I know you refer to the fact these stories happened; yes, very sad indeed.
But I'm happy all these stories are coming out. Definitely glad these women have had the courage to share them, hopefully enough public pressure can be built up to steer in the direction of change.
I'd rather have it there. Sure, there's no supporting evidence, but I want those still working at Uber to read it. They're in the position to decide whether it accords with their experience. Sometimes it can be hard to see what's in front of your face.
I don't necessarily agree, but I don't think this comment should be downvoted to oblivion. It is worth keeping in mind that these allegations are being made anonymously.
That said, given the level of detail and the consistency with other reports we've heard, I think this report sounds pretty credible.
sigh just trying to lighten the mood with a joke. -2 for that. Thanks HN. He did use the present tense :-P
serious comment: I think it's great these stories are getting out. Now women know what they will face at Uber. And perhaps someone will have the strength to sue them for discrimination.
Yeah, this can be a pretty serious crowd (which I actually think is a strength of HN, as humor can be so easily misinterpreted on Internet forums).
You've likely noticed how contentious and combative this topic has been in particular. A lot of people seem to be looking for any excuse to undercut another's comments. While that wasn't your intent, the lack of good faith that some people grant others can lead to unfortunate behavior. That's why I commented, by the way: to point out you may be misunderstanding your parent, not assuming you were acting in bad faith.
My opinion is that this anonymous post lacks credibility and the author is most likely LARPing. Is it really so offensive to have a skeptical view?
> It was normal for guys to refer to other guys as fags when they didn’t participate in private parties where sex and drugs were involved. It was normal for guys to openly refer to attractive female colleagues as sluts when they refused to go out with them.
The author just bared an intensely personal and traumatic experience, that historically, has served as an open door to abuse, doxing, not to mention legal threats and discrimination from future employment, when the post is inevitably connected to her identity.
The three-minute old account making a comment from the peanut gallery did nothing of the sort. The two are not at all equivalent.
There's enough information given in the story that virtually anybody who worked at Uber can name the people involved. Public naming and shaming is understandably desired, but unnecessary. It invites legal action.
The author could be afraid of lawsuits (even if it is true what she writes, that doesn't mean someone can't sue for libel/defamation/retaliate in some fashion).
So, just coming forward about these stories is impressive in itself. But both of the recent Uber stories have gone well beyond that: they're coming from people who had horrific experiences at the company and have not only worked up the courage to talk publicly about it, but have put together solid strategies for deflecting a lot of the scummy ways companies, and our society, would normally come after them.
To wit: Uber is a large company with fantastically deep pockets, a gaggle of high-powered lawyers, access to a strong media/PR machine, and a lot of glamour/adoration in the Silicon Valley/startup culture. But those strengths are being carefully neutered!
There's Susan Fowler's approach, which is first and foremost to make sure everybody knows she has documentation to back up her claims. That's a very clear message to Uber that 1) they never ever want to be in a discovery situation where she could start issuing subpoenas, since she's let them know that she knows where to get the damaging documents they don't want coming out, and 2) leaves them guessing just how much documentation she has, and so unsure of how to publicly reply: if they try to downplay the incidents she describes, or attack her record, they don't know whether she might produce proof that they're lying about it.
Then there's the approach here, which is detailed enough that the people it targets inside Uber certainly know who the author is and who she's writing about. But it does not divulge any identities with certainty to the public at large, which carries some similar "I left it at this level of detail, but maybe I could divulge a lot more if you provoked me" threat, but also makes it very difficult for Uber to attack her personally. To do so they'd have to out her and details of her employment record, and depending on the details that might put them obviously and publicly on the wrong side of a bunch of employment-related law as well as make them look like bullies.
I would barely be able to function, and maybe just wouldn't be able to, after some of the things that have been described as happening at Uber. I cannot imagine being able to not only call them out publicly, but also put together such a good strategy for doing so, and I have immense respect for Susan and "Amy" for managing it.
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." -John Dalberg-Acton. It saddens me how much I have seen that quote play out in my life...
It's honestly part of such a good quote, I feel compelled to post the rest.
"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means. You would hang a man of no position, like Ravaillac; but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. Here are the greater names coupled with the greater crimes. You would spare these criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them, higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice; still more, still higher, for the sake of historical science."
How right has he been proven, before and after his time? From athletes to politicians, from Steve Jobs to Winston Churchill.
Except I doubt these are "the nerds". These are likely the fratboys who studied business and are continuing their hazing and misogyny as managers after college.
> It was normal for our supervisors to openly appreciate the performance of one member over the other and publicly demean members who did not perform as per their expectations. Chauvinistic, racist and homophobic attitudes were far too normal at Uber. Once in a group chat, team members referred to a new Asian American recruit as slanty eye joe. It was normal for guys to refer to other guys as fags when they didn’t participate in private parties where sex and drugs were involved. It was normal for guys to openly refer to attractive female colleagues as sluts when they refused to go out with them. They had private chats where guys wrote sexual fantasy stories about female colleagues and supervisors where they performed all sorts of demeaning acts on the women. I confronted the guys on my team whenever they passed lewd comments about female supervisors but never felt comfortable confronting guys who were not in my team.
> It was normal for guys to refer to other guys as fags when they didn’t participate in private parties where sex and drugs were involved.
This was every douchebag in high school who would laugh at me for being interested in computers back in the early '00s. And now they're programmers 15 years later. Brogrammer culture squicks me out in several ways, but mostly because the same people who laughed at, mocked, and belittled anyone interested in programming are now invading our industry and driving the decent folk out.
That there is a stereotype that people interested in software engineering are "nerds" who are losers and picked on in school? That the stereotype is accurate, and "yet again" software engineers bully other people because they were bullied?
Wow, while I expected more stories to surface, this one seems to be a whole different level. But then again, Uber seems to be a really dysfunctional company.
"In essence, the HR department blackmailed me that if I make noise, I’d be fired. I was distraught by the HR department’s response especially considering that most of the HR folks I dealt with were women."
Say it over and over, say it loud, and say it to every single person entering the US workforce from day one:
H/R ACTS AND WILL ALWAYS ACT IN THE COMPANY'S BEST INTERESTS. NOT YOURS.
Amy's situation was grave, and kudos to her for getting out. But everyone should read these stories and burn this line into their heads permanently.
> H/R ACTS AND WILL ALWAYS ACT IN THE COMPANY'S BEST INTERESTS. NOT YOURS.
You're right, and here's the thing. It seems both women who've come forward would have open-and-shut cases against Uber for multi-millions in damages. It's surprising to me that neither have pursued Uber in this regard. Similarly, it's surprising to me that Uber HR hasn't done the mental calculus to figure out that these women have a solid case, and just fix the problem. Or, most disturbingly, Uber HR DID do the mental calculus, determined neither woman would sue; and, therefore, made the correct choices as "best for the company."
> It seems both women who've come forward would have open-and-shut cases against Uber for multi-millions in damages.
Is it possible that their contracts are written in such a way as to preclude this? Which if so is gross and shouldn't be allowed by contract law IMO, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me.
The Ellen Pao case found that, at least in California, an arbitration clause did not hold up. Hence why, despite her employer having such a clause in her contract, she was still able to go to trial.
> It's surprising to me that neither have pursued Uber in this regard.
Reasons to pursue sexual harassment litigation:
* You may make some money.
Reasons to not pursue sexual harassment litigation:
* You will have to devote an enormous amount of money, time, energy, health, and your emotional well-being.
* Your lawyers will take half the settlement, either in up front fees, or as a portion of the bounty.
* You will get to share, and then be brutally cross-examined about all the worst bullshit you had to endure in a courtroom.
* With so much money on the line, you will trigger a smear campaign against you, whose impact will persist long after the trial concludes.
* You want to program, instead of dealing with legal bullshit.
* You just want this nightmare to be over, instead of it being brought up over, and over again.
* You don't want to have your name permanently associated with "Sues your employers for millions of dollars". Good luck getting a job after that.
* If for whatever reason you lose, you will get to enjoy all the damage to your reputation, all the trauma and indignities that you had to re-live, the black mark on your employment record (Who would hire a liar who sues her employers?), and you'll probably be counter-sued by Uber. I hope you're independently wealthy.
It's easy to suggest the nuclear option when you have no skin in the game.
I completely agree with all this, I just think it's frustrating for a lot of people when you see a terrible situation that's supposed to have judicial remedies, but in practice that system just doesn't work.
This is sort of the best of all possible worlds. Any time there's a problem, everyone involved can just say "oh, she should sue" and "why doesn't she sue, there are lots of legal remedies".
And then if she spoke with a lawyer, that lawyer would point to all the problems listed above plus many more (the difficulty of proving damages, for one) and would almost certainly try to dissuade her from suing no matter how grievous her treatment, and if she did sue, she would likely lose. The legal remedies are so weak as to be non-existent, but their existence is beneficial to wrong-doers, who can hide behind them and pretend they are effective and powerful.
This is why I think state Attorney Generals should be given the authority to sue on behalf of those affected when a systemic problem like this comes to light.
There really needs to be a Government organization that can investigate these claims, that employees could report incidents to instead of HR. Like a beefed up Department of Labor that is responsive to employee needs. Tax the corporation to pay for it and dissolve corporations that are repeat offenders.
I'd never know about it, except, a while ago, US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas worked there. During his confirmation hearings there was a real political shitstorm about what might nor might not have transpired there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Thomas#Anita_Hill_all...
Important other reason to pursue sexual harassment litigation:
* It gives other survivors a statement of solidarity and validates their experiences. It says that other survivors really weren't crazy; that others had this experience too. For someone who's left doubting their sanity after an incident like this happened, this kind of support is immensely powerful.
* It forces these incidents to be drawn into the eyes of the public.
Uber's rotten culture is only getting attention because someone spoke up.
I see all the negatives you mentioned as failures of our litigation-after-sexual-harassment model that we should seek to address. There's nothing that says we should make barriers to litigation and cost of failure so high.
There's nothing we can do to fix our legal system to make it worthwhile for women to pursue these cases. Our political and legal systems are utterly broken: just look at the latest election for proof. Women who avoid pursuing litigation are simply being realistic with the way things are in America these days. And of course, the people who insist that they should sacrifice their lives to fix this problem are people who have nothing to lose themselves.
IANAL. You are absolutely right in all regards about this (with the exception of your last point which is FUD). However, there is one interesting option which may negate some of these issues. That option would be a Class Action. If enough women and minorities came forward with verifiable claims of systemic discrimination they could band together and reduce the amount of over all problems with the law suit by having increased numbers. Technically, there is no minimum number of plaintiffs to designate a Class Action. But for all practical purposes you need greater than 20. From the fact that #ubersurvivor is turning into a thing, I believe finding the right number of people would be possible. Here is how a class action would change your reasons not to pursue sexual harassment litigation:
* You will have to devote an enormous amount of money, time, energy, health, and your emotional well-being. -- You would not have to pay an enormous amount for this. Though it would take a lot of time you are right
* Your lawyers will take half the settlement, either in up front fees, or as a portion of the bounty. -- This is almost always true but cases cost a whole lot to run and manage.
