Is it worse to have the job hopping on my resume or a very unpopular company on there?
Staying for a while wouldn't be hard on me. My team and the ones around me aren't toxic (yet). I'm strictly concerned with the impact on my career.
It sounds like you're happy with the work environment, which is not something that should be taken for granted. Stay on board and continue to put in your best effort.
I'd far rather be an early, perhaps too early leaver, than stick around for six months to not job-hop only to find the Corp blew up. Now there's 3,000 Uber engineers on the market, and quite possibly a lot more bad press.
So for OP, consider carefully, including your insider perspective, before deciding either way! (I'd probably lean towards an exit as the bad PR does seem to have reached critical mass).
Right now, Uber is subsidizing each ride and their marginal cost is high compared to their marginal profit. The only way they can become profitable is either cut drivers pay, increase the cost per ride or both.
If they cut driver's pay, will the drivers stay with Uber? The other side of the coin is how elastic is the demand?
Unless he is a high level executive, I don't see why anyone would tar him with the ethical lapses of Uber
On the other hand, someone mentioned Yahoo. I would definitely ask someone technical why they stick with Yahoo.
How can this be true? I thought Uber takes a cut on each ride. Are you suggesting that they actually pay the driver extra money on top of what the riders are paying?
People like to compare Uber to Amazon and how long it took Amazon to become profitable. The differences are:
That Amazon was putting money into expansion and could turn a profit anytime it needed to.
AWS is their most profitable division - a category with high fixed costs and high marginal profit.
They are already using a lot of automation for their warehouses. It will be decades before driverless cars are ubiquitous.
I think most also got picked up by Metro.co.uk and the Daily Mail etc - like the CEO argument - so reporting is well outside SV. Not forgetting the whole #deleteuber thing. A couple of months back the only mention of Uber outside of HN, Tech Crunch et al was reports of the driver self-employment case or expectation of driverless cars.
What I can't guess is how influenced non-techies are from current events. It does feel like they've hit a certain mass that those negative events are now being widely reported in the mainstream.
I'm the wrong side of the Alantic to be well up on the SV jobs market, but as I say, were it me I'd be concerned by the apparent change in mood. I'd have been equally concerned by the change in mood, and endless bad press, just after Ratners CEO called one of their products "cheap crap" as a joke [0] - 12 months later Britain's largest jewellery chain was no more.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/aug/22/gerald-ratn...
Many HN comments on articles about Uber share the same opinion. Several of these commenters were founders of software companies.
Would you really want to work at a company where a CEO is so prejudicial? I know I wouldn't (and I find the publicized culture of Uber incredibly repugnant).
If you're happy at your current position and aren't complicit in the abuse that's going on (seeing abuse but not doing anything about it) then stay. If you're concerned that in a subsequent interview that your position will color you, volunteer for a noble cause:
-Encouraging young women to pursue STEM education / careers
-Domestic Abuse NGO etc
Of course it could also be based on direct empirical observation, or just liking to hear the sounds of one's own tweets. On the other hand, the would-you-want-to-work-at-a-company-where position probably falls flat in the case of Uber...it already ate the cake.
Fact: If you're a male Uber employee, you're somewhat tainted by this association. Maybe just a little, or maybe more.
Conclusion: If you're competing against another candidate who is identical in all other respects except they don't have this association, you're at a disadvantage.
It's not fair to you, but that's the inescapable conclusion.
The bigger question is, do you believe that Uber is ultimately a force for good?
In addition to your salary and benefits, is it important to you that your efforts contribute to making the world a little bit better?
How many hiring managers actually care about this? I know it's PC to say that you care, but I doubt it would affect the actual decisions of many managers.
1. "A successful startup" is one company. Fortunately there are thousands of companies who could employ you and the vast majority of them will not care.
2. CEOs don't typically make hiring decisions for engineers at any company that is "successful" because they have more important things to worry about. I would argue that you should avoid working any where the CEO is engaged in this sort of micromanagerial moral preening.
> Many HN comments
HN is a bubble. That bubble tends to be a bit more... umm... extreme... in more than one way, than the rest of the software industry or the world.
If a CEO is going to classify all male Uber employees as male chauvinists and not hire them I would see that as stereotyping and discrimination of a class. The world is not black and white and I would definitely not want to work for that CEO.
