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Others are speaking up about discrimination at Tesla

96 points by ameen 9y ago

0xbear 9y ago
I was wondering when the other shoe was going to drop. Now both of the "star" SV CEOs who had the gall to constructively engage with the administration are under fire for "harassment". I wonder how Thiel has managed to avoid these Alinsky playbook tactics so far. In any company of tens of thousands of people, you can always find a few people who are mistreated (even at such bastions of social justice as Google and Microsoft, see the recent news about Google's internal mailing list). The strategy in this case seems to be to take these few cases, and blow them completely out of proportion in social media to ensure political compliance from the CEO, or in this case just to punish for previous non-compliance. Not even the second coming of Steve Jobs is immune.
- simonsarris 9y ago
  > I wonder how Thiel has managed to avoid these Alinsky playbook tactics so far. Partly by being gay, partly by "that shoe dropped a while ago." He co-authored a book titled The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford in 1995. Per wiki: > In 2016, Thiel apologized for two statements he made in the book: 1) "The purpose of the rape crisis movement seems as much about vilifying men as about raising 'awareness'" and 2) "But since a multicultural rape charge may indicate nothing more than belated regret, a woman might 'realize' that she had been 'raped' the next day or even many days later." He stated: "More than two decades ago, I co-wrote a book with several insensitive, crudely argued statements. As I’ve said before, I wish I’d never written those things. I’m sorry for it. Rape in all forms is a crime. I regret writing passages that have been taken to suggest otherwise."
- devopsproject 9y ago
  > I wonder how Thiel has managed to avoid these Alinsky playbook tactics so far. Because your conspiracy theories aren't real.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    No kidding. Knowing how Musk is idolized around here, was anticipating some defense, but the ability to harness Trump to ignore real problems in these companies, that's..wow. And it's the top-most comment right now. How does that work?
    - bjl 9y ago
      > How does that work? Because most of HN have bought Musk's PR persona hook, line, and sinker.
    - devopsproject 9y ago
      Trump supporters are snowflakes who need safespaces and are always on the offensive to make sure you know they are the real victims.
      - sctb 9y ago
        Outright trolling like this is not OK on Hacker News. Please don't do it again.
        jubalfh 9y ago
        Misogyny, peddling conspiracy theories and blatant victim blaming are acceptable though? How about sarcasm?
        0xbear 9y ago
        If this is levied at me, I will concede the conspiracy theory charge. I have no evidence that this is "paid for by Soros" or anything like that. But to claim misogyny or victim blaming you need to point to some kind of verbiage which supports the claim. Nowhere did I deny that it could have happened (even though the only public source in this case was fired by an independent commission after her claims were found to be unsubstantiated) or that it does happen sometimes. My main issue is the use of anonymous sources to convict Tesla in the court of public opinion. Full disclosure: I don't own any Tesla product or stock and have never worked there.
- awinder 9y ago
  The fact that this comment hasn't been downvoted into oblivion yet (in fact, it may be the top comment on this thread right now) is galling. I'll go ahead and emphatically state that I did down-vote this, because chalking up someone being mistreated in the workforce to a coordinated liberal agenda will get you banned from the comment section on most real news websites, but apparently it makes you a fuckin' hero around here.
  - pixelcloud 9y ago
    OPs comment is so disconnected from the article its actually funny. That person did not read it.
    - 0xbear 9y ago
      How is it "disconnected from the article"? There's just one concrete accuser. The verbiage in the rest of the article makes it sound like women are systematically harassed and discriminated against at Tesla, which I'd bet a good amount of money is not true. I totally believe that in any large company there are a few douchebags who harass and discriminate against others (women and men alike). Literally any company of over 1000 people could be subject to this kind of ire. The question is then "cui bono"? The answer is pretty obvious: next time any SV exec will not even think to engage with people liberal elites don't like.
      - awinder 9y ago
        If you lent half the time & energy into reading, researching, and just general thinking about this problem that you have thinking about wild conspiracy theories, we'd all probably live in a better world for it. But we'll continue living in the bad world, because of it.
        0xbear 9y ago
        Dunno, the world where things are blown out of proportion by fake news and propaganda operatives seems pretty bad to me. They might not seem that bad to you until you're the target.
- drewrv 9y ago
