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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

#91
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> but collective action is not possible if people can only ask others to do what they have also done.

Hmm, I think you don't believe in leadership? Even warlords in the ancient times know they have to risk losing their lives fighting when they recruit an army for themselves.

We Chinese call the people Keyboard Men who ask people to do all kinds of things, behind their keyboards.

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

#92
post #77

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 a…

I work for a Fortune 100 size company that treats women and under-represented groups with respect & dignity (from every interaction I've seen). The pay and benefits are excellent as well. I'd rather convince women to join my company than a company that mistreats them. Your argument about a rocket ship lottery ticket isn't worth much compared to mistreatment.

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

#93
post #77

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 a…

This argument would hold water if there was a common pattern of discouraging women or other tech minorities to avoid early stage startups. AFAIK this is solely an Uber thing though, because Uber is that much worse than the status quo.

Also, this seems like maybe it would be a relevant consideration for joining Uber in 2010 - nobody joining in 2017 is hitting the lottery and contributing to a virtuous cycle.

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

#94
This is a great example of how the proto-libertarian nonsense that comes out of the tech world is just pure self-serving bullshit. Where were all of these people since forever? The tech industry is a hotspot of sexism, agism and homophobia for decades... where were these brave souls resigning from before?

The woman who made these issues public deserves acclamation for her bravery -- not only for standing up for their rights at work, but for exposing herself to the scrutiny and dirty tricks that are sure to come her way.

The "Twitter warriors", on the other hand, are just piling on an opponent who cannot fight back from the sidelines. It's pathetic.

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

#95
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of shitty jobs available and a few good ones. People don't work for companies they work for managers.

If the employer says "Irish Need Not Apply"[1] and you take a job there because you are hungry, then you are desperate. If you take a job there because you have a nicer manager than you might have elsewhere, you have no morals. Sometimes in life you are handed an actual moral decision. Choose wisely. Like I said, if you are employed there and want to see if management will turn it around, that's fine. But eventually…

You're missing the irony here.

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

#96
post #90
post #77

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 a…

I don't think it's about opportunities, it's about what impact it's making to this world, is Uber worth existing? Is it really making the world any better? Is it even irreplaceable? Or it's just a toxic company trying to suck every bit from the world with a fake mask of "sharing economy"? With racism and sexism?

> Is it really making the world any better?

Does this mean no one should work in many companies that do not make the world any better than what it is now? One could easily argue that most of the companies, though they claim to make the world a better place, they honestly do not.

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

#97
post #90
post #77

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 a…

I don't think it's about opportunities, it's about what impact it's making to this world, is Uber worth existing? Is it really making the world any better? Is it even irreplaceable? Or it's just a toxic company trying to suck every bit from the world with a fake mask of "sharing economy"? With racism and sexism?

Again, I'm not going to comment on recent events, but I will say that you're accepting lots of what you've read at face value. Some people say the culture is X and others are denying that and saying the culture is Y. Both have an interest in trying to tell what they believe is the truth (both are susceptible to confirmation bias and a whole slew of other human biases), both also have personal agendas.

An honest inquiry into what things are like anywhere would involve actively taking in a balance of viewpoints through sampling that tries to avoid sampling bias and correct for agendas.

Anecdotally, my personal experience does not at all represent what I've seen reported in the media throughout the entire time I've worked here. Then again, I'm only relying on my own personal experience. It's anecdata and should be treated with skepticism. Based on my past experience at more than a half dozen different jobs, this workplace is better in many ways. It's also worse in some ways.

That said, I and everyone else (inside the company and outside the company) suffer from sampling bias. I'm only relying on my personal experience and if I care about the truth it would be wrong to accept that as a conclusion. It would be wrong to represent to you that my experience is representative for the whole company, because I don't have enough information. I haven't worked on all teams with all managers and all peers.

Since I accept that I suffer from sampling bias, I've started to reach out to colleagues from under-represented groups to ask them in which they believe our culture and workplace is better, equal to and worse than other places that they've worked. I want to understand how we can protect and reinforce those aspects that are better, how we can improve those that are equal and how we can turn around those that are worse and make them into aspects that are better.

