's not so bad. It is civically important. Revolutions grow because of Twitter. Opposing armies tweet menacingly at each other. And for better or worse, it is the current US President's primary mouthpiece.
    - RestlessMind 10y ago
      That line of thinking is wrong and is similar to saying entire newspaper industry is "advertising" industry, just because their business model needs bulk of the revenue from Ads. I mean, newspaper journalism cannot sustain simply on subscription revenue. And just like newspapers have clear separation between news and ads, companies like Google have clear separation between Search and Ads. So does that mean any journalist working on hardcore investigative journalism is working on advertising? If yes, your world view is a bit warped. If no, please explain why you think a Google search ranking engineer is essentially working on advertising?
ganfortran 10y ago
> are you willing to sacrifice your ethics and morals just to create the world's best taxi service in the near term? Depends. Uber is more grounded and useful than most SF startups. They choose a good problem to solve. Bashing it whatever you want, as a service, it is pretty valuable.
Zigurd 10y ago
One answer is that there isn't one Uber. The first Uber is the ride-sharing Uber, which is on a trajectory that either will or won't turn first-mover advantage into an Amazon-like dominance. The other Uber is self-driving vehicle R&D. Not the same people, and probably not the same culture.
dominotw 10y ago
I hope bunch of people quit after shit like this and memes of "toxic workplace", so I can have a good chance to land a gig at uber.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Your one-liner comment is under-rated--have an upvote. This is a reality that a lot of ivory tower HNers like to ignore: For every tech company you look down your nose at, there is a line of hundreds of engineers out the door who would LOVE to have the opportunity to work there.
magic_beans 10y ago
The article mentioned a global all-hands meeting in Vegas, on the rooftop of the Palms, with Beyoncé performing. That sounds like a pretty nice perk.
ryandrake 10y ago
> I don't really understand why one would actually want to work at Uber. Believe it or not, what makes a company attractive to work for can vary from one person to another! Culture may be important, or it may not be. Interesting and impactful work may be important, or it may not be. Money may be important, or it may not be. In fact, I'd love an example of a company that is struggling to find employees due to a toxic environment or a perception of toxicity. For every engineer who says "Yeeech, I'd NEVER work for Company Abc" there are ten who would LOVE the opportunity.

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

I do not want to defend Uber but all these things happened in all companies I worked for. They were bigger and in these companies "aggressiveness" is just fucking backstabbing everywhere. At least they went to Las Vegas. That is why... many others are the same but not successful to be in the news.

na85 10y ago

I could say the same thing about Facebook and Zuckerberg. The non-shitty companies are dwarfed in numbers by the teeming masses of shitty companies. Uber is not special here.

oculusthrift 10y ago

from what i've seen people think it is the next google/facebook and want to jump on the rocket ship before it blasts off. I really wanted to work there a few years ago but after hearing about their culture as well as the fact that they have thousands of employees now, that has changed.

dllthomas 10y ago
It's big enough that that's a bit uncomfortable for me, but it's also the case that the culture isn't very uniform. I believe Susan Fowler, but much of her story doesn't much resemble what I see around me in data at Uber; and the people I'm close to there not only wouldn't engage in this kind of behavior, they wouldn't stand for that kind of shit. We're all intent on holding management accountable on this (and FWIW, they're asking us to).
- aioprisan 10y ago
  So a very non-uniform culture where you haven't seen the blatant sexism personally and the corporate policy of ignoring complaints against high performers (i.e. the CTO who should have been fired a long time ago for being complicit in other scandals) but somehow you do believe Susan Fowler.. how exactly are you intent on holding management accountable? Should everyone involved be let go, including the CTO and CEO? Do you really believe stuff like this bypasses them?
  - dllthomas 10y ago
    > the corporate policy of ignoring complaints against high performers I have seen someone let go for misbehavior in spite of an assertion (at the time) that they were a very high performer. This was not uniformly the policy, and it's not clear to me it was ever actual policy. Susan reports that she was told by other parties that this was the reason - but it is possible she was informed incorrectly. > the CTO who should have been fired a long time ago for being complicit in other scandals Could you clarify? I have no idea what you're referring to, and "Thuan Pham scandal" doesn't turn up anything that looks relevant for me in Google. I have tremendous respect for Thuan. With regards to this particular issue, it's clear he could have done better. At least, he missed a chance to fix this. We'll see what a more thorough examination reveals. > but somehow you do believe Susan Fowler I believe Susan Fowler honestly reported her experiences. I believe Susan Fowler because disbelieving her misses a chance to fix things. And I believe Susan Fowler because I don't see her having anything to gain - and plenty to lose - in offering us that chance. I appreciate her bravery. > how exactly are you intent on holding management accountable? I am intent on paying attention to the process, looking for honesty and integrity and meaningful change in response, and being vocal where it is lacking. Employees are asking - and Travis is answering - tough questions at the weekly staff meeting. If you have constructive suggestions, I welcome them. > Should everyone involved be let go, including the CTO and CEO? Do you really believe stuff like this bypasses them? Some kinds of involvement clearly deserve termination, but at this point we're still learning about what went on. There are possible answers that would have them out or me quitting in protest - and there are possible answers that wouldn't.