  > In any company of tens of thousands of people, you can always find a few people who are mistreated It's how the company handles these situations that matters. If the guy who harassed Susan Fowler was fired instead of promoted, Kalanick would probably still have his job.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    Sure, but to say that Tesla sanctions systematic discrimination and harassment of women based on just one accusation and "anonymous" sources is a classic liberal playbook move.
    - caseydurfee 9y ago
      Hearing "Alinksy playbook" in 2017 is like hearing "Who Let the Dogs Out" in 2017. https://www.villagevoice.com/2012/01/29/ally-ally-alinsky-rightbloggers-see-saul-alinsky-everywhere-even-among-themselves/ https://www.villagevoice.com/2012/01/29/ally-ally-alinsky-ri... If you wish to be taken seriously by intelligent adults, maybe try to find a way to make your point that isn't just a word salad comprised of decade-old shibboleths.
      - 0xbear 9y ago
        Maybe you should read it? The patterns are unmistakable.
- dang 9y ago
  This is (a) changing the subject, (b) lacking information, (c) partisan flamebait and (d) ideological boilerplate ("Alinsky playbook"). That easily clears the bar to be called political trolling whether you meant it that way or not. On HN we judge that by effect, not intent, because effects are what we're trying to optimize for. (If anyone wants a further explanation see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20troll%20effects https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=...). Bottom line, please stop and please don't post like this to HN.
wiz21c 9y ago
Is it me or we are reading more and more about abuses ? So I'd say this or that company is not specifically problematic, but it's just women tend to be more vocal about the "difficulties" they encounter on the work place (I don't know how to express the fact that I think they are harassed but at the same time, being European, I'm not sure that what I have in mind is the same for those who read this; in my experience the harassment is subtle, it's more like "a subtle dose of socially accepted misogyny" (which I personally find unacceptable (I'm a man :) )
- bdcravens 9y ago
  I think for years women felt they didn't have a voice, so it's a bit of a tidal wave right now. Hopefully this flood will elicit enough change to make the changes needed so we hear less of it in the future for the right reasons.
- xbmcuser 9y ago
  1.) More women are speaking out as they feel they have a voice. 2.) More women are in the higher positions so other women feel someone at the top will listen to them.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
buckbova 9y ago
> We have had a few cases at Tesla where someone in a less represented group was actually given a job or promoted over more qualified highly represented candidates A few cases . . . unfortunately this is the world we live in, diversity over all else. Must be demoralizing to be that engineer passed over because they weren't in the right less represented group.
- harryf 9y ago
  It's interesting from Darwinian perspective; that as a species we've produced a system that could select a "less fit" candidate. I wonder if there are other examples of this type of behaviour in nature or if we're the first?
  - wavefunction 9y ago
    That presumes the system was already choosing "more fit" candidates. Given the system's historical inequities that claim seems suspect. How many women or ethnic minorities lost out on opportunities in the past because of who they were?
  - nostrademons 9y ago
    Oftentimes when an evolutionary process produces a "less fit" candidate, it's because our intuitive notions of what fitness is are wrong. A bunch of examples from business: Betamax vs. VHS is often cited as an example of the market rewarding an inferior technical solution. Betamax's picture quality was better, but the key VHS feature was you could fit a 90-100 minute feature film on a single tape (Betamax tapes were 1 hour). The market valued the ability to watch a single movie without changing tapes more than picture quality (and still does - look at all the YouTube videos that do horrible things to picture quality to get a full movie up while evading copyright detection). Intel x86 is often cited as a terrible instruction architecture. The mistake here is thinking that "ease of learning for newcomers" is the key value in an ISA. Most programmers are using compilers to generate assembly code anyway, and the key value that consumers want is "runs all my existing software, reasonably quickly". Intel correctly preferences backwards compatibility over elegance. Here's one from biology. Sickle-cell anemia is a terrible disease, leading to extremely painful episodes and often loss of limbs to gangrene. However, it confers increased resistance to malaria. In many of the areas where sickle-cell anemia is endemic, malaria is a bigger killer than gangrene. This is nature optimizing for the actual threat rather than the obvious threat. I'd be wary of drawing conclusions from a few headlines - often press cycles blow over. But if it turns out that this spate of sexual harassment headlines is the new normal rather than just momentary opportunism, it's possible that old models of who the critical constituency to please is are obsolete, and that women collectively now hold more economic power than the old boy's network. If you build a culture assuming that the old boy's network is the critical constituency, and then it turns out that assumption is invalid, then all of your evolutionary adaptations to that environment go out the window.
