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Uber board director and CTO under pressure in sexual harassment investigation
- marvel_boy 9y ago>He has already been frequently away from the office, sources say, and his absence is unlikely to have a huge impact on the day-to-day operations of the company. > But he is a loyalist This explains a lot.
- ybrah 9y ago>As a high-profile non-white engineering executive at a company that is under scrutiny for its lack of diversity among its technical employee Why does this matter
- ska 9y agoDoesn't the next sentence answer your question?
- seany 9y agoBecause shouldn't matter if you're judging things by merit.
- jimmywanger 9y agoNo, it doesn't. All of a sudden, Asian people become a minority when it suits the narrative. There are plenty of Asians (South and East) at all the tech companies being castigated for lack of ethnic diversity. You can't have it both ways.
- kurthr 9y agoHmmm... so if there are more of a particular minority (at other companies) than another then they don't count for diversity? Got it. Wow... can't count women either, they are over half the population!... hmmM
- jimmywanger 9y agoNo, there are more asians by percentage in tech companies than asians by percentage of the general population. If asians count for diversity, there is no lack of diversity of tech companies. If asians don't count for diversity, then the author's point is invalid since it shouldn't matter to morale whether or not the fired person was white or asian.
- ska 9y agoIf asians count for diversity, there is no lack of diversity of tech companies. This statement doesn't really make sense. By definition, no one group (or two for that matter) can "count for diversity", as "diversity" is the absence of such clustering.
- jimmywanger 9y agoThe article implies that the lack of diversity, coupled with the fact that the CTO who is leaving could lower employee morale. I don't know how else to parse that statement. If absence of such clustering is the meaning of "diversity", why would the departure of an ethnic CTO cause lowered morale?
- ska 9y agoThe next sentence is about morale. I fail to see how your comment is relevant.
- jimmywanger 9y agoBecause Asians are generally not considered minorities for purposes of diversity. Whether that's right or not is another subject. Since they're not considered minorities, the lack of diversity and their ethnicity should not affect morale at all.
- ska 9y agoAh, well that is certainly not what the article was claiming, or what the context of the quoted sentence is. So whether or not your contention is correct, it is of no help to the original comment.
- Apocryphon 9y agoNot many at c-level positions.
- jimmywanger 9y agoThe CEO of Nvidia is an Asian man. The CEO of Alphabet is an Asian man.
- Apocryphon 9y agohttp://documents.latimes.com/hidden-plain-sight-asians-americans-silicon-valley/ http://documents.latimes.com/hidden-plain-sight-asians-ameri... http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/In-tech-even-Asians-are-left-out-at-the-top-5709457.php http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/In-tech-even-Asians...
- mkching 9y agoI could very well be wrong, but it is not my impression that Vietnamese are very prevalent in tech.
- arjie 9y agoDude, there's no nice way to tell you this: you're going to have to finish reading sentences.
- cjslep 9y agoAs someone who has put effort into writing a reply to you,
- sctb 9y agoPlease don't troll like this. If you have a point or a question, make it (clearly).
- ejlangev 9y agoAnother day, another negative Uber story. They've totally lost control of the narrative about all this stuff.
- ondross 9y agoTo be fair, this isn't a new story. It looks like a positive development to me: they're obviously taking the investigation seriously.
- dnautics 9y agoThat's interesting. In a bigger company how much of a responsibility should the CTO have to handle harassment incidents. Imo, as long as he or she hands off to the coo (say), or hr chief, the responsibility is complete. The CTO should not be regularly dealing with these sorts of issues, that's not what they were hired for.... (With understanding that legally that may not be the case)
- supercanuck 9y agoSounds like the age old MBA debate of what makes a leaders versus a manager.
- Bahamut 9y agoNot sure why you're downvoted for this comment - for those who don't understand it, it is referencing the explicit responsibility about getting the information to the person whose domain it is vs. doing more and making sure that it is resolved properly. The manager does strictly what is the person's responsibility, the leader makes sure that the person under him/her gets a satisfactory resolution - the leader does this because it affects individual & team morale and sets the example that that is what is expected (to a positive end). The leader also employs his/her abilities endowed upon the position to make sure it isn't forgotten, which builds trust, transparency, and fosters an open culture - the one who is purely focused on just managing actively works against all of these points by not exerting leadership.
- hashkb 9y ago> as long as he or she hands off to the coo (say), or hr chief, the responsibility is complete. Especially since, in this case, the problem is happening in the CTO's organization, the hand-off isn't enough. It's definitely the kind of thing you follow up on, and see through to resolution. Out of pure self interest, a CTO would do this to protect the productivity of the org, and maybe also because it's obviously the right thing to do.
- maxxxxx 9y agoThere is this famous quote from I think Steve Jobs. It says that once you are VP or CT* there are no excuses for things going wrong in your department. You are the responsible person.
