Stories about the leadership’s dubious ethics -- or the ones about subprime autoloans or deceiving the press or sharing private user data for fun and games at a party --haven't really hurt Uber at all. Even reports of incidents that might make one think twice about using the service -- sexual assaults, a hammer attack -- haven’t gained much attention outside the close world of tech blogs. There’s only a slim chance that most consumers will ever know about this stuff and decide that they’d rather use, say, Lyft, an almost-identical service. So long as people continue to download the app there’s an even slimmer chance that the stories will hurt the company’s ability to raise money.
I don't really understand why one would actually want to work at Uber. If you're a good engineer, there are better and far more interesting and impactful companies to work at than an app whose primary purpose is to call a ride. I know Uber has much larger ambitions, and transportation is a large portion of the economy, and thus very lucrative, but really...are you willing to sacrifice your ethics and morals just to create the world's best taxi service in the near term? To work in such a high stress, backstabbing and political environment, and for what? The vague promise of some RSU's? Because there are interesting engineering challenges in planning a route?
Culture is clearly set at the top. The only way for Uber to move forward at this point is to make changes with this in mind. At this point, if I was on the board of directors, the only way to move forward is to get rid of Travis Kalanick. That will be the only message loud enough to signal to the rest of the world that Uber is going to change, and at this point, do they really even need him? It would be better to just fire him and replace him with someone else to just get him out of the picture. He's an embarrassment to the company and they can easily find someone just as capable from a business and technical leadership perspective, probably someone a lot better than him in fact who they can trust won't be making these rookie mistakes.
One of the main roles of a CEO is to set the culture and to prevent PR disasters like what is currently going on. What else of value has he recently contributed that is worth keeping him on despite all these numerous scandals?
If Uber does not do what is necessary to change their toxic environment, and to fix the now perception of toxicity, they will be eclipsed by one of their competitors in short order. You can go fast in a cut throat, winner takes all asshole culture, but you can go much farther with a happy team that enjoy working with one another.
3. Good compensation (I heard for top tier applicants, they give something like MSFT total comp as salary with a ridiculous amount of paper money)
4. Assumed less bureaucracy compared to Big Cos because of unicorn/start up status
5. Ability to develop the first X in the new ride sharing/autonomous car industry
Uber would be a good fit for someone who specifically wants to work at a big_unicorn with large scale technology problems.
Most engineers wouldn't be able to accurately evaluate the ability of the leadership of tech companies, so that negative is out the door.
For the ethics portion, that's subjective.
For the cut-throat nature of the company, I heard that it was worse than most tech companies but not terrible (60+ hr/wks) like some financial companies.
>"If you're a good engineer, there are better and far more interesting and impactful companies to work at than an app whose primary purpose is to call a ride."
It's no Space X, but giving people a cheaper, more reliable cab that can be used for carpooling seems more meaningful than spending one's time working for a company whose primary purpose is getting people to click on ads.
While I'm not in a position to defend what the culture at Uber is or isn't, it's shortsighted to say that the problem Uber is addressing isn't an important one. Giving people mobility can have a drastically positive impact on local economies, housing, the environment, etc.
> I don't really understand why one would actually want to work at Uber. If you're a good engineer, there are better and far more interesting and impactful companies to work at than an app whose primary purpose is to call a ride.
I personally wanted to work at Uber ATC because it is one of the fee places I could work on radar signal processing outside of government work (and SV). If the crappy interview homework hadn't turned me off the company already, all this shit would.
I joined Uber as an engineer last year. For me the deciding factor was they have really interesting problems to work on, wonderful team, impact that i can have from my work & they move fast(minimal bureaucracy). Pay was the last thing on my mind (they pay decently). My team mates are very accommodating, they taught me lots of good stuff. Professionally this has been amazing for me. Speaking for myself, I haven't had much stress than what i had in my previous companies. For me stress used to come from bureaucracy, which TK does a good job of keeping it to minimum.
You speak of ethics & morality, let me ask you about a cause which is very close to my heart. How do you feel about tech in general where diversity is big issue. Black & Hispanic engineers are in low single digit percentage (ex: FB/Google 1-3% [1][2])? Can i call someone not ethical for working in such tech companies, which does not provide equal opportunity in the name of meritocracy? I think issues should not be treated in complete black & white. HR messed up in doing the right thing, that does not mean everyone working there does not condone this and support such abhorrent behavior.
