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 much. Both org had the same amount of soft misogyny, politics, and HR that protected its highest performers. In fact a lot of characters mentioned in Susan's blog post works at Google today. So what led up to the downfall of TK? Susan Fowler's blog post. What she described is what a lot of people go through in every company, but she was brave enough to post her experience using her real name. I'm willing to bet if she never posted her blog post none of this would've happened, and it would've been business as usual at Uber.
Susan Fowler exposed the weakness in our culture and it catapulted an internal French Revolution where every head had a possibility of getting axed. This put our executives in a disarray and naturally external enemies decided to strike at us when we were weakest. The Waymo lawsuit only happened when it did and only effective as it was because of the chaos Susan Fowler initiated.
So please stop discrediting Susan Fowler, what she did was really the catalyst, the trigger, for Uber to set course on a better path. It's just too bad she wasn't able to stay and see the real impact of her words. Ubers a great place to work now.
> 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.
I think there's a misunderstanding of TKs character. At least internally, whenever there was a critcism externally against Uber whether it be deleteuber or greyball our engineering team only grew more determined. The more backlash from the media it made us closer together and stronger. TK was the most inspirational after external media attack and even after Waymos lawsuit he displayed vigor and confidence that we are the righteous ones and that alphabet is going to lose this battle against us. There's a misconception that these attacks weakened our culture or confidence in our leadership. It's the opposite it was a signal that we were moving fast and changing the world, and TK was at the helm defending us.
This narrative and solidarity broke down soley due to Susan Folwer. I really want to emphasize this point. Her blog post is the only piece of controversy that really made ourselves question whether we were doing the right thing. The only time we saw our great leader unable to justify our hypergrowth and the only time I personally saw him break out in tears, was the all hands discussing Susan Fowler's blog post.
So again please don't discredit Susan Folwer's blog post.
> So again please don't discredit Susan Folwer's blog post.
I didn't. I said you're over-attributing the Waymo lawsuit to it. You didn't respond to that.
As for whether Fowler was the sole factor in "TK's" ouster and none of the other crises had a material impact, well, that's a strong claim. Benchmark's letter alludes to cavalier business practices as well: "[Operating without a CFO for over two years] cannot be justified, given the scale and complexity of the business, and is symptomatic of the broader problems with past management practices."[1] There were more problems at Uber than just morale.
Wow you sound like a disciple of Kalapick's and or someone who is waiting to get rich off working at UBer via stock options or something else!
I hate Uber so much and I'm so glad to see Lyft jumping up the app store charts. Uber let 1k get stolen from me and 1000s of others and their response was basically laughing at us; customers who trusted them with their bank accounts. Their blind arrogance is disgusting and Im so glad to see it's biting them in the butt!
This crosses into personal attack, which is not allowed here. I'm sorry you had that negative experience, but please don't direct it at fellow community members.
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 was a combination of that strike action and Kalanick's presence on President Trump's ill-fated executive council.
2. Greyball is a multi-million dollar suit, it will likely be settled for less. Because Uber was only foolish enough to abuse it in a couple of cities (according to news stories and law suits, who knows what legal discovery will unearth!), the scope is limited. Furthermore, the cities that ban Uber also ban Lyft.
3. Lyft's meteoric growth in 2017 can be primarily linked to the sexual harassment stories about Uber. They even based their entire advertising campaign on it, "how you get there matters," emphasizing the moral superiority of using Lyft over Uber. The ad campaign is incredibly poignant and effective. Lyft has deftly turned the fiasco to its advantage.
Susan was able to accomplish what no person had successfully done by publishing an account on her blog of what happened. Because she had not sued the company for damages, she was not held to silence from a legal settlement. Any opponent claiming she was an opportunist had no evidence, because she didn't file suit nor was seeking damages.
Because of her, an entire chain of events was set off. The intense public pressure, that slammed customer growth, hampered recruitment, and impacted Uber investors' social lives (yes, that was a major factor!) was primarily from Fowler's revelation of the company's indifference to sexual harassment.
