I am an Uber survivor

Normally I don't care, but because I'm from Chicago and am officially very touchy about all the abuse the city catches, I'd like to correct the record as Eric Holder is from New York.

He does have a credible image, but the announcement sort of co-opted that to make it seem like he might be somehow independent in his thinking. In reality, he's a lawyer being paid by Uber. As such, he isn't really inclined to find all the dirt...Depends on where said dirt is.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/01685274cc944196af9016ad0a875...

right. regardless of where you stand on his performance as attorney general, hiring eric holder is a political move. if uber actually cared about investigating this, they wouldn't have hired a politician.

It sounds like the abuse is pretty universal, from the article: "It was normal for guys to refer to other guys as fags when they didn't participate in private parties where sex and drugs were involved."

The 20 other men on her team were probably as concerned with keeping their job and not being abused. The big difference is that they can appear to fit in because they're men; women have a much more difficult job of it. But whenever everyone is keeping their head down, it's hard to notice that other people's issues.

The whole psychology of bullying comes into play and that is pretty complex. Yes, if everyone stood up against the bully they would win but how often does that happen in real life? Most people in this situation would likely just quit than put up with that environment so you're already left with those who can't or won't.

I'd like to think I wouldn't let that stuff happen around me but honestly I'm pretty unlikely to work in that environment in the first place. Where I do work, the culture is great and we are near 30-40% women in IT/Dev without even trying to hire for diversity.

I don't work in Regular Tech (I'm in a teacher-education nonprofit), so I'm not as exposed to the SV bro culture. I'd like to think I'd speak up and fight for people who are marginalized in my workplace. I wonder if I actually would. It's so easy to be quiet, laugh it off, and go back to your daily, if it's not you.

We already know that managers at Uber use reviews to punish those on their team that are at all critical of them (especially for ethic issues). The "20 men on her team", even if they did want to say something, could reasonably expect to have their careers (and potentially a material amount of Uber stock vesting) impacted by standing up.

That's not to say that these men couldn't have or shouldn't have stood up, but they would've had to take some amount of risk to do so. In a company with better controls, these men would've felt comfortable criticizing this manager (and confident that they weren't endangering their careers or financial well-being by doing so).

- Upton Sinclair

Uninstalling the app and simply choosing to use a competitor's services are another option, but sapping the entire organization of revenue seems like it would hurt drivers and developers at least as much as management, if not more so. Do you think this merits organized public protest? Is the average Uber user aware of the issues/incensed enough to actually take to the streets?

Obviously I'd like to see a change, but I'm struggling with how best to actually make this happen.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

You're being surprisingly lenient in your assessment here. I'd argue they need to tell their bosses to fuck off and find another job.

Agreed 100%, but maaaan I have seen it where you would defend someone just so they can turn against you because of the same fear that originally prevented them from speaking out loud. Then they make peace with the abuser and now you are the one left holding the burning candle. It is a very tricky situation.

Based on the article, she is:

  1) A woman in her late 20s
  2) who used to work at Uber in Engineering working on database and networking scalability
  3) went to a top private college
  4) has a Masters in Information Systems
  5) previous to Uber worked as a Data Analyst in a tech company in the Midwest and left when it was acquired by a Chinese firm
  6) is 5 foot 7 Caucasian with dark hair
  7) never wears high heels

Additionally, it's in Lyft's or other detractors best interests not to fake additional claims. This is a scandal that will grow on its own, as/if more women come forward. If Lyft et al is caught faking claims, they discredit all the claims and make themselves the bad guys instead of Uber. All Lyft has to do is sit back and watch Uber dig themselves deeper into the hole they're in.

As other posters have also touched on, there is a history of men (and women) doubting and minimizing abuse claims made by women. This is not a good mindset to take as it minimizes the women's experience in favor of a corporation or individual who is already in a more powerful position than the accuser. By minimizing one accuser, we make it harder for women as a whole to speak up against abuse, which is not acceptable.

So I'm going to believe this until I have a compelling reason not to, and "but it could be fake" isn't one.

As a bystander I don't even want to say out loud what you did, even though it crossed my mind.

Women have historically been ignored when reporting.