pseudometa 9y ago
Vandermeyden seems to be looking for a big payout and is drumming up the press. Too bad the Guaradian hasn't found additional cases to support the title. Seems like the Guardian is milking this one story for as long as they can.
daenz 9y ago
https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15724520/tesla-fires-female-engineer-claims-pervasive-harassment https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15724520/tesla-fires-femal... >Tesla fired the female engineer who earlier this year publicly made claims about “unwanted and pervasive harassment” at the electric carmaker, according to The Guardian. Tesla says it was justified in firing the engineer, AJ Vandermeyden, because her accusations were false, but Vandermeyden’s lawyers allege that it amounts to retaliation. I don't mean this to sound callous. Vandermeyden very well may have a case, or she may not. But from a game theory perspective, regardless of the merit of her case, it makes the most sense to allege some kind of harassment if you feel you are underperforming in your job and wish to get ahead, and you're in a protected class. The pros vastly outweigh the cons: cannot be fired, will be given special opportunities, potential payout if you are terminated, and you get social credit as a victim. The cons being you are fired (which probably would have happened anyways) or you are outed as a false accuser (very hard to prove in the realm of public opinion). Now I'm not saying she was underperforming, or that harassment didn't happen, but looking at this from the perspective of someone looking to exploit and abuse a system, this system has serious flaws that should be considered.
- buckbova 9y ago
  > The cons being you are fired (which probably would have happened anyways) or you are outed as a false accuser (very hard to prove in the realm of public opinion). And probably never getting hired again, at least by any reasonably rational male hiring manager. Too much risk.
- lern_too_spel 9y ago
  If you lose, you will be out lawyer fees, which will be high to fight a large company like Tesla, and any chance of future employment. The game doesn't work out the way you think.
- dleslie 9y ago
  If the individual were under-performing then that would have been adequate reason to fire them; there would be no need to fire them in retaliation for making the accusation. It certainly would have been a better reason for Tesla to provide, should they care at all about the sensitivity of their public image. Do you have evidence to support your speculation?
MichaelBurge 9y ago
This is a low-quality article, and should probably be changed to point to The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/05/tesla-sexual-harassment-discrimination-engineer-fired?CMP=share_btn_tw https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/05/tesla-sex...
davexunit 9y ago
Nearly all of the top-level comments thus far are disgusting and shameful. What is wrong with this place?
- devopsproject 9y ago
  It's summertime and the alt-right kids have a lot more free time now
- araglia 9y ago
  Fatigue of the subject possibly.
  - davexunit 9y ago
    The subject will be brought up again and again until the issues are addressed.
    - araglia 9y ago
      You mean perpetually then? This is not a problem that will ever go away in general. So people get tired of it. I could share some stories my mom told me about her workplace experiences from the 70s to the 90s. They're much more disturbing than being passed over for promotion. So perhaps things have gotten better.
      - kevincrane 9y ago
        > This is not a problem that will ever go away in general. So people get tired of it. If you're tired of reading about it, imagine how exhausting it must be for women who have to actually live with it.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        unholywars 9y ago
ams6110 9y ago
> She also recalled receiving a T-shirt as a new employee that depicted Musk as a superhero Wow. I think that would have me running for the door if that happened to me. I know CEO egos are big but that's seriously narcissistic.
- scient 9y ago
  Dont think these companies want to hire people who freak out over meaningless things like this...
  - bjl 9y ago
    Having a severe narcissist as CEO is hardly 'meaningless'.
    - perfectstorm 9y ago
      we don't even know if it was Elon's idea.
      - Jach 9y ago
        Even if it was, I think if you're going to work for Elon as "just a regular job" you're not going to last very long. Embrace the personality cult while it lasts and work on something incredible with all of your focus.
- sushisource 9y ago
  You're assuming it was his idea. I doubt that.
driverdan 9y ago
