Others are speaking up about discrimination at Tesla • Hacker News Board

Re: Others are speaking up about discrimination at Tesla

#111

Post by qb45 » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 10:57 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #89

calafrax wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Tesla's and Elon Musk's response of publicly attacking this woman almost certainly indicates that they are at fault. If this woman's claims were false they would do best to keep quiet and wait for the legal process. They have a huge advantage with both the money to pay lawyers and many fawning media outlets willing to support them so if they were in the right they would be guaranteed to win if they just waite…

> Attacking this woman would be very stupid unless they are actually in the wrong Or unless they think they are very right. I find them opening their mouth at all to be quite surprising. I find the firing with a reason given even MORE surprising. This is either complete and total incompetence (not at all impossible), or the Tesla lawyers must think they are on amazingly solid ground.

> This is either complete and total incompetence (not at all impossible), or the Tesla lawyers must think they are on amazingly solid ground.

They seem to feel extremely confident indeed, this is from the previous the Guardian article on this story:

Tesla has continued to strongly reject Vandermeyden’s claims. A spokesperson said the company had “conducted a thorough internal investigation” and “extensively re-reviewed all the facts”, repeatedly concluding that her allegations were false.

Re: Others are speaking up about discrimination at Tesla

#112

Post by village-idiot » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 4:00 PM UTC

jubalfh wrote: post #99

(I wonder if the lovely gentlemen here realise that being a victim of harassment is stressful enough to impact performance.)

Probably not.

Re: Others are speaking up about discrimination at Tesla

#113

Post by village-idiot » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 4:01 PM UTC

Klockan wrote: post #100

novia wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This satirical article kinda nails it: http://reductress.com/post/man-in-male-dominated-field-says-...

I wouldn't be surprised if that exact conversation have actually happened.

Art imitates real life.

Re: Others are speaking up about discrimination at Tesla

#114

Post by village-idiot » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 4:04 PM UTC

What I see here is a mixture of tech's standard gender issues along with the hazards of "changing the world".

If you think that you're changing the world, it's very easy to dismiss other concerns as less important than your core mission. This problem only gets worse if you actually are changing the world. At the end of the day, even Tesla is just a company with a bunch of people working their day job, you do need to make sure that your employees feel safe and enjoy their time there within reasonable bounds

Re: Others are speaking up about discrimination at Tesla

#115

Post by zimpenfish » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 4:12 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #110

davexunit wrote: post #21

Nearly all of the top-level comments thus far are disgusting and shameful. What is wrong with this place?

I have to stick up a bit for the community as a whole. There have been at least three relatively (emphasis on relatively—in absolute terms still pretty bad) substantive discussions of sexual harassment on HN recently. This one is certainly much worse, but the trend can't be monotonic; the community is far too large and divided for that. If we judge by all the data points, the trend seems positive. But it's slow.

I've only been on HN a few years but yeah, the recent threads - whilst still largely cesspools - have had encouraging signs.

Re: Others are speaking up about discrimination at Tesla

#116

Post by village-idiot » Thu, Jul 06, 2017, 4:13 PM UTC

calafrax wrote: post #76

daenz wrote: post #12

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/1/15724520/tesla-fires-femal... >Tesla fired the female engineer who earlier this year publicly made claims about “unwanted and pervasive harassment” at the electric carmaker, according to The Guardian. Tesla says it was justified in firing the engineer, AJ Vandermeyden, because her accusations were false, but Vandermeyden’s lawyers allege that it amounts to retaliation. I don't mean t…

Tesla's statement is very interesting. They say: "Despite repeatedly receiving special treatment at the expense of others, Ms. Vandermeyden nonetheless chose to pursue a miscarriage of justice by suing Tesla and falsely attacking our company in the press" So Tesla is claiming that they discriminated against other employees and harmed them at this woman's behest. Strange claim, since it is actionable by these supposed…

I noticed that too, their defense against a sexually discriminatory environment was to admit to discriminating in a different way?

Also, their defense is bordering on the edge of defamatory if it's untrue. It wouldn't be hard for a reasonable jury to see the situation as malicious intent. IANAL.