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Comment by PatrickAuld | Hacker News Reader

Culture comes from the top and Uber's is pretty rotten.

I did an interview there this year and it was the most aggressive questioning I've ever had. Two of 5 interviewers were really in my face while architecting systems; it was bizarre and I almost walked out. Nothing compared to the 'cultural' interview where there gave me an example of them knowingly breaking the law because "they knew they were right" and then asked if I had a similar work experience I could describe. I told them I have never knowingly or even likely unknowingly broken the law at a job.

I was trying to use them to counter offer another company but in the end they never returned my calls or contacted me to say if I got the job or not.

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FWIW, I had a very similar experience and have a friend who had the same. Very off-putting. I was in the second round on-site and more or less felt like I probably had the job in the bag, still at the end when I met w/ the hiring manager I told him I appreciated the time but it wasn't for me. And wow, that pissed him off. Good riddance.

Sometimes I wish I had the energy to follow through all the way to the end of a process even when I know I'm not interested in working somewhere.

Waiting till they give you an offer and turning them down is probably the only way to get companies with terrible interview processes to treat their own interview behavior as signal.

"... the 'cultural' interview where there gave me an example of them knowingly breaking the law because "they knew they were right" and then asked if I had a similar work experience"

Incredible. Isn't this how mafia organizations hire?

I don't know if this interview method would expose Uber to liability under organized crime laws, but maybe it should.

'Mafias' in the broad sense and the Cosa Nostra in particular don't often interview external candidates. /sorry

Organized crime doesn't have to work exactly like the Cosa Nostra to qualify. I guess neither of us know enough about the relevant law to take this discussion much further.

Breaking the law in front of your peers is seen, apparently, as a good way to build trust in criminal organisations.

Having sat through it (but not having experience in law) I don't believe it would.

I'm sure the interviewer and the rest of Uber would say they didn't break the law; only that they enabled and took maybe encouraged others to.

Not a lawyer, but.. If they admitted this much I'm pretty sure that would count under RICO. After all, mafia bosses never actually kill anyone or sell drugs.. they only 'enable' and 'encourage' others to..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corru...

"The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. The RICO Act focuses specifically on racketeering, and it allows the leaders of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes which they ordered others to do or assisted them in doing, closing a perceived loophole that allowed a person who instructed someone else to, for example, murder, to be exempt from the trial because he did not actually commit the crime personally.[1]"

> never returned my calls or contacted me to say if I got the job or not.

That is very unprofessional. Saddens to hear that.

Getting ghosted seems pretty common, especially with newly-large companies.

Perhaps they realized he was "trying to use them to counter offer another company".

So you think they magically determined he, not only didn't want to work there but that he wanted an offer to utilize as leverage elsewhere.

They couldn't develop a set driving car without stealing, I somehow doubt they figured out mind reading.

I think they just didn't think I was a fit, which I take as a complement. I could have played the part better but I went through the interview like any other and actually said at some point that "I don't like disruption was a core business practice".

I had a phone interview with them 2 years ago and the interviewer was in the room with two other _very chatty_ people and the three of them were engaged in a separate conversation from my interview pretty much the entire time. I cut that one short and don't regret it in the least.

This is so vague it almost sounds like trolling. What did they specifically ask in regards to breaking the law?

Run a cab company without a cab license, but pretending it's not a cab company by not paying your employees a fixed salary nor giving your employees benefits. That's generally breaking the law in many parts around the world.

All they asked me for was a similar experience, not if I had broken the law. The example and question were based on their Core Value of 'Persistent Confrontation' which basically was spun to mean 'don't stop if you know you're right' but I took actually meant 'don't reevaluate your position in the face of new information'.

I'm being somewhat vague on purpose; some level of NDA got signed and my username doesn't exactly keep me anonymous.

A core value is "Persistent Confrontation"? Insane.

That aggressive nature is both the reason they have problems and the reason they have been so successful.

Re: being successful because they have an aggressive internal culture, is that really true?

Exactly. Let's continue this conversation after a couple years.

>> That aggressive nature is both the reason they have problems and the reason they have been so successful.

It might be the reason they're currently the most successful company in that market BUT Lyft and others aren't dealing with the sort of mess Uber currently is. Maybe that aggressiveness will bite back hard enough that another company will be winning that market long-term.

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