Can we get this switched from Verge's blogspam to the original source? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/05/tesla-sexual-harassment-discrimination-engineer-fired https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/05/tesla-sex...
- thsowers 9y ago
  Wish the Guardian had a better title than "She took on Tesla for discrimination. Now others are speaking up. 'It's too big to deny'"
- notadoc 9y ago
  Does Verge produce anything original or is it all blog regurgitation? How much of the web today is blog revomit vs original content?
  - Dirlewanger 9y ago
    They were OK their first year or so, then they went the way of every other reactionary "news" site and peddled clickbait and incendiary political op-eds.
    - cholantesh 9y ago
      Not sure what you mean by reactionary; they seem pretty centre-left.
- sctb 9y ago
  Thanks, we've updated the link from https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/5/15922816/tesla-sexism-harassment-predator-zone-vandermeyden https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/5/15922816/tesla-sexism-hara... to this.
TaizWeb 9y ago
I wonder how long this trend will go on for, and how many wrongful accusations will come out of it. That's not to say all of these claims are fabrications, but it really does seem to be a bandwagon-type of situation. If you'd recall an earlier scandal with a youtube star, Sam Pepper, after the first woman came forward dozens of others claimed to have been sexually harassed by him. At the end of it, it was proven he had never sexually harassed anyone, and that the videos were "pranks" to garner views by Pepper himself. I believe something similar is happening here, and once women see they can make claims with little to no evidence and receive publicity, a flood of them "come forward" in an attempt to gain it.
- beepboopbeep 9y ago
  Why wouldn't groups of people come forward once they find out that they aren't the only one enduring some bull shit?
thebiglebrewski 9y ago
I am here to say (as a Tesla owner), that I truly hope this kind of behavior is not being tolerated by Tesla. I would hope Elon Musk or someone high up at the company investigates these claims. If they are baseless, they are baseless, but they are still worth investigating and possibly taking disciplinary and work process steps to fix them. In regards to Vandenmeyer's story: from what I've read...I'm not sure I think it's super credible. I certainly could be wrong though. I want to believe in Tesla just as much as the next tech-focused person, but of course I want them to have good corporate ethics and ferret out cases like this/investigate them. I would hope meaningfully!
- calafrax 9y ago
  I think Tesla's and Elon Musk's response of publicly attacking this woman almost certainly indicates that they are at fault. If this woman's claims were false they would do best to keep quiet and wait for the legal process. They have a huge advantage with both the money to pay lawyers and many fawning media outlets willing to support them so if they were in the right they would be guaranteed to win if they just waited it out. Going on the offensive is dangerous because it makes them look bad and draws more attention to the story. Attacking this woman would be very stupid unless they are actually in the wrong, in which case it makes perfect sense as an attempt to intimidate other employees into not speaking out.
  - bsder 9y ago
    > Attacking this woman would be very stupid unless they are actually in the wrong Or unless they think they are very right. I find them opening their mouth at all to be quite surprising. I find the firing with a reason given even MORE surprising. This is either complete and total incompetence (not at all impossible), or the Tesla lawyers must think they are on amazingly solid ground.
    - qb45 9y ago
      > This is either complete and total incompetence (not at all impossible), or the Tesla lawyers must think they are on amazingly solid ground. They seem to feel extremely confident indeed, this is from the previous the Guardian article on this story: Tesla has continued to strongly reject Vandermeyden’s claims. A spokesperson said the company had “conducted a thorough internal investigation” and “extensively re-reviewed all the facts”, repeatedly concluding that her allegations were false.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jubalfh 9y ago
(I wonder if the lovely gentlemen here realise that being a victim of harassment is stressful enough to impact performance.)
- village-idiot 9y ago
  Probably not.
EddieSpeaks 9y ago
The timing is kinda convenient isn't it? They just announced the Model 3 is on sale - this would be a great and convenient time to short against the company stock
village-idiot 9y ago
What I see here is a mixture of tech's standard gender issues along with the hazards of "changing the world". If you think that you're changing the world, it's very easy to dismiss other concerns as less important than your core mission. This problem only gets worse if you actually are changing the world. At the end of the day, even Tesla is just a company with a bunch of people working their day job, you do need to make sure that your employees feel safe and enjoy their time there within reasonable bounds