marklyon 10y ago

I don't know where you're located, but Uber has been rather transformative in DC. I don't know a ton of people who work there, but I do like the few I know in the DC office. I wouldn't expect them to stick around if the place was a shithole full of uninteresting busywork.

edraferi 10y ago
I've heard that the satellite facilities are a separate culture from the engineering staff. Operations has its own problems, but the engineering staff is much worse.

elastic_church 10y ago

> there are better and far more interesting and impactful companies to work at than an app whose primary purpose is to call a ride. Perhaps the Uber Eats logistics chain? The build tools? The god-knows-what side projects done with all that capital?

tnecniv 10y ago
> The god-knows-what side projects done with all that capital? They bought like half of CMU's RI to build a self-driving car.
jonathankoren 10y ago
If I wanted to work on Uber Eats, I'd work for Doordash. If I wanted to work on build tools, I could literally do that anywhere else. As far as working on a side project, why work on a side project when you can work where that is a core competency? (And yes, I'd say Uber Eats is a side-project. Everything that isn't directly related to getting a midrange Mazda to pick you up is a side project at Uber.)

ben_jones 10y ago

I have a friend who just graduated with a mathematics degree who is a bartender, and will likely remain a bartender for some time. He wishes to work in software development, but seemingly lacks the networking ability or the raw talent that comes from years of throwing yourself at the craft. Local companies aren't interested because they are either not interested in a developer with a math background, or likely do not have many open positions and are content with their influx of recruits from the local, and very large, university. He's mentioned a willingness to relocate, but I suspect he lacks the financial means to do so. Furthermore he has mountainous student loans which will soon need payment. I have not one iota of doubt he would do anything for a position at Uber with even a modest (<$75k) yearly salary regardless of location or any other benefits. And it is my belief this represents a vast majority of software developers around the world. Are you in your early twenties? Poor or in debt? Feeling unimportant? Come work for Uber. Did you start a family before you were financially prepared? Want to take care of them? Come work for Uber. Girlfriend break up with you for being an unemployed loser? Come work for Uber. If this is reminiscent of Wolf of Wall Street, you might be starting to get it. The world is full of poor and disenfranchised people who are willing to do many things that those in a quiet office with a white laptop embalmed with some special Apple, myself included, could likely not even imagine. To say working for Uber, who likely has as many fax pas as any conglomerate, is so horrid is absolutely laughable. Edit: The only difference now is that the finance wolves of yesteryear are now slinging code to mine and collect personal information, trigger mobile game purchases, etc.

balladeer 10y ago
I find it scary how USA reached here - the student loan phenomenon. Is it as common as I think it is or the Internet makes it looks like "everybody going to close is in huge debt"? Was it always like this? What happened when it changed? Isn't education is something that should not even be the last thing to be sold/given at such costs? I think it's same for public and private universities, right? I find it really disturbing.
- gillianlish 10y ago
  If you want to understand the student debt bubble, you need to understand financial bubbles. Take any commodity that "everyone knows is valuable", figure out how to turn it into a financial instrument and re-sell it to a third party investor who has no relationship with either consumer or lender and knows nothing about the product, and then you can create a speculative bubble because everyone starts trading in derivatives of the commodity without knowing anything about it, the level of risk involved, or even who ows them money. This happened with Tulips, it happened with Mortgages, and now its happening with Education. There are a lot of good books on bubbles if you dig for them. All the Devils are Here is a good one. The Big Short is good too - once you realize some of those people who got rich betting against housing bubble, are now betting against the education bubble, and have been for 8 years but nobody listened to them (again).

