10 ms·

A textbook case in workplace discrimination

198 points by hvass 10y ago

steven 10y ago
Good to see so many people here are agog with disbelief at this story, which understandably didn't get as much talk as the more disturbing harassment charges. I am assuming by Uber's lack of a counter narrative to the jacket story that it is accurate. To be sure I did write Uber asking if Fowler's account was correct, but they did not reply.
throwaway_374 10y ago
Is this actually real? This is utterly ridiculous. Sounds like a company run by a bunch of privileged entitled amateurs with zero consequences for their actions. This culture needs to be punished severely. Name and shame the director involved.
- rhizome 10y ago
  That's not how access journalism works.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  > Sounds like a company run by a bunch of privileged entitled amateurs with zero consequences for their actions. Yep. That's at least 90% of all startups. Not that they're all sexist specifically, but when you have an entire economic sector based on "these kids say they can write a program that will revolutionize industry X, let's give them $10 million," you're gonna wind up with what you said.
1_2__3 10y ago
I'm sorry but none of this story makes any sense at all and I feel like I'm living in some kind of weird alternate reality. Sit down, look at the world around you, and ask yourself if the account seems plausible at all. The number of people not just indifferent but actually full to the brim with malice for this to have gone down at claimed is staggering. Literally dozens of people would have be outright evil - to no benefit of their own, just caricatures of masculine evil - for even half of it to be true as-written. It's just such a cartoonish version of villainy it's what a collective Tumblr mind would spit out as a novella.
- deleted 10y ago
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- dgllghr 10y ago
  Makes sense to me. Looks like discrimination against women.
- clint 10y ago
  Sounds like someone who has never worked in this industry or talked to any woman working in this industry. These people are not "evil" even though their behaviors are extremely harmful and reprehensible. What is happening here are extremely privileged and ignorant people (generally white, straight men) operating within a context where there are no consequences for bad behavior. Your reaction here is also a part of the problem—these kinds of behavior have been extensively documented inside and outside this industry for nearly a hundred years now. You deny and belittle these people's lived experiences with no data of your own to back it up besides banal theories and "cartoonish" ideas of how people operate in the world. Another thing for you to think about before you respond to this with your poorly researched screed is that there are literally no upsides to Susan for reporting this stuff. All the data we have show that women who report these kinds of behavior get blacklisted from the industry, shunned by their peers, and perhaps face legal action. This doesn't even count the tidal wave of harassment, death threats and worse that comes along with exposing men in power for doing bad things (depression, suicide, paranoia, etc). Think about how awful your own situation would need to be to open yourself up to that sort of thing. No one does this lightly and without cause, and yes this stuff happens all the time and even worse. Another good read to improve your ignorance of the matter: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/technology/uber-workplace-culture.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/technology/uber-workplace...
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  - jimmywanger 10y ago
tptacek 10y ago
It's not a bad piece. Probably everything that could be said about the Fowler piece has already been said, but the explanation of SRE culture is valuable (most people, including developers not in SFBA or NYC, probably aren't familiar with the concept) and it does capture a callow thoughtlessness that I think many of us have experienced from large employers. I'm not sure any of this is going to be newsworthy to HN commenters, but, solidly written. The title is, of course, godawful. Remember that most story authors don't get to pick their titles.
- minimaxir 10y ago
  > The title is, of course, godawful. Remember that most story authors don't get to pick their titles. The author of this piece is the editor-in-chief. (the title edit by the mods is indeed an improvement)
- mst 10y ago
  Honestly, the title led me to expect even more horrifying harassment stories plus a healthy dose of amateur kinkshaming. I'm almost glad that the piece turned out to be about rather more banal evil than that (though, still, wtf at the level of callow thoughtlessness).
- FT_intern 10y ago
  It's a pretty big exaggeration. Most people see team gear as a gym or jogging shirt. There's maybe a few people who actually care about it.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    It's not simply "team gear".
soperj 10y ago
I could never imagine Women getting better toilet paper in the bathroom, but they do.
- nielsbot 10y ago
  Sounds like you'll fit right in at Uber.
  - soperj 10y ago
    I'm a woman, so no.
draw_down 10y ago
And yet- as much as I'd like to be wrong, as much as I wish it were different, their investors don't care (except one wrote a medium.com post), their board doesn't care, and their business will most likely survive this short blip and continue as before. In 6 months, will this dustup matter?
- aetherson 10y ago
  There are two basic allegations in Fowler's blog post: 1. There is a horrifying amount of sexual harassment going on at Uber, far more than you'd expect from "a large organization will eventually hire some people who are douchebags," and that sexual harassment is institutionally tolerated at least. 2. Uber has a management culture of politics, infighting, and undercutting each other. From a moral perspective, #1 is a bigger deal than #2. But from a bloodless amoral "can we get our money out of Uber" perspective, I'd expect investors to be much more concerned about #2. #1 is pretty easy to deal with. Fire a dozen people in a high profile way, re-instruct HR, and then probably even if you have two dozen (or more) sexual harassers still in your organization, they will be good enough about hiding their tracks that you'll be able to go long enough for the furor to die down. And since large numbers of people just don't want to sexually harass other people, even if they're given lots of opportunity, you probably won't have to fire such large numbers of people that your organization will trip up. #2 on the other hand: If that culture really is pervasive throughout the management, then they'll have driven all the non-political managers away. What do you do about that? You can't fire everyone between your execs and your ICs. You can't survive long-term with a management culture of backstabbing and empire building -- especially when you're trying to go through a super painful and disciplined process of weaning your company off multi-billion-dollar expenses towards a very distant line of profitability.