That being said, I see issues with Uber long term. Not just Travis issues but also in the business model. Eventually all car manufacturers will have level 5 autonomy. At that point the car manufacturers will be Uber. They will be able to produce the car at cost and watch it drive away from the car manufacturing plant to be rented out wherever it's destination state/country is.
Uber doesn't have a chance in the long term.
Regarding brand popularity, there's a quote from Gladiator that I love: "The mob is fickle brother". We're living in an age of the mobile phone app and there's no such thing as brand loyalty anymore. We as consumers and contractors can UNinstall an app such as Uber or SnapChat in 5 seconds. The only thing preventing that with Uber is likely the same thing that keeps Walmart in business: $$$.
Things change quickly. Uber has had some hiccups lately, but reports of its death are greatly exaggerated. There is a strong chance that "sexual harassment" and "toxic managers" will not be attributes people think of when they think of Uber in a year from now, assuming the company works to resolve those internal issues in an effective manner.
So because Uber made some mistakes it is OK to blame random workers board failings? Fuck logic.
Google, FB, $INSERTWHATVER here can also make a mistake, as a worker you should not be punished because of that.
Discriminate someone because their employer probably discriminated someone - so tolerant...
I've observed that companies make quick judgments about hires based on where they have worked all the time. That there are favorable and unfavorable companies to have on one's resume is among the premises of career management. Keyword search bakes that premise into the hiring process.
It is worth looking at a case where it is known that working for specific companies excluded candidates from consideration: Silicon Valley's no-poaching cabal. If those companies used key-word search to exclude candidates there was nothing illegal in and of itself in that act (it was the collusion among companies that was illegal). It is as easy as flipping a bit to divert a resume with 'Uber' to the bit bucket as to the advance buffer.
If we flip it I do see companies hiring developers because their former employer is "popular". But I do agree with rest of your opinion.
As an employer, I would not turn down any ex-Uber, as long as he or she did not trigger warning lights during the interviews.
Just focus on the technichal side and the money. If you feel good every morning when you wake up to go working for them, then stay.
If not, then that would make a great explanation to your next employer for him/her not to consider you a job hopper. Along the lines of "I quit at Uber because, as you very well know, the culture there was toxic and yours looks much more interesting, blah blah...".
Good luck!
To put it another way, an ex-Uber might be asked something like "What do you think about Fowler's statement?" to assess those warning lights and triggers at a company with an orthogonal culture. And a perfectly reasonable answer might be looked at with suspicion. Not that all hires are made on such a basis.
Any HR org that is at least 1% more competent than Uber's is alleged to be would absolutely put the kibosh on those kinds of questions. HR orgs know those kind of questions are destined to get useless responses, and they could easily lead to a situation where an interviewer could put the company into legal jeopardy.
As long as I stayed with that employer for longer than a year I would be fine, or would the period of job-hopping look bad permanently?
If you're at a job for less than six months, the assumption people will make is that you and the company were a bad fit. "Bad fit" can be interpreted as "applicant was incompetent and hired by mistake" so, having your own explanation about why you were a bad fit helps. Maybe you don't even list this job on your resume.
If you're at a job for less than a year, then the assumption people could make is that you got a bad first performance review, and you're changing jobs now instead of getting fired later.
If you've been at a job for at least two years, then people will assume your performance has been reviewed at least twice and that if you were actually bad, you would have been fired.
If it happens once or twice and there is a good story/explanation that goes along with it that is fine, but I actively avoid candidates who switch jobs every year or so. In my opinion it takes a decent amount of time to understand everything within any given company or codebase (especially one that has a decent level of complexity or specialized knowledge). I don't want an unstable environment where people are leaving just as they begin to fully understand things to the point where they are extremely productive.
Along those same lines I think it is the responsibility of an employer to give raises that are equivalent to the salaries they would pay to poach people with a similar level of experience. If you are willing to give someone a significant raise to leave their current company you should be willing to do that for someone within your own company.
What would you say is a reasonable amount of time for an employee to stick around if an employer isn't providing pay increases?
Two years. If you came in at market value, the median market value shouldn't increase that much. Two years is also about the time to get enough experience to "level up"
But keep in mind that the majority of job switching happen unilaterally from the employee side. So that could also be a sign that the employee is not afraid to quit because she knows her value on the market.
edit: grammar
And there are also cases where a company promises a certain role or duty, the candidate joins, and then they aren't doing what they thought they'd be doing.
