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I am an Uber survivor

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Re: I am an Uber survivor

#221

Post by localcrisis »

jimbokun wrote: post #205

I know this is politics and maybe distracting from the main conversation but... The United States voters just decided similar behavior is not disqualifying for the office of President. So how can we possibly convince other men this kind of behavior is not conducive to attaining the money, power, and influence they may desire?

I think this differs from the election in that we, Silicon Valley, have tacitly assumed that "things are different here", that 2017 San Francisco is different than 2017 Louisiana.

That may be the case, but we still have a long way to go.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#222

Post by cyberpunk »

soheil wrote: post #179
harryh wrote: post #31

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…

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".

What was your motivation for doing this?

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?

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#223

Post by spraak »

aylmao wrote: post #48
spraak wrote: post #2

Very sad that I expected more stories like Susan's to come out.

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.

Good point, yes! I definitely prefer their stories to be shared than hidden.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#224

Post by jff »

cyan_atrus wrote: post #195
abecedarius wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. (Your first meaning never occurred to me.)

what's the novel?

A Deepness In The Sky by Vernor Vinge

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#225

Post by yalogin »

Its appalling she went through that and shameful to see people like this Mike #2 exist in the tech world in 2017. From what I can gather he still works there.

It looks like the HR department at Uber exists purely to manage employee pay and nothing else. They are severely defanged and pander to star hires. At this point they could may be replace them all with some API and be done with it.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#226

Post by mjolk »

ubercore wrote: post #196
mjolk wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#227

Post by x0x0 »

woodruffw wrote: post #58
harryh wrote: post #31

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…

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 w…

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].

[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...

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#228

Post by deanCommie »

antisthenes wrote: post #143
deanCommie wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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). People like you are the problem.

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.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#229

Post by smnscu »

That's the tipping point for me. I don't care about being ruthless in business, but you don't pull shit like this. No more Uber for me, although I enjoy using their service.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#230

Post by geofft »

ohyes wrote: post #219
geofft wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why: https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/835193441814392833 Even assuming no malice, a rational economic actor faced with a career-ending allegation of bad behavior is interested in discrediting the accusation via all possible means, including discrediting, shaming, or embarrassing the accuser to force a retraction. And once you're assuming malice, they're especially interested in it.

To my knowledge Susan didn't specifically name anyone? It seems like the smear campaign will happen regardless as long as the woman is alleging bad behavior like this. (Presumably because there is a cadre of psychopaths who think this sort of sexism should be allowed). So I don't see where the disincentive is for the abused to go nuclear first. (The abuser clearly has no compunction or ethics regarding escalating the…

Smear campaigns depend on the sympathy of outsiders. I can't smear anyone by myself, I smear them by convincing other people to believe negative things about the person I'm smearing.

If I can convince people to believe that someone accused me "falsely" by name and tried to ruin my career, I'm a lot more likely to gain the support of neutral outsiders against that person than if I go after someone who very carefully never named names.

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