  - tobtoh 10y ago
    I don't think #1 is as easy to deal with as you may think. In any other normal company, sexual harassment normally stems from isolated individuals, or at worst a particular department. But from Fowlers account, it sounds like the culture is well and truly embedded through the whole company. Heck, even HR is burying the issue. Company culture (what is enabling both #1 and #2 issues) is established by the CEO and board through what they explicitly and implicitly (through omission of action) allow. That means, the problem is at the CEO-level - that's not an easy problem to solve. Sure you can fire the CEO ... but now #1 is as big a concern to investors as #2.
hollyrolly 10y ago
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- zwily 10y ago
  The article is specifically about what the jackets mean, which is more important than the jackets themselves.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  I agree that hiring anyone based on race or gender is abhorrent but your delivery here will not change any minds.
- jat850 10y ago
  > often time foreigners themselves not familiar with American values of workplace equality and non-harassment. This statement is somewhere between intentionally callous and "needs heavy citation" with a dose of "blind or out of touch". "often times foreigners not familiar with" - citation needed. "American values of workplace equality and non-harrassment" - There are literally dozens, hundreds, of easy examples to draw on where such values do not exist or exist in name or policy only, and not in action or consequence. That you chose to make this claim on an article talking about a recent incident highlighting how, seemingly top-to-bottom, sexist and gaslighting responses from HR and managers were made to Susan Fowler and other women working at Uber is... confusing, at best. You're deflecting and diminishing a real problem and there is no clear path to understanding why. edit Oh, I see you made another (worse, and more overt) xenophobic post elsewhere in the comments. That helps explain things.
- sgift 10y ago
  > often time foreigners themselves not familiar with American values of workplace equality and non-harassment. I didn't know/understand is a valid excuse. Until someone tells you. This has been noted in the post. Quoted for your convenience: Thus Uber’s moronic decision was a blood insult to the women in the group. You would think that when Fowler pointed out the error to the manager, he would have instantly recognized the scope of the blunder. As a side note: non-harassment is a value in most parts of the world as far as I'm aware. There is nothing America-specific about it.
a3n 10y ago
Really? Uber won't pay full price for six jackets? This is either sexist, or an example of their obsession for getting anything for less, including the services of contractor/employees. Or both.
- syshax 10y ago
  I agree. There was a report in December that they had lost $800 million in the previous quarter. It seems like utter insanity that: 1. They'd even bat an eyelash at paying retail for the needed quantity, and 2. They'd think it's even remotely ok to exclude a section of the team completely due to any reason (sex, race, size, whatever) Yes, it's just a jacket, but this definitely smells of a deep seeded cultural problem due to how ludicrous it is.
  - btown 10y ago
    One must remember that individual managers have budgets much more stringent than the overall burn. That said, the manager didn't feel it necessary or acceptable to escalate what could clearly become an HR nightmare to ask for an expansion of budget. That such a request would expend enough political favor to make it a nonstarter, is indicative of an institutional problem.
- vogt 10y ago
  Well, by definition, it's the former, whether as a byproduct of the latter or for whatever other root cause.
  - nickff 10y ago
    Interestingly, you could also make the case that buying "women's" jackets for the women on the team is sexist, as it does involve treating them differently on the basis of sex. The only non-sexist way to give out these jackets is to ask people which 'sex' of jacket they want, along with their size.
    - PhasmaFelis 10y ago
sriram_sun 10y ago
I spoke with a recruiter from the Uber "money" team a few weeks back. They are investing 2 Billion per year just for that team.
anigbrowl 10y ago
Smart companies should start giving ethical puzzles to their management candidates. Many tech companies select from the pool of engineers by setting clever brainteasers to evaluate their problem-solving ability. How many do the same to evaluate supervisors' understanding of social technology and relations? I know some firms have ethicists on staff, but they seem to be there more to guide and/or provide cover for working with potentially dangerous technology. I don't get the impression that they have much input into shaping the organization's culture beyond signing off on a list of diversity goals. I'd like to be wrong about this, though, can anyone shed more light on this question?
- pm90 10y ago
  You know, a sufficiently smart person would probably most likely know when their actions are ethically questionable, despite feigning ignorance when caught. These people act the way they do not because they are unaware, but they know they can get away with it. So they are most likely able to fly through any ethics puzzles. It is a difficult problem and I'm not sure what the solutions are. Perhaps that is why referalls are generally given so much weight by employers: I've always thought of that as a chain of trust starting with the founders and extending right down to lower-level employees. However, a colleague/friend that you know well to be amazing to you might still have rather questionable views on gender/race/nationality etc. which you don't know so even this chain of trust isn't unbreakable...
  - fancy_pantser 10y ago
    I am reminded of reading The Prince in college and hearing about virtù. Although you may think it's simply translated as "virtue", it's actually a very loaded concept in his works. Machiavelli employs "virtù" to refer to the range of personal qualities that the prince will find it necessary to acquire in order to “maintain his state” and to “achieve great things,” the two standard markers of power for him. This makes it brutally clear there can be no equivalence between the conventional virtues and Machiavellian virtù. Machiavelli expects princes of the highest virtù to be capable, as the situation requires, of behaving in a completely evil fashion. The managers probably thought their actions were in the "raison d'État". To extend Levy's simile from the article, the male engineers wore the leather jackets with the élan of fighter pilots and the virtù of The Prince.
nunez 10y ago
So a note on Google's leather jackets that is completely tangential to the article: They source theirs from Golden Bear, who make amazingly high quality jackets (on par with Schott). They are actually quite expensive at retail unless you buy them in bulk, which Google does.
- theptip 10y ago