* You will get to share, and then be brutally cross-examined about all the worst bullshit you had to endure in a courtroom. -- With a class action you have far more people to fight on your side, making cross X a lot less scary, if it ever gets to the trial stage.
* With so much money on the line, you will trigger a smear campaign against you, whose impact will persist long after the trial concludes. -- It is much harder to smear a group.
* You want to program, instead of dealing with legal bullshit. -- You want to program in peace for the rest of your life. A class action sends a message to all companies that they cannot act like this.
* You just want this nightmare to be over, instead of it being brought up over, and over again. -- True and a class action will help to end the nightmare.
* You don't want to have your name permanently associated with "Sues your employers for millions of dollars". Good luck getting a job after that. -- As a class action member you are less likely to be singled out
* If for whatever reason you lose, you will get to enjoy all the damage to your reputation, all the trauma and indignities that you had to re-live, the black mark on your employment record (Who would hire a liar who sues her employers?), and you'll probably be counter-sued by Uber. I hope you're independently wealthy. --This is FUD. Nevertheless, by being associated with a class action you are far less likely to be singled out for issues. It's even quite hard for them to counter-sue in a class action.
While the legal option is hard and can be scary, it is not a bad option to pursue.
> With a class action you have far more people to fight on your side, making cross X a lot less scary, if it ever gets to the trial stage.
That's not how class action lawsuits work. It's highly unlikely that 'women and LGBT persons of all genders who were abused by shitty bosses at Uber' will be found, by a court, to be a class. The class-action will be dismissed before it even gets to determining wrong-doing.
You can have a class action lawsuit over your employer, say, stealing wages from 10,000 employees.
You cannot have a class action lawsuit if 12 people have been harassed and abused by their managers. (The fact that the practice is widespread will impact judgements, but it does not mean that 12 people form a 'class action'.) [1]
Even more importantly, sexual harassment cases by their nature, require each case to be evaluated on its merits. Just because Claire, Adam, and Barbara have been abused by their bosses, doesn't mean that Donna can piggyback onto the lawsuit, and claim damages, without having her case examined as thoroughly as theirs.
> This is FUD.
No, it's not - not if you lose. If they win the case, Uber can, and almost certainly will countersue. (For PR reasons, they would prefer to avoid suing you if you just complain on your blog.) The first Google hit for your name will be about how you sued your employer, and lost.
Yes, there is the social benefit of these cases going to trial (Preventing future abuse in other companies), but not everyone wants to be a martyr.
> to me that neither have pursued Uber in this regard.
I also find this surprising to the point of puzzling. Yes, HR (+legal) works for the company, ALWAYS. However, protecting the company from multi-million dollar lawsuits and potential negative publicity certainly falls within the remit, and removing offenders and mollifying victims would be the way to go.
So something doesn't quite add up, and I have a hard time believing "oh, we know that they won't sue" would be sufficient. Then again...hubris.
Please don't misunderstand the following comment to mean that I am defending Uber. I quit using Uber over a year ago when I first learned of some of their business practices.
>It seems both women who've come forward would have open-and-shut cases against Uber for multi-millions in damages.
These cases are tough to win, even in a liberal jurisdiction like SF. For example, does "Amy" have any witnesses that are willing to testify about what they saw? Sure, a subpoena can compel them to testify, but if the men who were present are still working there, how likely is it that they are going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth under questioning?
The calculus becomes "keep my current job that is paying my bills, and maybe get a raise/promotion soon" vs. "stick my neck out for someone who no longer works here."
Sure, there are good lawyers who could maybe trip them up, but now you're treating what should be friendly or neutral witnesses as hostile witnesses. And Uber has some good lawyers too, obviously.
Further, even if some of these guys have moved on to other companies, they have to calculate how testifying in Amy's favor might come back to bite them later. With a guy like Travis who lacks good character (according to all the accounts I've read, anyway), it will come back to bite them sooner than later.
So "open-and-shut" is usually not really at all, but rather a less than 50% chance of recovering damages after years of difficult litigation. Unless, of course, you have lots of really good documentary evidence that's admissible.
In response to your statement, I just have to say that Uber's HR _has not_ acted in the company's best interest and has actually worked in opposition to its best interest.
Through inaction and malpractice they have increased the legal liability Uber faces and encouraged irreparable reputational damage for Uber.
Business != Company, company (made up of orgs) is a component of a business. If someone in my HR group does not act in the best interests of the business AND the company (and usually putting the company before the business is the right thing to do) they would lose their job quite quickly. My obligation as a CEO is to my shareholders, and my shareholders know that putting my people in front of returns will always result in better returns. It's pretty clear cut, you're nothing without your people, and that's that.
The genius of labeling it "human resources" just struck me. As an employee (and human) it seems reasonable to interpret it as "resources for humans" and thus assume it would be there to help. But its true meaning, to execs/stakeholders/corporate persons, is "[the department which manages the] human resources".
Wikipedia: “Human resources are the people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, or economy. [...] A human-resources department (HR department) of an organization performs human resource management, overseeing various aspects of employment, such as compliance with labour law and employment standards, administration of employee benefits, and some aspects of recruitment and dismissal.”
There's an sf novel featuring a futuristic form of slavery, with a character who's introduced as a Director of Human Resources: only much later do you find out what that means. Subtly done.
>H/R ACTS AND WILL ALWAYS ACT IN THE COMPANY'S BEST INTERESTS. NOT YOURS.
Except their actions here are not in the best interest of the company...why do people keep posting this in the context of discussing Uber? These are casebook examples of what HR should not do.
It's kind of like going to the police. They don't necessarily share your interests, and they have the power to destroy you. That some or good doesn't help much if you go to the one who isn't.
>H/R ACTS AND WILL ALWAYS ACT IN THE COMPANY'S BEST INTERESTS. NOT YOURS.
Point of order here. HR acts in management's best interests, not necessarily the company's. It's pretty clear that HR's actions here are not in the company's best interests given how much of a shitfest this has been for Uber. They gave cover for people who were not acting in Uber's best interests and, as a result, Uber lost all their goodwill, they're bleeding talent, and you'd have to be delusional to think toxic norms like this haven't been affecting their morale and productivity.
Management's interests are separate from the best interests of the company. Shareholder interests are separate from the best interests of the company. A company is made up of employees, management, shareholders, AND clients all together. All of them are stakeholders and its best interests are the things that properly balance the needs of everyone to fulfill its mission or goal. It's neoliberal bullshit to claim that only management and shareholders matter, and the sooner we accept that the sooner we can make our corporate governance tack into a sane direction.
> Amy's situation was grave, and kudos to her for getting out. But everyone should read these stories and burn this line into their heads permanently.
Yes but the company's best interest is to support Amy and fire Mike#2.
The reason is that if there is credible evidence of this behavior, she has easy settlement on par with Mike's value to the company (unless that is measured in 8 figures which is unlikely since at the end of the day, if they paid him $500k...they could replace him for $500k).
> H/R ACTS AND WILL ALWAYS ACT IN THE COMPANY'S BEST INTERESTS. NOT YOURS.
Hopefully the recently-revealed experiences at Uber will be taken as a wake-up call by HR folks whose calculus tells them that the best option is to cover up problems.
It should now be apparent that buried issues will eventually come to light, so the short-term gain of coverups won't be worth the long-term risk.
One of the ways HR acts in the interest of the company, is to make sure managers aren't putting the company at risk by engaging in unethical or illegal behavior. HR isn't your friend, but if they enable harassment and discrimination, they are failing in their role of corporate governance and should be replaced.
Yes, normally, HR acts in the company's interests.
But for many companies, its in their best interests to identify and fire creeps who work there and abuse women (or others generally).
What HR will do for you depends on what type of company you work in.
If you work in a company that cares about its culture, that values diversity and respects its employees, then HR is very likely to help you if you experience problems like these.
If you work for Uber - well I guess that's what all the heat and light is about. Is Uber such a shithole that these kinds of behaviour are actually condoned by the CEO?
Yes, HR acts in the company's best interests, not yours. However, if you ever want to be able to pursue legal claims against a company for actions such as permitting harassment, or firing you in retribution for it, you need to be able to document that you reported the problem to the appropriate people (i.e. HR).
Going to HR is the right move for something like this. In any sane company, HR will take such a claim seriously because the potential legal downside if they don't is an unacceptable risk. In an insane company - aside from the fact that you can't measure the insanity level until you have in fact made such reports to HR and seen them dismissed - you still need to be able to show that you brought the problem to HR's attention and they did nothing about it.
This is one of the most heavily flagged submissions I've seen in a while - hit #2 with 70 points, and now is at #6 with 174 points in 40 min, while the new #2 is 124 points in 2 hours.
This is an entirely anonymous complaint with no particular reason why anyone would believe it. A lot of it read to me as too perfect. Too designed to hit all of the right buttons to generate outrage.
I won't deny that it could be true. But I'd also give that possibility under even odds. And if stories like this are true, then we'll likely have enough opportunity to learn that later to give this version undue attention.
> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link. If you think a comment is egregious, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top.
The story is not spam, not off-topic, and has a good chance of being non-egregious. It's certainly true it could be wrong, but that's very different.
(Maybe I'm wrong about appropriate use of flagging? I'd concede that it's fair for you to downvote it, but I suspect HN has disabled downvotes on stories for a reason, and using flagging as a pseudo-downvote seems wrong.)
It might not technically break any HN rules, but it's kind of saddening to see what's so far an anonymous accusation it make it so deep into the front page.
Combined with the other recent bad press Uber's getting, it's admittedly not looking good for them, but on the other hand any of us _could_ have signed up for Medium and published an article like this.
My stated belief was that there are greater than even odds that it is propaganda. Propaganda is a form of spam.
Even worse, propaganda is a particularly nasty form of spam since it tries to alter your belief system such that future propaganda will seem more reasonable to you. Therefore maintaining a keen sense of what is possible propaganda is very important. A healthy brain should immediately try to verify anything that could be propaganda from any ideological position, and reject out of hand anything that cannot be verified.
This will only become more important as the world continues its slide towards fake news and echo chambers.
There are always two sides to a story. Having everyone believe the woman because she is a woman is a short road to seeing the system abused. Ever seen a false accusation of sexual harassment? I have.
The more important the cause, and the more serious the claim, the more important it is to proceed carefully and not rush to conclusions.
I don't think it's flag-worthy because it absolutely could be true. It's not like anything here is that difficult to believe given previous insider reports from Uber. None of the claims here are that absurd.
But, yes, it could easily be an anonymous troll. It needs verification.
Not even halfway through reading it and I swore that somehow I must have missed that today was April 1st. Extremely sad if true, however highly questionable whether it is true.
Ideologues of all flavors frequently diss HN like this. Someone needs to stand up for the community, so I guess I will. This was a slur, and your prediction turning out consummately wrong illustrates this nicely.
I think it's in poor taste to diss a group with grand rhetoric whilst participating in it, since you're as much a part of it as anyone else. If you think so poorly of your community, perhaps find a different one and post nastily there. I hear Twitter is good for that.