My anecdotal experience is that many of my colleagues are trying to do the same to differing degrees. One thing most of us have in common is that we're generally all people who want to do our best and when we discover ways in which we've been coming up short, we we apply ourselves to try and make it better. We've always done that and we're doing this now with all our current challenges as we have with all other challenges we've encountered in the past.

Assuming a degree of truth that likely falls anywhere along the spectrum between position X and position Y stated above, which would be a more positive outcome from current events?

An institution that has created a lot of value in the world in terms of making transportation cheaper, better and more accessible to more and more people every day:

(a) crashes and burns taking down not only itself, but also damaging economic prospects in technology and Silicon Valley for years?

(b) reforms aspects of itself that are undesirable, turning those aspects into strengths and setting a positive example of how to reform oneself for other institutions that also exhibit the same undesirable traits.

Personally, I always choose B in any scenario because B leverages existing value to address problems (it's always easier to fix things when you have resources to work with). Option A is just a path to destruction of anything of value with no guarantee that what follows next is better in any way.

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

#98
post #89
post #77

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 a…

Uber is not the only unicorn. There are others. Maybe by convincing these women and other under-represented to join others, they can actually become more productive and bring more value. Your logic seems to say, back in 2008, we shouldn't have badmouthed Big Banks, because they were paying above-market rates to their employees, and these salaries would have trickled down back to the society and solved the subprime mo…

I don't like to speak in absolutes, but we have two outcomes for the future. An institution either succeeds or it fails. I'm not going to speculate on the outcome which I believe is more likely for my company because it's irrelevant to the thought experiment I'm about to present.

In the event the institution fails, everything is reset to zero and the talent and resources are redistributed in the World. Value is destroyed, but undesirable aspects are too. You can judge if that is a net positive or net negative outcome.

The other outcome is that the institution weathers a storm and succeeds either way. Under this scenario, there are two new scenarios: (a) the institution survives with all the good, well meaning people you agree with on board, helping steer it into the future; or (b) those encouraging the good, well-meaning people to abandon the institution, leaving those that remain to steer that institution into the future.

Ignore what you want to happen for a moment. If the likelihood of survival despite current events is sufficiently high, then encouraging those with whom you agree to abandon the institution is contrary to your best interests. This is a game theoretic scenario, which I encourage you to explore on your own.

Remember that the banks survived.

That all said, I'm not discouraging you from challenging institutions that may have aspects to correct. I'm encouraging you to reconsider how you challenge those institutions to determine all the consequences, intended and unintended. Personally, I think it's best to challenge them to be better in the ways I think is better.

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

#99
post #77

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 a…

This argument would hold water if there was a common pattern of discouraging women or other tech minorities to avoid early stage startups. AFAIK this is solely an Uber thing though, because Uber is that much worse than the status quo. Also, this seems like maybe it would be a relevant consideration for joining Uber in 2010 - nobody joining in 2017 is hitting the lottery and contributing to a virtuous cycle.

AFAIK

Again, I'm not going to try and present information contrary to what you know (it would likely just be attacked for being biased), but I would encourage you to ask yourself if you're adequately applied the null hypothesis to any institution on which you have formed a position:

https://byrslf.co/the-null-hypothesis-loves-you-and-wants-yo...

I would also encourage you to not consider the ways in which you believe an institution is worse than the status quo, but also consider the ways in which it is better. As an exercise, list out both when considering the relative merit of an institution. How is it better? How is it worse? Eliminate from both lists those aspects that are inevitable (for reasons of path dependency) regardless of which institution is solving the same problem. For those ways in which it is worse than the status quo, consider ways in which those could be corrected.

I won't comment on your last statement because it involves discussion of future growth prospects, which no two people will likely agree on.

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

#100
post #77

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 a…

I work for a Fortune 100 size company that treats women and under-represented groups with respect & dignity (from every interaction I've seen). The pay and benefits are excellent as well. I'd rather convince women to join my company than a company that mistreats them. Your argument about a rocket ship lottery ticket isn't worth much compared to mistreatment.

Absolutely. Please do encourage them and help them join your company and every other company where they will succeed.

I won't comment on your last statement since I think I've adequately addressed the value of active sampling and application of the null hypothesis in determining a statistically valid position on how they likely would be treated instead of taking these articles at face value.

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