  Since you seem to be quite familiar with the products, I'm interested to know -- can you estimate the difference between bulk and retail? Looks like ~$200 retail for the first jacket I clicked online. Would be interesting to estimate what percentage of the total spend Uber were short-changing their female employees over.
  - drunken-serval 10y ago
    I can't speak for jackets but I do help run a convention that bulk orders t-shirts. If you want one custom t-shirt, it's $20+/shirt. If you bulk order, it's $3/shirt for 300. We also get t-shirts for our staff, those are $9/shirt for 20-40.
    - jcrawfordor 10y ago
      For screenprinted shirts there is a very substantial setup portion of the cost though, the actual shirts are dirt cheap in any case but the setup for the print run can take a worker a couple of hours for multiple screens. The result is that for small runs the setup cost dominates. Leather jackets are just expensive to begin with, so I would expect the item cost to dominate even for small order sizes, resulting in a much shallower discount curve. And even if the jackets were customized they were probably embroidered or had embroidered patches applied - the machines used for this are computer-controlled and there is essentially no setup cost involved (besides some time to prepress the art).
  - nunez 10y ago
    Not sure on bulk but retail was around $400
steffan 10y ago
This is something that stood out to me in the original blog post as well. It is unfathomable to me that anyone in a leadership position could harbor such a myopic view. If this were my team and I somehow faced (at a Director level?) some resistance to the cost for the 6 women's jackets, I would have paid out of my own pocket.
kbenson 10y ago
> It is a person who almost certainly has no indication that he will suffer any negative consequences from essentially telling the very few women in his group — something that in and of itself should have been a prime concern to him — that they are not welcome in his organization. Also, keep in mind that Fowler's original story noted that when she started 25% of the organization was women, and when she left it was 6%. Have so few women should be a concern, having so few and that's partially because 75% of them have left in roughly a year's time should have been an "all hands on deck, company emergency, we're likely to be sued by multiple parties!" situation. Unless you have a really good explanation for why that is, chances are you've created an extremely hostile work environment. Even if you do have a good explanation, it's probably in your best interest to look at it with a more critical eye, because the stakes are so high. I mean, nobody want's to be stuck with such a bad PR nightmare that they feel the need to hire a former attorney general to signal how serious you're taking it. At that point, you're already screwed.
- elgenie 10y ago
  It's hard to see when the numbers are small and can be ascribed to one-off cases for quite some time if the blindness is willful enough. Let's say that the org started with 10 women out of 40, then two left the company for higher offers, one switched teams for a really good opportunity, another was fired for performing poorly, and then the last one is Fowler; meanwhile, a team of 30 men from a bought company was integrated into the org and of the five qualified women who came through the recruiting pipeline only one accepted her offer while 30 men did. Suddenly, there are 6 women out of 100.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    I agree it can be hard to see, but that's why I think it's good to force yourself to look at it more critically. In your example, even if the 6% was reached in a fairly natural way, it still may result in a workplace that's less inviting to women than it used to be just to how much of a minority they've then become. This isn't just a CYA thing either, as diversity (not just in gender) pays dividends. For example, I'll point you towards the accidentally racist videogame[1]. 1: http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2017/01/12/how-we-accidentally-made-a-racist-videogame http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2017/01/12/how-we-accidentally-made-...
tobtoh 10y ago
The last line of the article is something that has been blazing out to me since the first few negative media articles started appearing about Uber's work practises. For all the continual PR damage control that the CEO utters, the problem is the CEO and the board. All the bad business practises that are leaking out aren't 'oversights', a generic 'management/process' problem, or actions of an isolated 'bad apple' - it's ingrained culture established by what the CEO allows explicitly or implicitly (through omission of action). The problem is at the very top of Uber.
dec0dedab0de 10y ago
I am confused why the jackets would be different in the first place. And the discount argument makes zero sense. If anything, this is a reason to find a different supplier, it's not like there is only one company making jackets.
- ben010783 10y ago
  Women's jackets tend to have small changes, like shorter length and zippers on the left. The small changes make the jacket fit and look better.
- mst 10y ago
  Even if it was precisely the same configuration of zips/pockets/etc. there's still the fact that a female cut garment can need to have different amounts of material to accommodate bust and hips. I accidentally bought a women's cut top at a goth festival once; the extra material across the chest was noticeable when wearing it (though other people didn't notice from just looking, so I happily wore that top for years anyway).
mememachine 10y ago
Uber seems like a really trashcan company from her post.
jonmc12 10y ago
"it is not a stupid person ... It is a person who almost certainly has no indication that he will suffer any negative consequences" Jackets and sexual advances are likely just the symptoms. From Fowler's account it sounds like root cause is a political culture where individuals (esp management) are incentivized to act in their own self interest. Any employee can safely ignore another if that other employee is not politically tied to their personal advancement. I'd like to think this is the wrong side of history, and that smart people should put their self-worth in acting in ways that optimize the benefit for all stakeholders. However, many political science theories predict just the opposite in large political organizations where selfish actors aggregating power end up at the top. I know very little about Uber's org, but a leader with a Machiavellian hat on would likely focus on hiring management that are adept at acting politically. A political culture will eventually weed out those who are not.