Most of the women who left Uber didn't publicly announce why they did. Now we're seeing a plausible explanation.

That detail seems suspect to me. There are also essentially no details about the work that convey inside knowledge about the ideosyncracies of Uber specifically at a work place. It is also weird to me that she chose to be anonymous but included her height and a bunch of specific incidental details - it reminds me of how liars frequently add an excessive amount of detail to add credibility to their stories.

Personally it sounds true to me. but I'd like to see more scrutiny from someone with perspective on this.

-Chauvinistic, racist and homophobic attitudes were far too normal

-It was normal for guys to openly refer to attractive female colleagues as sluts

-They had private chats where guys wrote sexual fantasy stories about female colleagues and supervisors where they performed all sorts of demeaning acts on the women

Also the fact that she talks about driver compensation makes it look like it was an article written just to smear Uber. I may be wrong though, but really, really hard to believe.

Edit: She refused to meet Freda Kapor (see comments in post) makes it all the more suspicious.

This is a good point, but I thought what historically happens is that there are women who are too afraid to speak up? That's why I personally believe the story.. hopefully more people will speak up and so it won't matter that one of them isn't real.

If history shows anything, and despite what we may like to think, public outrage has very little impact on corporate reality. The key to enacting change at Uber is the company management and HR. Rest assured the people that matter will know if this story is true.

My first thought was that someone has launched an all out PR attack against Uber. There are hundreds of comments here going after Uber. This was an anonymous post and could be totally fake.

But it's also possible that it's someone who likes Lyft or/and hates Uber.

After all the shady campaigns Uber has used against their competitors, even if this were true, I'd be fine with it.

I find myself suspicious of this new culture of "standing together in solidarity," "letting vulnerable people tell their narratives," "being supportive," etc. These all sound like perfectly upstanding things to do, but nowadays they dominate discourse. Facts, reason, and inquiry are now considered oppressive.

I've met some people who have asked, why is this a problem? Who cares if a couple people make things up, when there are so many people hurting out there? Well, people who make things up make real stories less believable. And it incentivizes victimhood, which nowadays carries with it the reward of not having to engage in debate, because anyone who voices doubt is considered a monster. Someone earlier got flagged for saying what you said. Not just downvoted so his post would be light gray, but flagged so his post would disappear.

And really, at the end of the day, what can trigger-happy moral outrage accomplish that a quiet sense of justice backed by reason, fairness, and determination can't?

Cartoonish and poorly written are subjective judgements.

These experiences might seem implausible to you because they might never be happening when you're looking. In light of other, non-anonymous and fact-checked accounts of Susan's experience, I wouldn't think it is implausible.

All-in-all, while I agree in principle that one should apply fair judgement before believing someone's anonymous story, I do not think it warrants incredulity, especially and ironically from an anon account. If you believe that Amy should not have posted anonymously, I find it laughable that you use an anonymous account fearing flagging and down-voting in a low stakes environment fearing the "groupthink brigade".

This type of language is intentionally attempts to provoke emotion, which in turn reduces the ability for the community to collectively find truth. It sounds like perhaps you've had some anecdotal experiences where you feel like you're the victim of Pc-police, but if you want to convince anyone I recommend you share the data-points of your experience rather than play to emotions.

What else do they expect her to do? Bring a weapon to work and shoot everyone?

I haven't spoken to Travis in quite a few years now, but I find it very hard to believe he is responsible.

Shitty, evil, manages are great at being two-faced. When their boss is around they act one way, but you better watch out when no one is looking.

Based on anecdotal experience I think this is quite true. It's almost like the dark side of the Taleb chapter that was on HN the other day...just as Taleb trusts the disheveled butcher-looking doctor more than the elegant and refined one because the fact that the unkempt one has made it this far without looking like a professional underscores his actual professional skill[0], it really seems to me that some founders/senior execs instinctively prefer hiring assholes, because assholes must be really good at what they do -- look at how far they've come despite being an asshole!

[0]: https://medium.com/incerto/surgeons-should-notlook-like-surg...

This part is really key: a single incident, sure, perhaps that's a bad hire but if it's not directly and completely rejected by senior management they're sending a message that anything goes as long as you get results / have the right friends. That doesn't even mean explicitly condoning something – merely allowing it to continue is enough.

