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Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

susanjfowler.com

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Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#481

Post by mtw »

Who here is surprised? The CEO is a proud arrogant son of a b*tch, sexist, supports Trump. His whole team treats drivers like dirt or disposable "resources". The whole attitude then gets adopted by management.

What I find surprising is people being surprised or trying to understand these kind of reports. Or why people try to get a job at Uber. Maybe they want to find a reason why they are still taking Uber. Yes Uber is innovative and cheaper, but you are encouraging a company with exploitative practices.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#482

Post by true_religion »

uber_eng_throw wrote: post #137
logandavis wrote: post #69

By all indications, Uber has a toxic work culture that costs them both top talent and organizational velocity. I'm a college senior at a well-regarded engineering school. My CS classmates - especially women - simply do not apply to Uber, in large part because of its reputation for internal misogyny and general assholery. Four classmates interned there last summer, and as far as I know none are interested in returning…

Hijacking this top comment to provide some personal experiences. I started as an engineer in the spring of 2014 and this was definitely the case there. Top engineers were being poached from Google/FB and these people were trying to carve out territory in a quickly growing engineering team. The misogynistic culture, in my mind, comes from most of the early employees being former frat bros. Culture was extremely heavy…

Can you elaborate more on the misogyny that was part of the culture?

So far you've only identified that they like drinking, traveling and were part of the Greek social system in university.

What I'm looking for are instances of demeaning women, discounting their achievements, systemic disapproval for the words of women, favours being handed out on the basis of gender, solicitation of sexual favours in non-equal power relationships, or if no examples can be provided then at least people stating that they are 'in favour' of such, or are lax in enforcing rules against such.

I don't mean this as an attack of any sort (the article gives examples after all). I simply want to know more.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#483

Post by mst »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #440
bifocald wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem in Uber's engineering orgs is that Uber hired too many people for too few real projects. From what I learned from my friends in Uber, many teams had largely overlapping responsibilities, and therefore created bogus projects to justify their existence. Their standard MO is picking a missing feature in a service, and then creating a new system that implemented that feature. It might be okay if all the…

Woman accuses Uber of systemic misogyny, but, no, "the real problem" is poor project management? So, systemic misogyny not a real problem for you?

It sounds to me like the cutthroat system OP describes would cause the rise of the sort of people who would perpetuate systemic misogyny.

If by "the real problem" they meant "the root cause" then their theory does appear to fit the facts. I personally suspect it was "both" rather than "one caused the other" but have insufficient data to go beyond "suspect".

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#484

Post by untog »

enjo wrote: post #209
AsyncAwait wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that due to the perception that they broke the recent anti-Trump taxi strike, rather than their internal work culture?

Among my peer group (Denver) it's been the same. It has alot more to do with what we hear from drivers about the respective companies. For whatever reason drivers are happy to shill for Lyft and are often almost hostile towards Uber. At some point you just get the feeling that Uber isn't what we really wanna be supporting. I should note: my peer group isn't particularly tech oriented.

Same experience for me. Drivers all have stories of how Uber has screwed them over, but have nothing but positive things to say about Lyft.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#485

Post by beambot »

minimaxir wrote: post #414

Travis Kalanick's response: https://twitter.com/travisk/status/833480964315557888 > 1/ What's described here is abhorrent & against everything we believe in. Anyone who behaves this way or thinks this is OK will be fired. > 2/ I've instructed our CHRO Liane to conduct an urgent investigation. There can be absolutely no place for this kind of behavior at Uber.

How about independent investigation?

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#486

Post by clintonb »

sn9 wrote: post #375
minimaxir wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything, OP's subsequent employment by Stripe is a very strong endorsement for the workplace culture of the company.

Stripe seems to hire an unusual amount of really talented engineers who are also really good at explanatory writing. (Though this may just be an availability bias thing for me.) Fowler is one. Julia Evans is another that comes to mind. I wouldn't be surprised if they had amazing internal documentation for their engineers.

They have amazing external documentation. It was so good I [blogged about it](https://dev.clintonblackburn.com/2015/07/24/good-documentati...)! I have never had an easier experience integrating with a payment processor.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#487

Post by danaliv »

twblalock wrote: post #2

If you are sexually harassed, and HR doesn't do anything about it, you should sue. Don't expect HR to change. If the stories in this article are true, and if the evidence is as strong as the article says it is, this is a slam-dunk case for sexual harassment, hostile work environment, retaliation, etc.

Suing is great and all, but do you have any idea how hard it is? How much work it is, and how financially and emotionally draining it is? You can't just call up a lawyer, tell them your story, and expect magic justice sprinkles to do the rest. There are retainers to pay, depositions to do, discovery... and the whole process is adversarial _by design_. It's a nightmare. Anyone who's willing to go through it is a goddamn superhero in my book.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#488

Post by weberc2 »

csharpminor wrote: post #119
logandavis wrote: post #69

By all indications, Uber has a toxic work culture that costs them both top talent and organizational velocity. I'm a college senior at a well-regarded engineering school. My CS classmates - especially women - simply do not apply to Uber, in large part because of its reputation for internal misogyny and general assholery. Four classmates interned there last summer, and as far as I know none are interested in returning…

Anecdotally speaking, I've noticed that Uber has become a dirty word among my friends. For example, someone using Uber will generally just say that they're calling a car rather than naming the service. Lyft doesn't have the same stigma. It should be concerning to management that the company's ethos is repelling customers. Edit: Management should be far more concerned that Uber is allegedly an environment that systema…

I don't think there is any stigma associated with Uber in Chicago. A lot of people will even say "I'm calling an Uber" even when they're using Lyft (name brand effect).

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#489

Post by jonathankoren »

santaclaus wrote: post #348
wheelerwj wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have a pro-drinking culture at my company due to the nature of the business what? what possible nature of business are you in that makes drinking more (or less) acceptable. There is no such thing. at work, you work. if you want to get drunk, you aren't working.

> There is no such thing. Works at a bar or brewery? Wine related startup? Sales?

Sales strikes me as as just perpetuating old habits. If a salesman has to get me drunk to make a sale, he's pitching a shitty product and he knows it.

The fermentation industries on the other hand are more legit.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#490

Post by astrostl »

username223 wrote: post #73
calcsam wrote: post #15

In case anyone isn't sure why the original interaction is harassment: relationships within a reporting chain are generally prohibited, for both legal, ethical, and practical reasons. Sex becoming part of the effective job description crosses both legal and ethical lines, and team effectiveness is hindered when people wonder whether someone is getting special treatment because they're sleeping with the boss. A manager…

Not just sex, but sex in an "open relationship," presumably as "backup booty." It's hard for me to understand why she didn't immediately start trying to GTFO, but instead stuck around for a year and tried to make things work. Save transcripts and screenshots, find a new job, then sue at leisure.

From TFA: "I was enrolled in a Stanford CS graduate program, sponsored by Uber, and Uber only sponsored employees who had high performance scores."
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