lebanon_tn 10y ago

While I'm not in a position to defend what the culture at Uber is or isn't, it's shortsighted to say that the problem Uber is addressing isn't an important one. Giving people mobility can have a drastically positive impact on local economies, housing, the environment, etc.

jonathankoren 10y ago
They solved the Hail A Cab From The Street Problem. The actual ability to be mobile in a city for low cost was already solved with mass transit, and even calling a cab ahead of time. The App For Cabs, is useful compared to the previous world where you stood on the corner waiting for a taxi to stop, but to so say they are solving "mobility" for an great economic good is stretching it. It's a cab company that decided to ditch the cabs and to "contract" with "independent owner-operators" in an effort to circumvent the laws around cabs, and to avoid the hassles of actually having employees and capital expenditures. It's just the Web 2.0 business of plan of "let the users provide the content, and then sell it back to them", applied to physical objects.
- JamesBarney 10y ago
  This is only true of the densest areas of a couple of the most dense cities.
  - jonathankoren 10y ago
    You can't get on the phone and call a cab and have it pick you up outside of a large city? That's just not true. My dad worked with a guy that had a suspended license that would commute to work every day in cab, in a rural town of less than 20,000 people.
    - amorphid 10y ago
      Calling a cab in San Francisco is a miserable experience, especially if you're calling from an area that attracts fewer rides. If you can get ahold of a dispatcher, there's no guarantee a cab will even show up. And after making the call, you have no way to assess how long a taxi may take to arrive. With Uber and Lyft, these are not problems. I've never ordered a taxi in a small town, so I can't comment on what that process is like.

ksvarma 10y ago

You made a great point. Truly for a great engineer, Uber should't be the only place. I am sure very soon those good bright ones will leave the place. Culture is very important for an Organization where -- "meaningful work and meaningful relationships that are obtained by striving for truth and excellence with great people" Quote from Ray Dalio's https://www.principles.com/#Part-3 https://www.principles.com/#Part-3 It takes a lot to build an organization and from how Travis ran Uber there is no sustainable effort in that direction.

vonmoltke 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 personally wanted to work at Uber ATC because it is one of the fee places I could work on radar signal processing outside of government work (and SV). If the crappy interview homework hadn't turned me off the company already, all this shit would.

et-al 10y ago

> are you willing to sacrifice your ethics and morals just to create the world's best taxi service in the near term? All the things you mentioned subsequently are completely valid reasons for people to join Uber, but on top of that they just sprinkle some mental gymnastics to try to explain away wrongdoing the company has done. And don't underestimate the allure of money. Think of all the smart and extremely driven people that go into investment banking. As stressful as working in a tech company is, I don't think it compares to Wall Street (contrary to David Fincher's depictions). Work 80 hour weeks, but retire at 35 with your fuck you money. Personally, I had a chance to work for an oil company out of college. $80K starting, six figures within five years, and stocks that were actually worth money. However, the cognitive dissonance I'd have to wrestle with was too much for my former hippie self. Someone else still took the position, though.

tzs 10y ago

> 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. Isn't the interestingness of the engineering work independent of the interestingness of what the company does? E.g., if your area of interest is large databases, would it matter if the company is using its large database to store car ride data, or to store physical inventory, or to store weather data?

ajdlinux 10y ago
I suspect that really depends on exactly what makes you and your brain get interested in a particular piece of engineering work.

trjordan 10y ago

If Uber fired their CEO, would you think they're going to turn it around? 8 months ago, Travis raised $4.6B for the company. That's certainly a real contribution. If you're looking for victories that are primarily from the CEO more often than once a year from a company that size, you may need to look a bit harder.

home_boi 10y ago

1. Interesting tech problems 2. Smart coworkers (well before this came out) 3. Good compensation (I heard for top tier applicants, they give something like MSFT total comp as salary with a ridiculous amount of paper money) 4. Assumed less bureaucracy compared to Big Cos because of unicorn/start up status 5. Ability to develop the first X in the new ride sharing/autonomous car industry Uber would be a good fit for someone who specifically wants to work at a big_unicorn with large scale technology problems. Most engineers wouldn't be able to accurately evaluate the ability of the leadership of tech companies, so that negative is out the door. For the ethics portion, that's subjective. For the cut-throat nature of the company, I heard that it was worse than most tech companies but not terrible (60+ hr/wks) like some financial companies.