I just don't agree with this thinking. Thinking that insecurity drives aggression ignores the simple fact that aggression is aggression. It's applying a victim card on top of asshole behavior.

It's also possible that some of that information is slightly twisted, to throw people off.

Furthermore, any of those descriptions could be fabricated to throw someone attempting to deanonymize her off.

People like you are the problem.

Additionally, assuming that Uber isn't stupid enough to coordinate a smear campaign of their own (although it happened to Ellen Pao)[1], she's safe. And if someone does doxx her, it means either: (a) Uber decided to doxx her or (b) one of the Uber employees that participated in her harassment decided to doxx her. Either way, it looks even worse for Uber and could set them up for a lawsuit.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/594rad/exreddit_c...

As opposed to the standard MRA characterization of all women as flighty, bitchy, whiny, screechy, slutty, dumb, "cheaters" who slept their way to the top somehow using their devious womanly wiles (but won't sleep with the MRA in question because they hate men).

Or maybe they know her story all too well, and are angry to see it here. It's not like there's nobody from Uber on HN, I mean.

You do not need to suffer more indignity by "being outed."

Best of luck!

I have no idea, and to pretend otherwise is to fool myself in order to confirm my preconceived notions.

Travis Kalanick is often painted as an example of Ayn Rand's philosophy in action. [1] I don't doubt he follows his own shallow understanding of her ideas. Still, what she actually said was that it's in your rational self-interest to treat everyone you deal with fairly and trade value for value. I.e., you need ethics to succeed in business.

John Allison of BB&T bank explains this principled approach better than I can [2]. He grew BB&T into a top 10 American bank, but he's the polar opposite of the stereotypical ruthless capitalist.

If you screw people over, you may gain a short-term advantage, but you will inevitably fail in the long-run. Enron, Zynga, Groupon, and countless others have proved this.

[1] https://pando.com/2012/10/24/travis-shrugged/

[2] https://youtu.be/XPSGMbqEGU0?t=3m12s

I've worked with people who couldn't handle pressure, who would just shut down and blank out when you criticized their plans or gave negative feedback. It's not pleasant - such people force you to spend more time thinking about their feelings than about technology or strategy. People like that shut down the free exchange of ideas.

I'd much rather suffer through a grueling interview for a day than work with such people on a daily basis. Being a healthy adult without PTSD, I don't get "triggered" by interviewers questioning me or playing games.

I don't know if it's actually useful when interviewing for a job with lives on the line, but I would guess that it creates an effect where the worse the interview experience is the happier you feel when you pass it.

"The internet" as a decision making body rewards the loudest, most obnoxious, easiest to use, quickest to strong arm someone into joining its network. Not the most just, or best for its own well being.

-How to encourage others to call out bad behavior? I don't see an easy answer there. The power differential is still there. If a VP humiliates a subordinate, another subordniate may not have the power to change behavior. Ideally a complaint goes up to the VP level and a discussion is had there (or higher).

- On unions: I've heard this passed around for years, most famously when Steve Jobs's posthumous testimony was in that hiring/collusion lawsuit. I think it's mostly an academic issue at this point similar to other pre-union industries: it's a challenge getting highly-paid employees to favor organizing (and possibly a lower wage) for the benefits.

Basically, once the company is big enough that you don't know everyone who works there, the evil actors and back stabbers emerge. Especially when a company is growing rapidly, you go from being a human in the eyes of others, to a performance report -- some numbers on paper.

My new strategy? Leave any company that gets bigger than 300 people or so. It's worked so far!

There are countless studies linking sexual harassment and intimidation to suicides, just look it up.

So i'd say survivor fits perfectly.

There really is no other self respecting choice. Sitting on the fence is condoning and enabling their behaviour.

and why exactly would it make you doubt her credibility?

this means that we have to hold 2 competing ideas at the same time until due process has been given, like shrodeinger's cat only for justice:

1) the woman is a victim and the "shitbag" should be punished appropriately.

2) the woman is lying and the "shitbag" is a victim of false accusations.

until more details are known, it is possible that the accused is the victim. If this ends up being the correct situation, than having their names smeared in the public eye for crimes they did not commit is morally reprehensible.

