Hacker News Reader

"It's kind of sad that the Internet has become optimized for this type of witch hunt."

i don't understand why this statement was included. the internet is optimized for all sorts of things. also, before the internet, print/paper was "optimized" for witch hunts. and before that, there were literal witch hunts. it has been plenty optimal.

if there's proof, it's not a witch hunt. when david bonderman implied that women talk too much, that's not a witch hunt. here's a bunch more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/uber-trav...

i think you might be trying to say there's excessive PREJUDICE against people who work at Uber who have nothing to do with the sexual harassment, etc. but even on that level, it's unclear how much blame you should get if you remain complicit and support a group you know is willfully ignorant of issues like harassment. just because you and the person in the cubicle next to yours don't experience harassment doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I’m sure there’s tons of male employees who thought the situation was overblown and wanted things to settle down. I mean, they helped enable such an awful workplace culture. Heck, I’d say select female employees may have thought it was okay, though there really wasn’t many female workers there it seems because they fled.

A couple months fear of being “witch hunted” is a small price to pay for what appears to be years of harassment women at the company had to endure.

> A couple months fear of being “witch hunted” is a small price to pay for what appears to be years of harassment women at the company had to endure.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

What is pride if not an implicit endorsement? There are parts of Uber to be proud of! I think this is difficult to deny. It's been breathtaking just being in the industry and watching a company pursue a product that is both evidently a step forward in multiple ways with such momentum and entertaining brand building—i remember ordering puppies and ice cream at various points, and can you still get a helicopter in NYC? It spoke to Uber's ambition and ability, which is rare.

However, that should go hand in hand with recognition of parts of which you aren't proud. I don't understand the problem here.

You know what the difference is between a which hunt and the public reaction to Uber's bad behavior? Witches don't exist.

Some of us think that the similarities Uber has to other tech companies in this area is an indictment of these other companies, not an excuse for Uber.

Also, this is as much a witch hunt as Uber is a paragon of feminism.

yes, remember when that New York Times article came out about Amazon's toxic work environment?

Every employee has a different experience. A huge of chunk of Amazon's employees said they didn't recognize the type described in the New York Times. There is a huge bias when you're interviewing former employees. It is largely possible a number of theses former employees were actually low performing (hiring mistakes do happen) who deserved to be fired and/or had problems building relatinships with their fellow coworks/supervisors.

Uber's situation could be similar to Amazon's. I'm not saying Travis or Uber is completely innocent. I'm just saying we don't have all the facts and often times the media does get it wrong and have their own motivations to slant the truth.

I don't understand how you can both state that Uber isn't good, but also want us to stop working to make Uber and the rest of tech better?

Many companies, like Uber, have a hostile work environment for 50% of the workforce, and that is bad for everyone!

If you are not a target of the hostility, and you want to think about it selfishly, We are losing out on millions of our best minds until we solve this.

If you find it hostile, dont work there. I dont like corporate amd government suit environments, and i dont work there.

> they used to be proud to talk about it just a couple of years ago

There hasn't been much reason to be proud in many years. Yes, the technology is cool, but the market approach has been off from the beginning. Working for a company that consistently breaks the law as part of the business model is rarely something to be proud of.

You owe Uber nothing, no, less than nothing. Don't defend them, they pay lawyers for that.

Uber is not just like every other company. That's seriously some "boys will be boys" type thinking to excuse the messed up behavior of a certain few.

It's somehow symptomatic that two of the eloquent replies below are:

"Some of us think that the similarities Uber has to other tech companies in this area is an indictment of these other companies, not an excuse for Uber."

and

"Uber is not just like every other company. That's seriously some "boys will be boys" type thinking to excuse the messed up behavior of a certain few."

It seems interesting (and characteristic of bellicose group discourse) that either of these arguments, which of course contradict each other perfectly, will do as well as the other. I think you hear each of them about as much. But generally not in the same place and never by the same person.

They don't contradict each other perfectly.

"[O]ther tech companies" doesn't include a magnitude and could very well have meant that it's "just a few other tech companies."

Also, some might disagree with the second statement, and the degree to which different people make either statement isn't "interesting" in the least. Except, of course, to folks looking to excuse Uber's behavior.

They don't read to me as contradictory at all, though I have to say the second one you quote is kind of ambiguous as to what it's trying to say. They both seem compatible with the belief that in an industry with sexism problems, Uber's problems are worse than most.

Witches? Nazis?

Seriously!?!

So you are saying it someone says "I work at Uber, it's not much different than any other tech company" they will be burned at the steak?

Your rank-and-file employees are not even going to get much more than a "oh really?" when they say "I work at Uber." I used to work for a company that is pretty shady that the majority of people has a very negative opinion on, much more so than Uber. When I said I worked there to others nobody said much of note and certainly nothing like "you're a Nazi." Actually, I take that back, one person said "I could never work there" and I replied with "I can understand why you'd feel that way." That was it!

Even if someone says something, receiving some very mild criticism for holding an unpopular opinion is not the end of the world, it's called life. It's not a witch hunt and you're not some sort of victim.