oculusthrift 10y ago
I know 3 is wrong since I got offers from both companies. At least for new grads. Uber's Salary offer was actually pretty terrible compared to the other companies and they wouldn't budge on anything except stock options which are monopoly money. And when I say terrible, i mean the stocks were worth half and the salary was 12k less.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- philjr 10y ago
  Comparing compensation for experienced engineers and new grads between companies isn't apples to apples.
  - konceptz 10y ago
    I believe the parent of your post is referring to offers from both companies when he was a new grad. Inclusive of both offers.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  Anecdotally, they have made some crazy high offers, even to new grads (I didn't interview, but I have it at one reliable remove). Given the other stories about how they operate, I wouldn't be especially shocked if their starting offers varied wildly over time, even on no particular basis.

edblarney 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. " Uber is changing the world. For better or worse. 99% of other startups are irrelevant, and will go out of business soon. Also - working at Uber, many will get rich. They are a big company, with tons of money, they are spending huge on highly specialized things that most other startups couldn't ever touch, and there is 'financing' for cool, niche things. Self driving cars, big data, transportation things. Food delivery. And just the scale of it is interesting. Finally they have a kind of job security that goes beyond what most startups would offer. I have no love or hate for Uber, I mean I don't like them for some reasons, but there are plenty of reasons for people to want to work there.

erikpukinskis 10y ago

> the only way to move forward is to get rid of Travis Kalanick ... do they really even need him? My opinions aside on whether Travis is a healthy CEO for Uber, there are real costs to employee turnover. And that is true at the CEO level just as anywhere else. And there are actually some benefits to a post-crisis employee. Sure, a new person they hire probably won't have Travis's specific flaws. But the same can be said of a post-crisis Kalanick. He's actually pretty likely to not make a similar mistake again. Unless, of course, it becomes a pattern. Certainly Kalanick has demonstrated a pattern of ethical lapses, so if that's the thing you're trying to optimize against he should go. Is there a more specific pattern of ignoring sexual misconduct? Well, probably also yes in Kalanick's case. But my point is he needs to go because he's demonstrating a pattern of poor performance, not because there needs to be a head on a spike for people to trust Uber again.

lovealmond 10y ago

I joined Uber as an engineer last year. For me the deciding factor was they have really interesting problems to work on, wonderful team, impact that i can have from my work & they move fast(minimal bureaucracy). Pay was the last thing on my mind (they pay decently). My team mates are very accommodating, they taught me lots of good stuff. Professionally this has been amazing for me. Speaking for myself, I haven't had much stress than what i had in my previous companies. For me stress used to come from bureaucracy, which TK does a good job of keeping it to minimum. You speak of ethics & morality, let me ask you about a cause which is very close to my heart. How do you feel about tech in general where diversity is big issue. Black & Hispanic engineers are in low single digit percentage (ex: FB/Google 1-3% [1][2])? Can i call someone not ethical for working in such tech companies, which does not provide equal opportunity in the name of meritocracy? I think issues should not be treated in complete black & white. HR messed up in doing the right thing, that does not mean everyone working there does not condone this and support such abhorrent behavior. [1] https://www.google.com/diversity/ https://www.google.com/diversity/ [2] http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/driving-diversity-at-facebook/ http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/driving-diversity-at-fac...

snowwrestler 10y ago
How's the diversity at Uber? To the best of my knowledge no one knows, and there is reporting today that it's because Kalanick personally prohibited measuring it. How is a company going to manage toward improving a metric if they're not even measuring it?
- flukus 10y ago
  > How is a company going to manage toward improving a metric if they're not even measuring it? What makes you think they want to improve it? If they're after the best it's probably counter productive.
  - exo762 10y ago
    I could not word this better than you. Notion of diversity being a better metric than actual performance is makes sense only if you see companies as a vehicle for hiring, not a tool of delivering value.