If you can articulate to the company your reasoning behind switching jobs, and why you're genuinely interested in the company and the value you bring, I believe you'll be alright.
Has yet to bite me in the ass (Chicago) and the experience you gain between companies (small-large, workflows/methodologies, stacks, etc) is priceless.
I'm at a point now where I need to stick around a job for at least three years.
I do believe 2 years is a great norm, 1 year for getting up to date, 1 year for giving the company a chance. But, we're in high-demand (mostly) and if you don't feel comfortable at a company, life's short, not worth staying imo.
I'd also like to point out, while I have a great track record of interviewing, it seems (pointing to the quantity of positions I've held) that I need to do a _much_ better job of asking questions about the company in the interview phase itself.
While I do feel stuck at my new job (2 mos), I have a different approach mentally for keeping myself happy.
It's all contextual/anecdotal to the person involved. Though I'll tell you, my mother is always worried about the short-term positions. Just for a personal reference.
As far as asking questions. I use a modified version of the Joel Test:https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-s...
Basically, getting rid of the last 2 questions and asking about automated testing, code reviews, continuous integration, etc.
I always of course ask about the technology stack and the amount of autonomy developers have.
Need to use this next time :}
Early 2012 - contract over self explanatory
Mid 2012 - I was brought in to work on a new .Net project and to convert a PHP project to .Net. Two years later they abandoned the .Net initiative and everyone was working on PHP. That wasn't a career direction I wanted to go in.
2014 - I was brought in by a manager who wanted people who would aggressively pursue change and modern best practices, they pushed him out and all of the people who didn't want to hear about change started pushing back on his hires.
So when I was looking for a job late last year, I was very specific about the technology stack I wanted and the coding practices that were in place. Ironically, I ended up accepting an offer with a company that ranked 2 out of 14 on my modified Joel Test. But I was promised the support of the manager to come in and implement best practices.
Be ready to answer questions about the reason why you quit your jobs, though. Just telling the truth is usually enough. "The commute was too much", "I was not growing/learning any more"...
If you stayed at one job for less than a year, nobody will notice or care. If you stay for 6 months at three consecutive jobs, then you might get a question about that.
Assuming that you pass that formality, the question doesn't seem to affect anyone's actual decisions afterwards. (Even though people may claim otherwise.)
[Edit] I am working for a company doing "legal spamming" -according to German law. It is kind of useless shit the world would be better off without but the work makes fun and pays the bills. Is Uber hiring in Germany?
It's like saying living in the U.S implies agreement with the president (Trump or Obama) and his policies. One can still live in the U.S. and disagree with the president.
Suffices to say that working for Uber isn't like working for the Nazi regime - you won't be tried for crimes against humanity like in the Nuremberg trials. If anything, working for Uber puts you in an select group of people who could make it through their difficult recruitment process.
So - DON'T QUIT. Try and work for a better workplace from the inside.
No: Working for a company is opt-in, living in a country is opt-out. Quitting your job out of protest is a lot easier than emigrating.
Choosing to work for Uber and disagreeing with their culture is more like voting for a president and then disagreeing with them. Why should the OP try to change a rotten company from within when there are plenty of other employers to choose from?
I had management assure me that legal had been consulted, and don't worry, they say it's not technically illegal. If the media finds out and we get bad press, PR has already made plans for how they'll respond to it. The responses they gave me really made me lose respect for the managers above that.
Uber is (imho) a morally bankrupt company- even by the standards of companies. The question you should ask yourself isn't whether that will look bad on your resume, but whether you're going to live regretting you were part of it.
I make a bit less money overall now. I also sleep a lot better at night.
As an aside, the Otto scandal might even be enough reason to want to leave. It's now far less likely that your stock options will ever amount to anything. But leaving for this reason won't be as widely respected, so don't mention it to recruiters.
The thing that will prevent you from being hired, even if you are good, is not owning the fact that you chose to stay at Uber. If you're 100% okay with staying Uber, and you're only worried about perception, I'd say don't about what other people will think. But if you're ashamed to don your Uber hoodie in public and/or you cringe to answer the question "where do you work?", that's harder for you. That may have more to do with how you feel about it, and less to do with what other people will think.