[1] https://www.google.com/diversity/
[2] http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/driving-diversity-at-fac...
I don't know where you're located, but Uber has been rather transformative in DC. I don't know a ton of people who work there, but I do like the few I know in the DC office. I wouldn't expect them to stick around if the place was a shithole full of uninteresting busywork.
> the only way to move forward is to get rid of Travis Kalanick ... do they really even need him?
My opinions aside on whether Travis is a healthy CEO for Uber, there are real costs to employee turnover. And that is true at the CEO level just as anywhere else.
And there are actually some benefits to a post-crisis employee. Sure, a new person they hire probably won't have Travis's specific flaws. But the same can be said of a post-crisis Kalanick. He's actually pretty likely to not make a similar mistake again.
Unless, of course, it becomes a pattern. Certainly Kalanick has demonstrated a pattern of ethical lapses, so if that's the thing you're trying to optimize against he should go. Is there a more specific pattern of ignoring sexual misconduct? Well, probably also yes in Kalanick's case.
But my point is he needs to go because he's demonstrating a pattern of poor performance, not because there needs to be a head on a spike for people to trust Uber again.
from what i've seen people think it is the next google/facebook and want to jump on the rocket ship before it blasts off. I really wanted to work there a few years ago but after hearing about their culture as well as the fact that they have thousands of employees now, that has changed.
I have a friend who just graduated with a mathematics degree who is a bartender, and will likely remain a bartender for some time. He wishes to work in software development, but seemingly lacks the networking ability or the raw talent that comes from years of throwing yourself at the craft. Local companies aren't interested because they are either not interested in a developer with a math background, or likely do not have many open positions and are content with their influx of recruits from the local, and very large, university. He's mentioned a willingness to relocate, but I suspect he lacks the financial means to do so. Furthermore he has mountainous student loans which will soon need payment.
I have not one iota of doubt he would do anything for a position at Uber with even a modest (<$75k) yearly salary regardless of location or any other benefits. And it is my belief this represents a vast majority of software developers around the world.
Are you in your early twenties? Poor or in debt? Feeling unimportant? Come work for Uber.
Did you start a family before you were financially prepared? Want to take care of them? Come work for Uber.
Girlfriend break up with you for being an unemployed loser? Come work for Uber.
If this is reminiscent of Wolf of Wall Street, you might be starting to get it. The world is full of poor and disenfranchised people who are willing to do many things that those in a quiet office with a white laptop embalmed with some special Apple, myself included, could likely not even imagine. To say working for Uber, who likely has as many fax pas as any conglomerate, is so horrid is absolutely laughable.
Edit:
The only difference now is that the finance wolves of yesteryear are now slinging code to mine and collect personal information, trigger mobile game purchases, etc.
> are you willing to sacrifice your ethics and morals just to create the world's best taxi service in the near term?
All the things you mentioned subsequently are completely valid reasons for people to join Uber, but on top of that they just sprinkle some mental gymnastics to try to explain away wrongdoing the company has done.
And don't underestimate the allure of money. Think of all the smart and extremely driven people that go into investment banking. As stressful as working in a tech company is, I don't think it compares to Wall Street (contrary to David Fincher's depictions). Work 80 hour weeks, but retire at 35 with your fuck you money.
Personally, I had a chance to work for an oil company out of college. $80K starting, six figures within five years, and stocks that were actually worth money. However, the cognitive dissonance I'd have to wrestle with was too much for my former hippie self. Someone else still took the position, though.
"I don't really understand why one would actually want to work at Uber. If you're a good engineer, there are better and far more interesting and impactful companies to work at than an app whose primary purpose is to call a ride. "
Uber is changing the world. For better or worse.
99% of other startups are irrelevant, and will go out of business soon.
Also - working at Uber, many will get rich.
They are a big company, with tons of money, they are spending huge on highly specialized things that most other startups couldn't ever touch, and there is 'financing' for cool, niche things. Self driving cars, big data, transportation things. Food delivery. And just the scale of it is interesting.
Finally they have a kind of job security that goes beyond what most startups would offer.
I have no love or hate for Uber, I mean I don't like them for some reasons, but there are plenty of reasons for people to want to work there.