Natsu 10y ago

This is the part I don't understand. Quoting from the current version of Mike Isaac's NYT article: "Uber’s aggressive workplace culture spilled out at a global all-hands meeting in late 2015 in Las Vegas, where the company hired Beyoncé to perform at the rooftop bar of the Palms Hotel. Between bouts of drinking and gambling, Uber employees used cocaine in the bathrooms at private parties, said three attendees, and a manager groped several female employees. (The manager was terminated within 12 hours.) One employee hijacked a private shuttle bus, filled it with friends and took it for a joy ride, the attendees said." We are also told that the NYT has non-public information on this from their 30 interviews, reviews of internal emails, chat logs and tape-recorded meetings, of which, precisely one person is willing to attach their name to this, due to fears of reprisal. Given that the NYT just claimed to have evidence of a felony, shouldn't the police be involved here? I mean, it's very clear in my opinion that the NYT is trying to tell us that all that confidential information they can't show us somehow proves that Uber was complicit in that incident, so I'm really wondering when something will hit the courts? Or is there a case already going on that I don't know about?

jakebasile 10y ago
Even if they do have evidence of a crime, journalists are usually loathe to reveal sources.
- Natsu 10y ago
  You'd think someone here would go to the cops, no?
  - mrep 10y ago
    Can you describe in which persons case you would go to the cops and what you would try and get the cops to do about it?
    - Natsu 10y ago
      Any of the three anonymous witnesses the NYT mentions as having seen the cocaine could have contacted the cops.

luca_ing 10y ago

> I don't really understand why one would actually want to work at Uber. You make good points. There's one that I'd like to add: For me the biggest red flag is that this company's business model is based on blatantly ignoring laws that inconvenience them. And I should sign a contract with them? Yeah. no.

xiaoma 10y ago

>"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." It's no Space X, but giving people a cheaper, more reliable cab that can be used for carpooling seems more meaningful than spending one's time working for a company whose primary purpose is getting people to click on ads.

monodeldiablo 10y ago
It's depressing how often I hear this sentiment. So I'll just repeat: Those are far from the only two options available. Advertising makes up about 20% of the US economy. Is it really so hard to believe that there are rewarding, ethical jobs available in that other 80%?
- xiaoma 10y ago
  Of course not. It's just that a lot of the biggest software companies—Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Snapchat and to an extent, LinkedIn—are advertising companies
  - Fej 10y ago
    Twitter's not so bad. It is civically important. Revolutions grow because of Twitter. Opposing armies tweet menacingly at each other. And for better or worse, it is the current US President's primary mouthpiece.
  - RestlessMind 10y ago
    That line of thinking is wrong and is similar to saying entire newspaper industry is "advertising" industry, just because their business model needs bulk of the revenue from Ads. I mean, newspaper journalism cannot sustain simply on subscription revenue. And just like newspapers have clear separation between news and ads, companies like Google have clear separation between Search and Ads. So does that mean any journalist working on hardcore investigative journalism is working on advertising? If yes, your world view is a bit warped. If no, please explain why you think a Google search ranking engineer is essentially working on advertising?

ganfortran 10y ago

> are you willing to sacrifice your ethics and morals just to create the world's best taxi service in the near term? Depends. Uber is more grounded and useful than most SF startups. They choose a good problem to solve. Bashing it whatever you want, as a service, it is pretty valuable.

Zigurd 10y ago

One answer is that there isn't one Uber. The first Uber is the ride-sharing Uber, which is on a trajectory that either will or won't turn first-mover advantage into an Amazon-like dominance. The other Uber is self-driving vehicle R&D. Not the same people, and probably not the same culture.

dominotw 10y ago

I hope bunch of people quit after shit like this and memes of "toxic workplace", so I can have a good chance to land a gig at uber.

ryandrake 10y ago
Your one-liner comment is under-rated--have an upvote. This is a reality that a lot of ivory tower HNers like to ignore: For every tech company you look down your nose at, there is a line of hundreds of engineers out the door who would LOVE to have the opportunity to work there.

magic_beans 10y ago

The article mentioned a global all-hands meeting in Vegas, on the rooftop of the Palms, with Beyoncé performing. That sounds like a pretty nice perk.

ryandrake 10y ago

> I don't really understand why one would actually want to work at Uber. Believe it or not, what makes a company attractive to work for can vary from one person to another! Culture may be important, or it may not be. Interesting and impactful work may be important, or it may not be. Money may be important, or it may not be. In fact, I'd love an example of a company that is struggling to find employees due to a toxic environment or a perception of toxicity. For every engineer who says "Yeeech, I'd NEVER work for Company Abc" there are ten who would LOVE the opportunity.