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David Bonderman Resigns from Uber Board

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Re: David Bonderman Resigns from Uber Board

#91

Post by viraptor »

initstick wrote: post #66
dbnoch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand the sentiment... it DOES matter what gender they identify as. Uber's culture issues deal with sexism and harassment towards Women. You need a diverse group for the board and adding white males will not fix their issue.

So how many ways do you cut the diversity pie? You've now introduced skin color on top of gender. You've also removed the slice that represents "white" (whatever that means) males. Is it your stance that the pie now only represents females? What about other groups of people, how about we slice it into socioeconomic pieces, age, hair color, weight, etc. The point is, your vision of diversity is just anti-white-male. Y…

It's more about breaking up a monoculture. You can't introduce a representation of every possible division of humankind. But that's an unrealistic extreme, just like having no representation is an extreme. At some point, working in a diverse environment you just start thinking about others more than before.

Random example I've seen many times, but feel free to extrapolate to other positions/issues: If you have a group of native British developers of a web app, there's a good chance that any non-latin input will be either mishandled or rejected. Not because they hate other languages, but simply because that's not a problem they run into, or think about. Add one (for example) Greek dev, and the team will be quickly made aware of and learn about the locales and encoding issues. This will help the accessibility for all cultures, not just British and Greek.

Exposure to enough people different than you makes you think about others more. Even if you don't work with every possible token representation of the difference.

Re: David Bonderman Resigns from Uber Board

#92

Post by viraptor »

whitemale wrote: post #90
rayiner wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A man's perspective on these issues is always going to be an academic rather than experiential one. It's like a business school professor versus a startup founder, or a professor of military history versus a veteran. The former have a lot of important things to say and are worth listening to. But if you are, for example, trying to address the issues veterans have reintegrating into civil society, you probably want so…

> A man's perspective on these issues is always going to be an academic rather than experiential one. So should we make decisions with "feelings" instead of rational logic?

Most people already hire based on previous experience over academic knowledge. (apart from first-job candidates) Not sure how feelings come into this one.

Re: David Bonderman Resigns from Uber Board

#93

Post by pheldagryph »

lefstathiou wrote: post #87
pheldagryph wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I often use irony intentionally. Could you please expand on your comment?

Your full quote is: "Imagine the optics of replacing a sexist old man with another sexist old man. Worth the risk to shareholder value?" Your statement implied that replacing one "sexist old man" (who we believe to be a sexist by something he said) with another "old man" is a risk to shareholder value because that replacement, by virtue of being a man and/or old, will also be a "sexist". Your statement is passing jud…

Thank you for explaining my very, very little joke.

We might consider the possibility that a suitable woman in the role is significantly less likely to make this very embarrassing class of mis-step. And with billions of dollars on the line... where's the smart money? I suppose that is a sexist sentiment, too. Nuts, I can't win!

Re: David Bonderman Resigns from Uber Board

#95

Post by sctb »

you_go_first wrote: post #16
lancewiggs wrote: post #2

The right thing to do. He needs to be replaced by a woman, and to Ariana's point they need several on the board. Plenty of work required to change the toxic culture at Uber.

It looks like you're a director at several companies you've invested in and you're male. You should practice what you preach and relinquish all those positions to women. Gender shouldn't matter to determine qualification. If they appoint a woman, it should be because she's better qualified and not because of her gender. I'm shocked that people think the solution to sexism is a different flavor of sexism. It does wome…

Please stop creating throwaways to violate the guidelines with. We ban the main account if this continues.

> Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: David Bonderman Resigns from Uber Board

#96

Post by lefstathiou »

pheldagryph wrote: post #93
lefstathiou wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your full quote is: "Imagine the optics of replacing a sexist old man with another sexist old man. Worth the risk to shareholder value?" Your statement implied that replacing one "sexist old man" (who we believe to be a sexist by something he said) with another "old man" is a risk to shareholder value because that replacement, by virtue of being a man and/or old, will also be a "sexist". Your statement is passing jud…

Thank you for explaining my very, very little joke. We might consider the possibility that a suitable woman in the role is significantly less likely to make this very embarrassing class of mis-step. And with billions of dollars on the line... where's the smart money? I suppose that is a sexist sentiment, too. Nuts, I can't win!

Ha, apologies for not picking up on the joke. It can be challenging to know when you are having a literal conversation or not in written form.

HN is probably not the place to have this conversation (I would have emailed you if it were in your profile) but to your point on "a suitable woman is significantly less likely to make this embarrassing mis-step"... that too is overt sexism of the kind I suspect you would find unacceptable coming from a man. Rhetorical question: how would you feel about a male manager justifying hiring a man because he is "significantly less likely to get pregnant and lose interest in the job"?

Lolz, yes, I do think that is a sexist comment and a part of me wonders if you actually think it isnt (maybe I'm being too literal). That said, I don't really care that you are making it. I'm a white male living in the 21st century, living with the double standard of being labeled a sexist or racist despite not being one is something you have to accept.

To your point, I think "smart money" buys the right tool for the job. I can see why you think replacing this old rich sexist white male with a young rich (sexist) white female is the smart move as it gets the trolls of your back and appeases the populists trying to hijack your company through negative PR. Anyway, I had fun with this. Hope you're having a good day.

Re: David Bonderman Resigns from Uber Board

#97

Post by pheldagryph »

lefstathiou wrote: post #96
pheldagryph wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for explaining my very, very little joke. We might consider the possibility that a suitable woman in the role is significantly less likely to make this very embarrassing class of mis-step. And with billions of dollars on the line... where's the smart money? I suppose that is a sexist sentiment, too. Nuts, I can't win!

Ha, apologies for not picking up on the joke. It can be challenging to know when you are having a literal conversation or not in written form. HN is probably not the place to have this conversation (I would have emailed you if it were in your profile) but to your point on "a suitable woman is significantly less likely to make this embarrassing mis-step"... that too is overt sexism of the kind I suspect you would find…

Taken to the extreme, simple advocacy for a particular group crowds out advocacy for other, disjoint groups... putting them at a marginal disadvantage. There's a 'line of OK', and where it lies is is a multivariate equation of justice, utility, harmony, and context.

Having read more and more YCombinator News comments on these topics recently... I'm starting to understand that there are voices out there that decry any perceived sexism at all, no matter the circumstances. I honestly find cries of 'sexism against men' that completely discount the real world context to be rather gauche.

Re: David Bonderman Resigns from Uber Board

#98

Post by whitemale »

viraptor wrote: post #92
whitemale wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A man's perspective on these issues is always going to be an academic rather than experiential one. So should we make decisions with "feelings" instead of rational logic?

Most people already hire based on previous experience over academic knowledge. (apart from first-job candidates) Not sure how feelings come into this one.

That's a different kind of experience. If you would want to build race cars, most likely you would want to hire a person who can design race cars instead of people who know how to drive them.

A man can be just as good at dealing with cultural issues related to gender. A man can have just as much experience in sorting out cultural issues as a women, unless I am missing something here.

Re: David Bonderman Resigns from Uber Board

#99

Post by ocrimgproc »

staticautomatic wrote: post #13

By now this is starting to be downright hilarious. Fuck all these folks and the Ubers they rode into town in.

Hey staticautomatic, I hope you see this. Sorry for the offtopic comment but I couldn't find your email anywhere. Shoot me an email at fkocrimgproc@gmail.com . It's about OCR.
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