You made a great point. Truly for a great engineer, Uber should't be the only place. I am sure very soon those good bright ones will leave the place. Culture is very important for an Organization where -- "meaningful work and meaningful relationships that are obtained by striving for truth and excellence with great people" Quote from Ray Dalio's https://www.principles.com/#Part-3
It takes a lot to build an organization and from how Travis ran Uber there is no sustainable effort in that direction.
Alleged sexual harassment aside, I actually feel much more at home working in an environment like this. By my nature I'm a very competitive person, I work best when I'm pressured to do so, I like money, and I like partying. That environment isn't for everyone, and that's fine - people need to fit the job just as much as the job needs to fit them.
I'm deliberately not commenting on the sexual harassment stuff because quite frankly it's none of my business until the claims have been substantiated.
> If you're a good engineer, there are better and far more interesting and impactful companies to work at than an app whose primary purpose is to call a ride.
Isn't the interestingness of the engineering work independent of the interestingness of what the company does? E.g., if your area of interest is large databases, would it matter if the company is using its large database to store car ride data, or to store physical inventory, or to store weather data?
" Occasionally, problematic managers who were the subject of numerous complaints were shuffled around different regions; firings were less common."
Same strategy exhibited by certain religious organizations. Problematic individuals were transferred to developing countries or disenfranchised communities where more distinct power imbalances enable the crimes to go unpunished.
Based upon the evidence that includes the CEO's public attitude and that of Uber as a company and the story told by the former employee about how her situation was handled, it seems like Uber is much more sorry that their culture was exposed than that they have that culture to begin with.
Is this kind of company culture not becoming much the norm in today's hyper sexual society? I can't imagine that these kinds of things aren't happening all the time at other in-your-face branded startups.
American Apparel is another company that quickly comes to mind with problems similar to Uber's.
[edit] Tomluck pointed out below that this post can be misinterpreted. I don't want to discount people's experiences - and there is definitely work to be done. But at the same time there is a lot of great things too, so we can have a healthy perspective. Thanks to those who are discussing it!
---
I could go into detail about my experience at Uber (which is great), but a friend and coworker I really admire did a much better job. Here's her LinkedIn post:
"Uber has been a lot in news lately, and not for all good reasons. While as an Uber employee, I think there are things (in fact, many things!) we can do better, one thing that I couldn't agree less with are the allegations of Uber being a discriminatory, anti-women culture.
"While I am deeply saddened with what was recently brought to light, and being a woman, demand that the investigation is urgently, unbiasedly done, I also want to say that as a woman, an immigrant woman, I have never felt even an iota of discrimination, let alone harassment.
"When I moved to the US about a year ago, with no job and plenty of dreams, Uber was one of the few companies that gave me a chance to prove myself in a new country. And, since then, I haven't just survived, but thrived here. I look forward to coming to work daily, making my contribution, and having a say in shaping a company that's changing so much around us. Again, I feel deeply sorry for the recent situation that came into light, but I stand against anyone who generalizes that Uber epitomizes a discriminatory culture for it couldn't be further from truth.
"[Her] Disclaimer: These views are my personal views, and in no way linked to my employer's. I just feel an overwhelming need for sharing my personal experience working at a place that has given me so much in terms of learning and growth."
"Every day that week, T. beat me up in the bathroom. He told me if i didnt say nice things about the company, he'd force me to get an abortion and have me deported. I told him I would post on LinkedIn about how much I loved the company. He said that he would need approval on that post per the company social media policy.
The next day he had me in a meeting with HR where I had to admit that I attacked him in the bathroom and came on to him. That I would undergo counseling for my anger problems and that I would be on probation. I signed a letter thanking T. for his understanding of my mental problems.
If I ever told anyone, he said, he would blackball me from the industry. There is a private database accessed by people who went to certain frats in the Ivy League - just like they had private databases of old final exams to study over the years, they also have private databases of troublemakers in their industries. This is what they do. This is their particular set of skills, developed over a lifetime.
Then he told me he accepted my apology, and would only take a small amount out of my bonus for the clothes I damaged while I was attacking him.
He's not a bad guy. I'm not saying he's a bad guy at all. I just wish he wouldn't get so upset when people make mistakes or do things wrong "
The impression I got from the story I believe she's describing wasn't "discriminatory, anti-women culture" as much as "very bad manager" (to the point of sexual harassment) and Uber not doing anything about it.
