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Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

nytimes.com

131–140 of 170 posts

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 50% of women at Uber are perfectly happy at their jobs, and the other 50% are being subject to an illegal hostile work environment, that is not a good track record. Even if that number was 10%, or 1%, that is still a horrible track record. They have perhaps taken the criticism and news to heart and changed their ways, but nobody at all denies that there WERENT problems before. Uber itself has admitted that there w…

Sure, but the claim is extraordinary and requires extraordinary evidence

You don't think it was extraordinary that David Bonderman interrupted Arianna Huffington to make a crude sexist remark about how he believes women on the board talk too much, during the all-hands meeting to unveil Uber’s plan for overhauling its corporate culture?

Yes, Uber board member David Bonderman said women talk too much at an all-hands meeting about sexism at Uber: https://www.recode.net/2017/6/13/15795612/uber-board-member-...

It's not fake news. It's not contested. He resigned in disgrace, because HE talked too much. You can listen to the audio yourself. It starts at 6:37.

LEAKED AUDIO: Uber's all-hands meeting had some uncomfortable moments: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-ubers-hands-meeting-tr...

Arianna Huffington: "And there is a lot of data that shows that when there is one woman on the board, it's much more likely that there will be a second woman on the board."

David Bonderman: "Actually what it shows is that it's much more likely to be more talking."

What he just did in front of the entire company at the worst possible moment is strong first hand evidence that speaks directly to the fact that the cause of Uber's horrible track record of sexism deeply pervades its board of directors. Making a remark like that at a time like that isn't just an anomaly out of the blue -- it reveals his true character and Uber's true culture.

It was nothing short of a vicious unfounded public personal attack on Arianna Huffington, Wan Ling Martello, and all of Uber's female employees.

David Bonderman Resigns From Uber Board After Sexist Remark: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/technology/uber-sexual-ha...

"Mr. Bonderman’s original comments, according to experts, also lack merit.

Tali Mendelberg, professor of politics at Princeton University, and Christopher Karpowitz, an associate professor of political science at Brigham Young University, conducted a study in 2012 concluding that men talked far more than women did at meetings. The professors convened 94 groups of five people and varied the number of men and women in the groups. Their study is in line with multiple others drawing similar conclusions — men talk more than women, and men interrupt more than women.

“The study shows that men will dominate the conversation if there are more men than women in the group, and they dominate by a lot,” Ms. Mendelberg said in an interview. “When you have just two women in the group, those women are much more silent than men are.”

Uber’s board of directors was composed entirely of men until 2016, when Ms. Huffington gained a seat. This week Uber said another woman had been added to the board: Wan Ling Martello, the executive vice president of Nestle in Asia."

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#132

I remain flabbergasted by all of this upheaval at Uber. What's happening is the sort of housecleaning I would expect if the company had to file for bankruptcy or got caught flat out bribing judges or something. But really, what triggered all this was acting like jerks. It seems to me, what should have happened (a long time ago) was that they got shut down for systematically breaking the law, or encouraging others to…

> by not much more than bad press for being jerks

The problem with being a jerk is that people will dislike you.

They might put up with you if you are rich, successful and powerful, but they certainly won't look to help you if you are in trouble and may even come along to help put the boot in.

> Makes no goddamn sense.

What's happening makes perfect sense. People don't like jerks, and enjoy bringing them down.

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#133

I can't imagine Uber doesn't start raising prices and drop out of markets they aren't profitable in. No way they can bring in more investments (although maybe they could get a loan). Given the changes and their runway, I honestly see Lyft managing to outpace Uber in the next 12 months.

Doesn't Uber operate in a ton of countries? Lyft operates only in the US, right? And even then, isn't Uber in more cities? Lyft has no choice but to subsidize itself into extinction. If Uber pulled back entirely into the US alone then Lyft would be truly doomed. Only by spreading themselves thin does Lyft have a fair fight.