The reality of the HN community is that it's divided much the way that society at large is. The comments here inevitably reflect that. It's a mixed bag, a lot of what's in that bag isn't great and a small portion is awful, but (a) this community does manage somewhat better than most of the rest of the internet and (b) far more of the participants here are thoughtful and decent than otherwise.
Why would someone write an anonymous blog post but then declare that they are:
1) A woman in her late 20s
2) Who used to work at Uber in Engineering working on
database and networking scalability
3) Went to a top private college
4) has a Masters in Information Systems
5) previous to Uber worked as a Data Analyst in a tech
company in the Midwest and left when it was acquired
by a Chinese firm
6) Is 5 foot 7 Caucasian with dark hair
in fact it's maybe even better if her colleagues know it was her since that may empower them to start taking action against uber or start taking action the next time they see this shit happen.
Because it probably doesn't matter if ex-coworkers at Uber figure out who it is. She just doesn't want this story attached to her real name when people Google her.
It's also possible that some of that information is slightly twisted, to throw people off.
From the description of circumstances, Uber will already be able to identify the author. Assuming they go after her (as they are often wont to do), it only increases her credibility in the eyes of the public, damaging Uber further.
Having some people know who you are is very different from having the Internet know who you are. Even if she got doxxed (let's hope shoe doesn't), it's unlikely the fallout would be similar.
There's anonymity in numbers. Even with Uber's relatively small female workforce, the high turnover rate and unspecified timeframe makes it likely that there are dozens of potential candidates. This sounds specific, but it's really just a lot of datapoints that already correlate heavily with the sample group (Engineering is large at Uber, elite private colleges are strongly represented at startups, average-heighted white women with dark hair are statistically average).
Furthermore, any of those descriptions could be fabricated to throw someone attempting to deanonymize her off.
I'm curious if HR will out her, or if there's so many harassment complaints lodged with HR that even so doing makes you effectively anonymous. You say that's unethical and/or illegal, but it's Uber HR, brought to you by the company that jokes about paying a million dollars to dig up dirt on your critics [1], and that lied to a judge about paying investigators to dig up dirt on someone suing them [2], [3].
Internally, she's almost definitely identifiable. I think the parent was talking about public identifiability, seeing how the public doesn't have access to Uber's employee records.
And yes, unethicality/illegality doesn't appear to be an impediment for Uber. In fact, they seem to revel in skirting the law.
Seems to me the author is trying to characterize herself as boring, intelligent, hard-working, skilled and educated. A model employee. An asset to the company.
As opposed to the standard MRA characterization of all women as flighty, bitchy, whiny, screechy, slutty, dumb, "cheaters" who slept their way to the top somehow using their devious womanly wiles (but won't sleep with the MRA in question because they hate men).
Perhaps because her name would be indexed by the search engines as this story is shared thousands of times? Would you like the #1 search result for your name to be a sexual harassment story?
Why would someone read this whole post, and the main takeway they get from it - enough to post a hackernews comment - is to question the poster's claims of interest in anonymity. (And - let's be honest - therefore trying to discredit her whole story one chip at a time).
Not a problem at all. People should always question credibility of random things on the internet.
Even though you just tried to #identity_politic someone with blind belief, I'm not going to say people like you are the problem. Just tone down your zeal a bit and approach the problem rationally.
Branding someone's concern for the well being and liberty of others as "identity politics" (or in other context "political correctness") suggests an interpretation of the world where the only reason anyone would empathise with others is to win credibility and acceptance from peers. It's a very cynical worldview.
Being genuinely puzzled by someone's actions is not by definition an attempt to discredit them. I was also puzzled by her detailed description of herself. It wasn't clear to me wether she believes that it isn't enough detail for uber to identify her, or if she doesn't care if uber is able to identify her she just wants to be anonymous to the public. Neither of those cases undermine her story even slightly.
The thing that strikes me, is that regardless of if this is 'verified' or not, that this sort of thing is not beyond the imagination or, indeed, the experience of most of us who have female staff/coworkers..
Even if the story is totally fabricated, the bigger point here is that this sort of thing really does go on, and I'm really not sure why. I've had staff who were totally normal and who I actually quite liked whom I've had to let go / perm shitlist for behaving in ways I could never have predicted them to, as soon as I added a female engineer to the team..
What's up with all this? Sad as it is, I always have a sit down with new female staff on my teams and try to let them know that they can come to me with anything like this which goes on and we'll work out how to deal with it together. It's a sad fact, but I've never discussed this topic with a female techie who doesn't have at least one story..
It's on all of us to stop this shit from happening.
Its not discrediting, its asking for proof. There are some very harsh accusations here. And if there is one thing that I learned about the Internet, that its full with trolls. Just look at some Reddit dramas on what lengths people will go to troll others.
Indeed. Fowler already came out in public and said this is a systemic problem. If you accept that Fowler is a credible source, which I think is a fair assessment considering she's a talented and well regarded engineer who has nothing to gain from accusing Uber of such serious claims, then any other women who come forward can be given the benefit of the doubt that their experiences are real.
Also if you know women at Uber, you can also establish a trend.
People have had a decade to get used to the idea of institutional discrimination, unconscious biases, unintentional discrimination and sexism.
I don't expect the average rural Trump voter to have become aware and gain an in-depth understanding of these concepts over that time, but well-educated, well-connected, big-city techies that frequent hackernews have NO EXCUSE.
There is no room for healthy discourse when the default reaction from so much of the privileged side is to pick apart, dismiss, and discredit.
If your instinct when you hear a woman coming forward with stories of sexism in the tech industry is anything but to listen, understand, and empathize, you are part of the cause, not the solution.
This reads like #SJW #cismale_hate porn. I'm inclined to believe the entire blog is complete fiction, and with changed names, it might as well be.
It does nothing but cater to confirmation bias of those already inclined to hate Uber culture (with or without good reason. I'm not an insider, so the original allegations may be 100% correct, but that is completely orthogonal to this blog).
Fiction like this is incredibly harmful to those who have legitimate concerns about company culture and have actually been harassed without consequence, because it drowns their voices in pandering fanfic that reads like it was written by a teenager with a savior complex.
Did a search of all current/past Uber employees based on public data mainly from LI, found only 6 people with those degrees and none were female. Did another search for people who worked as Data Analyst and worked at Uber came up with 6 different people again all male. As other answers suggest the information could be twisted, but definitely not "slightly".
As soon as someone doesn't want to be associated with a story critical of anything, the salt is implicit isn't it?
Considering the last few stories that have come out about how women are being treated in tech, what I've observed (and been enraged by) I'm pretty sure this happened/is happening still.
Are you just trying to verify the legitimacy of the post? If someone finds the courage to speak out, why would you then try to out them for doing so?
Does it even matter if it's faked if most of us could totally believe it's not? There are bigger problems being highlighted here than this individual incident...
But what do I know... Do you work there? Is someone trying to fsck with uber's valuation or something?
I am trying to verify its legitimacy, how can you silently accept such a critical post on face-value, no I don't work there. Giving voice to false claims intensifies their illegitimate power and in societies that this prevails that same power can be used by propagandists to advance their goal, so it's not about Uber it's about giving homage to truth, as every person's responsibility should be.
I've not accepted it as genuine at all; I'm saying that regardless of if it's real or not, the point here is that if it was it wouldn't surprise us..
I'd really really like it if we could get to the point where if stories like this came out for any company, we would be more surprised by them..
As for the illegitimate power (I'm not even sure what that is...) and propagandists comments; I don't really see how this fits into twist of those..
It's a story about some bad behaviour at a big tech company.. Is it a big deal? Individually; nah. As a general trend in tech that I've certainly experienced; yeah. Is it part of a propagandists plot to turn your country into a communist superstate and increase their "illegitimate power" -- I doubt it..
> As a general trend in tech that I've certainly experienced
What do you mean by that? Do you mean you've experienced an upswing in these incidents, or an upswing in the number of news stories about these sorts of incidents?
Perhaps trend was the wrong word. I simply meant that for all the female employees and coworkers I've had over the last few years, almost all of them have confided a story such as this to me when we discuss women in tech.
Now, maybe that's part of life. I'm sure most of the males I've worked with have a story about being bullied or getting into a horrible fight with a coworker at least once, and perhaps by putting women experiencing these things into a certain category we're also part of the problem..
shrug -- I just don't like seeing people I like or am responsible for in some way getting a hard time; hopefully I won't see much more of it.
> I'm saying that regardless of if it's real or not, the point here is that if it was it wouldn't surprise us …
It would certainly surprise me. I simply cannot imagine working with the sort of folks Amy describes. I'm not saying that such folks don't exist — it's a big world — but that I have never in my almost two decades of work in our field run into them.
Now, maybe that means I haven't run into them. I can accept that. And maybe it means that Uber is particularly bad in this regard. I can also accept that.
I don't know if this story is true or false: I honestly don't. It's probably worth investigating; certainly, after Susan Fowler put her name on some allegations of despicable behaviour it probably is.
If there are pockets of our field where this is considered normal, they need to be eliminated. But it does not accord at all with my experience of trends in our field.
Are you just trying to verify the legitimacy of the post? If someone finds the courage to speak out, why would you then try to out them for doing so?
Because if it's not legitimate then it's worth knowing that? To me, this story seems far more suspicious than Fowler.
Does it even matter if it's faked if most of us could totally believe it's not?
Perhaps a variety of fake incidents have caused you to believe things that aren't true. Maybe the bigger problem being highlighted is also fake.
I recently had a conversation with someone telling me about a rape on a college campus. I told her I was skeptical. She said it was so common, why am I skeptical, and supported her case that it was common by citing Duke, Mattress Girl and UVA as examples. She was shocked when I suggested she google those incidents. Repeated fake incidents can cause people to change their priors.
So yes, the reason why "most of us could totally believe it's not" actually matters quite a lot.
What would be the motivation behind creating a 'false' rhetoric such as the experiences of women in tech?
I've certainly seen this happening / had to deal with it, I do feel that this is still an issue and something we need to improve. While it's not an across the board problem, I suspect most women working in tech would agree with me; the story, which I don't stand behind as as legitimate, is very similar to the sorts of things I've seen going on.
I wish we could just make it very hard for either false (I've seen this case happen, demonstrably, too) or true claims such as these to occur.
In most cases, talking to leads/mgt BEFORE these things get really bad would have helped and that's something we should be making easier..
I don't know the motivation. Perhaps someone feels harassment is a real problem, but can't find any real examples of it, so feels the need to tell lies for a good cause? Perhaps someone merely wants to harm Uber? They certainly have no shortage of people who hate them.
But regardless of motivation, the facts show that many people are willing to fake stories just to support their "team". Sometimes they do this at great personal risk and cost, e.g. lighting their own truck on fire or making false police reports. As an example of one category, there have been many such incidents since Nov 7:
Sure; I can't fault any of that. Even if this was a link to a chapter of a fictional book though, I'd be saying the same thing.
I don't accept this as truth, I assume it's fiction as no one is standing behind it. My only point was, that in general, none of us are terribly shocked by stories such as these, and that's what I wanted to talk about.
I really do hope that less of this goes on than is reported, I sadly feel that the opposite is true -- and that's from personal experiences not unverifiable stories on the internetz.