> "Uber was one of the few companies that gave me a chance to prove myself in a new country"
My understanding is that Uber is relatively top-tier both in difficulties of interviewing and competitiveness of getting hired there - is this not the case? If it is, it seems kind of disingenuous to think they did her a favor when in reality she could probably pick and choose 80% of the companies in SV if Uber was looking to hire her.
So I am presuming you are male. I am presuming you did not get her explicit permission to post that here. I see you also do not really give her credit by name, supporting link, whatever -- probably because you do not have her permission.
Maybe you should wonder a bit more about why your experience at the company is "great" when all I hear seems to be about how completely poisonous the company is. Because it looks like you may be part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Edit: I say that because you are using some woman's words out of context to further your agenda in a predominantly male discussion forum. This is suspicious behavior, at best. It fits completely with what I have read Susan Fowler say about how women got treated there while she was working there.
I wish more people readily recognized the pattern and how very ugly it is.
I hope Travis / execs are sincere and this was a healthy reality check, of course talk is cheap. Anyone know if Amazon culture changed significantly after the NY times article about their work culture came out?
I think 2017 is time to start finding out the degeneration of this uber-capitalist model. A portfolio of on-call collaborations paying peanuts without any workers right does not make a job and is not safe for customers. Please stop defending the undefendable, bare naked social costs are too high.
We all know that this is not news about Uber's workplace. It has been happening for quite a while. I bet those executives knew about it a long time ago. What has motivated executives to take it seriously now? Why now?
Would there be any upside to a company like Uber cultivating a reputation like this deliberately? Obnoxiousness seems to be a characteristic quite ingrained into elite hacker culture.
> The ride-hailing service particularly emphasizes “meritocracy,” the idea that the best and brightest will rise to the top based on their efforts, even if it means stepping on toes to get there.
Whether this means:
- Uber explicitly emphasizes stepping on toes as part of their workplace culture
- The concept of meritocracy includes stepping on toes
This is false and dishonest of the NYT. In the first case: Uber might be awful, but no company would emphasise mistreatment of others explicitly. In the second: that is not the commonly held meaning of meritocracy.
I am shocked - shocked! - that a company that has gone from zero to $70B in less than a decade by riding roughshod over people and engaging in shady tactics, that it should have a company culture that reflects the same!
Yeah, I find unethical news out of Uber... unsurprising. I mean, most of their business-model has been based on willfully breaking local laws for profit, in the hope that they can grow into a bully that can ignore the consequences.
With that at the core, it's no surprise that other areas exhibit the same rot.
Pretty much. All of these SF startup CEOs just rotate around companies and start new ones. The whole mentality there from the (moronic) angel investors to the people they hire as CEOs propagates and rewards the culture common at these shops.
"Those values have helped propel Uber to one of Silicon Valley’s biggest success stories."
The alternative hypothesis is that they were the first with something that worked well enough at the time the public was ready to use it and the "values" is just attribution bias.
Because of a toxic culture or because of other problems?
I don't think I've ever heard of a company brought down by cultural problems. At most, cultural factors seemed to have contributed to the problems, such as the issues caused by strict stack ranking at Microsoft, which punished teamwork.
Some places are pressure-cookers and shark-tanks, but then some people love heat and pressure and are, you know, sharks.
To me its a reminder of how times have changed and a tale of caution.
Pre internet there was no place (blog) to write about work.
Now, one always has to be conscious that their coworker-friend or coworker-foe can tell the world stuff you would not tell. Reinforcing the keep quiet about everything mantra
The other risk is that a decade from now the person making the blog will be known for that blog. To everybody.
More caution will be required when coming in contact with that blogger.
actually it's the drivers that add all the value, the devs are the folks that enable the cheating. Susan Fowler was responsible for keeping the trains running on time.
> And one more thing, not to downplay managers contributions, but developers are the ones making things happen, we really need more credit for our work.
In today's economically-rationalised times, there isn't much in the way of non-essential work anymore. Fire the janitorial staff and see how long your 6-figure staff stick around, for example. Or for a more direct example, fire your sales and marketing staff, and see how long the company survives.
Yes, you can always find an example of a company that works without a person in position X (including plenty who don't have in-house developers), but almost everyone is hired today to fill a need rather than a head-count.
I enjoyed it. Raised a lot of interesting questions that I think we're all going to be debating in coming years. Privacy, surveillance, transparency, etc.