96 points by ameen 9y ago

I was wondering when the other shoe was going to drop. Now both of the "star" SV CEOs who had the gall to constructively engage with the administration are under fire for "harassment". I wonder how Thiel has managed to avoid these Alinsky playbook tactics so far. In any company of tens of thousands of people, you can always find a few people who are mistreated (even at such bastions of social justice as Google and Microsoft, see the recent news about Google's internal mailing list). The strategy in this case seems to be to take these few cases, and blow them completely out of proportion in social media to ensure political compliance from the CEO, or in this case just to punish for previous non-compliance. Not even the second coming of Steve Jobs is immune.

simonsarris 9y ago
> I wonder how Thiel has managed to avoid these Alinsky playbook tactics so far. Partly by being gay, partly by "that shoe dropped a while ago." He co-authored a book titled The Diversity Myth: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Intolerance at Stanford in 1995. Per wiki: > In 2016, Thiel apologized for two statements he made in the book: 1) "The purpose of the rape crisis movement seems as much about vilifying men as about raising 'awareness'" and 2) "But since a multicultural rape charge may indicate nothing more than belated regret, a woman might 'realize' that she had been 'raped' the next day or even many days later." He stated: "More than two decades ago, I co-wrote a book with several insensitive, crudely argued statements. As I’ve said before, I wish I’d never written those things. I’m sorry for it. Rape in all forms is a crime. I regret writing passages that have been taken to suggest otherwise."
devopsproject 9y ago
> I wonder how Thiel has managed to avoid these Alinsky playbook tactics so far. Because your conspiracy theories aren't real.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  No kidding. Knowing how Musk is idolized around here, was anticipating some defense, but the ability to harness Trump to ignore real problems in these companies, that's..wow. And it's the top-most comment right now. How does that work?
  - bjl 9y ago
    > How does that work? Because most of HN have bought Musk's PR persona hook, line, and sinker.
  - devopsproject 9y ago
    Trump supporters are snowflakes who need safespaces and are always on the offensive to make sure you know they are the real victims.
    - sctb 9y ago
      Outright trolling like this is not OK on Hacker News. Please don't do it again.
      - jubalfh 9y ago
        Misogyny, peddling conspiracy theories and blatant victim blaming are acceptable though? How about sarcasm?
        0xbear 9y ago
        If this is levied at me, I will concede the conspiracy theory charge. I have no evidence that this is "paid for by Soros" or anything like that. But to claim misogyny or victim blaming you need to point to some kind of verbiage which supports the claim. Nowhere did I deny that it could have happened (even though the only public source in this case was fired by an independent commission after her claims were found to be unsubstantiated) or that it does happen sometimes. My main issue is the use of anonymous sources to convict Tesla in the court of public opinion. Full disclosure: I don't own any Tesla product or stock and have never worked there.
awinder 9y ago
The fact that this comment hasn't been downvoted into oblivion yet (in fact, it may be the top comment on this thread right now) is galling. I'll go ahead and emphatically state that I did down-vote this, because chalking up someone being mistreated in the workforce to a coordinated liberal agenda will get you banned from the comment section on most real news websites, but apparently it makes you a fuckin' hero around here.
- pixelcloud 9y ago
  OPs comment is so disconnected from the article its actually funny. That person did not read it.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    How is it "disconnected from the article"? There's just one concrete accuser. The verbiage in the rest of the article makes it sound like women are systematically harassed and discriminated against at Tesla, which I'd bet a good amount of money is not true. I totally believe that in any large company there are a few douchebags who harass and discriminate against others (women and men alike). Literally any company of over 1000 people could be subject to this kind of ire. The question is then "cui bono"? The answer is pretty obvious: next time any SV exec will not even think to engage with people liberal elites don't like.
    - awinder 9y ago
      If you lent half the time & energy into reading, researching, and just general thinking about this problem that you have thinking about wild conspiracy theories, we'd all probably live in a better world for it. But we'll continue living in the bad world, because of it.
      - 0xbear 9y ago
        Dunno, the world where things are blown out of proportion by fake news and propaganda operatives seems pretty bad to me. They might not seem that bad to you until you're the target.
drewrv 9y ago
> In any company of tens of thousands of people, you can always find a few people who are mistreated It's how the company handles these situations that matters. If the guy who harassed Susan Fowler was fired instead of promoted, Kalanick would probably still have his job.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  Sure, but to say that Tesla sanctions systematic discrimination and harassment of women based on just one accusation and "anonymous" sources is a classic liberal playbook move.
  - caseydurfee 9y ago
    Hearing "Alinksy playbook" in 2017 is like hearing "Who Let the Dogs Out" in 2017. https://www.villagevoice.com/2012/01/29/ally-ally-alinsky-rightbloggers-see-saul-alinsky-everywhere-even-among-themselves/ https://www.villagevoice.com/2012/01/29/ally-ally-alinsky-ri... If you wish to be taken seriously by intelligent adults, maybe try to find a way to make your point that isn't just a word salad comprised of decade-old shibboleths.
    - 0xbear 9y ago
      Maybe you should read it? The patterns are unmistakable.
dang 9y ago
This is (a) changing the subject, (b) lacking information, (c) partisan flamebait and (d) ideological boilerplate ("Alinsky playbook"). That easily clears the bar to be called political trolling whether you meant it that way or not. On HN we judge that by effect, not intent, because effects are what we're trying to optimize for. (If anyone wants a further explanation see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20troll%20effects https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=...). Bottom line, please stop and please don't post like this to HN.