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  > From Fowler's account it sounds like root cause is a political culture where individuals (esp management) are incentivized to act in their own self interest. > I know very little about Uber's org, but a leader with a Machiavellian hat on would likely focus on hiring management that are adept at acting politically. Travis Kalanick is famously supportive of Objectivism, the philosophy where altruism is for losers and acting purely in motivated self-interest is the highest possible good. Once you know that, very little about Uber will surprise you anymore. Surprisingly (or not), running a business on Objectivist principles is a terrible idea. See the saga of Eddie Lampert who put Sears into a death spiral that way: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-11/at-sears-eddie-lamperts-warring-divisions-model-adds-to-the-troubles https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-11/at-sears-... I for one will be delighted to watch Uber follow their lead.
  - BugsJustFindMe 10y ago
    Travis Kalanick is famously supportive of Objectivism, the philosophy where altruism is for losers and acting purely in motivated self-interest is the highest possible good. Once you know that, very little about Uber will surprise you anymore. Complicated. I happen to believe that, regardless of how one desires to spin it, everyone already acts in their own motivated self-interest. It's just a question of how wiling you are to see interest and where you draw your connections. For example it is in my personal interest to not harm others usually because harming others makes me feel more bad in many instances than whatever I would stand to gain. Generally speaking when people feel that way we call them good people, and when people don't feel that way we call them sociopaths. The problem isn't that Travis Kalanick believes that he should act in his own self interest. The problem is that Travis Kalanick doesn't feel bad when harming others.
wyldfire 10y ago
Do private equity firms audit their investments' processes/practices? What at astonishing way expose themselves to liability and destroy their brand while alienating talent at the same time.
6stringmerc 10y ago
Penny-wise and pound foolish. Quite a lot of this scenario reminds me of a local case that got a bit of press, and it's analogous, as in bad thinking: Drunk guy takes a cab to hotel, doesn't want to pay cab driver $40, so he punches the cab driver and runs into the hotel. Cab driver follows, has hotel staff call Police. Police get info for drunk guy's room and knock. Drunk guy's friend answers and lets the Police in. Police discover bag after bag after bag full of Tax Return ID theft evidence. Multiple arrests, leading to other arrests in other states. Multi-million dollar bust...over a $40 cab fare... Yet another instance where "Do unto others" as a basic "Hmm is this fair" moment of reflection can be very enlightening. Other side of the fence type thing. I've been on both sides enough to understand it's not everybody's skill, but, eh, for management it's rather fundamental...
ouid 10y ago
I think that the company which sold the leather jackets is the one in the wrong, if the facts are correct in this example. If you are paying a bulk rate for jackets, that bulk rate must apply to male and female jackets. They don't have to be the same price at the end, but the discount has to apply to the entire order. I also, however, think that the facts are probably misrepresented in this article.
- squeaky-clean 10y ago
  > If you are paying a bulk rate for jackets, that bulk rate must apply to male and female jackets. They don't have to be the same price at the end, but the discount has to apply to the entire order. Group buys in fashion are very common, and this is never how they work. Two leather jackets of a different size but the same model will use the same materials and labor. A different jacket model (yes, even a female version), requires different cuts and maybe even different materials. This isn't uncommon at all, except for the part where Uber thought this made it okay to buy nothing for the women. Edit: Not even fashion, but anywhere really. If I want 10,000 of one IC, and 5 of another, I will not get a unit discount as if I had bought 10,005 of a generic item. I get a discount on the first IC, and full price on the latter.
grb423 10y ago
these misogynist women-hating lunks turn my stomach. They need to terminated immediately, be humiliated on social media and have their careers ruined forever. They can wear their stupid war jackets while they cry.
- grzm 10y ago
  Ranty comments do your passion no service regardless of the strength of your conviction.
  - throwaway_374 10y ago
    I'm afraid controlled rationality has lost its cause sometime ago. Action and anger are now necessary.
watwut 10y ago
It gives some background to jacket thing. From all the complaints in the original article, I found this one puzzling. I understood that it was annoying, I did not understood why would someone pick that one as an example for article.
shitgoose 10y ago
cleverness of management at ueber (or anywhere else for that matter) is overrated. this story is typical example of idiocy that rules above certain level in each organization. janitors are the only ones that do honest and useful job. it is all downhill from there.
rudolf0 10y ago
>Instead he replied that if Uber paid a little more for the women’s jackets, they would have been beneficiaries of special privilege. This is standard bigot’s code for denying people protection from discrimination because of their gender, race, religion, or sexual preference. I think the jacket issue has Uber clearly in the wrong, but it's a huge stretch to claim that opposition to giving a minority group special privileges is always "standard bigot's code".
tzs 10y ago
I'm curious now. What do companies that give out company shirts or jackets do when everyone is male so there is no male/female style problem, but some of the males are fat enough or tall enough to need a big & tall size, and those sizes are not available or are a special order for the shirt/jacket they've chosen? There is enough basis in fact for the fat programmer stereotype that this surely must come up now and then. Another one I've seen is giving out food. My employer gave out hams one Christmas. There was one vegetarian, but he was a vegetarian for health reasons, not moral reasons, and was OK with getting that gift and then giving it to a friend of his who liked ham and everyone was happy. But what if we'd had someone who was vegetarian for religious reasons? Or someone who was not vegetarian but could not eat ham for religious reasons? Could giving out that ham be construed as discriminating against them on religious grounds? And would it matter that it was given out for Christmas, which is nominally a religious holiday, as opposed to if it had been given out for, say, President's Day, which is completely non-religious?
- SilasX 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure this issue has come up before, since I worked at a defense contractor that (I assume) wanted to buy employees a thanksgiving turkey, but had apparently converted it to "here's a $10 gift card for a major grocer that sells them" so you could get something else if turkey wasn't your thing.
- gregshap 10y ago
  > and those sizes are not available or are a special order for the shirt/jacket they've chosen? you get the special order, or get some other style and get the embroidering or whatever, or pick a different thing to get

