David Bonderman Resigns from Uber Board
mobile.nytimes.com
mobile.nytimes.com
I'm not sure whether watching HBO's Silicon Valley or just pulling up HN has given me more belly laughs at the inanity of the current state of tech over this past 12 months.
https://www.crunchbase.com/funding-round/3561e0558d4fa07f0dc...
On the other hand, the internet offers a layer of perceived anonymity that causes people to say things they never would, or should, in person. Things that they would be ashamed if that had to repeat to peers, in person.
It's a strange time to be alive.
This is the original piece comment we are talking about:
> He needs to be replaced by a woman
It's evident that the objective is to hire a women, not to hire a qualified person, therefore a less qualified person can be hired just because she is a women. A person hired like this would most likely not get too much respect because she had an advantage not because of her skill, but her gender.
> Being a successful woman and having all the experiences and perspectives that come with that
See my question in another comment.
We are talking about the role of board member - which comes with the impact of immediately being one of the most powerful and influential voices within Uber. Bonderman's voice spoke volumes today about the culture the company previously condoned, and a new female board member could potentially have a far greater positive impact promoting a more inclusive culture. By definition, one person can't change a company culture, but could set an example and set the ball rolling.
The point is, your vision of diversity is just anti-white-male. You'll be satisfied until you find too many representatives of whatever arbitrary label you come up with next.
Random example I've seen many times, but feel free to extrapolate to other positions/issues: If you have a group of native British developers of a web app, there's a good chance that any non-latin input will be either mishandled or rejected. Not because they hate other languages, but simply because that's not a problem they run into, or think about. Add one (for example) Greek dev, and the team will be quickly made aware of and learn about the locales and encoding issues. This will help the accessibility for all cultures, not just British and Greek.
Exposure to enough people different than you makes you think about others more. Even if you don't work with every possible token representation of the difference.
The theory says it shouldn't matter who you are it should only be based on your professional ability. And in theory it wouldn't make a difference to the ability of a company to function whether the gender or racial mix was one sided or not.
The reality is different. The reality is that having a uniform gender and race mix across a company causes all sorts of problems to the culture which in turn flows through to the companies actions and behaviours. And so if you want your company to be healthy you need to have at least some mix of men and women and races because the fact is that employees simply behave differently when there is a mix.
Has the world changed? Can groups of uniform gender-race people no longer act cordially to people who aren't same gender-race?
That's to say they are capable of it, not that it's ideal or that they were responsible solely for progress. Most abolitionists were not African-American.
"No longer?" At what point did they ever?
Given the politics of the situation, reasonable people might hear in this: "A woman should not be hired for this role."
Imagine the optics of replacing a sexist old man with another sexist old man. Worth the risk to shareholder value?
Do you see the irony in your statement?
Your statement implied that replacing one "sexist old man" (who we believe to be a sexist by something he said) with another "old man" is a risk to shareholder value because that replacement, by virtue of being a man and/or old, will also be a "sexist".
Your statement is passing judgment on a potential candidate without knowing anything about them simply based on their potential gender. That is definitionally sexism, the same sexism you are identifying as a risk to shareholder value. Perhaps you didnt mean it that way but that doesnt change the valid interpretation of the statement. The irony is that this sexist statement was made in a thread about an article of a guy who made a sexist comment (that cost him his job).
We might consider the possibility that a suitable woman in the role is significantly less likely to make this very embarrassing class of mis-step. And with billions of dollars on the line... where's the smart money? I suppose that is a sexist sentiment, too. Nuts, I can't win!
HN is probably not the place to have this conversation (I would have emailed you if it were in your profile) but to your point on "a suitable woman is significantly less likely to make this embarrassing mis-step"... that too is overt sexism of the kind I suspect you would find unacceptable coming from a man. Rhetorical question: how would you feel about a male manager justifying hiring a man because he is "significantly less likely to get pregnant and lose interest in the job"?
Lolz, yes, I do think that is a sexist comment and a part of me wonders if you actually think it isnt (maybe I'm being too literal). That said, I don't really care that you are making it. I'm a white male living in the 21st century, living with the double standard of being labeled a sexist or racist despite not being one is something you have to accept.
To your point, I think "smart money" buys the right tool for the job. I can see why you think replacing this old rich sexist white male with a young rich (sexist) white female is the smart move as it gets the trolls of your back and appeases the populists trying to hijack your company through negative PR. Anyway, I had fun with this. Hope you're having a good day.
Having read more and more YCombinator News comments on these topics recently... I'm starting to understand that there are voices out there that decry any perceived sexism at all, no matter the circumstances. I honestly find cries of 'sexism against men' that completely discount the real world context to be rather gauche.
Your last sentence doesn't follow. Maybe you could replace a sexist old man with a man who isn't sexist?
This is not testable. Move what you can measure.
On another note it's getting harder and harder to separate the news out of Uber from satire. Watching the car accident continue over again at head office feels like I'm sometimes caught reading The Onion.
On the scale of things said about women by men in power this is about a 2/10, there's many much more egregious examples of sexism out there for people to be upset about.
The comment in itself is an everyday (unacceptable but everyday) example of misogyny. But to judge it based on the abstract is frankly absurd.
However, the comment, as does everything, exists in context. If he said this a year ago...its in the report. If he said it two years ago, everyone laughs. To say it not just in the present moment, but AT THE MEETING where Uber is trying to move beyond this culture is unacceptable. It isn't about the comment itself even, its about how the comment undermines everything Uber is trying to do right now. If they had not let him go they likely would have opened themselves up to lawsuits from every other person they fired, and the attempts at cultural change would have literally died at birth.
What possess someone to say something like that at a time like that. Maybe try keeping ya gob shut.
Maybe it'd be nice for a change if men in power were generally saying pleasant things about women.
That there are worse things happening in other places doesn't mean we can't also expect better behaviour from those in front of us now.
P.S. Hello from the south island
It also seems like, given the context of the remarks, the (probably little) harm this causes him, and the potential for a new board member who's hopefully more inclusive, that hopefully something good comes of this.
Not so cheeky coming from this person at that time and place, though.
Edit: Curious at the downvotes for an honest attempt at a reasonable discussion on the issue. Such are the times.
If he hasn't learned by now what is appropriate behaviour, why do you think he'll ever learn?
And if he doesn't learn rapidly and advance with best practices in corporate culture and governance, then he's not capable of the leadership and management responsibilities of a board member.
The 'teachable moments' were at least 3 years ago, if not much earlier. The firing offence is ignoring them.