wiz21c 9y ago

Is it me or we are reading more and more about abuses ? So I'd say this or that company is not specifically problematic, but it's just women tend to be more vocal about the "difficulties" they encounter on the work place (I don't know how to express the fact that I think they are harassed but at the same time, being European, I'm not sure that what I have in mind is the same for those who read this; in my experience the harassment is subtle, it's more like "a subtle dose of socially accepted misogyny" (which I personally find unacceptable (I'm a man :) )

bdcravens 9y ago
I think for years women felt they didn't have a voice, so it's a bit of a tidal wave right now. Hopefully this flood will elicit enough change to make the changes needed so we hear less of it in the future for the right reasons.
xbmcuser 9y ago
1.) More women are speaking out as they feel they have a voice. 2.) More women are in the higher positions so other women feel someone at the top will listen to them.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

buckbova 9y ago

> We have had a few cases at Tesla where someone in a less represented group was actually given a job or promoted over more qualified highly represented candidates A few cases . . . unfortunately this is the world we live in, diversity over all else. Must be demoralizing to be that engineer passed over because they weren't in the right less represented group.

harryf 9y ago
It's interesting from Darwinian perspective; that as a species we've produced a system that could select a "less fit" candidate. I wonder if there are other examples of this type of behaviour in nature or if we're the first?
- wavefunction 9y ago
  That presumes the system was already choosing "more fit" candidates. Given the system's historical inequities that claim seems suspect. How many women or ethnic minorities lost out on opportunities in the past because of who they were?
- nostrademons 9y ago
  Oftentimes when an evolutionary process produces a "less fit" candidate, it's because our intuitive notions of what fitness is are wrong. A bunch of examples from business: Betamax vs. VHS is often cited as an example of the market rewarding an inferior technical solution. Betamax's picture quality was better, but the key VHS feature was you could fit a 90-100 minute feature film on a single tape (Betamax tapes were 1 hour). The market valued the ability to watch a single movie without changing tapes more than picture quality (and still does - look at all the YouTube videos that do horrible things to picture quality to get a full movie up while evading copyright detection). Intel x86 is often cited as a terrible instruction architecture. The mistake here is thinking that "ease of learning for newcomers" is the key value in an ISA. Most programmers are using compilers to generate assembly code anyway, and the key value that consumers want is "runs all my existing software, reasonably quickly". Intel correctly preferences backwards compatibility over elegance. Here's one from biology. Sickle-cell anemia is a terrible disease, leading to extremely painful episodes and often loss of limbs to gangrene. However, it confers increased resistance to malaria. In many of the areas where sickle-cell anemia is endemic, malaria is a bigger killer than gangrene. This is nature optimizing for the actual threat rather than the obvious threat. I'd be wary of drawing conclusions from a few headlines - often press cycles blow over. But if it turns out that this spate of sexual harassment headlines is the new normal rather than just momentary opportunism, it's possible that old models of who the critical constituency to please is are obsolete, and that women collectively now hold more economic power than the old boy's network. If you build a culture assuming that the old boy's network is the critical constituency, and then it turns out that assumption is invalid, then all of your evolutionary adaptations to that environment go out the window.