On the other hand, if they didn't spread themselves thin (and often into countries which don't actually need Uber), they likely wouldn't have received the amount of funding they have, and they'd be a more reasonably-sized competitor to Lyft.

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the claim is extraordinary and requires extraordinary evidence

Extraordinary evidence such as basically every C level executive being ousted? Extraordinary evidence, such as the company itself doing a thorough investigation, finding lots of problems, and then publishing those problems? Uber itself has shouted to the world that the problems existed, and that they are working to fix them. I am not sure what other kind of evidence you could get, that is better than the company itse…

And David Bonderman interrupting Arianna Huffington with a sexist remark and personifying that problem on stage during the all-hands meeting. It doesn't get more extraordinary than that!

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#135
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A jerk is someone who borrows your car and doesn't pay for the dent he puts in the bumper. What happened at Uber was the creation of one of the most insanely hostile work environments in living memory, where flouting not just the law, but also basic standards of human decency, was not only accepted but encouraged at all levels of the company.

So basically all investment banking divisions should be treated with the same regard? I find it strange that we seem to give finance a pass when they've engaged in this sort of behavior for decades.

Whataboutism. The stronger argument is "So basically the White House should be treated with the same regard?" but the answer is still "We shouldn't give them a pass either. That's a non sequitur."

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#136

I remain flabbergasted by all of this upheaval at Uber. What's happening is the sort of housecleaning I would expect if the company had to file for bankruptcy or got caught flat out bribing judges or something. But really, what triggered all this was acting like jerks. It seems to me, what should have happened (a long time ago) was that they got shut down for systematically breaking the law, or encouraging others to…

> But really, what triggered all this was acting like jerks. If you trivialise illegal activity as "acting like jerks", then none of this really holds much water. They've been jerks the whole time.

What's striking and weird is that flagrant illegal activity as a core part of their business model never seemed to matter, but now this huge upheval is happening in response to a small amount of (sure, illegal) personal behaviour.

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#137
Could someone please explain to me how come Uber has 12,000 employees? Drivers are not employees, there is no content to curate, no brick & mortar operations, the app and tech stack is pretty much developed and stable. Sure the Otto and UberEATS are part of that number but still. Did I miss something?

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#138

Could someone please explain to me how come Uber has 12,000 employees? Drivers are not employees, there is no content to curate, no brick & mortar operations, the app and tech stack is pretty much developed and stable. Sure the Otto and UberEATS are part of that number but still. Did I miss something?

Could someone please explain to me how come Uber has 12,000 employees

Because they can afford it and desperately want to grow. Let's say Uber operates in about 300 cities around the world and have their eyes on another 100. Dedicate an average of 3-4 people to grow and market your services in each city plus another 3 to handle local staffing, admin and regulatory issues and you're already at ~2500.

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#139
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it should be actually illegal, like criminally punishible, but it is not. It is a tort, civil violation, etc...but nobody is going to jail.

Sigh. Arguing logic of proper behavior on these matters on HN always results in apologists making excuses as to how it should have been handled.

... and always results in holier-than-thou ideologues trying to shut down any discussion through shaming tactics and pedantry.

What's your point?

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#140
post #132

I remain flabbergasted by all of this upheaval at Uber. What's happening is the sort of housecleaning I would expect if the company had to file for bankruptcy or got caught flat out bribing judges or something. But really, what triggered all this was acting like jerks. It seems to me, what should have happened (a long time ago) was that they got shut down for systematically breaking the law, or encouraging others to…

> by not much more than bad press for being jerks The problem with being a jerk is that people will dislike you. They might put up with you if you are rich, successful and powerful, but they certainly won't look to help you if you are in trouble and may even come along to help put the boot in. > Makes no goddamn sense. What's happening makes perfect sense. People don't like jerks, and enjoy bringing them down.

He might have been a jerk, not all jerks get the same treatment of being covered in Front Page for every single issue. And that's what makes me believe it's inflated https://hackernoon.com/travis-kalanick-lost-today-hoping-to-...
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