Bit off topic. The article mentions a book about ants. Any ideas what it is?
Interview with Susan Fowler
91–100 of 130 posts
Re: Interview with Susan Fowler
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Waymo lawsuit only happened when it did and only effective as it was because of the chaos Susan Fowler initiated. This seems a bit much. Why on earth would Google wait to sue? Their case was not at all dependent on internal turmoil at Uber. Fowler deserves a lot of credit but there was significant chaos pre-blog-post (#deleteuber) and after (Greyball). Uber was having a new crisis every other week it seemed, al…
I think that Susan Fowler is the single most influential individual in Uber's history, even more so than Travis Kalanick. 1. #deleteuber was a flash in the pan. It fizzled because it was based on a falsehood, that Uber had broken an airport strike by cancelling surge. Uber cancels surge for all notable events. Lyft somehow avoided judgement, despite also failing to honor the strike. The impetus behind the campaign wa…
> #deleteuber was a flash in the pan. It fizzled because it was based on a falsehood, that Uber had broken an airport strike by cancelling surge. Uber cancels surge for all notable events.
Not to get too caught up on this, but #deleteuber was in response to them being perceived as breaking the strike by operating at the airport at all. So the fact that they cancel surge for all events wasn't accepted as an excuse. Canceling surge just provided more fodder.
Re: Interview with Susan Fowler
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that Susan Fowler is the single most influential individual in Uber's history, even more so than Travis Kalanick. 1. #deleteuber was a flash in the pan. It fizzled because it was based on a falsehood, that Uber had broken an airport strike by cancelling surge. Uber cancels surge for all notable events. Lyft somehow avoided judgement, despite also failing to honor the strike. The impetus behind the campaign wa…
> #deleteuber was a flash in the pan. It fizzled because it was based on a falsehood, that Uber had broken an airport strike by cancelling surge. Uber cancels surge for all notable events. Not to get too caught up on this, but #deleteuber was in response to them being perceived as breaking the strike by operating at the airport at all . So the fact that they cancel surge for all events wasn't accepted as an excuse. C…
Partially but again, Lyft did the same as Uber.
Re: Interview with Susan Fowler
#94Hey engineer at Uber here. I'm a male engineer started working at Uber two years ago. I'm seeing a lot of comments here that is discrediting Susan Fowler's accomplishments in taking TK down, and I would like to correct the notion that the culture/TK himself/Waymo is what brought TK down. To preface I've work both at Google as an engineer, and frankly speaking the engineering culture at Uber didn't differ all that muc…
>Ubers a great place to work now. I’m sorry, but companies’ cultures don’t change that fast and it’s not even really clear how much power Kalanick has actually ceded. Was the entire chain of command from the HR staff that tried to shut women up to the execs that passed around a rape victims medical records cleared out? I don’t doubt that a place like Google has many of the same problems and agree that Fowler should g…
I’m also an Uber engineer
> was the entire chain of command [...] cleared out?
Yes, like 80% of the C suite left. The orgs that had been the worst have had high/mid level management departures too. Our Chief People Officer Lianne has been incredible.
Re: Interview with Susan Fowler
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Waymo lawsuit only happened when it did and only effective as it was because of the chaos Susan Fowler initiated. This seems a bit much. Why on earth would Google wait to sue? Their case was not at all dependent on internal turmoil at Uber. Fowler deserves a lot of credit but there was significant chaos pre-blog-post (#deleteuber) and after (Greyball). Uber was having a new crisis every other week it seemed, al…
I think that Susan Fowler is the single most influential individual in Uber's history, even more so than Travis Kalanick. 1. #deleteuber was a flash in the pan. It fizzled because it was based on a falsehood, that Uber had broken an airport strike by cancelling surge. Uber cancels surge for all notable events. Lyft somehow avoided judgement, despite also failing to honor the strike. The impetus behind the campaign wa…
Fowler's post was huge. Can we at least agree...
1. The Waymo lawsuit did not only happen because of Fowler's post.
2. There were multiple morality-related crises that contributed to Kalanick's ouster. (Lyft's ad campaign could be referring to the whole stew.)