I normally disagree with everything 'yummyfajitas posts, and I personally dislike Uber due to the number of well documented unethical actions they've taken. Additionally, I think this type of story has played out so many times that no one thinks the story is truly unbelievable.
In light of all of that I still think this is the kind of story that needs to be verified before action is taken. Just off the top of my head I could think of a number of reasons for someone to create a false story in this situation ranging from semi-believable, a competitor like Lyft adding more fuel to Uber's current PR fire, to conspiracy theory level, China trying to hurt a foreign company so that Didi Chuxing has an easier time growing.
Its unfortunate, but the internet allows unethical actors to craft and spread unverifiable stories with little effort but a high payoff due to the emotions of everyone who reads them. The same feeling that leads us to want to take action after reading this, because it would be genuinely terrible if true and we want to believe people, is the same feeling that leads anti vaxxers to believe fake science they find on the internet.
>Does it even matter if it's faked if most of us could totally believe it's not?
With the popularity of people crying "fake news" and the study recently hitting the front page of HN/Reddit that if you repeat a lie enough, people are more inclined to believe it [0], it bothers me to see a sentence like this. Yes, it matters a lot whether or not it is legitimate. "Fake news" never seems to matter to individuals if it supports their point of view.
Do you "totally believe it" because you've heard similar stories that are equally unverifiable or because you've had similar experiences? If it's because you've heard similar stories, how credible are those stories? Do you believe it because it has been repeated again and again? The last credible story along the "identity politics" line that I can remember offhand is "Donglegate" which I don't even take seriously, because it made a huge mess out of an immature joke that was overheard.
This whole "Even though it was a lie, I was trying to start a conversation!" is such a common tactic it's become a meme at this point and the fake victims "trying to start a conversation" are beginning to hurt the credibility of actual victims.
I pass no judgement on the credibility of the article - as I haven't read it. I came across this comment from /newcomments
I meant that in the context of the overall experiences in women in tech, not women at uber or anything more specific than that.
Let me try to rephrase.. Would you be shocked that this sort of thing goes on? I would not. My only point was that the bigger problem is exactly THAT lack of surprise, and not the legitimacy of the post; and that's what we should be talking about.
I don't trust anything about the post, even if it was intentionally labelled as fiction; I'd feel the same way.
I would be shocked that a bunch of high-IQ, high-conscientiousness individuals would repeatedly engage in dangerous activities with a high probability of getting caught, and in such easily provable ways.
Putting on my evil villain hat for a moment, if I want to harass women it won't be at my workplace. It won't be at my favorite bar in Pune where I get laid regularly. I'll take the bus to Mumbai, head to some bar in Andheri where no one knows my face, and do it there. That's just a sign of my rational self interest (and evil villain hat) combined with a demonstrated ability to rub two brain cells together and think a step or two ahead.
>I would be shocked that a bunch of high-IQ, high-conscientiousness individuals would repeatedly engage in dangerous activities with a high probability of getting caught
There's a long history of precisely such individuals doing precisely this sort of thing.
And in any case, there is not a high probability of getting caught, for reasons that your comment illustrates. Women who make these claims are not believed.
I understand your reasoning but I don't think it takes into account the motivations of those that harass. Harassment is about control. Taking the bus to Mumbai to harass some random woman you don't know and are unlikely to ever see again isn't as powerful as harassing/controlling women in your every day life.
I can't work it out either. I've had staff who I really liked and knew for years, who were TOTALLY normal be reported to me by other males on the team for harassing female staff..
He admitted his behaviour and he couldn't explain why he did it; was a pretty rough experience for everyone..
Yeah, lets be real here. The idea that all (or even most) current and past Uber employees are findable on LinkedIn is laughable at best.
if you went looking for my work history you wouldn't find it, it's not documented anywhere public. You would have to have access to some completely internal/non public databases.
Even if she did have a LinkedIn, she'd probably just leave Uber off of it.
Because any woman who speaks up under their real name is bound to get harassment from gamergate types and other misogynistic asses who have nothing better to do. Fowler is already getting harassed online.
Additionally, assuming that Uber isn't stupid enough to coordinate a smear campaign of their own (although it happened to Ellen Pao)[1], she's safe. And if someone does doxx her, it means either: (a) Uber decided to doxx her or (b) one of the Uber employees that participated in her harassment decided to doxx her. Either way, it looks even worse for Uber and could set them up for a lawsuit.
She put enough information so that the parties relevant would be able to identify all the actors but the parties not involved can't. That's not strange - she wants to tell her story and have it attached to her by identity but not name.
We live in a world of fake news, but anyone who questions an anonymous blog post during a media hype-cycle surrounding Uber's sexual harassment allegations is flagged? It's important to be more diligent in these times, not less.
It's unfortunate that the Silicon Valley work culture is being tarnished by companies like Uber. There are many companies that respect women and have HR departments that actually fulfill the purpose of being helpful Resources to Humans. I hope the anti-Uber sentiment grows so other companies can learn from this example.
I've experienced this at just about every single non-startup that I've worked for.
Basically, once the company is big enough that you don't know everyone who works there, the evil actors and back stabbers emerge. Especially when a company is growing rapidly, you go from being a human in the eyes of others, to a performance report -- some numbers on paper.
My new strategy? Leave any company that gets bigger than 300 people or so. It's worked so far!
It would be remarkably easy for the author to validate the authenticity of her post by adding a picture of a pay-stub with blacked out identifying information / names / amounts.
Or alternatively publish the story with a news agency as a protected source under a pseudonym.
Uber deserves what they have coming to them at the moment, but an anonymized post that fits perfectly into the Uber / sexism / hostile work place with no evidence should be treated as suspect.
> I am afraid to make my name public. Let’s call me Amy. For reasons only the #ubervictims know, let’s refer to the villain of this story as Mike#2.
My default is "show me the evidence", but I believe Susan Fowler's account because she put her reputation on the line and I was willing to trust that she left, opposed to got fired, due to non-performance reasons based on being able to somewhat approximate/confirm her technical abilities.
This submission is just anonymous accusations. Absurd, unrealistic-sounding accusations. If the culture at Uber was as rampantly ridiculous as described in this blogpost, men and women would be falling over themselves to tell their stories.
> My paycheck is 18% less than my less qualified male colleagues.
If this was true, and the anonymous writer, who claims to be a skilled data analyst, was able to make a case that this was due to gender and not ability, she should be telling this story to a lawyer, not a blog site.
>If the culture at Uber was as rampantly ridiculous as described in this blogpost, men and women would be falling over themselves to tell their stories.
Is this post not proof of that? Especially so soon after Ms. Fowler's account. Perhaps the floodgates are now open.
Your assertion is that only female engineers at Uber are qualified to have an opinion on anonymous claims? At the very least, your perspective is sexist.
Sorry, try again. We're talking about a company being criticized (in part) for the treatment of female engineers. You're making assertions that this article isn't believable. The author is a female.
Pretty big stretch to say I'm being sexist by suggesting you have _no clue_ what is or isn't a believable experience for a female engineer at Uber.
You're trying to play identity politics in an attempt to discredit any disagreement based on another layer of subjective criteria that you decide. What you just suggested -- that men are incapable of considering the credibility of an anonymous story told from a female point of view -- is sexist. When I believed in Susan Fowler's account, was I allowed to have an opinion then?
Racism and homophobia were also brought up and you're going as far to claim that the "baseline" for having an opinion is being female, as well as working at the same company at which the an anonymous author claims to have been employed. I don't fault you as I believe you're trying to make things better, but you're arguing against evidence and objectivity.
I'm not playing identity politics. And I didn't mention racism and homophobia because that's not the perspective the author wrote from.
Look, I'm not trying to be argumentative, and I understand your doubts about the story. Really. I'm just calling attention to the way you chose to raise them. Claiming they're "absurd" as a way to present your argument that we should be skeptical is hard to take to seriously unless you're willing to say you worked on her team, or were another female engineering at Uber.
And yes, I probably escalated things talking about privilege, but I think this is a good example of how we don't always realize the ways our viewpoints affect our opinions. I personally have no basis with which to offer an opinion about the validity of the story. I welcome someone that reminds us to be skeptical because everything written was written anonymously.
And to be clear, I'm not talking about allowing anyone an opinion. I'm talking about how we discuss these things productively in public forums.
> I'm not playing identity politics. And I didn't mention racism and homophobia because that's not the perspective the author wrote from.
You suggested I'm not qualified to decide if the claims are believable (to me) and suggested that I would be if I was a woman that worked at Uber. "You don't understand X because you're not a Y" is a textbook attempt to reframe an argument away from objective considerations.
> Claiming they're "absurd" as a way to present your argument that we should be skeptical is hard to take to seriously unless you're willing to say you worked on her team, or were another female engineering at Uber.
Please note that I didn't claim the author was a liar. I wasn't careful with my words, but: "This submission is just anonymous accusations. Absurd, unrealistic-sounding accusations."
It's truthful to say the accusations are anonymous. The level of misconduct described by the author is absurd and sounds unrealistic -- if these events were proven to have happened, they would still be _absurd_ and _sound unrealistic_.
> And yes, I probably escalated things talking about privilege, but I think this is a good example of how we don't always realize the ways our viewpoints affect our opinions.
It's not escalation; invoking claims of "privilege" is head's up that you want to talk in subjective terms ("he/she feels", "other group experiences"), which is fine, but not fitting when I'm suggesting that I have a hard time believing an anonymous author's claims (e.g. "guys" at work writing sexual fantasy stories in private chat that the author somehow read).
An an aside, from reading between the lines, we have similar wants for the future culture of tech, but we're working with different strategies.
What evidence do you have that it's absurd? Do you think men don't ever act like that in professional settings? Because I have know a ton of women who can assure you that they do.
None, which is exactly the level of evidence put forward in the blogpost that it even happened. Susan Fowler's account is a plausible account of a toxic environment; I default to believing her for various reasons. Claims of open/unguarded homophobia racism, sexism, fireable remarks, coworker-sexual-fanfiction are pretty severe as the consequences are steep and financial for the accused -- if this blogpost isn't hyperbole, I hope the author is reading this comment as she should be talking with a lawyer.
> Do you think men don't ever...Because I have know a ton of women...
Disproving absolutes is a fool's errand and I'm sure you know the way this is phrased, I can't argue against it.
You should put your reputation on the line when you make such vile comments.
Your profile says you're the "technical founder on a bootstrapping startup," I want to make sure I never use your product, do business with your company, or take calls from your recruiters.
Please tell me what is "vile" about saying "I believe Susan, but this blogpost strains credibility. If the author is being honest, I hope she speaks to an attorney".
Clearly you understand the possible risks to putting your real name behind your words, regardless of their veracity. Medium isn't a court of law, they don't owe anyone any evidence and you pointing out that there isn't any is implying that they have a reason to hide their name that isn't justified.
> Medium isn't a court of law, they don't owe anyone any evidence and you pointing out that there isn't any is implying that they have a reason to hide their name that isn't justified.
