Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I am an Uber survivor

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 841 posts

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#551

Post by monksy »

selectodude wrote: post #279
leggomylibro wrote: post #132

>Travis is well known to protect high performing team leaders no matter how abusive they are towards their employees. The HR team was known to be deftly[sic] afraid of Travis’s tendency to blame and ridicule the women and yell at HR whenever they went in with complaints of abuse. I heard about Travis personally congratulating Mike#2 for meeting strict deadlines months after I complained to HR about my abuse. This is…

>"Great, retain a Chicago politician so you know you'll get the answer you're paying for." Normally I don't care, but because I'm from Chicago and am officially very touchy about all the abuse the city catches, I'd like to correct the record as Eric Holder is from New York.

I've also heard that he puts ketchup on his hotdog.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#552

Post by vacri »

_yosefk wrote: post #363
macsj200 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specifically is the move forward here, though? I suppose hn as a community has the power to boycott applying to the company, but how else can we drive internal change from an external position? Uninstalling the app and simply choosing to use a competitor's services are another option, but sapping the entire organization of revenue seems like it would hurt drivers and developers at least as much as management, if…

OK Cupid blocked Firefox, a non-profit with less questionable business practices than most tech companies and certainly Uber, over Eich's quiet private donation which ought to be a smaller deal than systematic sexual harassment with consequences for victims instead of perpetrators (although the donation was proven while the harassment is alleged; I doubt this tips the scales of public sentiment though.) The overall r…

OK Cupid behaved poorly in that matter - after getting what they wanted (Eich resigning), they didn't act to resolve the reputational damage they'd done. All too quick to pop up a message saying "mozilla is the devil"[1], but afterwards, no message saying "okay, the situation has been resolved in our favour, you should go back and try it out". I lost a lot of respect towards the site from that.

[1] despite gay and lesbian developers coming out and saying that Eich's personal opinions on the issue didn't translate to company culture and they felt a positive atmosphere working there.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#553

Post by myblake »

huckyaus wrote: post #304
tyre wrote: post #210

I'm really happy she felt comfortable doing this. What an incredibly brave and strong person—I can't imagine what she must be feeling. What I really want to see is the other 20 men on her team tell their bosses to cut that shit out. We cannot rely on the abused to stand up for themselves; for every one who does there are thousands who cannot. It is on every one of us to report abhorrent behaviour, even if we think so…

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" - Upton Sinclair

That happens to be one of the quotes in one of the related articles Medium suggests at the bottom that's worth the read: https://medium.com/@dhh/deleting-uber-is-the-least-you-can-d...

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#555

Post by st3v3r »

komali2 wrote: post #524
slurple wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way for men to counter this in a toxic environment is to call it out when they see it. This sends a message that being outwardly dehumanizing and dismissive is not okay, and is not the accepted norm.

I'm quite shocked that nobody stepped in when Mike2 called her a "whiny little bitch" in a meeting. She said the other men "were shocked" spare a couple that giggled. What the fuck kind of person stands around and does nothing when witnessing that kind of abuse in a professional environment?

Honestly, the type that is afraid to be fired and doesn't want to rock the boat. I'd like to believe I'd stand up and say that's wrong, but never having been in the situation, I don't know how I'd react. I'd probably start navel-gazing, too. :(

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#556

Post by Jare »

late2part wrote: post #67
alphonsegaston wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

She should hope they go after her. That ensures retaliation damages.

Most people would prefer the damage to not take place.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#557

Post by fencepost »

nanolith wrote: post #317
tyre wrote: post #210

I'm really happy she felt comfortable doing this. What an incredibly brave and strong person—I can't imagine what she must be feeling. What I really want to see is the other 20 men on her team tell their bosses to cut that shit out. We cannot rely on the abused to stand up for themselves; for every one who does there are thousands who cannot. It is on every one of us to report abhorrent behaviour, even if we think so…

If I saw a manager do what she described, no matter how high up the food chain he was, I'd frog march him to HR myself. I don't even care if they fire me for it. We don't tolerate stuff like this in this century.

Probably only until it became obvious that HR was suffering from the corporate equivalent of 995.81 (battered person syndrome) and will give a response of "Oh, he's a good person and has never done this before and I'm sure he'll never do it again, and if we rock the boat we'll be targeted as well."

Frankly I think Uber has long passed the point where I expect to start hearing about leaked recordings and cellphone videos of this kind of thing instead.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#558

Post by kevinchen »

iamcasen wrote: post #522
grandalf wrote: post #360

I think the bottom line is that some founders believe that you have to tolerate abusive personalities in order to hire the best. I had a person on my team once who I did not hire but who had a reputation for being one of the smartest and most capable engineers. As his new manager, I expected that I'd soon promote him. But then I saw that he treated others on the team very poorly and often said highly inappropriate se…

I'll be real with you. I worked at Uber for a while. I never noticed any sexual harassment while I was there, but what I did notice was that the company culture was quite excellent until the number of employees got up to 1000 or so. It wasn't until there were many layers of management that things got shitty. I left once the culture no longer felt friendly. I haven't spoken to Travis in quite a few years now, but I fi…

No. There is simply no excuse for this kind of abusive environment to exist at your company. If you are CEO, you are responsible:

- Kalanick doesn't interact with every employee every day like the olden days, but he certainly hired the people who do (directly or indirectly).

- Greenshift is a real problem, but it's not like the management chain is the only way a CEO can find out about problems.

And nobody's saying that Kalanick is telling his execs that it's OK to harass employees. In my mind, he is responsible and culpable even if he simply turns a blind eye when harassment happens.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#559

Post by amiga-workbench »

cyberpunk wrote: post #222
soheil wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"listen and believe"

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#560

Post by bbcbasic »

tyre wrote: post #175
bphogan wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's not an independent investigation if you hire the investigators.

Who else could hire the investigators? It's a tricky problem, but ultimately you rely on the investigators caring more about their reputation than any one contract. If it gets out that firm X doesn't do objective reviews, then future companies in hot water won't hire them. The real challenge here is that these investigators are not independent. Eric Holder has done prior work on behalf of Uber, which means he could r…

Yes, now get me some AAA rated bonds.
Post reply on HN