Even assuming no malice, a rational economic actor faced with a career-ending allegation of bad behavior is interested in discrediting the accusation via all possible means, including discrediting, shaming, or embarrassing the accuser to force a retraction.

And once you're assuming malice, they're especially interested in it.

To wit: Uber is a large company with fantastically deep pockets, a gaggle of high-powered lawyers, access to a strong media/PR machine, and a lot of glamour/adoration in the Silicon Valley/startup culture. But those strengths are being carefully neutered!

There's Susan Fowler's approach, which is first and foremost to make sure everybody knows she has documentation to back up her claims. That's a very clear message to Uber that 1) they never ever want to be in a discovery situation where she could start issuing subpoenas, since she's let them know that she knows where to get the damaging documents they don't want coming out, and 2) leaves them guessing just how much documentation she has, and so unsure of how to publicly reply: if they try to downplay the incidents she describes, or attack her record, they don't know whether she might produce proof that they're lying about it.

Then there's the approach here, which is detailed enough that the people it targets inside Uber certainly know who the author is and who she's writing about. But it does not divulge any identities with certainty to the public at large, which carries some similar "I left it at this level of detail, but maybe I could divulge a lot more if you provoked me" threat, but also makes it very difficult for Uber to attack her personally. To do so they'd have to out her and details of her employment record, and depending on the details that might put them obviously and publicly on the wrong side of a bunch of employment-related law as well as make them look like bullies.

I would barely be able to function, and maybe just wouldn't be able to, after some of the things that have been described as happening at Uber. I cannot imagine being able to not only call them out publicly, but also put together such a good strategy for doing so, and I have immense respect for Susan and "Amy" for managing it.

But I'm happy all these stories are coming out. Definitely glad these women have had the courage to share them, hopefully enough public pressure can be built up to steer in the direction of change.

That may be the case, but we still have a long way to go.

What does this mean?

FTFY.

The title, "I am an Uber Survivor", and the first few paragraphs, made me immediately skeptical. After she revealed specific examples of Uber's toxic culture, I began to feel quite guilty.

"Large price increases could trigger demands for even larger wage increases."

"His unpleasant remark triggered an argument that almost cost them their friendship"

"Studies show that lack of water is the number one trigger of daytime fatigue for Americans."

And so on. The usage you're citing is relatively recent jargon.

As such, i entirely agree that frivolous use of the word is at best annoying when it comes from people who have no idea what it means.

Note: Specifically staying just on the "trigger" topic. Not disregarding the level of concern that the story brings, assuming it is true.

This is an entirely anonymous complaint with no particular reason why anyone would believe it. A lot of it read to me as too perfect. Too designed to hit all of the right buttons to generate outrage.

I won't deny that it could be true. But I'd also give that possibility under even odds. And if stories like this are true, then we'll likely have enough opportunity to learn that later to give this version undue attention.

Point of order here. HR acts in management's best interests, not necessarily the company's. It's pretty clear that HR's actions here are not in the company's best interests given how much of a shitfest this has been for Uber. They gave cover for people who were not acting in Uber's best interests and, as a result, Uber lost all their goodwill, they're bleeding talent, and you'd have to be delusional to think toxic norms like this haven't been affecting their morale and productivity.

Management's interests are separate from the best interests of the company. Shareholder interests are separate from the best interests of the company. A company is made up of employees, management, shareholders, AND clients all together. All of them are stakeholders and its best interests are the things that properly balance the needs of everyone to fulfill its mission or goal. It's neoliberal bullshit to claim that only management and shareholders matter, and the sooner we accept that the sooner we can make our corporate governance tack into a sane direction.

You're right, and here's the thing. It seems both women who've come forward would have open-and-shut cases against Uber for multi-millions in damages. It's surprising to me that neither have pursued Uber in this regard. Similarly, it's surprising to me that Uber HR hasn't done the mental calculus to figure out that these women have a solid case, and just fix the problem. Or, most disturbingly, Uber HR DID do the mental calculus, determined neither woman would sue; and, therefore, made the correct choices as "best for the company."