You're right. And I don't have to trust what I read on Medium -- what I'm suggesting is that I don't believe _this particular anonymous author_ (and to be careful, I'm entirely willing to believe a culture of unacceptable behavior exists at Uber).
Well, you made a call for someone to deanonymize herself yet you are not willing to deanonymize yourself on that account, perhaps because you feel that it might hurt your reputation not because you are wrong, but just because the internet is the shitty place it is...
> Well, you made a call for someone to deanonymize herself yet you are not willing to deanonymize yourself on that account,
Whoa. I did no such thing. I stated that I don't believe this anonymous account. The author specifically _should not_ unmask herself at this point without speaking with a lawyer.
> perhaps because you feel that it might hurt your reputation not because you are wrong, but just because the internet is the shitty place it is...
This is accurate. Someone has requested that I make myself open to "doxxing" so he/she can boycott my products, even though he/she didn't understand my perspective on this.
> My default is "show me the evidence", but I believe Susan Fowler's account because she put her reputation on the line and I was willing to trust that she left, opposed to got fired, due to non-performance reasons based on being able to somewhat approximate/confirm her technical abilities.
... is a privileged viewpoint, and offensive to me. The author doesn't have to prove to your satisfaction that this happened to her to write this article.
Wanting evidence is privileged? Is everything but complete credulity now considered "privileged?"
She doesn't have to, but putting it that way, people don't have to believe her.
Has the word "privileged" so lost all meaning that it's privileged to merely want evidence? I reject that I'm somehow contributing to an oppressive patriarchy by wanting claims to be substantiated in the post-Enlightenment way: with proof. People do make things up.
It's pretty typical male privilege to enter this discussion to say "Nope, don't believe it, because it sounds unreasonable to me". It has a chilling effect.
There's obviously no way to be sure of the story, but the speed with which people just presume it's fake speaks the overall lack of understanding of sexual harassment in the workplace. It's willfully ignorant to make that the basis for a discussion on this article.
As it happens, I disagree with mjolk on this, in that I'm inclined from my experience to find Amy's story pretty believable.
However, HN has lost its mind if merely saying you don't believe a story is now flag-worthy. Why should the odiousness of a claim influence our evaluation of whether or not it's true?
I hear you re: evidence. My point being, we're not in a courtroom, the bar for evidence is difference. I personally think it's worth calling out that the viewpoint being echoed that "Sounds absurd, don't believe" is a problematic one.
I don't deny anyone wanting evidence that opinion, but I think it's also really easy for someone with the privilege of not having to deal with the things women in the tech workplace have to deal with to shut down articles like this one.
> ... is a privileged viewpoint, and offensive to me.
"Privileged"?
I'm not sure how or why you chose to take offense, but I'm surprised that anything about that was even slightly controversial.
> The author doesn't have to prove to your satisfaction that this happened to her to write this article
You're right, but that doesn't mean I have to believe what the author claims and doesn't mean I can't respond to it. The comment section doesn't exist to serve as an echo chamber.
I feel like you're getting downvoted to death for the same reason atheists are more disliked than agnostics: "there is no god" is more offensive than "there's insufficient evidence that there is a god." Personally I agree with what I think is your view, that in the absence of sufficient evidence, we should disbelieve (rather than neutrally suspend judgment) proportionate to the strength of the claim itself.
If you'd said "we lack sufficient evidence to believe Amy," I think you would've just been yelled at, not flagged.
There is nothing in the article that I haven't personally witnessed from colleagues (not at Uber--I have no connection of any sort to that company) in the past, so I wouldn't call it "rampantly ridiculous." This is perhaps an extreme, but it certainly falls within the range of behaviors I've seen other men engage in, and that my wife and other female friends and acquaintances have described to me as having happened to them.
If this is true, then it's horrifying. I didn't agree with the crowd and delete Uber earlier for the protest stuff, but if this is true, then bye-bye Uber.
Until and unless they have clear internal changes that allow female and minority engineers to work in a positive, equal pay for equal work environment.
And just to add an endorsement, Accenture is a highly evolved technology firm. If you're looking to work somewhere that treats everyone equally and would never tolerate a Mike #2, give them a shot. I am not an employee, but have done several contract stints internally and they are simply the best workplace I've ever been around.
That's okay. I was made to work hard. Long days no breaks hard deadlines. That's the world we live in.
4. How this affected her
I'm sorry she went through this and it's not okay. How she chooses to feel and deal with this are under her control. She shouldn't have perpetuated her pain by staying in the situation.
> How she chooses to feel and deal with this are under her control. She shouldn't have perpetuated her pain by staying in the situation.
Can you understand how hard it is for someone to leave a job after a short amount of time, knowing that every future employer will see that on your resumé?
Far easier when you're a 40-something male engineer with a large resumé than a relatively green female engineer who will already contend with some people who think she's not a culture fit, based solely on gender.
1,2. Why is racism considered a fireable offense, but sexism they should get a warning first? Either give them a warning on both or fire on both.
3. I think many would argue that we shouldn't have to live in a world where long days with no breaks is the accepted standard. I've worked that way, 10 hour days, 6-7 days a week, it's not sustainable and leads to burnout, poor quality work, and grumpy employees.
I think you are right on the first part. I don't view racism and sexism as exactly the same type of thing. Racism is just evil, and sexism is sometimes just ignorance (he hits on her and doesn't know it's not wanted). But, same ignorance could be argued for racism, even though I think it's different. I dont think uber wants or cares for my opinion, but if it's beyond the pale, in both case, fire on first offense. Else, one warning and then out.
Your second paragraph suggests an ideal that we should aspire to but it's not the reality for startups and high growth industries. If we seek out this part of this industry we shouldn't bellyache about the hours.
It is very strange to me when I read these "Survivor" stories. I really can't relate to them not because I am a male and don't work in Silicon Valley but because I know I can and I have quit companies because I couldn't tolerate to work there. There is not fucking reason to keep suffering at a company for whatever reason. QUIT as soon as you feel unhappy let alone you come to a point where they "break" you. Are you kidding me? This is not North Korea. No one is forcing you to keep suffering. You are living in a goddam United State of America, and in a goddam Silicon Valley.
Uber is huge, it's recognizable, it's got interesting problems. Susan Fowler even wrote a bestselling book related to some of her work there. You get to work with a lot of smart people. That's a lot of motivation to try to stay despite bad things happening. It's easy to say in hindsight how bad it was, but I'd say most people want to try to do a good job and will expect some problems that they will just "have to deal with" with any work environment. But in the end, they realized the bad outweighed the good and they -did- quit.
She wrote: "Even though I don’t work at Uber any longer, the damage that was done to me by Uber’s work environment ruined my spirit."
you have stay until they kill your spirit just because Uber is a cool company?
I can imagine people keep staying there if they have to feed their hungry children and pay mortgage in a very bad economy, but not just because its a "Cool" company.
It's easy to look back and say "Oh this is a bad company" but as it's happening it's easy to say "Oh this just happened once." or "Maybe it's me." or "Well Mike sucks, but I can deal with it, it's not that big of a deal, and there's a lot of benefits to staying like fulfilling work and being able to work with great minds. I've learned a lot from my other coworkers." or "Maybe I can change things, maybe things will get better." or "I can resolve this if I keep working with HR, it will be fixed soon."
Not-Amy said it was exhilarating the first 2 months, if overly hard work. In a company of that size, I too would totally expect working with HR to be the fix, as it usually is. I mean do you quit your job the instant you have a shitty coworker? I too would try to resolve my issues first internally first. Because that usually works. When that didn't work, she quit and rightly called them out on being ridiculous.
It's like the Milgram experiments: people often don't realize they have options. They don't want to be one of those people who "keep switching jobs." My longest job on my CV is 2.5 years. Most are only 1 year. I worried a bit about job loyalty until I realized no one even read the dates on my resume. Average turnaround in our industry is 13 months.
You can get a new job. If you're afraid of jumping too much, don't have more than three a year. Surely 1/3 of those is going to be tolerable/not-horrible enough to get a nice 13 months on your CV. If you're in IT as a dev, admin or some kind of engineer, there is a ton of interesting work. I agree with you totally. There is no reason to stay in a shit job. There is plenty of interesting and challenging work in good places for both men and women in our industry.
I'd like to thank these brave women for coming out and speaking against these evils. I rarely use Uber but more importantly, I'm not interviewing/working for Uber ever.
p.s. I've had one opportunity in the past that I declined due to lower pay package. Current one seems good, but I'm not going forward.
Don't "rarely" use it. Delete it. Now. Close your account, explaining to Uber why you've done so. Tweet/Facebook/Blog about having done so. Encourage all your friends, family, and coworkers to do the same - explaining exactly_ why you came to the decision.
There really is no other self respecting choice. Sitting on the fence is condoning and enabling their behaviour.
This thread is being carpet bombed at an increasingly quick rate by people concern trolling over the anonymous nature of this post. Additionally, another post has indicated that flagging behavior is off wrt this post.
840 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 417 ms ] threadBut I'm happy all these stories are coming out. Definitely glad these women have had the courage to share them, hopefully enough public pressure can be built up to steer in the direction of change.
HN is not journalism, it's a water cooler. There's some rules for decorum but little to no editorial function.
did you mean to say "is not"?
That said, given the level of detail and the consistency with other reports we've heard, I think this report sounds pretty credible.
serious comment: I think it's great these stories are getting out. Now women know what they will face at Uber. And perhaps someone will have the strength to sue them for discrimination.
You've likely noticed how contentious and combative this topic has been in particular. A lot of people seem to be looking for any excuse to undercut another's comments. While that wasn't your intent, the lack of good faith that some people grant others can lead to unfortunate behavior. That's why I commented, by the way: to point out you may be misunderstanding your parent, not assuming you were acting in bad faith.
Anyway, I hope you have a better day :) Be well.
> Anyway, I hope you have a better day :) Be well.
Thanks, you too! =)
> It was normal for guys to refer to other guys as fags when they didn’t participate in private parties where sex and drugs were involved. It was normal for guys to openly refer to attractive female colleagues as sluts when they refused to go out with them.
Are you trying to be ironic by dismissing the critic's anonymity while accepting the author's?
The three-minute old account making a comment from the peanut gallery did nothing of the sort. The two are not at all equivalent.
Pointing out that the account is new is not meant to invalidate it's commentary. It is meant to demonstrate that it is self-contradicting.
This is obviously fake.
http://www.recode.net/2017/2/27/14745360/amit-singhal-google...
To wit: Uber is a large company with fantastically deep pockets, a gaggle of high-powered lawyers, access to a strong media/PR machine, and a lot of glamour/adoration in the Silicon Valley/startup culture. But those strengths are being carefully neutered!
There's Susan Fowler's approach, which is first and foremost to make sure everybody knows she has documentation to back up her claims. That's a very clear message to Uber that 1) they never ever want to be in a discovery situation where she could start issuing subpoenas, since she's let them know that she knows where to get the damaging documents they don't want coming out, and 2) leaves them guessing just how much documentation she has, and so unsure of how to publicly reply: if they try to downplay the incidents she describes, or attack her record, they don't know whether she might produce proof that they're lying about it.