Imagine this... You're the hiring manager for a startup that needs a darn good engineer. Someone applies to your company, and their two previous employers were Ashley Madison and Adult Friend Finder. You've previously interviewed candidates from both companies. If those candidates had been amazing, then you will do anything you can to get that applicant in the door for an interview. If the applicants all bombed, you'll be likely to think the engineering talent at AM and AFF wasn't any good. Neither situation have anything to do with the fact that both companies were adult-oriented websites, which carries some social stigma with it. The AM/AFF applicant might have a tough time getting a job at Eharmony because of their personal values as a Christian-friendly website.
My reasons for leaving Uber were simple - My team was toxic. You're not having this problem... or maybe you are and don't realize it. Much of what made it so toxic felt like my failures - Inability to understand the deployment strategy, things moving faster than I could keep up, objectives changing/not well documented.
After a while, I realized that the whole organization was engaged in gaslighting. We were always at war with Eurasia. My manager changed OKRs middle of the quarter. Decisions that I had written agreement on were questioned in the next meeting. Changes were made based on people's personal preferences, without regard for negative effects on others or the moving targets they presented. Coworkers were being cagey about giving advice or plans because they wanted to be 'the hero' and solve problems that I was trying to fix, or they didn't want to admit mistakes, or...
Anyway. I suggest you move on. But it may be worth sticking around for your bonus/stock options. On the other hand - People are going to be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt if you're getting out of Uber now. In six months, it will be a real black mark.
I'd personally give a thumbs up to any qualified engineer interviewed with me and mentioned that a big part of the reason he or she left Uber was because of their lack of morals. That takes balls, and so does leaving before the "standard" two year mark, so people who do that are either stupid and ballsy or principled and ballsy - the latter type of person is almost always a great person to work with as long as their principles make sense. There's nothing worse than a principled, ballsy Machiavellian.
So, to reiterate - quit if it really aligns with your principles as a person and you're ready to explain that, stay otherwise. It could also be that in 6 months staying at Uber will be against your principles, making that a great time to jump ship. I think the advantage you have is that since a lot people know Uber is toxic they won't fault you for wanting to get out.
Uber, on the other hand, has lots of claims of workplace harassment, sexism, general dysfunction, etc. etc. So an employee that tolerated working at Microsoft in the 90s could legitimately be looked at differently than someone who works at Uber today.
FTR, I'm not convinced it's right to judge employees in either scenario negatively. I'm just not sure they're the same scenario.
People (and companies) forget quickly, especially if the person they're interviewing is pleasant and competent.
Their reputation was more around 3E's (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish), they didn't play well with others (intentionally).
The key thing to remember is most people at uber and microsoft are decent people.
That doesn't stop the 2010s to 1990s comparison, relatively speaking, from also being true.
What's interesting to me is that people seem so surprised with the level of toxicity in the software environment for women. Uber didn't happen in a vacuum. That behavior accumulates over time via interactions with hundreds of different companies. And thousands of HR reports that have been ignored. All of which have brought us to this point.
HR hasn't cared enough to stop it ever. At any company I've worked at. Brutal assessment, but spoken from a place of real experience.
Should you quit? Probably not. Should you be exploring other options? Maybe...and that's mostly orthogonal to being employed at Uber but not entirely. Personally, I don't think it is likely that Uber is going to significantly change its culture based upon its responses (they look like hunkering down and lawyering up).
Now in terms of 'strictly concerned with the impact on my career' that looks like a moral/ethical the-ends-justify-the-means-approach. Here, there are two relevant factors. One is that there is very little certainty regarding how job hopping or staying at Uber will effect your career. The other is that there is a near certainty that people will judge your decision on moral/ethical grounds and that some will judge it as being reflection of a character that is ok with Uber's culture as described by recent events.
When hiring includes consideration of 'cultural fit' time spent at Uber will weigh into those considerations as a risk for companies with an orthogonal culture. Since the longer someone spends in a culture the more likely a person is to become acculturated, the duration of one's 'post-Fowler' employment might be considered when assessing the 'cultural fit' risk/benefit of previous experience at Uber.
I am not pretending that I know what will help or hurt your career: careers vary on an individual basis. I am pretending that what you do or don't do is a choice about who you are. The internet is not going to give you permission for either choice.
Good luck
Aside from the outrage/noise you read on the internet, I don't think is much or any stigma associated with working at any particular company.
Uber's brand has become toxic not just on the commercial side but within the tech industry to an extent too and things happen as a result of that.