Genuinely surprised how rarely it comes up in these discussions about toxic corporate tech "culture"
[+] [-] ilamont|9 years ago|reply
Stories about the leadership’s dubious ethics -- or the ones about subprime autoloans or deceiving the press or sharing private user data for fun and games at a party --haven't really hurt Uber at all. Even reports of incidents that might make one think twice about using the service -- sexual assaults, a hammer attack -- haven’t gained much attention outside the close world of tech blogs. There’s only a slim chance that most consumers will ever know about this stuff and decide that they’d rather use, say, Lyft, an almost-identical service. So long as people continue to download the app there’s an even slimmer chance that the stories will hurt the company’s ability to raise money.
1. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-11-18/ubers-dir...
[+] [-] rajathagasthya|9 years ago|reply
> Why am I still at Uber? I am at Uber because Uber needs me.
I don't understand how someone can say this. It's like worshipping a corporate entity.
[1] https://medium.com/@hadrad1000/reflecting-on-susan-fowlers-r...
[+] [-] iamleppert|9 years ago|reply
Culture is clearly set at the top. The only way for Uber to move forward at this point is to make changes with this in mind. At this point, if I was on the board of directors, the only way to move forward is to get rid of Travis Kalanick. That will be the only message loud enough to signal to the rest of the world that Uber is going to change, and at this point, do they really even need him? It would be better to just fire him and replace him with someone else to just get him out of the picture. He's an embarrassment to the company and they can easily find someone just as capable from a business and technical leadership perspective, probably someone a lot better than him in fact who they can trust won't be making these rookie mistakes.
One of the main roles of a CEO is to set the culture and to prevent PR disasters like what is currently going on. What else of value has he recently contributed that is worth keeping him on despite all these numerous scandals?
If Uber does not do what is necessary to change their toxic environment, and to fix the now perception of toxicity, they will be eclipsed by one of their competitors in short order. You can go fast in a cut throat, winner takes all asshole culture, but you can go much farther with a happy team that enjoy working with one another.
[+] [-] home_boi|9 years ago|reply
2. Smart coworkers (well before this came out)
3. Good compensation (I heard for top tier applicants, they give something like MSFT total comp as salary with a ridiculous amount of paper money)
4. Assumed less bureaucracy compared to Big Cos because of unicorn/start up status
5. Ability to develop the first X in the new ride sharing/autonomous car industry
Uber would be a good fit for someone who specifically wants to work at a big_unicorn with large scale technology problems.
Most engineers wouldn't be able to accurately evaluate the ability of the leadership of tech companies, so that negative is out the door.
For the ethics portion, that's subjective.
For the cut-throat nature of the company, I heard that it was worse than most tech companies but not terrible (60+ hr/wks) like some financial companies.
[+] [-] xiaoma|9 years ago|reply
It's no Space X, but giving people a cheaper, more reliable cab that can be used for carpooling seems more meaningful than spending one's time working for a company whose primary purpose is getting people to click on ads.
[+] [-] lebanon_tn|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vonmoltke|9 years ago|reply
I personally wanted to work at Uber ATC because it is one of the fee places I could work on radar signal processing outside of government work (and SV). If the crappy interview homework hadn't turned me off the company already, all this shit would.
[+] [-] lovealmond|9 years ago|reply
You speak of ethics & morality, let me ask you about a cause which is very close to my heart. How do you feel about tech in general where diversity is big issue. Black & Hispanic engineers are in low single digit percentage (ex: FB/Google 1-3% [1][2])? Can i call someone not ethical for working in such tech companies, which does not provide equal opportunity in the name of meritocracy? I think issues should not be treated in complete black & white. HR messed up in doing the right thing, that does not mean everyone working there does not condone this and support such abhorrent behavior. [1] https://www.google.com/diversity/ [2] http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/06/driving-diversity-at-fac...
[+] [-] marklyon|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erikpukinskis|9 years ago|reply
My opinions aside on whether Travis is a healthy CEO for Uber, there are real costs to employee turnover. And that is true at the CEO level just as anywhere else.
And there are actually some benefits to a post-crisis employee. Sure, a new person they hire probably won't have Travis's specific flaws. But the same can be said of a post-crisis Kalanick. He's actually pretty likely to not make a similar mistake again.
Unless, of course, it becomes a pattern. Certainly Kalanick has demonstrated a pattern of ethical lapses, so if that's the thing you're trying to optimize against he should go. Is there a more specific pattern of ignoring sexual misconduct? Well, probably also yes in Kalanick's case.