Then there's the approach here, which is detailed enough that the people it targets inside Uber certainly know who the author is and who she's writing about. But it does not divulge any identities with certainty to the public at large, which carries some similar "I left it at this level of detail, but maybe I could divulge a lot more if you provoked me" threat, but also makes it very difficult for Uber to attack her personally. To do so they'd have to out her and details of her employment record, and depending on the details that might put them obviously and publicly on the wrong side of a bunch of employment-related law as well as make them look like bullies.
I would barely be able to function, and maybe just wouldn't be able to, after some of the things that have been described as happening at Uber. I cannot imagine being able to not only call them out publicly, but also put together such a good strategy for doing so, and I have immense respect for Susan and "Amy" for managing it.
On the off-chance Amy or Susan is reading this, thanks for sharing your stories.
"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means. You would hang a man of no position, like Ravaillac; but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. Here are the greater names coupled with the greater crimes. You would spare these criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them, higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice; still more, still higher, for the sake of historical science."
How right has he been proven, before and after his time? From athletes to politicians, from Steve Jobs to Winston Churchill.
Sounds to me like it was her team members also.
> It was normal for guys to refer to other guys as fags when they didn’t participate in private parties where sex and drugs were involved.
This was every douchebag in high school who would laugh at me for being interested in computers back in the early '00s. And now they're programmers 15 years later. Brogrammer culture squicks me out in several ways, but mostly because the same people who laughed at, mocked, and belittled anyone interested in programming are now invading our industry and driving the decent folk out.
That there is a stereotype that people interested in software engineering are "nerds" who are losers and picked on in school? That the stereotype is accurate, and "yet again" software engineers bully other people because they were bullied?
Say it over and over, say it loud, and say it to every single person entering the US workforce from day one:
H/R ACTS AND WILL ALWAYS ACT IN THE COMPANY'S BEST INTERESTS. NOT YOURS.
Amy's situation was grave, and kudos to her for getting out. But everyone should read these stories and burn this line into their heads permanently.
You're right, and here's the thing. It seems both women who've come forward would have open-and-shut cases against Uber for multi-millions in damages. It's surprising to me that neither have pursued Uber in this regard. Similarly, it's surprising to me that Uber HR hasn't done the mental calculus to figure out that these women have a solid case, and just fix the problem. Or, most disturbingly, Uber HR DID do the mental calculus, determined neither woman would sue; and, therefore, made the correct choices as "best for the company."
Either way, I'm taking Lyft.
Is it possible that their contracts are written in such a way as to preclude this? Which if so is gross and shouldn't be allowed by contract law IMO, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me.
So: yes. I'd definitely talk to a lawyer in that case.
Reasons to pursue sexual harassment litigation:
* You may make some money.
Reasons to not pursue sexual harassment litigation:
* You will have to devote an enormous amount of money, time, energy, health, and your emotional well-being.
* Your lawyers will take half the settlement, either in up front fees, or as a portion of the bounty.
* You will get to share, and then be brutally cross-examined about all the worst bullshit you had to endure in a courtroom.
* With so much money on the line, you will trigger a smear campaign against you, whose impact will persist long after the trial concludes.
* You want to program, instead of dealing with legal bullshit.
* You just want this nightmare to be over, instead of it being brought up over, and over again.
* You don't want to have your name permanently associated with "Sues your employers for millions of dollars". Good luck getting a job after that.
* If for whatever reason you lose, you will get to enjoy all the damage to your reputation, all the trauma and indignities that you had to re-live, the black mark on your employment record (Who would hire a liar who sues her employers?), and you'll probably be counter-sued by Uber. I hope you're independently wealthy.
It's easy to suggest the nuclear option when you have no skin in the game.
And then if she spoke with a lawyer, that lawyer would point to all the problems listed above plus many more (the difficulty of proving damages, for one) and would almost certainly try to dissuade her from suing no matter how grievous her treatment, and if she did sue, she would likely lose. The legal remedies are so weak as to be non-existent, but their existence is beneficial to wrong-doers, who can hide behind them and pretend they are effective and powerful.
Oh, you neither, huh?
See?
I'd never know about it, except, a while ago, US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas worked there. During his confirmation hearings there was a real political shitstorm about what might nor might not have transpired there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Thomas#Anita_Hill_all...
* It gives other survivors a statement of solidarity and validates their experiences. It says that other survivors really weren't crazy; that others had this experience too. For someone who's left doubting their sanity after an incident like this happened, this kind of support is immensely powerful.
* It forces these incidents to be drawn into the eyes of the public.
Uber's rotten culture is only getting attention because someone spoke up.
I see all the negatives you mentioned as failures of our litigation-after-sexual-harassment model that we should seek to address. There's nothing that says we should make barriers to litigation and cost of failure so high.
Who said anything about "should"? The fact is that the barriers are that high.
We can't improve things until we allow ourselves to imagine better realities. There's nothing wrong with that.
* You will have to devote an enormous amount of money, time, energy, health, and your emotional well-being. -- You would not have to pay an enormous amount for this. Though it would take a lot of time you are right
* Your lawyers will take half the settlement, either in up front fees, or as a portion of the bounty. -- This is almost always true but cases cost a whole lot to run and manage.
* You will get to share, and then be brutally cross-examined about all the worst bullshit you had to endure in a courtroom. -- With a class action you have far more people to fight on your side, making cross X a lot less scary, if it ever gets to the trial stage.
* With so much money on the line, you will trigger a smear campaign against you, whose impact will persist long after the trial concludes. -- It is much harder to smear a group.
* You want to program, instead of dealing with legal bullshit. -- You want to program in peace for the rest of your life. A class action sends a message to all companies that they cannot act like this.
* You just want this nightmare to be over, instead of it being brought up over, and over again. -- True and a class action will help to end the nightmare.
* You don't want to have your name permanently associated with "Sues your employers for millions of dollars". Good luck getting a job after that. -- As a class action member you are less likely to be singled out
* If for whatever reason you lose, you will get to enjoy all the damage to your reputation, all the trauma and indignities that you had to re-live, the black mark on your employment record (Who would hire a liar who sues her employers?), and you'll probably be counter-sued by Uber. I hope you're independently wealthy. --This is FUD. Nevertheless, by being associated with a class action you are far less likely to be singled out for issues. It's even quite hard for them to counter-sue in a class action.
While the legal option is hard and can be scary, it is not a bad option to pursue.
That's not how class action lawsuits work. It's highly unlikely that 'women and LGBT persons of all genders who were abused by shitty bosses at Uber' will be found, by a court, to be a class. The class-action will be dismissed before it even gets to determining wrong-doing.
You can have a class action lawsuit over your employer, say, stealing wages from 10,000 employees.
You cannot have a class action lawsuit if 12 people have been harassed and abused by their managers. (The fact that the practice is widespread will impact judgements, but it does not mean that 12 people form a 'class action'.) [1]
Even more importantly, sexual harassment cases by their nature, require each case to be evaluated on its merits. Just because Claire, Adam, and Barbara have been abused by their bosses, doesn't mean that Donna can piggyback onto the lawsuit, and claim damages, without having her case examined as thoroughly as theirs.
> This is FUD.
No, it's not - not if you lose. If they win the case, Uber can, and almost certainly will countersue. (For PR reasons, they would prefer to avoid suing you if you just complain on your blog.) The first Google hit for your name will be about how you sued your employer, and lost.
Yes, there is the social benefit of these cases going to trial (Preventing future abuse in other companies), but not everyone wants to be a martyr.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_action#Class_certificati...
> to me that neither have pursued Uber in this regard.
I also find this surprising to the point of puzzling. Yes, HR (+legal) works for the company, ALWAYS. However, protecting the company from multi-million dollar lawsuits and potential negative publicity certainly falls within the remit, and removing offenders and mollifying victims would be the way to go.
So something doesn't quite add up, and I have a hard time believing "oh, we know that they won't sue" would be sufficient. Then again...hubris.
>It seems both women who've come forward would have open-and-shut cases against Uber for multi-millions in damages.
These cases are tough to win, even in a liberal jurisdiction like SF. For example, does "Amy" have any witnesses that are willing to testify about what they saw? Sure, a subpoena can compel them to testify, but if the men who were present are still working there, how likely is it that they are going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth under questioning?
The calculus becomes "keep my current job that is paying my bills, and maybe get a raise/promotion soon" vs. "stick my neck out for someone who no longer works here."
Sure, there are good lawyers who could maybe trip them up, but now you're treating what should be friendly or neutral witnesses as hostile witnesses. And Uber has some good lawyers too, obviously.
Further, even if some of these guys have moved on to other companies, they have to calculate how testifying in Amy's favor might come back to bite them later. With a guy like Travis who lacks good character (according to all the accounts I've read, anyway), it will come back to bite them sooner than later.
So "open-and-shut" is usually not really at all, but rather a less than 50% chance of recovering damages after years of difficult litigation. Unless, of course, you have lots of really good documentary evidence that's admissible.
Through inaction and malpractice they have increased the legal liability Uber faces and encouraged irreparable reputational damage for Uber.
Wikipedia: “Human resources are the people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, or economy. [...] A human-resources department (HR department) of an organization performs human resource management, overseeing various aspects of employment, such as compliance with labour law and employment standards, administration of employee benefits, and some aspects of recruitment and dismissal.”
(Your first meaning never occurred to me.)
Where'd you ever get that crazy idea?
>But its true meaning, to execs/stakeholders/corporate persons, is "[the department which manages the] human resources".
Not exactly. The true meaning is "the department which works to exploit the human resources as much as possible".
Except their actions here are not in the best interest of the company...why do people keep posting this in the context of discussing Uber? These are casebook examples of what HR should not do.
That is, don't interact with them expecting to be "understood" as a person.
You may not just get a "no, we can't do that". You may well also get an unmentioned strike against you, for even raising the point or concern.
There are some good people in HR. Although, upon reflection, I realize that those I've met tended to have moved on or exited HR.
Anyway, my point is, don't just expect "in the employer's interest", be also aware of and prepared for a lack of basic human connection.
Point of order here. HR acts in management's best interests, not necessarily the company's. It's pretty clear that HR's actions here are not in the company's best interests given how much of a shitfest this has been for Uber. They gave cover for people who were not acting in Uber's best interests and, as a result, Uber lost all their goodwill, they're bleeding talent, and you'd have to be delusional to think toxic norms like this haven't been affecting their morale and productivity.
Management's interests are separate from the best interests of the company. Shareholder interests are separate from the best interests of the company. A company is made up of employees, management, shareholders, AND clients all together. All of them are stakeholders and its best interests are the things that properly balance the needs of everyone to fulfill its mission or goal. It's neoliberal bullshit to claim that only management and shareholders matter, and the sooner we accept that the sooner we can make our corporate governance tack into a sane direction.
Yes but the company's best interest is to support Amy and fire Mike#2.
The reason is that if there is credible evidence of this behavior, she has easy settlement on par with Mike's value to the company (unless that is measured in 8 figures which is unlikely since at the end of the day, if they paid him $500k...they could replace him for $500k).
Hopefully the recently-revealed experiences at Uber will be taken as a wake-up call by HR folks whose calculus tells them that the best option is to cover up problems.
