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Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

susanjfowler.com

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Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#221

Post by 0898 »

csharpminor wrote: post #119
logandavis wrote: post #69

By all indications, Uber has a toxic work culture that costs them both top talent and organizational velocity. I'm a college senior at a well-regarded engineering school. My CS classmates - especially women - simply do not apply to Uber, in large part because of its reputation for internal misogyny and general assholery. Four classmates interned there last summer, and as far as I know none are interested in returning…

Anecdotally speaking, I've noticed that Uber has become a dirty word among my friends. For example, someone using Uber will generally just say that they're calling a car rather than naming the service. Lyft doesn't have the same stigma. It should be concerning to management that the company's ethos is repelling customers. Edit: Management should be far more concerned that Uber is allegedly an environment that systema…

I've noticed this. But tempting as it is to #DeleteUber, am I not mostly just hurting local taxi drivers who keep 75% of the revenue?

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#222

Post by amputect »

jacquesm wrote: post #169
btown wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I shared your optimism that HR practices had anything to do with IPO pricing...

At some level they are linked. Uber will have to learn to play within existing frameworks. Key Nordic proverb: "Pissing in your pants keeps you warm only for so long". In other words, using your funds raised to make up for shortcomings elsewhere in the organization will sooner or later come to and end.

That's an excellent proverb, and the way things are going in my neck of the woods, I feel like I'm going to get a lot of mileage out of it.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#223

Post by knucklesandwich »

Eridrus wrote: post #213
tptacek wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software developers have incredible leverage right now, perhaps more than any cohort of employees in the country, and while most don't have salary to organize around, there are plenty of other practices --- transparency and liquidity of equity compensation being a great example --- that generate a broad base of support across the whole industry. People hear the term "union" and they think "shop rules" and "union cont…

So what organising principles should a software developer union have? It's easy to say they could be anything we want it to be, but I'm not sure there's a real consensus on any particular principle. Lots of people who talk about unions seem to value privacy protections for consumers, but there are clearly software developers writing this software who have a different view. Ubers reputation has been trash for almost a…

Without a fair equity package, none of those employees are going to get any kind of payout from an exit. And given the number of fundraising rounds Uber has undergone: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber/funding-rounds and their difficulty in actually turning a profit: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/uber-lose... it seems a little questionable that anyone from the rank-and-file is going to get rich at Uber.

A union is what gives you the ability confront management about these kinds of things.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#224

Post by santaclaus »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #174
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that workers don't have leverage like they used to due to globalization and a general labor surplus. We need to think of something that would work better than a union.

What? It's literally your right to vote to join a union. If a majority of coworkers vote for one, you've got a union. Look up the National Labor Relations Act.

Ehh, when my previous workplace was voting to unionize I wasn't able to vote because I was a remote worker, and didn't have the disposable income to fly in and vote... being disenfranchised is a drag.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#225

Post by michaelbuckbee »

bifocald wrote: post #200
logandavis wrote: post #69

By all indications, Uber has a toxic work culture that costs them both top talent and organizational velocity. I'm a college senior at a well-regarded engineering school. My CS classmates - especially women - simply do not apply to Uber, in large part because of its reputation for internal misogyny and general assholery. Four classmates interned there last summer, and as far as I know none are interested in returning…

The real problem in Uber's engineering orgs is that Uber hired too many people for too few real projects. From what I learned from my friends in Uber, many teams had largely overlapping responsibilities, and therefore created bogus projects to justify their existence. Their standard MO is picking a missing feature in a service, and then creating a new system that implemented that feature. It might be okay if all the…

This is a really interesting observation and something I think doesn't factor into most people's calculus of company culture and execution.

I worked an early employee at a YC startup that was developing a hardware device and I think really ran into similar issues.

There were significant delays with shipping the device which meant that all the teams which had been built up to support its launch had _nothing_ to do for months. People in a "Customer Success" department with no customers. Developer evangelists with nothing to evangelize. Support departments twiddling their thumbs and the worst was the sales and marketing groups which devolved into a Lord of the Flies type environment where they tried latching onto any and every project they could just to justify their existence.

Timing really is everything.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#226

Post by mtanski »

grzm wrote: post #57
angry-hacker wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are used to break the laws, it's called disruption, I think.

Disruption doesn't necessarily imply illegal activity.

In fact many current industries engage in illegal activities. Most often cartel behavior and price fixing.

Generally this behavior is not curbed already because it's hard to prove price fixing without having concrete information about the communication. Technically you don't need to have communication, but it's hard.

Sometimes all you need is one new vendor to enter the market place and not play by the old rules.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#227

Post by bsder »

twblalock wrote: post #2

If you are sexually harassed, and HR doesn't do anything about it, you should sue. Don't expect HR to change. If the stories in this article are true, and if the evidence is as strong as the article says it is, this is a slam-dunk case for sexual harassment, hostile work environment, retaliation, etc.

Lawsuits cost enormous amounts of time and effort. A rich company has way more of both than you do.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#228

Post by kenferry »

ben_olive wrote: post #219

HR fucked up and the manager should not have talked to her that way. Absolutely agree. I believe she has grounds to sue if she wishes. Now, I think it's easy to take this type of situations and overeact. The behavior Susan described is not appropriate. That said, I think there is a trend to classify any romantic behavior or advances as sexual assault and innpapropriate behavior. Nowadays I would have a very hard time…

Did you read the whole article? It sounds like you're only reacting to the first incident.

And yes, anyone in your management chain making moves on you is 100% inappropriate. There's a power relationship there. Most companies have explicit guidelines about things like this.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#229

Post by revelation »

madeofpalk wrote: post #218
revelation wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't sue, there is likely a mandatory arbitration clause in the employment contract (because why not, it's free) and it applies to everything .

Also not enforceable.

Well, I thought the same, then thought better of the kneejerk reaction and instead decided to learn something new today.

And Google tells me that yes, even in cases of rape, courts have found them enforceable.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#230

Post by Teodolfo »

0898 wrote: post #221
csharpminor wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally speaking, I've noticed that Uber has become a dirty word among my friends. For example, someone using Uber will generally just say that they're calling a car rather than naming the service. Lyft doesn't have the same stigma. It should be concerning to management that the company's ethos is repelling customers. Edit: Management should be far more concerned that Uber is allegedly an environment that systema…

I've noticed this. But tempting as it is to #DeleteUber, am I not mostly just hurting local taxi drivers who keep 75% of the revenue?

Not if you use Lyft.
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