198 points by hvass 10y ago

Good to see so many people here are agog with disbelief at this story, which understandably didn't get as much talk as the more disturbing harassment charges. I am assuming by Uber's lack of a counter narrative to the jacket story that it is accurate. To be sure I did write Uber asking if Fowler's account was correct, but they did not reply.

throwaway_374 10y ago

Is this actually real? This is utterly ridiculous. Sounds like a company run by a bunch of privileged entitled amateurs with zero consequences for their actions. This culture needs to be punished severely. Name and shame the director involved.

rhizome 10y ago
That's not how access journalism works.
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
> Sounds like a company run by a bunch of privileged entitled amateurs with zero consequences for their actions. Yep. That's at least 90% of all startups. Not that they're all sexist specifically, but when you have an entire economic sector based on "these kids say they can write a program that will revolutionize industry X, let's give them $10 million," you're gonna wind up with what you said.

1_2__3 10y ago

I'm sorry but none of this story makes any sense at all and I feel like I'm living in some kind of weird alternate reality. Sit down, look at the world around you, and ask yourself if the account seems plausible at all. The number of people not just indifferent but actually full to the brim with malice for this to have gone down at claimed is staggering. Literally dozens of people would have be outright evil - to no benefit of their own, just caricatures of masculine evil - for even half of it to be true as-written. It's just such a cartoonish version of villainy it's what a collective Tumblr mind would spit out as a novella.

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dgllghr 10y ago
Makes sense to me. Looks like discrimination against women.
clint 10y ago
Sounds like someone who has never worked in this industry or talked to any woman working in this industry. These people are not "evil" even though their behaviors are extremely harmful and reprehensible. What is happening here are extremely privileged and ignorant people (generally white, straight men) operating within a context where there are no consequences for bad behavior. Your reaction here is also a part of the problem—these kinds of behavior have been extensively documented inside and outside this industry for nearly a hundred years now. You deny and belittle these people's lived experiences with no data of your own to back it up besides banal theories and "cartoonish" ideas of how people operate in the world. Another thing for you to think about before you respond to this with your poorly researched screed is that there are literally no upsides to Susan for reporting this stuff. All the data we have show that women who report these kinds of behavior get blacklisted from the industry, shunned by their peers, and perhaps face legal action. This doesn't even count the tidal wave of harassment, death threats and worse that comes along with exposing men in power for doing bad things (depression, suicide, paranoia, etc). Think about how awful your own situation would need to be to open yourself up to that sort of thing. No one does this lightly and without cause, and yes this stuff happens all the time and even worse. Another good read to improve your ignorance of the matter: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/technology/uber-workplace-culture.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/technology/uber-workplace...
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- jimmywanger 10y ago

tptacek 10y ago

It's not a bad piece. Probably everything that could be said about the Fowler piece has already been said, but the explanation of SRE culture is valuable (most people, including developers not in SFBA or NYC, probably aren't familiar with the concept) and it does capture a callow thoughtlessness that I think many of us have experienced from large employers. I'm not sure any of this is going to be newsworthy to HN commenters, but, solidly written. The title is, of course, godawful. Remember that most story authors don't get to pick their titles.

minimaxir 10y ago
> The title is, of course, godawful. Remember that most story authors don't get to pick their titles. The author of this piece is the editor-in-chief. (the title edit by the mods is indeed an improvement)
mst 10y ago
Honestly, the title led me to expect even more horrifying harassment stories plus a healthy dose of amateur kinkshaming. I'm almost glad that the piece turned out to be about rather more banal evil than that (though, still, wtf at the level of callow thoughtlessness).
FT_intern 10y ago
It's a pretty big exaggeration. Most people see team gear as a gym or jogging shirt. There's maybe a few people who actually care about it.
- tptacek 10y ago
  It's not simply "team gear".

soperj 10y ago

I could never imagine Women getting better toilet paper in the bathroom, but they do.

nielsbot 10y ago
Sounds like you'll fit right in at Uber.
- soperj 10y ago
  I'm a woman, so no.

draw_down 10y ago

And yet- as much as I'd like to be wrong, as much as I wish it were different, their investors don't care (except one wrote a medium.com post), their board doesn't care, and their business will most likely survive this short blip and continue as before. In 6 months, will this dustup matter?

aetherson 10y ago
There are two basic allegations in Fowler's blog post: 1. There is a horrifying amount of sexual harassment going on at Uber, far more than you'd expect from "a large organization will eventually hire some people who are douchebags," and that sexual harassment is institutionally tolerated at least. 2. Uber has a management culture of politics, infighting, and undercutting each other. From a moral perspective, #1 is a bigger deal than #2. But from a bloodless amoral "can we get our money out of Uber" perspective, I'd expect investors to be much more concerned about #2. #1 is pretty easy to deal with. Fire a dozen people in a high profile way, re-instruct HR, and then probably even if you have two dozen (or more) sexual harassers still in your organization, they will be good enough about hiding their tracks that you'll be able to go long enough for the furor to die down. And since large numbers of people just don't want to sexually harass other people, even if they're given lots of opportunity, you probably won't have to fire such large numbers of people that your organization will trip up. #2 on the other hand: If that culture really is pervasive throughout the management, then they'll have driven all the non-political managers away. What do you do about that? You can't fire everyone between your execs and your ICs. You can't survive long-term with a management culture of backstabbing and empire building -- especially when you're trying to go through a super painful and disciplined process of weaning your company off multi-billion-dollar expenses towards a very distant line of profitability.
- tobtoh 10y ago
  I don't think #1 is as easy to deal with as you may think. In any other normal company, sexual harassment normally stems from isolated individuals, or at worst a particular department. But from Fowlers account, it sounds like the culture is well and truly embedded through the whole company. Heck, even HR is burying the issue. Company culture (what is enabling both #1 and #2 issues) is established by the CEO and board through what they explicitly and implicitly (through omission of action) allow. That means, the problem is at the CEO-level - that's not an easy problem to solve. Sure you can fire the CEO ... but now #1 is as big a concern to investors as #2.

