Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber
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Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber
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Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber
#2Friends, it is insensible to ask me to quit without giving me a better offer elsewhere.
Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber
#3So much is happening so fast in the name of bad publicity directed at Uber.
Is anyone else cynically suspecting a coordinated hit? I don't doubt there's a toxic culture with real problems present. But the timing and sustained pressure of all this media attention seems a little... suspicious.
I also think back to the anonymously written Medium piece after the first one [1]. There is literally no way to verify this, and it was upvoted a ridiculous amount (top 10 story on HN of all time or something like that). To a cynic, this could easily be astroturfing.
To reiterate - I'm not by any means doubting that there are serious organizational and cultural problems at Uber that need to be addressed. But I can't help but feeling like something else is going on as well.
Who could stand to benefit from such a public image barrage, by attacking the ability to hire and retain talent?
[1] - https://medium.com/@amyvertino/my-name-is-not-amy-i-am-an-ub...
Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber
#4So much is happening so fast in the name of bad publicity directed at Uber. Is anyone else cynically suspecting a coordinated hit? I don't doubt there's a toxic culture with real problems present. But the timing and sustained pressure of all this media attention seems a little... suspicious. I also think back to the anonymously written Medium piece after the first one [1]. There is literally no way to verify this, an…
I don't think it's a coordinate hit. I think one woman published her story, and then everyone else started digging deeper, and given their previous ethical issues, the stories, even the anonymous ones, are fairly easy to believe.
But to answer your question, Lyft, as well as cab companies all over the planet, would benefit immensely from people not using Uber.
Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber
#5So much is happening so fast in the name of bad publicity directed at Uber. Is anyone else cynically suspecting a coordinated hit? I don't doubt there's a toxic culture with real problems present. But the timing and sustained pressure of all this media attention seems a little... suspicious. I also think back to the anonymously written Medium piece after the first one [1]. There is literally no way to verify this, an…
I don't think it's a coordinate hit. I think one woman published her story, and then everyone else started digging deeper, and given their previous ethical issues, the stories, even the anonymous ones, are fairly easy to believe. But to answer your question, Lyft, as well as cab companies all over the planet, would benefit immensely from people not using Uber.
Not to mention the engineers available to SV companies after a mass exodus.
Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber
#6So much is happening so fast in the name of bad publicity directed at Uber. Is anyone else cynically suspecting a coordinated hit? I don't doubt there's a toxic culture with real problems present. But the timing and sustained pressure of all this media attention seems a little... suspicious. I also think back to the anonymously written Medium piece after the first one [1]. There is literally no way to verify this, an…
I don't think it's a coordinate hit. I think one woman published her story, and then everyone else started digging deeper, and given their previous ethical issues, the stories, even the anonymous ones, are fairly easy to believe. But to answer your question, Lyft, as well as cab companies all over the planet, would benefit immensely from people not using Uber.
Cynically, so would automakers in the economy/hybrid economy segment of the market, I believe.
Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber
#7So much is happening so fast in the name of bad publicity directed at Uber. Is anyone else cynically suspecting a coordinated hit? I don't doubt there's a toxic culture with real problems present. But the timing and sustained pressure of all this media attention seems a little... suspicious. I also think back to the anonymously written Medium piece after the first one [1]. There is literally no way to verify this, an…
I would think that they got some bad press (via the Fowler article), then other organizations had some bad press ready to go at the right time.
Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber
#8So much is happening so fast in the name of bad publicity directed at Uber. Is anyone else cynically suspecting a coordinated hit? I don't doubt there's a toxic culture with real problems present. But the timing and sustained pressure of all this media attention seems a little... suspicious. I also think back to the anonymously written Medium piece after the first one [1]. There is literally no way to verify this, an…
Another possibility: the cathartic outrage bandwagon. We can't really punish Trump for his awfulness right now. We can punish Travis Kalanick and Uber. (I don't know what their sales look like right now, but I doubt it's a pretty picture.) There's obviously something very satisfying about burning someone at the stake, even if he's probably guilty.
Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber
#9So much is happening so fast in the name of bad publicity directed at Uber. Is anyone else cynically suspecting a coordinated hit? I don't doubt there's a toxic culture with real problems present. But the timing and sustained pressure of all this media attention seems a little... suspicious. I also think back to the anonymously written Medium piece after the first one [1]. There is literally no way to verify this, an…
Occam's razor. Is it a giant conspiracy coordinated by some Other Entity with Power and Influence able to manipulate NYT as well as Google to maximize the impact of their destructive forces?
Or... because of all the bad publicity and Uber being in the limelight, those who were already feel uncomfortable about what they saw finally got the initiative to speak out... and the news media finds the story hot enough to publish because of the #DeleteUber campaign... and throw in some consequential timing at Google.
Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber
#10I think it bears repeating that there has been no hard evidence turned up in any of this. Even the single non-anonymous story doesn't have any corroborating evidence or records, and the charges of "investigation" and "harassment" have been only reported by the original reporter of the story.
The fallout has been that somebody has been let go after non-substantiated rumors about his activities at a previous employer, and now people are being pressured to leave the company and end all association with the company.
This is definitely an unjustified (based on the revealed evidence) reaction, and this is how witch hunts start.
Now I have heard second hand that the work and engineering culture at Uber needs some help - in terms of hours worked and technical discipline. That sort of thing seems plausible.
However, for anything that implies this level of harassment, there had better be more hard evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.