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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

#71

Post by bendoernberg »

synicalx wrote: post #61
cjensen wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you work for Uber and can't find a new job in this market, you either aren't trying or aren't qualified. We aren't talking about hypothetical people on the verge of bankruptcy here who we have constructed from first principles. We're talking about people who have somehow managed to buy a house within commute range of Uber SF. If quitting means losing the house, they've done something very very wrong.

So you think; 1. Everyone at Uber is amazingly qualified and sought after (but you won't hire them of course) 2. Everyone at Uber works in San Fran (my local Uber office must be a scam then!) 3. No one at Uber has any financial issues (company sponsored financial advice maybe?) Tell me, if an Uber driver spends $97k on a car, and then goes bankrupt, is that his fault or Uber's?

Well, Uber has been encouraging drivers to take out essentially subprime leases on cars through Uber, systematically misleading them about their earning potential (for which they settled with the FTC), and repeatedly changing the payment and incentive structure for drivers. Uber could offer a clear, consistent value proposition and advise drivers on how to make good financial decisions, such as taking the depreciation of their vehicles into account. As far as I'm aware they are taking no steps to look out for the best interests of their drivers. I see comparatively little public benefit in putting a random driver's poor economic decision under the microscope, as opposed to tackling the systemic exploitative behavior of a company that seeks to be the logistics and transportation backbone of the entire world.

Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber

#72

Post by bendoernberg »

synicalx wrote: post #29
bendoernberg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire black population of Montgomery Alabama gave up taking the bus for over a year during the boycott because they cared enough to make that sacrifice. People who care enough sometimes go on hunger strike, lie down in front of tanks, and risk arrest for what they believe in. If you need a "better offer" than what I assume is your current 6-figure salary to change jobs, then Uber's sexist, anti-worker, sociopath…

Yeah right, because catching a bus is the same as staring down a tank. Literally the bravest thing I've ever heard. How about next time you have a problem with the way a company does business, you just don't use that company's services? Or is that not enough for you? You have to march around HN and tell everyone else what they should be doing in order to appease you?

I think an honest reading of my comment would reveal that I was providing a range of actions that people can engage in that require some level of sacrifice in service of a collective goal. My point was that on this spectrum, switching six-figure software engineering jobs (for most people not in an emergency situation or supporting a family of 9 etc) is not very much to ask when it has the potential to shift the industry's attitude towards sexism and generally antisocial behavior by the companies that increasingly shape the lives of billions of people around the world. If someone is not willing to make a moderate sacrifice for that cause, then it seems reasonable to doubt they are really all that committed to it.

And you're correct, deleting my Uber account (as I've done) is not enough for me, because I am only one person and unless I work together with other people I do not have the resources necessary to cause Uber to change anything. It is only through collective action that an $xx,000,000,000 company can be forced to change anything, and that requires communication. I'm not telling other people what they should do to appease me, I'm asking other people to use their position of power to help those with less power, such as women who are software engineers and Uber drivers.

Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber

#73

Post by bendoernberg »

prewett wrote: post #34
bendoernberg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire black population of Montgomery Alabama gave up taking the bus for over a year during the boycott because they cared enough to make that sacrifice. People who care enough sometimes go on hunger strike, lie down in front of tanks, and risk arrest for what they believe in. If you need a "better offer" than what I assume is your current 6-figure salary to change jobs, then Uber's sexist, anti-worker, sociopath…

It's pretty self-righteous to tell someone they should quit their job because of your beliefs when there is no cost to you and potentially quite a bit of cost to them.

I can't speak to whether it's self-righteous or not, but collective action is not possible if people can only ask others to do what they have also done. Everyone has different abilities and positions in society that enable them to take action in different ways. College students couldn't divest from South Africa during apartheid, but they pressured their colleges and other businesses to do so, and that feels perfectly reasonable to me.

Perhaps it's self-righteous to argue that nobody should help Palantir provide DHS with a Muslim registry under any circumstances, even if it means negative consequences for them and their family (and for most software engineers it really won't!). But that's what I believe, and I'd like to think it's the choice I would make in that situation, and I'd hope that my family and friends and strangers on the Internet would push me to acknowledge the moral choice I was facing and make the choice that helped others instead of maximizing my own narrow self-interest.

Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber

#75

Post by [deleted] »

remarkEon wrote: post #28
bendoernberg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire black population of Montgomery Alabama gave up taking the bus for over a year during the boycott because they cared enough to make that sacrifice. People who care enough sometimes go on hunger strike, lie down in front of tanks, and risk arrest for what they believe in. If you need a "better offer" than what I assume is your current 6-figure salary to change jobs, then Uber's sexist, anti-worker, sociopath…

I don't understand this sentiment. Whoever you're responding to could have other responsibilities, family or otherwise, where his or her decision to leave could adversely affect other people - not just them. I also don't quite think it's appropriate to invoke one of the seminal events of the Civil Rights movements in this country as a way to try to shame someone into quitting a job at a company you don't like, exogen…

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber

#76

Post by bendoernberg »

remarkEon wrote: post #28
bendoernberg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire black population of Montgomery Alabama gave up taking the bus for over a year during the boycott because they cared enough to make that sacrifice. People who care enough sometimes go on hunger strike, lie down in front of tanks, and risk arrest for what they believe in. If you need a "better offer" than what I assume is your current 6-figure salary to change jobs, then Uber's sexist, anti-worker, sociopath…

I don't understand this sentiment. Whoever you're responding to could have other responsibilities, family or otherwise, where his or her decision to leave could adversely affect other people - not just them. I also don't quite think it's appropriate to invoke one of the seminal events of the Civil Rights movements in this country as a way to try to shame someone into quitting a job at a company you don't like, exogen…

You're right that leaving a job can affect other people...but so does staying! By continuing to work there, Uber employees are facilitating a sexist environment, the exploitation of the drivers who (if things go according to plan) will soon be discarded and left with car loans they can't pay back, and a general disregard for the wellbeing of anyone who is not an Uber shareholder or executive.

I agree with you that the Uber situation is far from the civil rights era, but I wanted to pick an example of regular people (almost certainly in a much worse situation than OP) making a sacrifice that impacted their finances and quality of life. Those people had family members depending them too; the difference is they had a cause they cared enough about to make sacrifices. I believe that people should either be willing to make sacrifices for things they care about, or admit that they don't care enough. OP was instead treating the suggestion that people make a sacrifice as a prima facie absurd suggestion, and I find that troubling.

Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber

#77

Post by uberino »

I'm an Uber engineer. I've been here several years. I'm not going to comment on any recent news, but I do have something very important to say that I've yet to see anyone else voice.

What frustrates me most about people are hell bent on painting a wildly successful company in the worst light possible is that doing so has very serious negative implications for equality and opportunity for women and other groups that are under-represented in tech. Let me explain why.

Spending several years at a unicorn startup opens up so many opportunities. Look at early employees from Fairchild, Paypal, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc. These companies minted many many millionaires and gave them tons of valuable experience to go out and start their own companies after they left. When you so aggressively bad mouth the culture of a rising unicorn such that you discourage certain groups from even applying to work there, you have deprived those people of an opportunity to be on a rocket ship. You're perpetuating the very problem you're railing against.

My colleagues in the LadyEng group here at Uber have on many occasions lamented how hard a time they have recruiting other women to join the company because of the reputation in the media. The company culture has been so maligned by those with an agenda that even the women engineers here have a difficult time convincing other women to join.

If you really want people who are under-represented in tech to succeed, you should encourage them and support them in joining every rising unicorn that exists and will ever exist regardless of how that culture is perceived, because four years after joining they will have the money, experience and connections to create their own companies and perpetuate a virtuous cycle.

If you agree with this message please spread it because so few people realize how they are contributing to a self-fulfilling prophecy that hurts the cause they claim to champion.

Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber

#78

Post by flukus »

goseeastarwar wrote: post #67
flukus wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those that wish to distract from the industry's systemic issues insist on evidence Yes, because it would be nice to know if it really was a systemic issue before wasting time and energy fixing it. "It's totally an issue, trust me" isn't worth acting on.

How many accounts of harassment do you need to believe there's a problem, out of curiosity? Nearly every woman in the industry has a story to tell, most say nothing. You'd know that if you'd bother to speak to any.

> How many accounts of harassment do you need to believe there's a problem, out of curiosity?

Zero, I'm not taking anecdotal evidence.

Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber

#79

Post by flukus »

goseeastarwar wrote: post #16
jimmywanger wrote: post #10

I 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,…

We need to stop doing this in every thread. These women are taking huge risks by speaking publicly and asking for proof is insulting to say the least.

How is it a huge risk? No one will remember any of their names in a week and if their allies in this thread are too be believed they can walk into a job elsewhere.

Re: Silicon Valley programmers pressure friends to quit working at Uber

#80

Post by bendoernberg »

synicalx wrote: post #58
cjensen wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is socially acceptable to call on people with moral failings to work on fixing them. Also, Free Speech is a human right acknowledged in sensible parts of the global like Australia. It's not just a law in a particular fiefdom.

Yes it is acceptable to call people on their moral failings, but their working at Uber isn't a moral failing - it's a job. When BP spewed oil all over the ocean, did you track down their employees and point out what horrible people they were? Or how about Yahoo, when they acknowledged their breach and admitted doing nothing about it for years, did you demand that everyone at Yahoo jump ship?

People who help BP drill for oil when they could be making a perfectly fine living doing something else are contributing to, potentially, the end of human life on this planet. If that is not an immoral act, what is?
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