Others are speaking up about discrimination at Tesla
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
In regards to Vandenmeyer's story: from what I've read...I'm not sure I think it's super credible. I certainly could be wrong though.
I want to believe in Tesla just as much as the next tech-focused person, but of course I want them to have good corporate ethics and ferret out cases like this/investigate them. I would hope meaningfully!
If this woman's claims were false they would do best to keep quiet and wait for the legal process. They have a huge advantage with both the money to pay lawyers and many fawning media outlets willing to support them so if they were in the right they would be guaranteed to win if they just waited it out.
Going on the offensive is dangerous because it makes them look bad and draws more attention to the story.
Attacking this woman would be very stupid unless they are actually in the wrong, in which case it makes perfect sense as an attempt to intimidate other employees into not speaking out.
Or unless they think they are very right. I find them opening their mouth at all to be quite surprising. I find the firing with a reason given even MORE surprising.
This is either complete and total incompetence (not at all impossible), or the Tesla lawyers must think they are on amazingly solid ground.
They seem to feel extremely confident indeed, this is from the previous the Guardian article on this story:
Tesla has continued to strongly reject Vandermeyden’s claims. A spokesperson said the company had “conducted a thorough internal investigation” and “extensively re-reviewed all the facts”, repeatedly concluding that her allegations were false.
As mentioned - yes, this very well could be a legit problem! I don't mean to dismiss this employees' claims lightly. With the person Musk is though, I bet he sees it as a petty "human" distraction towards getting his larger goals for humanity. That doesn't excuse the way he handles it, but just gives perspective on his response. He seems to be a little bit of a robot sometimes - I don't think human empathy is his strong suit.
I agree attacking women or anyone is stupid in general. Instead, hear the person out and promise to investigate. Then take action if necessary and if not, share the facts. I don't think anyone can disagree with that course of action but hotter heads prevail sometimes on short notice like this.
If you think that you're changing the world, it's very easy to dismiss other concerns as less important than your core mission. This problem only gets worse if you actually are changing the world. At the end of the day, even Tesla is just a company with a bunch of people working their day job, you do need to make sure that your employees feel safe and enjoy their time there within reasonable bounds
Wow. I think that would have me running for the door if that happened to me. I know CEO egos are big but that's seriously narcissistic.
How much of the web today is blog revomit vs original content?
Y'alls parents didn't raise you right.
People in tech-- nerdy or socially insecure men in particular-- often tie their self worth to their jobs or their skills.
A mere whiff that the reason that they have their position isn't because they're innately better than everyone else threatens that sense of self worth, and a lot of them handle it by getting angrily defensive.
http://reductress.com/post/man-in-male-dominated-field-says-...