pseudometa 9y ago

Vandermeyden seems to be looking for a big payout and is drumming up the press. Too bad the Guaradian hasn't found additional cases to support the title. Seems like the Guardian is milking this one story for as long as they can.

daenz 9y ago

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15724520/tesla-fires-female-engineer-claims-pervasive-harassment https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15724520/tesla-fires-femal... >Tesla fired the female engineer who earlier this year publicly made claims about “unwanted and pervasive harassment” at the electric carmaker, according to The Guardian. Tesla says it was justified in firing the engineer, AJ Vandermeyden, because her accusations were false, but Vandermeyden’s lawyers allege that it amounts to retaliation. I don't mean this to sound callous. Vandermeyden very well may have a case, or she may not. But from a game theory perspective, regardless of the merit of her case, it makes the most sense to allege some kind of harassment if you feel you are underperforming in your job and wish to get ahead, and you're in a protected class. The pros vastly outweigh the cons: cannot be fired, will be given special opportunities, potential payout if you are terminated, and you get social credit as a victim. The cons being you are fired (which probably would have happened anyways) or you are outed as a false accuser (very hard to prove in the realm of public opinion). Now I'm not saying she was underperforming, or that harassment didn't happen, but looking at this from the perspective of someone looking to exploit and abuse a system, this system has serious flaws that should be considered.

buckbova 9y ago
> The cons being you are fired (which probably would have happened anyways) or you are outed as a false accuser (very hard to prove in the realm of public opinion). And probably never getting hired again, at least by any reasonably rational male hiring manager. Too much risk.
lern_too_spel 9y ago
If you lose, you will be out lawyer fees, which will be high to fight a large company like Tesla, and any chance of future employment. The game doesn't work out the way you think.
dleslie 9y ago
If the individual were under-performing then that would have been adequate reason to fire them; there would be no need to fire them in retaliation for making the accusation. It certainly would have been a better reason for Tesla to provide, should they care at all about the sensitivity of their public image. Do you have evidence to support your speculation?

MichaelBurge 9y ago

This is a low-quality article, and should probably be changed to point to The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/05/tesla-sexual-harassment-discrimination-engineer-fired?CMP=share_btn_tw https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/05/tesla-sex...

davexunit 9y ago

Nearly all of the top-level comments thus far are disgusting and shameful. What is wrong with this place?

devopsproject 9y ago
It's summertime and the alt-right kids have a lot more free time now
araglia 9y ago
Fatigue of the subject possibly.
- davexunit 9y ago
  The subject will be brought up again and again until the issues are addressed.
  - araglia 9y ago
    You mean perpetually then? This is not a problem that will ever go away in general. So people get tired of it. I could share some stories my mom told me about her workplace experiences from the 70s to the 90s. They're much more disturbing than being passed over for promotion. So perhaps things have gotten better.
    - kevincrane 9y ago
      > This is not a problem that will ever go away in general. So people get tired of it. If you're tired of reading about it, imagine how exhausting it must be for women who have to actually live with it.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - unholywars 9y ago

ams6110 9y ago

> She also recalled receiving a T-shirt as a new employee that depicted Musk as a superhero Wow. I think that would have me running for the door if that happened to me. I know CEO egos are big but that's seriously narcissistic.

scient 9y ago
Dont think these companies want to hire people who freak out over meaningless things like this...
- bjl 9y ago
  Having a severe narcissist as CEO is hardly 'meaningless'.
  - perfectstorm 9y ago
    we don't even know if it was Elon's idea.
    - Jach 9y ago
      Even if it was, I think if you're going to work for Elon as "just a regular job" you're not going to last very long. Embrace the personality cult while it lasts and work on something incredible with all of your focus.
sushisource 9y ago
You're assuming it was his idea. I doubt that.