2. Greyball is a multi-million dollar suit, it will likely be settled for less. Because Uber was only foolish enough to abuse it in a couple of cities
For starters: It cost them their license in London. Transport for London didn't look kindly at those shenaginas and apparently didn't believe Uber that they didn't employ those dirty tricks in London.
What's the source for Uber only abusing it in a couple cities? Uber?
The problem with that is that Uber is one of the utterly least trustworthy companies in existence. I, for one, assume that the lie by default, whenever they make a statement.
> #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.
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.
There's absolutely ZERO discrediting of Susan being done in my comment that TK is responsible for his own downfall. I'm being completely misunderstood here.
My desire is simply to ascribe blame and responsibility where I believe it lies - at TK's feet.
If TK had not behaved as he had, and a. cast a blind eye to the offenses against Susan, and b. engendered a culture where others continue to deny and sweep offenses under the carpet, none of this would have happened.
Susan would not have been the victim of such awful treatment. It is so good to see her get out of there, and thrive after all that's happened!
YES it's good that she blew the whistle, but it's STILL HIS FAULT and HE is his own undoing.
"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."
I'd like to take this opportunity to plug Joanna Russ' book, How to Suppress Women's Writing. It's hard to find now, but a very entertaining read.
Specifically, in this case, I believe this is the "she didn't really do it" step, or possibly the "but it's not really very important anyway" step.
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 get a great deal of credit for her courage. But actual change is a long and far more difficult process than what has happened at Uber.
> 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.
Male engineer (not at Uber) checking in. I find myself pretty astonished at these reports of other men's behavior. And yet, it seems to be widespread enough that some women indicate it's not as rare as we might think.
So, regarding "Uber's a great place to work now" -- is that based on testimony you've heard from women there? Because if not, I'd wonder whether you really have enough evidence to make a claim like that.
It's not really a claim, just my personal opinion. I mean there are women engineers who I talked to and they definitely most agree it's better. We all agree on one thing. Ubers a completely different company. Ask anyone that works here.
There are some who I've spoken with that told me that their previous company (think Google/Facebook/Microsoft caliber companies) which had worse culture of misogyny even compared to pre Susan Fowler Uber.
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.
The lesson you want us to take away from Fowler's victory is to accept that the status quo is impervious, to give up hope and never try?
How about we instead look at what Fowler did right so that she didn't get "termination and a blacklisting"? Then we can perhaps accelerate the progress that whistleblowers bring to industry and society.
Fowler is paying a _very_ high price for speaking out, not everyone can do that, and I don't think this should be expected of anyone. It is a sacrifice. Will her actions pave the way to make such overt sexual harassment less common in corporate environments? Perhaps.
I can tell you right now, however, that HR departments will _NEVER_ have the back of employees. They will do whatever perfunctory actions are mandated by law, but they will eject whistle-blowers and anyone else who they perceive as a "problem" at the first convenient opportunity.
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?
To preface I've work both at Google as an engineer, and frankly speaking the engineering culture at Uber didn't differ all that much. Both org had the same amount of soft misogyny, politics, and HR that protected its highest performers. In fact a lot of characters mentioned in Susan's blog post works at Google today. So what led up to the downfall of TK? Susan Fowler's blog post. What she described is what a lot of people go through in every company, but she was brave enough to post her experience using her real name. I'm willing to bet if she never posted her blog post none of this would've happened, and it would've been business as usual at Uber.
Susan Fowler exposed the weakness in our culture and it catapulted an internal French Revolution where every head had a possibility of getting axed. This put our executives in a disarray and naturally external enemies decided to strike at us when we were weakest. The Waymo lawsuit only happened when it did and only effective as it was because of the chaos Susan Fowler initiated.
So please stop discrediting Susan Fowler, what she did was really the catalyst, the trigger, for Uber to set course on a better path. It's just too bad she wasn't able to stay and see the real impact of her words. Ubers a great place to work now.