- hashkb 9y ago> [Firing these guys] would certainly prove that Uber no longer rewards “high performers” in spite of human resources infractions. No... it would only prove they are willing to throw a few to the mob to save the rest.
- ondross 9y agoIt doesn't really "prove" either one, but it is a step in the right direction. I think we should be encouraging companies to address their issues. Being cynical about it doesn't really help. That said, I agree with you that if they think their hands are now clean, they've sort of missed the point.
- korzun 9y ago> It doesn't really "prove" either one, but it is a step in the right direction. Mind sharing whatever information you have that shows that CTO was aware of everything HR and other managers were trying to sweep under the rug?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- fil_a_del_fee_a 9y agoA. Huffington is on the board of Uber? Ugh.. Another reason to use Lyft.
- xyzzy_plugh 9y agoMay I ask why? If she were on the board of Lyft, would you feel different?
- fil_a_del_fee_a 9y agoI really don't like her website. She is a propagandist. If she was on the board of lyft, I would probably still use lyft, but I would be wary.
- wand3r 9y agoI read the Clinton email chain; I find Huffington to be unethical and a general disgrace. Her appearance on this board is obviously a political stunt / leverage of her influence just like the Clinton campaign. Maybe this was down voted because you provided no reason; but there are many to dislike AH and she fits in well with this Org in my opinion
- EternalData 9y agohttps://backchannel.com/how-the-tech-press-forces-a-narrative-on-companies-it-covers-5f89fdb7793e https://backchannel.com/how-the-tech-press-forces-a-narrativ... "A company’s narrative moves like a clock: it starts at midnight, ticking off the hours. The tone and sentiment about how a business is doing move from positive (sunrise, midday) to negative (dusk, darkness). And often the story returns to midnight, rebirth and a new day." I feel like Uber is starting to see if it can hit midnight.
- r_coase 9y agoWas there any new information from the investigation in this article or was it strictly a hit piece? I've read it twice and the only thing it is saying is that two executives were responsible because of their position in the org chart, which isn't new information AFAIK. Since it doesn't seem that Graves or Thuan did anything wrong, I'm trying to understand what vested interest recode has in terms of trying to get either executive thrown under the bus. Do they just want another executive out, any executive, so they can write another piece about people who have left the company? At worst, one can make some sort of claim of professional negligence due to their positions but it's entirely possible the buck stopped with Renee. We simply don't have enough information to judge either of these two at this point but Recode is painting them as guilty. If they have smoking gun evidence, they should present that, but if they are trying to ruin the lives of these two for the sake of ad impressions, that's incredibly slimy and a breach of professional ethics for a journalist. The only new information AFAICT are a few insider opinions about these two executives that may have come from someone being merely descriptive or with an ax to grind. Those quotes were also completely unrelated to the investigation. Recode isn't practicing journalism here. They are using a few quotes to craft they own story that is pure speculation. Last I heard, that's called fiction, not journalism. One should not be writing fiction that will be interpreted as fact when it can cause real people to be hurt without merit.
- hackunomatter 9y ago> Since it doesn't seem that Graves or Thuan did anything wrong Wait, what? Did you read the article? If Fowler reported her problems to Thuan himself, then he most certainly bears responsibility, and needs to answer for that. Same with Graves: he was head of HR for periods over that time, and needs to answer too. Only when you start holding the top-level people accountable will the culture change. Throwing some flunky under the bus will never bring about serious change.
- r_coase 9y agoWithout bearing witness to that communication, how can you assign blame? What was said/written? There are so many unknowns here that it's all entirely inconclusive right now, yet people are happy to assign blame and responsibility with almost no information and evidence. Is that how you'd want your trial to be conducted if you were the accused? There are serious allegations here that merit more than a peanut gallery trial by public opinion and speculation. I'm not saying we shouldn't hold top management accountable, but we should have actual facts and details on what transpired so we know who to hold accountable.
- diebir 9y agoNothing there. The article says "maybe they will fire CTO and Graves" and then goes on to discuss how bad it would look. The initial premise however is that the firings would be done to make the company look better. Makes zero sense and contains no new information.
- gotothedoctor 9y agoAs soon as a senior executive becomes aware of any kind of illegal activity, malfeasance or behavior for which the company could be held liable, it becomes their responsibility. When Fowler reported her harassment & HR's failures directly to Thuan, he became obligated by fiduciary duty to deal with the problem. Thuan could not just hand it off to HR because HR (which was Graves' responsibility) had already failed Fowler--which is why she reported it to Thuan. Uber has never disputed Fowler's report, which points directly at Thuan & Graves. We'll see at the end of the month, but this kind leak from Uber suggests that the publicly released version of Holder's report will be PR puffery that'll blame it all on Thuan & Graves & attempt to vindicate Kalanick. Expect Huffington as the media messenger. She'll be outraged when anyone dares to suggest Travis knew. And ask if the interviewer is actually questioning Holder's integrity. I'm not sure who'd believe that Kalanick didn't know about any of it regardless.