Just something to think about.
Do it because it's the right thing to do, not because you're worried about having Uber on your resume.
But since you say you're strictly concerned about the impact on your career, I can tell you that seeing Uber on a resume beyond March 2017 would be an instant red flag for me. I wouldn't bother phone screening that person.
Plenty of companies won't care though, so if you just like money and don't have qualms about your employer's rapidly growing list of unethical activities, then by all means stay.
That's insane - you think everyone at Uber can afford (both literally and metaphorically) to simply quit their jobs without a landing place?
The flip side of this is that I would be happy to avoid working for someone who's so easily prejudiced against someone before ever meeting them. That kind of social bigotry is also very toxic...
Uber's unethical behavior didn't start recently, but it has recently reached a point where I don't think anyone at the company can still claim plausible deniability. If you're still at Uber, you've had a lot of time to think about this stuff.
> The flip side of this is that I would be happy to avoid working for someone who's so easily prejudiced against someone before ever meeting them. That kind of social bigotry is also very toxic...
I wouldn't consider hiring someone who I suspected of being involved in theft of trade secrets, knowingly violating laws, or knowingly evading oversight, because those are behaviors I don't condone and would not tolerate at my company.
I can't say for certain that anyone who works at Uber beyond March 2017 is involved in unethical activity, but I can say for certain that anyone who works at Uber beyond March 2017 either knows that they're working for a company with a long history of unethical activity or is completely oblivious, and both of those things tell me this is a person I may not be able to trust to make good decisions at my company.
I also discard resumes that show a lack of relevant technical expertise, because that's another indicator that a person may not be able to make good decisions at my company.
I'm not interested in hiring robots without pity, remorse, or fear. I'm interested in hiring humans with empathy and good conscience and a capacity to do the right thing even when it's not easy, because those are values I want my company to have.
As for having a known toxic company on your resume, that should only be a red flag if you were in a position to alter that toxic environment (senior manager, HR roles, etc).
If I were in your shoes, I might be looking to move elsewhere. But, unless you're unhappy, there's no need to hurry.
If I felt I had an external justification to explain a hop and I had doubts about my employer, I would look immediately for a job filtering for ones that I would actually want to keep for 3-4 years. If a new employer accepts you and you actually stay a few years, I would consider a future employer that had an issue with your resume rather odd. While sticking it out at an employer that you feel uncertain about can leave you in a worse place with the wrong timing.
If you are concerned now, and can find a better offer that you are very comfortable with, I'd say jump ship.
If you don't like your job, then look around. Maybe look around just to know what the market is like. But don't leave something you enjoy purely because you're afraid of what others will think on your resume.
If it comes up in an interview, focus strictly on your work and how you contributed your skills to the business.
Software engineers ought to be fine moving on from Uber. It'll be the high-level execs who, rightly, will end up having trouble explaining their role in Uber in an interview :)
That said, I think leaving Uber would be a significant advantage compared to other companies. In most cases you need to convince your interviewer that the previous company had poor culture without sounding bitter - but for Uber they will probably already know how bad the culture can be.
The same media that's slamming Uber today slammed every successful company... these armchair analysts, who haven't been through 0.01% of the struggles that entrepreneurs go through, predicted that Amazon, Netflix, Tesla, Uber will all go down. Now they're working overtime to paint Uber as a frat house with no ethics.
Every company has issues. Some even as severe as recent Uber events w.r.t harassment. But they fix it. They learn. They move on. Uber is not Travis, or the CTO, or the few people that came to limelight for bad culture. Uber is bigger than all of them.
Don't quit something because the press is saying bad things about it. Don't run away from problems. Fix them. That's what engineers do.
The most important thing to realize right now is that your caught up in a news cycle (albeit, a pretty bad one), but eventually the talks will quiet down and it will be a thing of the past (not saying that there aren't serious issues at Uber, but it won't get media coverage because people will be tired of it).
I agree with brandon272. No one has ever been disqualified from a job because their former employer was unpopular in the media (unless there is a major political statement that comes along with the employer i.e. marijuana advocacy, NRA, etc).
Stay on board, keep doing the best you can, and most importantly, don't get caught up in all the negative crap. Treat everyone else with respect and support your female coworkers if they need you.
In a period of about 3 years I went through 4 jobs. I never once was asked or told that my job hopping was a concern in any interviews (probably 50 all together) or offers.