hollyrolly 10y ago

zwily 10y ago
The article is specifically about what the jackets mean, which is more important than the jackets themselves.
cmdrfred 10y ago
I agree that hiring anyone based on race or gender is abhorrent but your delivery here will not change any minds.
jat850 10y ago
> often time foreigners themselves not familiar with American values of workplace equality and non-harassment. This statement is somewhere between intentionally callous and "needs heavy citation" with a dose of "blind or out of touch". "often times foreigners not familiar with" - citation needed. "American values of workplace equality and non-harrassment" - There are literally dozens, hundreds, of easy examples to draw on where such values do not exist or exist in name or policy only, and not in action or consequence. That you chose to make this claim on an article talking about a recent incident highlighting how, seemingly top-to-bottom, sexist and gaslighting responses from HR and managers were made to Susan Fowler and other women working at Uber is... confusing, at best. You're deflecting and diminishing a real problem and there is no clear path to understanding why. edit Oh, I see you made another (worse, and more overt) xenophobic post elsewhere in the comments. That helps explain things.
sgift 10y ago
> often time foreigners themselves not familiar with American values of workplace equality and non-harassment. I didn't know/understand is a valid excuse. Until someone tells you. This has been noted in the post. Quoted for your convenience: Thus Uber’s moronic decision was a blood insult to the women in the group. You would think that when Fowler pointed out the error to the manager, he would have instantly recognized the scope of the blunder. As a side note: non-harassment is a value in most parts of the world as far as I'm aware. There is nothing America-specific about it.

a3n 10y ago

Really? Uber won't pay full price for six jackets? This is either sexist, or an example of their obsession for getting anything for less, including the services of contractor/employees. Or both.

syshax 10y ago
I agree. There was a report in December that they had lost $800 million in the previous quarter. It seems like utter insanity that: 1. They'd even bat an eyelash at paying retail for the needed quantity, and 2. They'd think it's even remotely ok to exclude a section of the team completely due to any reason (sex, race, size, whatever) Yes, it's just a jacket, but this definitely smells of a deep seeded cultural problem due to how ludicrous it is.
- btown 10y ago
  One must remember that individual managers have budgets much more stringent than the overall burn. That said, the manager didn't feel it necessary or acceptable to escalate what could clearly become an HR nightmare to ask for an expansion of budget. That such a request would expend enough political favor to make it a nonstarter, is indicative of an institutional problem.
vogt 10y ago
Well, by definition, it's the former, whether as a byproduct of the latter or for whatever other root cause.
- nickff 10y ago
  Interestingly, you could also make the case that buying "women's" jackets for the women on the team is sexist, as it does involve treating them differently on the basis of sex. The only non-sexist way to give out these jackets is to ask people which 'sex' of jacket they want, along with their size.
  - PhasmaFelis 10y ago

sriram_sun 10y ago

I spoke with a recruiter from the Uber "money" team a few weeks back. They are investing 2 Billion per year just for that team.

anigbrowl 10y ago

Smart companies should start giving ethical puzzles to their management candidates. Many tech companies select from the pool of engineers by setting clever brainteasers to evaluate their problem-solving ability. How many do the same to evaluate supervisors' understanding of social technology and relations? I know some firms have ethicists on staff, but they seem to be there more to guide and/or provide cover for working with potentially dangerous technology. I don't get the impression that they have much input into shaping the organization's culture beyond signing off on a list of diversity goals. I'd like to be wrong about this, though, can anyone shed more light on this question?

pm90 10y ago
You know, a sufficiently smart person would probably most likely know when their actions are ethically questionable, despite feigning ignorance when caught. These people act the way they do not because they are unaware, but they know they can get away with it. So they are most likely able to fly through any ethics puzzles. It is a difficult problem and I'm not sure what the solutions are. Perhaps that is why referalls are generally given so much weight by employers: I've always thought of that as a chain of trust starting with the founders and extending right down to lower-level employees. However, a colleague/friend that you know well to be amazing to you might still have rather questionable views on gender/race/nationality etc. which you don't know so even this chain of trust isn't unbreakable...
- fancy_pantser 10y ago
  I am reminded of reading The Prince in college and hearing about virtù. Although you may think it's simply translated as "virtue", it's actually a very loaded concept in his works. Machiavelli employs "virtù" to refer to the range of personal qualities that the prince will find it necessary to acquire in order to “maintain his state” and to “achieve great things,” the two standard markers of power for him. This makes it brutally clear there can be no equivalence between the conventional virtues and Machiavellian virtù. Machiavelli expects princes of the highest virtù to be capable, as the situation requires, of behaving in a completely evil fashion. The managers probably thought their actions were in the "raison d'État". To extend Levy's simile from the article, the male engineers wore the leather jackets with the élan of fighter pilots and the virtù of The Prince.

nunez 10y ago

So a note on Google's leather jackets that is completely tangential to the article: They source theirs from Golden Bear, who make amazingly high quality jackets (on par with Schott). They are actually quite expensive at retail unless you buy them in bulk, which Google does.