driverdan 9y ago

Can we get this switched from Verge's blogspam to the original source? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/05/tesla-sexual-harassment-discrimination-engineer-fired https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/05/tesla-sex...

thsowers 9y ago
Wish the Guardian had a better title than "She took on Tesla for discrimination. Now others are speaking up. 'It's too big to deny'"
notadoc 9y ago
Does Verge produce anything original or is it all blog regurgitation? How much of the web today is blog revomit vs original content?
- Dirlewanger 9y ago
  They were OK their first year or so, then they went the way of every other reactionary "news" site and peddled clickbait and incendiary political op-eds.
  - cholantesh 9y ago
    Not sure what you mean by reactionary; they seem pretty centre-left.
sctb 9y ago
Thanks, we've updated the link from https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/5/15922816/tesla-sexism-harassment-predator-zone-vandermeyden https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/5/15922816/tesla-sexism-hara... to this.

TaizWeb 9y ago

I wonder how long this trend will go on for, and how many wrongful accusations will come out of it. That's not to say all of these claims are fabrications, but it really does seem to be a bandwagon-type of situation. If you'd recall an earlier scandal with a youtube star, Sam Pepper, after the first woman came forward dozens of others claimed to have been sexually harassed by him. At the end of it, it was proven he had never sexually harassed anyone, and that the videos were "pranks" to garner views by Pepper himself. I believe something similar is happening here, and once women see they can make claims with little to no evidence and receive publicity, a flood of them "come forward" in an attempt to gain it.

beepboopbeep 9y ago
Why wouldn't groups of people come forward once they find out that they aren't the only one enduring some bull shit?

thebiglebrewski 9y ago

I am here to say (as a Tesla owner), that I truly hope this kind of behavior is not being tolerated by Tesla. I would hope Elon Musk or someone high up at the company investigates these claims. If they are baseless, they are baseless, but they are still worth investigating and possibly taking disciplinary and work process steps to fix them. In regards to Vandenmeyer's story: from what I've read...I'm not sure I think it's super credible. I certainly could be wrong though. I want to believe in Tesla just as much as the next tech-focused person, but of course I want them to have good corporate ethics and ferret out cases like this/investigate them. I would hope meaningfully!

calafrax 9y ago
I think Tesla's and Elon Musk's response of publicly attacking this woman almost certainly indicates that they are at fault. If this woman's claims were false they would do best to keep quiet and wait for the legal process. They have a huge advantage with both the money to pay lawyers and many fawning media outlets willing to support them so if they were in the right they would be guaranteed to win if they just waited it out. Going on the offensive is dangerous because it makes them look bad and draws more attention to the story. Attacking this woman would be very stupid unless they are actually in the wrong, in which case it makes perfect sense as an attempt to intimidate other employees into not speaking out.
- bsder 9y ago
  > Attacking this woman would be very stupid unless they are actually in the wrong Or unless they think they are very right. I find them opening their mouth at all to be quite surprising. I find the firing with a reason given even MORE surprising. This is either complete and total incompetence (not at all impossible), or the Tesla lawyers must think they are on amazingly solid ground.
  - qb45 9y ago
    > This is either complete and total incompetence (not at all impossible), or the Tesla lawyers must think they are on amazingly solid ground. They seem to feel extremely confident indeed, this is from the previous the Guardian article on this story: Tesla has continued to strongly reject Vandermeyden’s claims. A spokesperson said the company had “conducted a thorough internal investigation” and “extensively re-reviewed all the facts”, repeatedly concluding that her allegations were false.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jubalfh 9y ago

(I wonder if the lovely gentlemen here realise that being a victim of harassment is stressful enough to impact performance.)

village-idiot 9y ago
Probably not.

EddieSpeaks 9y ago

The timing is kinda convenient isn't it? They just announced the Model 3 is on sale - this would be a great and convenient time to short against the company stock

village-idiot 9y ago

What I see here is a mixture of tech's standard gender issues along with the hazards of "changing the world". If you think that you're changing the world, it's very easy to dismiss other concerns as less important than your core mission. This problem only gets worse if you actually are changing the world. At the end of the day, even Tesla is just a company with a bunch of people working their day job, you do need to make sure that your employees feel safe and enjoy their time there within reasonable bounds