But my point is he needs to go because he's demonstrating a pattern of poor performance, not because there needs to be a head on a spike for people to trust Uber again.
[+] [-] tlogan|9 years ago|reply
They were bigger and in these companies "aggressiveness" is just fucking backstabbing everywhere. At least they went to Las Vegas.
That is why... many others are the same but not successful to be in the news.
[+] [-] oculusthrift|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ben_jones|9 years ago|reply
I have not one iota of doubt he would do anything for a position at Uber with even a modest (<$75k) yearly salary regardless of location or any other benefits. And it is my belief this represents a vast majority of software developers around the world.
Are you in your early twenties? Poor or in debt? Feeling unimportant? Come work for Uber.
Did you start a family before you were financially prepared? Want to take care of them? Come work for Uber.
Girlfriend break up with you for being an unemployed loser? Come work for Uber.
If this is reminiscent of Wolf of Wall Street, you might be starting to get it. The world is full of poor and disenfranchised people who are willing to do many things that those in a quiet office with a white laptop embalmed with some special Apple, myself included, could likely not even imagine. To say working for Uber, who likely has as many fax pas as any conglomerate, is so horrid is absolutely laughable.
Edit:
The only difference now is that the finance wolves of yesteryear are now slinging code to mine and collect personal information, trigger mobile game purchases, etc.
[+] [-] et-al|9 years ago|reply
All the things you mentioned subsequently are completely valid reasons for people to join Uber, but on top of that they just sprinkle some mental gymnastics to try to explain away wrongdoing the company has done.
And don't underestimate the allure of money. Think of all the smart and extremely driven people that go into investment banking. As stressful as working in a tech company is, I don't think it compares to Wall Street (contrary to David Fincher's depictions). Work 80 hour weeks, but retire at 35 with your fuck you money.
Personally, I had a chance to work for an oil company out of college. $80K starting, six figures within five years, and stocks that were actually worth money. However, the cognitive dissonance I'd have to wrestle with was too much for my former hippie self. Someone else still took the position, though.
[+] [-] edblarney|9 years ago|reply
Uber is changing the world. For better or worse.
99% of other startups are irrelevant, and will go out of business soon.
Also - working at Uber, many will get rich.
They are a big company, with tons of money, they are spending huge on highly specialized things that most other startups couldn't ever touch, and there is 'financing' for cool, niche things. Self driving cars, big data, transportation things. Food delivery. And just the scale of it is interesting.
Finally they have a kind of job security that goes beyond what most startups would offer.
I have no love or hate for Uber, I mean I don't like them for some reasons, but there are plenty of reasons for people to want to work there.
[+] [-] ksvarma|9 years ago|reply
It takes a lot to build an organization and from how Travis ran Uber there is no sustainable effort in that direction.
[+] [-] synicalx|9 years ago|reply
I'm deliberately not commenting on the sexual harassment stuff because quite frankly it's none of my business until the claims have been substantiated.
[+] [-] tzs|9 years ago|reply
Isn't the interestingness of the engineering work independent of the interestingness of what the company does? E.g., if your area of interest is large databases, would it matter if the company is using its large database to store car ride data, or to store physical inventory, or to store weather data?
[+] [-] elastic_church|9 years ago|reply
Perhaps the Uber Eats logistics chain? The build tools? The god-knows-what side projects done with all that capital?
[+] [-] minimaxir|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] linuxkerneldev|9 years ago|reply
Same strategy exhibited by certain religious organizations. Problematic individuals were transferred to developing countries or disenfranchised communities where more distinct power imbalances enable the crimes to go unpunished.
[+] [-] seoknucklehead|9 years ago|reply
Is this kind of company culture not becoming much the norm in today's hyper sexual society? I can't imagine that these kinds of things aren't happening all the time at other in-your-face branded startups.
American Apparel is another company that quickly comes to mind with problems similar to Uber's.
[+] [-] kposehn|9 years ago|reply
---
I could go into detail about my experience at Uber (which is great), but a friend and coworker I really admire did a much better job. Here's her LinkedIn post:
"Uber has been a lot in news lately, and not for all good reasons. While as an Uber employee, I think there are things (in fact, many things!) we can do better, one thing that I couldn't agree less with are the allegations of Uber being a discriminatory, anti-women culture.