Re: Interview with Susan Fowler
#96I wish the article connected the dots of her path from studying physics at the University of Pennsylvania to working as an SRE at a San Francisco tech company. It seems like that might be an interesting part of her story. I loved the anecdote of her buying her own leather jacket when Uber couldn't be bothered to buy them for women. Brilliant. The title is a bit unfortunate in that it makes her sound like an Attorney…
Tangentially in the 90's one of my high school classmates got his masters in physics and was working on a PhD in electrical engineering when his research professor had him working on software analyzing state of Texas forestry data ( I thought this was a weird cross pollination). He preferred software to the difficult career path ahead for staying in physics (compete for work in labs /PhD/research/tenure or teaching until tenure) and after getting his PhD worked his way up from programmer to CTO of software companies in Austin.
Re: Interview with Susan Fowler
#97Bit off topic. The article mentions a book about ants. Any ideas what it is?
No idea, but just go on Amazon and buy a book on ants if you want to learn more about them. And you should. To quote E.O. Wilson, "If you're not interested in ants then you're probably not a very interesting person."
Re: Interview with Susan Fowler
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Waymo lawsuit only happened when it did and only effective as it was because of the chaos Susan Fowler initiated. This seems a bit much. Why on earth would Google wait to sue? Their case was not at all dependent on internal turmoil at Uber. Fowler deserves a lot of credit but there was significant chaos pre-blog-post (#deleteuber) and after (Greyball). Uber was having a new crisis every other week it seemed, al…
I think that Susan Fowler is the single most influential individual in Uber's history, even more so than Travis Kalanick. 1. #deleteuber was a flash in the pan. It fizzled because it was based on a falsehood, that Uber had broken an airport strike by cancelling surge. Uber cancels surge for all notable events. Lyft somehow avoided judgement, despite also failing to honor the strike. The impetus behind the campaign wa…
Point 3 seems to be a case where correlation does not imply causation. Basing an advertising campaign with an oblique reference to the issues at Uber* doesn't mean the campaign is effective.
* most people I talk with are only vaguely aware there are issues at Uber, including many drivers, Uber users, and non-Uber users.
Re: Interview with Susan Fowler
#99Hey engineer at Uber here. I'm a male engineer started working at Uber two years ago. I'm seeing a lot of comments here that is discrediting Susan Fowler's accomplishments in taking TK down, and I would like to correct the notion that the culture/TK himself/Waymo is what brought TK down. To preface I've work both at Google as an engineer, and frankly speaking the engineering culture at Uber didn't differ all that muc…
Fowler did a very brave thing. Most people who do "blow the whistle", however, end-up with nothing more than a termination and blacklisting.
People like to think that silicon valley corporations are very different than their traditional counterparts, they're NOT. HR will always, always, ALWAYS protect top-performers and the interests of the company in front of literally anything else, especially individual employees.
I think more folks should read "Corporate Confidential." Yeah, it's not backed up with "research," but the arguments are compelling and it cogently explains how Susan Fowler's situation could happen at almost any other large company.
Uber will perhaps be able to avoid another giant sexual harassment fiasco, but they're not going to fundamentally change as a result of this and neither will any other company.
Re: Interview with Susan Fowler
#100Hey engineer at Uber here. I'm a male engineer started working at Uber two years ago. I'm seeing a lot of comments here that is discrediting Susan Fowler's accomplishments in taking TK down, and I would like to correct the notion that the culture/TK himself/Waymo is what brought TK down. To preface I've work both at Google as an engineer, and frankly speaking the engineering culture at Uber didn't differ all that muc…
What interests me the most about this entire narrative is the gentle coincidence that this all dovetails with a tit-for-tat media narrative between Google and Uber, just as the self-driving-car battle ignited between these two companies, over engineering intellectual property.
Speculation aside, observe that just as lawsuits regarding trade secrets opened up, Uber’s gasket blew with Susan’s story, and then months later James Damore’s gasket blew.
Is there a curious interpretation of this? Why are Google and Uber mentioned hand-in-hand ever since winter, 2016? Is this a question worth asking?