theptip 10y ago
Since you seem to be quite familiar with the products, I'm interested to know -- can you estimate the difference between bulk and retail? Looks like ~$200 retail for the first jacket I clicked online. Would be interesting to estimate what percentage of the total spend Uber were short-changing their female employees over.
- drunken-serval 10y ago
  I can't speak for jackets but I do help run a convention that bulk orders t-shirts. If you want one custom t-shirt, it's $20+/shirt. If you bulk order, it's $3/shirt for 300. We also get t-shirts for our staff, those are $9/shirt for 20-40.
  - jcrawfordor 10y ago
    For screenprinted shirts there is a very substantial setup portion of the cost though, the actual shirts are dirt cheap in any case but the setup for the print run can take a worker a couple of hours for multiple screens. The result is that for small runs the setup cost dominates. Leather jackets are just expensive to begin with, so I would expect the item cost to dominate even for small order sizes, resulting in a much shallower discount curve. And even if the jackets were customized they were probably embroidered or had embroidered patches applied - the machines used for this are computer-controlled and there is essentially no setup cost involved (besides some time to prepress the art).
- nunez 10y ago
  Not sure on bulk but retail was around $400

steffan 10y ago

This is something that stood out to me in the original blog post as well. It is unfathomable to me that anyone in a leadership position could harbor such a myopic view. If this were my team and I somehow faced (at a Director level?) some resistance to the cost for the 6 women's jackets, I would have paid out of my own pocket.

kbenson 10y ago

> It is a person who almost certainly has no indication that he will suffer any negative consequences from essentially telling the very few women in his group — something that in and of itself should have been a prime concern to him — that they are not welcome in his organization. Also, keep in mind that Fowler's original story noted that when she started 25% of the organization was women, and when she left it was 6%. Have so few women should be a concern, having so few and that's partially because 75% of them have left in roughly a year's time should have been an "all hands on deck, company emergency, we're likely to be sued by multiple parties!" situation. Unless you have a really good explanation for why that is, chances are you've created an extremely hostile work environment. Even if you do have a good explanation, it's probably in your best interest to look at it with a more critical eye, because the stakes are so high. I mean, nobody want's to be stuck with such a bad PR nightmare that they feel the need to hire a former attorney general to signal how serious you're taking it. At that point, you're already screwed.

elgenie 10y ago
It's hard to see when the numbers are small and can be ascribed to one-off cases for quite some time if the blindness is willful enough. Let's say that the org started with 10 women out of 40, then two left the company for higher offers, one switched teams for a really good opportunity, another was fired for performing poorly, and then the last one is Fowler; meanwhile, a team of 30 men from a bought company was integrated into the org and of the five qualified women who came through the recruiting pipeline only one accepted her offer while 30 men did. Suddenly, there are 6 women out of 100.
- kbenson 10y ago
  I agree it can be hard to see, but that's why I think it's good to force yourself to look at it more critically. In your example, even if the 6% was reached in a fairly natural way, it still may result in a workplace that's less inviting to women than it used to be just to how much of a minority they've then become. This isn't just a CYA thing either, as diversity (not just in gender) pays dividends. For example, I'll point you towards the accidentally racist videogame[1]. 1: http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2017/01/12/how-we-accidentally-made-a-racist-videogame http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2017/01/12/how-we-accidentally-made-...

tobtoh 10y ago

The last line of the article is something that has been blazing out to me since the first few negative media articles started appearing about Uber's work practises. For all the continual PR damage control that the CEO utters, the problem is the CEO and the board. All the bad business practises that are leaking out aren't 'oversights', a generic 'management/process' problem, or actions of an isolated 'bad apple' - it's ingrained culture established by what the CEO allows explicitly or implicitly (through omission of action). The problem is at the very top of Uber.

dec0dedab0de 10y ago

I am confused why the jackets would be different in the first place. And the discount argument makes zero sense. If anything, this is a reason to find a different supplier, it's not like there is only one company making jackets.

ben010783 10y ago
Women's jackets tend to have small changes, like shorter length and zippers on the left. The small changes make the jacket fit and look better.
mst 10y ago
Even if it was precisely the same configuration of zips/pockets/etc. there's still the fact that a female cut garment can need to have different amounts of material to accommodate bust and hips. I accidentally bought a women's cut top at a goth festival once; the extra material across the chest was noticeable when wearing it (though other people didn't notice from just looking, so I happily wore that top for years anyway).

mememachine 10y ago

Uber seems like a really trashcan company from her post.

jonmc12 10y ago

"it is not a stupid person ... It is a person who almost certainly has no indication that he will suffer any negative consequences" Jackets and sexual advances are likely just the symptoms. From Fowler's account it sounds like root cause is a political culture where individuals (esp management) are incentivized to act in their own self interest. Any employee can safely ignore another if that other employee is not politically tied to their personal advancement. I'd like to think this is the wrong side of history, and that smart people should put their self-worth in acting in ways that optimize the benefit for all stakeholders. However, many political science theories predict just the opposite in large political organizations where selfish actors aggregating power end up at the top. I know very little about Uber's org, but a leader with a Machiavellian hat on would likely focus on hiring management that are adept at acting politically. A political culture will eventually weed out those who are not.