It should now be apparent that buried issues will eventually come to light, so the short-term gain of coverups won't be worth the long-term risk.
A competent CEO would take action here.
Yes, normally, HR acts in the company's interests.
But for many companies, its in their best interests to identify and fire creeps who work there and abuse women (or others generally).
What HR will do for you depends on what type of company you work in.
If you work in a company that cares about its culture, that values diversity and respects its employees, then HR is very likely to help you if you experience problems like these.
If you work for Uber - well I guess that's what all the heat and light is about. Is Uber such a shithole that these kinds of behaviour are actually condoned by the CEO?
Maybe we'll find out.
Going to HR is the right move for something like this. In any sane company, HR will take such a claim seriously because the potential legal downside if they don't is an unacceptable risk. In an insane company - aside from the fact that you can't measure the insanity level until you have in fact made such reports to HR and seen them dismissed - you still need to be able to show that you brought the problem to HR's attention and they did nothing about it.
This is an entirely anonymous complaint with no particular reason why anyone would believe it. A lot of it read to me as too perfect. Too designed to hit all of the right buttons to generate outrage.
I won't deny that it could be true. But I'd also give that possibility under even odds. And if stories like this are true, then we'll likely have enough opportunity to learn that later to give this version undue attention.
> Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link. If you think a comment is egregious, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top.
The story is not spam, not off-topic, and has a good chance of being non-egregious. It's certainly true it could be wrong, but that's very different.
(Maybe I'm wrong about appropriate use of flagging? I'd concede that it's fair for you to downvote it, but I suspect HN has disabled downvotes on stories for a reason, and using flagging as a pseudo-downvote seems wrong.)
Combined with the other recent bad press Uber's getting, it's admittedly not looking good for them, but on the other hand any of us _could_ have signed up for Medium and published an article like this.
Even worse, propaganda is a particularly nasty form of spam since it tries to alter your belief system such that future propaganda will seem more reasonable to you. Therefore maintaining a keen sense of what is possible propaganda is very important. A healthy brain should immediately try to verify anything that could be propaganda from any ideological position, and reject out of hand anything that cannot be verified.
This will only become more important as the world continues its slide towards fake news and echo chambers.
The more important the cause, and the more serious the claim, the more important it is to proceed carefully and not rush to conclusions.
But, yes, it could easily be an anonymous troll. It needs verification.
I think it's in poor taste to diss a group with grand rhetoric whilst participating in it, since you're as much a part of it as anyone else. If you think so poorly of your community, perhaps find a different one and post nastily there. I hear Twitter is good for that.
The reality of the HN community is that it's divided much the way that society at large is. The comments here inevitably reflect that. It's a mixed bag, a lot of what's in that bag isn't great and a small portion is awful, but (a) this community does manage somewhat better than most of the rest of the internet and (b) far more of the participants here are thoughtful and decent than otherwise.
It's also possible that some of that information is slightly twisted, to throw people off.
Furthermore, any of those descriptions could be fabricated to throw someone attempting to deanonymize her off.
[1] https://pando.com/2014/11/17/the-moment-i-learned-just-how-f...
[2] http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/15/12201134/uber-ergo-admit-l...
[3] http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/25/12274122/uber-ergo-investi...
And yes, unethicality/illegality doesn't appear to be an impediment for Uber. In fact, they seem to revel in skirting the law.
As opposed to the standard MRA characterization of all women as flighty, bitchy, whiny, screechy, slutty, dumb, "cheaters" who slept their way to the top somehow using their devious womanly wiles (but won't sleep with the MRA in question because they hate men).
People like you are the problem.
Even though you just tried to #identity_politic someone with blind belief, I'm not going to say people like you are the problem. Just tone down your zeal a bit and approach the problem rationally.
Even if the story is totally fabricated, the bigger point here is that this sort of thing really does go on, and I'm really not sure why. I've had staff who were totally normal and who I actually quite liked whom I've had to let go / perm shitlist for behaving in ways I could never have predicted them to, as soon as I added a female engineer to the team..
What's up with all this? Sad as it is, I always have a sit down with new female staff on my teams and try to let them know that they can come to me with anything like this which goes on and we'll work out how to deal with it together. It's a sad fact, but I've never discussed this topic with a female techie who doesn't have at least one story..
It's on all of us to stop this shit from happening.
Just... Have each others backs, folks!
The individual cases don't matter, because that can always be pushed off with "bad apple" arguments.
What matters is the trend. And there is DEFINITELY a trend. Every female Uber engineer will tell you that.
Also if you know women at Uber, you can also establish a trend.
Not exactly healthy discourse.
I don't expect the average rural Trump voter to have become aware and gain an in-depth understanding of these concepts over that time, but well-educated, well-connected, big-city techies that frequent hackernews have NO EXCUSE.
There is no room for healthy discourse when the default reaction from so much of the privileged side is to pick apart, dismiss, and discredit.
If your instinct when you hear a woman coming forward with stories of sexism in the tech industry is anything but to listen, understand, and empathize, you are part of the cause, not the solution.
It does nothing but cater to confirmation bias of those already inclined to hate Uber culture (with or without good reason. I'm not an insider, so the original allegations may be 100% correct, but that is completely orthogonal to this blog).
Fiction like this is incredibly harmful to those who have legitimate concerns about company culture and have actually been harassed without consequence, because it drowns their voices in pandering fanfic that reads like it was written by a teenager with a savior complex.
/s
As soon as someone doesn't want to be associated with a story critical of anything, the salt is implicit isn't it?
Considering the last few stories that have come out about how women are being treated in tech, what I've observed (and been enraged by) I'm pretty sure this happened/is happening still.
Are you just trying to verify the legitimacy of the post? If someone finds the courage to speak out, why would you then try to out them for doing so?
Does it even matter if it's faked if most of us could totally believe it's not? There are bigger problems being highlighted here than this individual incident...
But what do I know... Do you work there? Is someone trying to fsck with uber's valuation or something?
I'd really really like it if we could get to the point where if stories like this came out for any company, we would be more surprised by them..
As for the illegitimate power (I'm not even sure what that is...) and propagandists comments; I don't really see how this fits into twist of those..
It's a story about some bad behaviour at a big tech company.. Is it a big deal? Individually; nah. As a general trend in tech that I've certainly experienced; yeah. Is it part of a propagandists plot to turn your country into a communist superstate and increase their "illegitimate power" -- I doubt it..
What do you mean by that? Do you mean you've experienced an upswing in these incidents, or an upswing in the number of news stories about these sorts of incidents?
There are numerous incidents where broad media coverage of unsubstantiated claims cause public outrage over exaggerated incidents. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_controver... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria for examples.
Now, maybe that's part of life. I'm sure most of the males I've worked with have a story about being bullied or getting into a horrible fight with a coworker at least once, and perhaps by putting women experiencing these things into a certain category we're also part of the problem..
shrug -- I just don't like seeing people I like or am responsible for in some way getting a hard time; hopefully I won't see much more of it.
It would certainly surprise me. I simply cannot imagine working with the sort of folks Amy describes. I'm not saying that such folks don't exist — it's a big world — but that I have never in my almost two decades of work in our field run into them.
Now, maybe that means I haven't run into them. I can accept that. And maybe it means that Uber is particularly bad in this regard. I can also accept that.
I don't know if this story is true or false: I honestly don't. It's probably worth investigating; certainly, after Susan Fowler put her name on some allegations of despicable behaviour it probably is.
If there are pockets of our field where this is considered normal, they need to be eliminated. But it does not accord at all with my experience of trends in our field.
Because if it's not legitimate then it's worth knowing that? To me, this story seems far more suspicious than Fowler.
Does it even matter if it's faked if most of us could totally believe it's not?
Perhaps a variety of fake incidents have caused you to believe things that aren't true. Maybe the bigger problem being highlighted is also fake.
I recently had a conversation with someone telling me about a rape on a college campus. I told her I was skeptical. She said it was so common, why am I skeptical, and supported her case that it was common by citing Duke, Mattress Girl and UVA as examples. She was shocked when I suggested she google those incidents. Repeated fake incidents can cause people to change their priors.
So yes, the reason why "most of us could totally believe it's not" actually matters quite a lot.
I've certainly seen this happening / had to deal with it, I do feel that this is still an issue and something we need to improve. While it's not an across the board problem, I suspect most women working in tech would agree with me; the story, which I don't stand behind as as legitimate, is very similar to the sorts of things I've seen going on.
I wish we could just make it very hard for either false (I've seen this case happen, demonstrably, too) or true claims such as these to occur.
In most cases, talking to leads/mgt BEFORE these things get really bad would have helped and that's something we should be making easier..
But regardless of motivation, the facts show that many people are willing to fake stories just to support their "team". Sometimes they do this at great personal risk and cost, e.g. lighting their own truck on fire or making false police reports. As an example of one category, there have been many such incidents since Nov 7:
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2016/12/23/denton-man-s... http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/12/14/hate-hoax-nyc-musl... http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/real-time/S-Jersey-man-ar... http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/ann-arbor-police-womans-s... http://patch.com/new-york/gardencity/man-who-drew-swastikas-...
So it's hardly beyond the realm of possibility that such a person took an hour to write a medium post in an incognito window for such purposes.
I don't accept this as truth, I assume it's fiction as no one is standing behind it. My only point was, that in general, none of us are terribly shocked by stories such as these, and that's what I wanted to talk about.
I really do hope that less of this goes on than is reported, I sadly feel that the opposite is true -- and that's from personal experiences not unverifiable stories on the internetz.
In light of all of that I still think this is the kind of story that needs to be verified before action is taken. Just off the top of my head I could think of a number of reasons for someone to create a false story in this situation ranging from semi-believable, a competitor like Lyft adding more fuel to Uber's current PR fire, to conspiracy theory level, China trying to hurt a foreign company so that Didi Chuxing has an easier time growing.
Its unfortunate, but the internet allows unethical actors to craft and spread unverifiable stories with little effort but a high payoff due to the emotions of everyone who reads them. The same feeling that leads us to want to take action after reading this, because it would be genuinely terrible if true and we want to believe people, is the same feeling that leads anti vaxxers to believe fake science they find on the internet.
As for the false news/polarisation thing... Am I the only one starting to panic just a teeny little bit?
With the popularity of people crying "fake news" and the study recently hitting the front page of HN/Reddit that if you repeat a lie enough, people are more inclined to believe it [0], it bothers me to see a sentence like this. Yes, it matters a lot whether or not it is legitimate. "Fake news" never seems to matter to individuals if it supports their point of view.
Do you "totally believe it" because you've heard similar stories that are equally unverifiable or because you've had similar experiences? If it's because you've heard similar stories, how credible are those stories? Do you believe it because it has been repeated again and again? The last credible story along the "identity politics" line that I can remember offhand is "Donglegate" which I don't even take seriously, because it made a huge mess out of an immature joke that was overheard.
This whole "Even though it was a lie, I was trying to start a conversation!" is such a common tactic it's become a meme at this point and the fake victims "trying to start a conversation" are beginning to hurt the credibility of actual victims.