Either way, I'm taking Lyft.

Through inaction and malpractice they have increased the legal liability Uber faces and encouraged irreparable reputational damage for Uber.

Except their actions here are not in the best interest of the company...why do people keep posting this in the context of discussing Uber? These are casebook examples of what HR should not do.

Yes, normally, HR acts in the company's interests.

But for many companies, its in their best interests to identify and fire creeps who work there and abuse women (or others generally).

What HR will do for you depends on what type of company you work in.

If you work in a company that cares about its culture, that values diversity and respects its employees, then HR is very likely to help you if you experience problems like these.

If you work for Uber - well I guess that's what all the heat and light is about. Is Uber such a shithole that these kinds of behaviour are actually condoned by the CEO?

Maybe we'll find out.

Going to HR is the right move for something like this. In any sane company, HR will take such a claim seriously because the potential legal downside if they don't is an unacceptable risk. In an insane company - aside from the fact that you can't measure the insanity level until you have in fact made such reports to HR and seen them dismissed - you still need to be able to show that you brought the problem to HR's attention and they did nothing about it.

That is, don't interact with them expecting to be "understood" as a person.

You may not just get a "no, we can't do that". You may well also get an unmentioned strike against you, for even raising the point or concern.

There are some good people in HR. Although, upon reflection, I realize that those I've met tended to have moved on or exited HR.

Anyway, my point is, don't just expect "in the employer's interest", be also aware of and prepared for a lack of basic human connection.

Yes but the company's best interest is to support Amy and fire Mike#2.

The reason is that if there is credible evidence of this behavior, she has easy settlement on par with Mike's value to the company (unless that is measured in 8 figures which is unlikely since at the end of the day, if they paid him $500k...they could replace him for $500k).

A competent CEO would take action here.

Hopefully the recently-revealed experiences at Uber will be taken as a wake-up call by HR folks whose calculus tells them that the best option is to cover up problems.

It should now be apparent that buried issues will eventually come to light, so the short-term gain of coverups won't be worth the long-term risk.

There's a great article published by Salon called "The Confidence Gap" which talks about this issue. Women do seem to have less confidence than men in western societies, but that's a greater social issue.

If you are a female engineer who finds out you are underpaid, go find a new job and ask for the salaries you discovered your male counterparts made. You'll most likely get it.

..and in general, you should switch jobs at the 2 year mark if you're young and fresh out of school. That way you don't get stuck as a Java/.NET/Ruby/limited-language developer, you expand you skills and you know to ask for larger increases with each job and get the current market rate. If you get stuck with the standard 2%~5% cost of living increase each year, you'll be under market value very quickly.

The wage gap is mostly a myth. When there is a gap, it has less to do with gender and more to do with the larger socialite taboo of knowing other peoples' incomes. If income/wages were transparent at every company, we'd see much less income inequality.

Citation needed. I haven't yet, in a decade in the tech industry, worked with anybody who would act in this way, to the best of my knowledge.

That said, I work in London and not SV, so I can't say if the culture is different. I know for a fact that it wouldn't be tolerated for a second anywhere I've worked.

> It was normal for guys to refer to other guys as fags when they didn’t participate in private parties where sex and drugs were involved.

This was every douchebag in high school who would laugh at me for being interested in computers back in the early '00s. And now they're programmers 15 years later. Brogrammer culture squicks me out in several ways, but mostly because the same people who laughed at, mocked, and belittled anyone interested in programming are now invading our industry and driving the decent folk out.

That there is a stereotype that people interested in software engineering are "nerds" who are losers and picked on in school? That the stereotype is accurate, and "yet again" software engineers bully other people because they were bullied?

/s

It's not always that simple. California is a 2-party consent state. INAL, but my understanding is that a private conversation (in a non-public place) means all parties have an expectation of privacy, which makes recording that conversation without the consent of all parties a felony.

Presumably, getting consent from your harasser to record their words and actions would be troublesome...

Again, not a lawyer, but that's what I've come to understand as a CA resident.

HN is not journalism, it's a water cooler. There's some rules for decorum but little to no editorial function.

That said, given the level of detail and the consistency with other reports we've heard, I think this report sounds pretty credible.