Interestingly the only time I got push back on my "job hopping" Was when I left my first job that I was at for 3 years. I was being interviewed by my potential manager and one of his reports. As the interview was wrapping up the report piped up "How do we know you aren't just going to leave us in 3 years?"
The manager took control and smoothed that question over and I didn't have to answer it but it was an obvious power play and I'm glad someone else was in the room.
I've been involved in a small number of interview processes from the hiring perspective, and I've definitely seen some concern regarding job-hopping where it could easily make the difference on a marginal candidate. That said, this is only at one team in one company - and I was not involved in the initial resume screens (where people with a lot of job-hopping may have been eliminated entirely before I ever saw them). Probably would be best to get a broader perspective from people who have a lot more experience with hiring.
Either they care and they don't call you, or they don't care and they don't ask.
In my experience the number of employers that don't care and don't ask are sufficiently large enough to not be concerned about the former employer type, especially for someone looking to get out of an uncomfortable employment situation.
Silicon Valley is always talking about "changing the world" while building pointless apps that will only exist for 5 years at most as they try to sell to a bigger data mining company. All in the name of "being passionate about what you do".
Fuck that. Starting a for profit business is mostly always about making money, so as an employee you should try to get as much money as you can from them. If you start a company and really believe you are changing the world or making the world a better a place, then make it a non profit. Otherwise, get your head out of your ass.
All of the stuff you mentioned is still part of "compensation".
In the end I picked the 80k one because during the interview they asked me to come in for the day and do a 'test' for a few hours, which was building a small project, then I got to sit with a couple of the members of the team and take them through it. I had a LOT of fun (more fun than I imagined) and ultimately decided to go there.
One of the best jobs I've had.
Obviously between 2 great jobs then the 20k would be the tipping point. But money isn't the sole reason I work. I love what I do for a living.
Don't quit now - good jobs can be hard to get!
In fact, we're thinking the opposite: let's use this as an opportunity to hire engineers in your position (and we're currently hiring).
However in your position no one could reasonably hold it against you. Perhaps it doesn't hurt to put out feelers though.
But there are far more important reasons to stay or leave than fear for what others think. Do you like it there? Are you learning? Can you look at yourself in the mirror every morning for working there? If yes, then stay. If no, then leave.
Of course the smart thing to do is to first look for another job, and only then leave. That way you don't have to leave until you know it's safe to do so.
Are you happy? If yes then why leave? Leave if you're unhappy. Stay if you're happy or you have a family and a mortgage and have a good salary to pay it asap.
As a potential employer I would be more concerned about you changing jobs with less than a year at both previous jobs. Assuming you are not looking to take a pay cut, you would have to be stellar technically to even be considered with so little experience. Finally, I would consider you overly sensitive to outside influences and question whether you would stay with a new employer through thick and thin.
If you are subconsciously trying to look for an excuse to leave, well now is as good as any of a time to stop kidding yourself and get out of there.
Zenefits sales guys don't have a problem landing their next sales role, though you might do a sanity check for cultural values just in case.
Uber appoints Zoubin Ghahramani as chief scientist: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13876497
Take a look around, but don't do anything drastic out of an emotional reaction.
There are idiots everywhere. I don't see Americans running out of American as they are ruled by idiots, lead by a pussy grabber.
Uber is an innovative company. Stick around.
Stay as long as you can for being overpaid.
Imo at some point years from now the large $$$$ won't be there any more.
Bottom line. Most of us work for someone else. No matter what we do.
Stick it out.
Save money, learn as much as you can, do interesting things at and outside of work.
Plan what you want to do in the future.
Plus everyone eventually leaves X, since they die. You don't have a plan for immortality, do you?
Then there were several sexual harassment claims that were handled poorly. They can be read here: (https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e..., https://medium.com/@amyvertino/my-name-is-not-amy-i-am-an-ub...).
Their SVP left because of similar claims against him at Google (http://www.recode.net/2017/2/27/14745360/amit-singhal-google...).
Their VP of product also left under similar circumstances (http://www.recode.net/2017/3/3/14805384/uber-ed-baker-resign...).
Google is suing them over potential stolen IP (involves a former Google employee leaving to start Otto, which Uber promptly acquired). This has still yet to be settled but you can read about details here: (https://danielcompton.net/2017/03/14/uber-bombshell).