However, the sexism and dysfunction in the company is extremely disturbing. It almost starts to undermine the case against them when there are all these hit jobs coming out and it starts to seem that the media is biased or relishing their fall.
However, the sexism and dysfunction in the company is extremely disturbing. It almost starts to undermine the case against them when there are all these hit jobs coming out and it starts to seem that the media is biased or relishing their fall.
This is, BTW, the motivation behind an app I've heard of where you can file a sealed sexual assault report against someone, with verified date of filing, to be unsealed only if some number of people make an accusation against the same person.
That said, the dirt coming from Uber seems to be a lot worse and a lot more widespread for a company that is 1/30th the size of what Amazon was 2 years ago.
I assume this is ignoring drivers? Surely if you include the contractors the size difference isn't so stark. I would actually expect Uber to be larger, but I don't know.
It's not so much about the media piling on Uber, as employees feeling safe in talking about their company's problems.
Like everyone, I want them to pay for the culture they created at their company which resulted in employee abuse, but this is not fair to feed the hate campaign against a company which basically revolutionized the transport system.
It's not a hate campaign to call institutions out on their transgressions. It's not unfair to call out injustice wherever it exists.
The "people" in question being empowered are not the NYT reporters, they're the other employees that feel free to come forward, respond to requests from proactive reporters, or contact reporters themselves. The idea presented is that after there starts to be negative press, more people come forward, thus more news.
There are many reasons this might be true. A very simple one is that most people may think their concerns are isolated, and not mention it to others enough to learn how endemic they really are. In this case, the employees that have info about this program might not have been happy about it, but might have thought the company was just doing what it had to and were willing to overlook it. Other negative news may change their opinion of the company just enough to put them over the threshold of thinking it should be brought to light. Then again, some employees may have been perfectly fine with this program, but know the public will react negatively, and are using it to punish the company for other misdeeds (such as the reported sexism).
There are many explanations for why people with knowledge of misdeeds may come forward once it's reported. This happens with victims as well (e.g. Bill Cosby). It's easy to think you're the only one when there's no evidence to the contrary.
Yes, they do. Reputable journalists rely on sources before writing stories.
tl;dr Fuck 'em.
Think of what this means: The more a business (or anyone) does wrong, then the more news stories there are about them doing wrong ... then more likely it is that the news stories are 'hit jobs'. You can see how that doesn't work.
Everyone subject to criticism by the news media calls it a 'hit job', reporter bias, or something similar. I see nothing in this story that suggests such a thing; this seems like a serious problem and the allegations are seem well-supported.
If anything, I have greater respect for Uber employees after this series of leaks than I did before.
Edit: This comment was written before the parent added the /s tag.
Why is it surprising that a company under the spotlight... winds up with more journalistic investigations?
I have a feeling we're not going to see eye to eye on this so I will bow out.
The point I was making about internet comments is that comments on HN are particularly sympathetic to start ups, entrepreneurs and corporations (obviously).
For quite some time I scoffed at this as social marxist nonsense useful to launch any kind of conspiracy theory, but there might be a point to it in smaller scales, especially if the editors are beholden to the almighty gods of clicks and page views from an audience hungry for a narrative.
Always more enlightening to talk earnestly about differing values than suspecting some kind of hidden agenda or irrational bias.
Let's talk about Uber. Say they survive this situation and thrive as a business, taking over the global cab market. Imagine they also perfect self-driving cars and next month they fire all the drivers. Suddenly you have a company of ~10,000 people getting all the money from all rides around the world. And most of the money goes to the executives and a few thousand shareholders.
You now have a group of millions of people unable to make a living, and support their families. Apply this to all jobs that require mostly drivers (trucking, busses etc) and we just destroyed ~10 million jobs (including supporting infrastructure) in the US alone.
These people need to make a living - if Uber ends up paying super low tax (compared to what it displaces) we have a huge number of people making no money and a few getting all of it.
Civil unrest follows naturally (in one form or another) and you end up with either 1. Segmented civilization with a few people defending their wealth with hired guns 2. Social reform - guaranteed basic income for a while, but long term? 3. Revolution where the mob takes over and the outcome is anyone's guess - an extreme form of socialism?
It's not just about values, a lot of it is about long-term thinking.
Which of the three outcomes is better may be a question of values - is it better that a few people do super well and everyone else suffers, or most do pretty well?
Without some social stability and wellness companies cannot function - people need money to pay with, and without jobs there's not much money to go around.
"Greyball and the broader VTOS program were described to The New York Times by four current and former Uber employees"
The employees, current and former, are lighting the fires.