Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Interview with Susan Fowler

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 130 posts

Re: Interview with Susan Fowler

#61

Post by linkregister »

fizixer wrote: post #52
bogomipz wrote: post #38

I 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…

I feel for what happened to her at Uber but, no offense, her description of her physics achievements appeared to be borderline bullshit (e.g., things like studying for quantum field theory exams a year and half after getting introduced to college level physics and math for the first time, after picking philosophy as a major originally. And then proceeding to blog about how everyone can do this because she can).

I'm not skeptical about her physics achievements, so I don't agree with your opinion. I don't understand why this post was flagged.

Down votes are for communicating "I don't like this post." Flagging is for violation of community guidelines, or just plain abusive comments.

To respond to your claim, I'd like to point to you her blog post on the subject. She does a good job of explaining how she went from zero to being knowledgeable about physics in this post: https://fledglingphysicist.com/2013/12/12/if-susan-can-learn.... Essentially she always was interested in the subject but didn't believe she was smart enough to pursue it, until she was encouraged to take an introductory course.

Re: Interview with Susan Fowler

#62

Post by linkregister »

rdtsc wrote: post #21
6841iam wrote: post #3

While her post did send shockwaves inside Uber and the Silicon Valley at large, I think, it was Mr. Kalanick's incriminating involvement in the Waymo - Uber lawsuit that ultimately sunk Mr. Kalanick. He simply had to go.

That is kind of how I remember it happening. After the revelations in the blog, there was a lot of talk and discussion here and other sites. Some people were fired then. But only after Waymo became involved, there were rumors of the board moving to push him out. It would have been nice if her allegations brought him down, but sadly it doesn't seem that way. In other words until investors saw their money potentially g…

You are somewhat right.

Freada & Mitch Kapor (early Uber investors) published their blog post a few days after the Waymo lawsuit was filed. The lawsuit was filed within a week of Fowler's blog post being published. The Kapors' letter was exclusively focused on Kalanick's company culture, public conduct, and gross mismanagement of sexual harassment in Uber.

The Benchmark lawsuit, brought in April, mentions the failure of Kalanick to disclose to the board the risks of the Otto acquisition as the second item of six grievances.

My opinion is that it is unnecessarily cynical to assume that investors didn't care about the company's tolerance of sexual harassment and Kalanick's poor behavior, especially since it was central to their public repudiation of Kalanick.

Re: Interview with Susan Fowler

#63

Post by abalone »

fpoijasw wrote: post #56

Hey 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…

> 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, all stemming from a cavalier, bro-y culture. That all added up, Fowler's post included, to a leadership change.

Re: Interview with Susan Fowler

#64

Post by linkregister »

jrs95 wrote: post #12
jsemrau wrote: post #2

I think the notion of the article is wrong. She did not bring down Travis. The misogynist culture he helped to create did.

I don't even know if it was that, honestly. I think the whole Waymo thing had more to do with it, or it would have happened sooner.

The Waymo lawsuit was filed about a week after Fowler's blog post was published. The huge public outcry and massive customer switch to Lyft was based off of the news of the sexual harassment lawsuit. The general American public is largely ignorant about the Waymo lawsuit. The public is well-informed about the sexual harassment revelations.

Right now, many potential customers have permanently associated Uber with sexual harassment. This is far more of an existential threat to Uber than a $1B lawsuit.

Re: Interview with Susan Fowler

#65

Post by [deleted] »

fpoijasw wrote: post #56

Hey 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…

[deleted]

Re: Interview with Susan Fowler

#66

Post by [deleted] »

quadrangle wrote: post #43
baron816 wrote: post #16

> “Did you read that interview with the C.E.O., Travis, where he talked about how Uber helps him get girls? He’s a misogynist. I could never use his product.” I know nothing of the interview he’s referring to here, but how is it misogynistic to use your company to get girls? Was he picking up Uber employees or potential hires?

The phrase "get girls" is even itself misogynistic since it's already an objectifying phrase. That doesn't necessarily mean that the person using it otherwise deserves being judged and identified as a misogynist. But the judgment of Travis is probably based on a lot of other factors than that one phrase.

[deleted]

Re: Interview with Susan Fowler

#67

Post by santaclaus »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #5

Her background is pretty non-traditional. Such people tend to be independent and consequently have a lot of integrity -- they do the career destroying things that almost nobody does. The only woman on the board then, Arianna Huffington, who had vowed that the culture of “brilliant jerks” must end, had been trying to help Mr. Kalanick by advising him to sleep more and meditate. But he caused another kerfuffle when he…

> Her background is pretty non-traditional.

Howso? There are quite a few Ivy League physics grads in the bay.

Re: Interview with Susan Fowler

#68

Post by mirimir »

linkregister wrote: post #61
fizixer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel for what happened to her at Uber but, no offense, her description of her physics achievements appeared to be borderline bullshit (e.g., things like studying for quantum field theory exams a year and half after getting introduced to college level physics and math for the first time, after picking philosophy as a major originally. And then proceeding to blog about how everyone can do this because she can).

I'm not skeptical about her physics achievements, so I don't agree with your opinion. I don't understand why this post was flagged. Down votes are for communicating "I don't like this post." Flagging is for violation of community guidelines, or just plain abusive comments. To respond to your claim, I'd like to point to you her blog post on the subject. She does a good job of explaining how she went from zero to being…

It's my understanding that down votes are for posts that are off-topic, or don't contribute to the discussion. And flagging, as you say, is for violating community guidelines.

But sadly enough, people do use down votes for posts that they don't like, and flagging for posts that they really don't like. So it goes.

Re: Interview with Susan Fowler

#69

Post by [deleted] »

fpoijasw wrote: post #56

Hey 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…

[deleted]

Re: Interview with Susan Fowler

#70

Post by bitmapbrother »

fpoijasw wrote: post #56

Hey 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…

Your account was created 2 hours ago. I have a hard time believing you've ever worked at Uber or Google based on the content of your message.
Post reply on HN