Analemma_ 10y ago
> From Fowler's account it sounds like root cause is a political culture where individuals (esp management) are incentivized to act in their own self interest. > I know very little about Uber's org, but a leader with a Machiavellian hat on would likely focus on hiring management that are adept at acting politically. Travis Kalanick is famously supportive of Objectivism, the philosophy where altruism is for losers and acting purely in motivated self-interest is the highest possible good. Once you know that, very little about Uber will surprise you anymore. Surprisingly (or not), running a business on Objectivist principles is a terrible idea. See the saga of Eddie Lampert who put Sears into a death spiral that way: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-11/at-sears-eddie-lamperts-warring-divisions-model-adds-to-the-troubles https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-07-11/at-sears-... I for one will be delighted to watch Uber follow their lead.
- BugsJustFindMe 10y ago
  Travis Kalanick is famously supportive of Objectivism, the philosophy where altruism is for losers and acting purely in motivated self-interest is the highest possible good. Once you know that, very little about Uber will surprise you anymore. Complicated. I happen to believe that, regardless of how one desires to spin it, everyone already acts in their own motivated self-interest. It's just a question of how wiling you are to see interest and where you draw your connections. For example it is in my personal interest to not harm others usually because harming others makes me feel more bad in many instances than whatever I would stand to gain. Generally speaking when people feel that way we call them good people, and when people don't feel that way we call them sociopaths. The problem isn't that Travis Kalanick believes that he should act in his own self interest. The problem is that Travis Kalanick doesn't feel bad when harming others.

wyldfire 10y ago

Do private equity firms audit their investments' processes/practices? What at astonishing way expose themselves to liability and destroy their brand while alienating talent at the same time.

6stringmerc 10y ago

Penny-wise and pound foolish. Quite a lot of this scenario reminds me of a local case that got a bit of press, and it's analogous, as in bad thinking: Drunk guy takes a cab to hotel, doesn't want to pay cab driver $40, so he punches the cab driver and runs into the hotel. Cab driver follows, has hotel staff call Police. Police get info for drunk guy's room and knock. Drunk guy's friend answers and lets the Police in. Police discover bag after bag after bag full of Tax Return ID theft evidence. Multiple arrests, leading to other arrests in other states. Multi-million dollar bust...over a $40 cab fare... Yet another instance where "Do unto others" as a basic "Hmm is this fair" moment of reflection can be very enlightening. Other side of the fence type thing. I've been on both sides enough to understand it's not everybody's skill, but, eh, for management it's rather fundamental...

ouid 10y ago

I think that the company which sold the leather jackets is the one in the wrong, if the facts are correct in this example. If you are paying a bulk rate for jackets, that bulk rate must apply to male and female jackets. They don't have to be the same price at the end, but the discount has to apply to the entire order. I also, however, think that the facts are probably misrepresented in this article.

squeaky-clean 10y ago
> If you are paying a bulk rate for jackets, that bulk rate must apply to male and female jackets. They don't have to be the same price at the end, but the discount has to apply to the entire order. Group buys in fashion are very common, and this is never how they work. Two leather jackets of a different size but the same model will use the same materials and labor. A different jacket model (yes, even a female version), requires different cuts and maybe even different materials. This isn't uncommon at all, except for the part where Uber thought this made it okay to buy nothing for the women. Edit: Not even fashion, but anywhere really. If I want 10,000 of one IC, and 5 of another, I will not get a unit discount as if I had bought 10,005 of a generic item. I get a discount on the first IC, and full price on the latter.

grb423 10y ago

these misogynist women-hating lunks turn my stomach. They need to terminated immediately, be humiliated on social media and have their careers ruined forever. They can wear their stupid war jackets while they cry.

grzm 10y ago
Ranty comments do your passion no service regardless of the strength of your conviction.
- throwaway_374 10y ago
  I'm afraid controlled rationality has lost its cause sometime ago. Action and anger are now necessary.

watwut 10y ago

It gives some background to jacket thing. From all the complaints in the original article, I found this one puzzling. I understood that it was annoying, I did not understood why would someone pick that one as an example for article.

shitgoose 10y ago

cleverness of management at ueber (or anywhere else for that matter) is overrated. this story is typical example of idiocy that rules above certain level in each organization. janitors are the only ones that do honest and useful job. it is all downhill from there.

rudolf0 10y ago

>Instead he replied that if Uber paid a little more for the women’s jackets, they would have been beneficiaries of special privilege. This is standard bigot’s code for denying people protection from discrimination because of their gender, race, religion, or sexual preference. I think the jacket issue has Uber clearly in the wrong, but it's a huge stretch to claim that opposition to giving a minority group special privileges is always "standard bigot's code".

tzs 10y ago

I'm curious now. What do companies that give out company shirts or jackets do when everyone is male so there is no male/female style problem, but some of the males are fat enough or tall enough to need a big & tall size, and those sizes are not available or are a special order for the shirt/jacket they've chosen? There is enough basis in fact for the fat programmer stereotype that this surely must come up now and then. Another one I've seen is giving out food. My employer gave out hams one Christmas. There was one vegetarian, but he was a vegetarian for health reasons, not moral reasons, and was OK with getting that gift and then giving it to a friend of his who liked ham and everyone was happy. But what if we'd had someone who was vegetarian for religious reasons? Or someone who was not vegetarian but could not eat ham for religious reasons? Could giving out that ham be construed as discriminating against them on religious grounds? And would it matter that it was given out for Christmas, which is nominally a religious holiday, as opposed to if it had been given out for, say, President's Day, which is completely non-religious?

SilasX 10y ago
I'm pretty sure this issue has come up before, since I worked at a defense contractor that (I assume) wanted to buy employees a thanksgiving turkey, but had apparently converted it to "here's a $10 gift card for a major grocer that sells them" so you could get something else if turkey wasn't your thing.
gregshap 10y ago
> and those sizes are not available or are a special order for the shirt/jacket they've chosen? you get the special order, or get some other style and get the embroidering or whatever, or pick a different thing to get