I pass no judgement on the credibility of the article - as I haven't read it. I came across this comment from /newcomments
[0] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022537177...
I meant that in the context of the overall experiences in women in tech, not women at uber or anything more specific than that.
Let me try to rephrase.. Would you be shocked that this sort of thing goes on? I would not. My only point was that the bigger problem is exactly THAT lack of surprise, and not the legitimacy of the post; and that's what we should be talking about.
I don't trust anything about the post, even if it was intentionally labelled as fiction; I'd feel the same way.
Putting on my evil villain hat for a moment, if I want to harass women it won't be at my workplace. It won't be at my favorite bar in Pune where I get laid regularly. I'll take the bus to Mumbai, head to some bar in Andheri where no one knows my face, and do it there. That's just a sign of my rational self interest (and evil villain hat) combined with a demonstrated ability to rub two brain cells together and think a step or two ahead.
There's a long history of precisely such individuals doing precisely this sort of thing.
And in any case, there is not a high probability of getting caught, for reasons that your comment illustrates. Women who make these claims are not believed.
He admitted his behaviour and he couldn't explain why he did it; was a pretty rough experience for everyone..
if you went looking for my work history you wouldn't find it, it's not documented anywhere public. You would have to have access to some completely internal/non public databases.
Even if she did have a LinkedIn, she'd probably just leave Uber off of it.
Additionally, assuming that Uber isn't stupid enough to coordinate a smear campaign of their own (although it happened to Ellen Pao)[1], she's safe. And if someone does doxx her, it means either: (a) Uber decided to doxx her or (b) one of the Uber employees that participated in her harassment decided to doxx her. Either way, it looks even worse for Uber and could set them up for a lawsuit.
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/594rad/exreddit_c...
I'm glad the author is sharing her story.
Basically, once the company is big enough that you don't know everyone who works there, the evil actors and back stabbers emerge. Especially when a company is growing rapidly, you go from being a human in the eyes of others, to a performance report -- some numbers on paper.
My new strategy? Leave any company that gets bigger than 300 people or so. It's worked so far!
Or alternatively publish the story with a news agency as a protected source under a pseudonym.
Uber deserves what they have coming to them at the moment, but an anonymized post that fits perfectly into the Uber / sexism / hostile work place with no evidence should be treated as suspect.
My default is "show me the evidence", but I believe Susan Fowler's account because she put her reputation on the line and I was willing to trust that she left, opposed to got fired, due to non-performance reasons based on being able to somewhat approximate/confirm her technical abilities.
This submission is just anonymous accusations. Absurd, unrealistic-sounding accusations. If the culture at Uber was as rampantly ridiculous as described in this blogpost, men and women would be falling over themselves to tell their stories.
> My paycheck is 18% less than my less qualified male colleagues.
If this was true, and the anonymous writer, who claims to be a skilled data analyst, was able to make a case that this was due to gender and not ability, she should be telling this story to a lawyer, not a blog site.
Is this post not proof of that? Especially so soon after Ms. Fowler's account. Perhaps the floodgates are now open.
The difference being that Susan Fowler's story was realistic. This blogpost is absurd and just adds noise that would compete with credible accounts.
Pretty big stretch to say I'm being sexist by suggesting you have _no clue_ what is or isn't a believable experience for a female engineer at Uber.
Racism and homophobia were also brought up and you're going as far to claim that the "baseline" for having an opinion is being female, as well as working at the same company at which the an anonymous author claims to have been employed. I don't fault you as I believe you're trying to make things better, but you're arguing against evidence and objectivity.
Look, I'm not trying to be argumentative, and I understand your doubts about the story. Really. I'm just calling attention to the way you chose to raise them. Claiming they're "absurd" as a way to present your argument that we should be skeptical is hard to take to seriously unless you're willing to say you worked on her team, or were another female engineering at Uber.
And yes, I probably escalated things talking about privilege, but I think this is a good example of how we don't always realize the ways our viewpoints affect our opinions. I personally have no basis with which to offer an opinion about the validity of the story. I welcome someone that reminds us to be skeptical because everything written was written anonymously.
And to be clear, I'm not talking about allowing anyone an opinion. I'm talking about how we discuss these things productively in public forums.
You suggested I'm not qualified to decide if the claims are believable (to me) and suggested that I would be if I was a woman that worked at Uber. "You don't understand X because you're not a Y" is a textbook attempt to reframe an argument away from objective considerations.
> Claiming they're "absurd" as a way to present your argument that we should be skeptical is hard to take to seriously unless you're willing to say you worked on her team, or were another female engineering at Uber.
Please note that I didn't claim the author was a liar. I wasn't careful with my words, but: "This submission is just anonymous accusations. Absurd, unrealistic-sounding accusations."
It's truthful to say the accusations are anonymous. The level of misconduct described by the author is absurd and sounds unrealistic -- if these events were proven to have happened, they would still be _absurd_ and _sound unrealistic_.
> And yes, I probably escalated things talking about privilege, but I think this is a good example of how we don't always realize the ways our viewpoints affect our opinions.
It's not escalation; invoking claims of "privilege" is head's up that you want to talk in subjective terms ("he/she feels", "other group experiences"), which is fine, but not fitting when I'm suggesting that I have a hard time believing an anonymous author's claims (e.g. "guys" at work writing sexual fantasy stories in private chat that the author somehow read).
An an aside, from reading between the lines, we have similar wants for the future culture of tech, but we're working with different strategies.
None, which is exactly the level of evidence put forward in the blogpost that it even happened. Susan Fowler's account is a plausible account of a toxic environment; I default to believing her for various reasons. Claims of open/unguarded homophobia racism, sexism, fireable remarks, coworker-sexual-fanfiction are pretty severe as the consequences are steep and financial for the accused -- if this blogpost isn't hyperbole, I hope the author is reading this comment as she should be talking with a lawyer.
> Do you think men don't ever...Because I have know a ton of women...
Disproving absolutes is a fool's errand and I'm sure you know the way this is phrased, I can't argue against it.
Your profile says you're the "technical founder on a bootstrapping startup," I want to make sure I never use your product, do business with your company, or take calls from your recruiters.
I'm not making claims of a sexist, racist, and hostile environment in a company, so for what it's worth, where I work isn't relevant.
You're right. And I don't have to trust what I read on Medium -- what I'm suggesting is that I don't believe _this particular anonymous author_ (and to be careful, I'm entirely willing to believe a culture of unacceptable behavior exists at Uber).
Whoa. I did no such thing. I stated that I don't believe this anonymous account. The author specifically _should not_ unmask herself at this point without speaking with a lawyer.
> perhaps because you feel that it might hurt your reputation not because you are wrong, but just because the internet is the shitty place it is...
This is accurate. Someone has requested that I make myself open to "doxxing" so he/she can boycott my products, even though he/she didn't understand my perspective on this.
... is a privileged viewpoint, and offensive to me. The author doesn't have to prove to your satisfaction that this happened to her to write this article.
She doesn't have to, but putting it that way, people don't have to believe her.
Has the word "privileged" so lost all meaning that it's privileged to merely want evidence? I reject that I'm somehow contributing to an oppressive patriarchy by wanting claims to be substantiated in the post-Enlightenment way: with proof. People do make things up.
There's obviously no way to be sure of the story, but the speed with which people just presume it's fake speaks the overall lack of understanding of sexual harassment in the workplace. It's willfully ignorant to make that the basis for a discussion on this article.
However, HN has lost its mind if merely saying you don't believe a story is now flag-worthy. Why should the odiousness of a claim influence our evaluation of whether or not it's true?
I don't deny anyone wanting evidence that opinion, but I think it's also really easy for someone with the privilege of not having to deal with the things women in the tech workplace have to deal with to shut down articles like this one.
I think your point would've been better made if you'd written this comment first, instead of the privilege thing.
"Privileged"?
I'm not sure how or why you chose to take offense, but I'm surprised that anything about that was even slightly controversial.
> The author doesn't have to prove to your satisfaction that this happened to her to write this article
You're right, but that doesn't mean I have to believe what the author claims and doesn't mean I can't respond to it. The comment section doesn't exist to serve as an echo chamber.
If you'd said "we lack sufficient evidence to believe Amy," I think you would've just been yelled at, not flagged.
I second this. Anyone can write a story online. I want accountability.
1. Racism.
Not okay. Fire him.
2. Sexist behavior
Not okay. Warn and then fire him.
3. Working people hard
That's okay. I was made to work hard. Long days no breaks hard deadlines. That's the world we live in.
4. How this affected her
I'm sorry she went through this and it's not okay. How she chooses to feel and deal with this are under her control. She shouldn't have perpetuated her pain by staying in the situation.
Can you understand how hard it is for someone to leave a job after a short amount of time, knowing that every future employer will see that on your resumé?
No, it's not okay. But this one is not the company's problem; it's on the union, or lack thereof.
3. I think many would argue that we shouldn't have to live in a world where long days with no breaks is the accepted standard. I've worked that way, 10 hour days, 6-7 days a week, it's not sustainable and leads to burnout, poor quality work, and grumpy employees.
Your second paragraph suggests an ideal that we should aspire to but it's not the reality for startups and high growth industries. If we seek out this part of this industry we shouldn't bellyache about the hours.
you have stay until they kill your spirit just because Uber is a cool company?
I can imagine people keep staying there if they have to feed their hungry children and pay mortgage in a very bad economy, but not just because its a "Cool" company.
It's easy to look back and say "Oh this is a bad company" but as it's happening it's easy to say "Oh this just happened once." or "Maybe it's me." or "Well Mike sucks, but I can deal with it, it's not that big of a deal, and there's a lot of benefits to staying like fulfilling work and being able to work with great minds. I've learned a lot from my other coworkers." or "Maybe I can change things, maybe things will get better." or "I can resolve this if I keep working with HR, it will be fixed soon."
Not-Amy said it was exhilarating the first 2 months, if overly hard work. In a company of that size, I too would totally expect working with HR to be the fix, as it usually is. I mean do you quit your job the instant you have a shitty coworker? I too would try to resolve my issues first internally first. Because that usually works. When that didn't work, she quit and rightly called them out on being ridiculous.
And I also wrote about the dangers of job loyalty a few years later: http://khanism.org/society/loyalty/
It's like the Milgram experiments: people often don't realize they have options. They don't want to be one of those people who "keep switching jobs." My longest job on my CV is 2.5 years. Most are only 1 year. I worried a bit about job loyalty until I realized no one even read the dates on my resume. Average turnaround in our industry is 13 months.
You can get a new job. If you're afraid of jumping too much, don't have more than three a year. Surely 1/3 of those is going to be tolerable/not-horrible enough to get a nice 13 months on your CV. If you're in IT as a dev, admin or some kind of engineer, there is a ton of interesting work. I agree with you totally. There is no reason to stay in a shit job. There is plenty of interesting and challenging work in good places for both men and women in our industry.
p.s. I've had one opportunity in the past that I declined due to lower pay package. Current one seems good, but I'm not going forward.
#nouber
There really is no other self respecting choice. Sitting on the fence is condoning and enabling their behaviour.
Reader beware.