"While I am deeply saddened with what was recently brought to light, and being a woman, demand that the investigation is urgently, unbiasedly done, I also want to say that as a woman, an immigrant woman, I have never felt even an iota of discrimination, let alone harassment.
"When I moved to the US about a year ago, with no job and plenty of dreams, Uber was one of the few companies that gave me a chance to prove myself in a new country. And, since then, I haven't just survived, but thrived here. I look forward to coming to work daily, making my contribution, and having a say in shaping a company that's changing so much around us. Again, I feel deeply sorry for the recent situation that came into light, but I stand against anyone who generalizes that Uber epitomizes a discriminatory culture for it couldn't be further from truth.
"[Her] Disclaimer: These views are my personal views, and in no way linked to my employer's. I just feel an overwhelming need for sharing my personal experience working at a place that has given me so much in terms of learning and growth."
[+] [-] gillianlish|9 years ago|reply
"Every day that week, T. beat me up in the bathroom. He told me if i didnt say nice things about the company, he'd force me to get an abortion and have me deported. I told him I would post on LinkedIn about how much I loved the company. He said that he would need approval on that post per the company social media policy.
The next day he had me in a meeting with HR where I had to admit that I attacked him in the bathroom and came on to him. That I would undergo counseling for my anger problems and that I would be on probation. I signed a letter thanking T. for his understanding of my mental problems.
If I ever told anyone, he said, he would blackball me from the industry. There is a private database accessed by people who went to certain frats in the Ivy League - just like they had private databases of old final exams to study over the years, they also have private databases of troublemakers in their industries. This is what they do. This is their particular set of skills, developed over a lifetime.
Then he told me he accepted my apology, and would only take a small amount out of my bonus for the clothes I damaged while I was attacking him.
He's not a bad guy. I'm not saying he's a bad guy at all. I just wish he wouldn't get so upset when people make mistakes or do things wrong "
[+] [-] leereeves|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taurath|9 years ago|reply
My understanding is that Uber is relatively top-tier both in difficulties of interviewing and competitiveness of getting hired there - is this not the case? If it is, it seems kind of disingenuous to think they did her a favor when in reality she could probably pick and choose 80% of the companies in SV if Uber was looking to hire her.
[+] [-] username223|9 years ago|reply
The shilling gets old. Please stop.
[+] [-] guelo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RikNieu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mz|9 years ago|reply
Maybe you should wonder a bit more about why your experience at the company is "great" when all I hear seems to be about how completely poisonous the company is. Because it looks like you may be part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Edit: I say that because you are using some woman's words out of context to further your agenda in a predominantly male discussion forum. This is suspicious behavior, at best. It fits completely with what I have read Susan Fowler say about how women got treated there while she was working there.
I wish more people readily recognized the pattern and how very ugly it is.
[+] [-] fullshark|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DrNuke|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nullnilvoid|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tycho|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nailer|9 years ago|reply
Whether this means:
- Uber explicitly emphasizes stepping on toes as part of their workplace culture
- The concept of meritocracy includes stepping on toes
This is false and dishonest of the NYT. In the first case: Uber might be awful, but no company would emphasise mistreatment of others explicitly. In the second: that is not the commonly held meaning of meritocracy.
[+] [-] vacri|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buddapalm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Terr_|9 years ago|reply
With that at the core, it's no surprise that other areas exhibit the same rot.
[+] [-] gravyboat|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] praptak|9 years ago|reply
The alternative hypothesis is that they were the first with something that worked well enough at the time the public was ready to use it and the "values" is just attribution bias.
[+] [-] sitkack|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johan_larson|9 years ago|reply
I don't think I've ever heard of a company brought down by cultural problems. At most, cultural factors seemed to have contributed to the problems, such as the issues caused by strict stack ranking at Microsoft, which punished teamwork.
Some places are pressure-cookers and shark-tanks, but then some people love heat and pressure and are, you know, sharks.
[+] [-] lr4444lr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] losteverything|9 years ago|reply
Pre internet there was no place (blog) to write about work.
Now, one always has to be conscious that their coworker-friend or coworker-foe can tell the world stuff you would not tell. Reinforcing the keep quiet about everything mantra
The other risk is that a decade from now the person making the blog will be known for that blog. To everybody.
More caution will be required when coming in contact with that blogger.
Pick your battles wisely
[+] [-] walrus01|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] desireco42|9 years ago|reply
Also, it seems that writing a blog post is way more effective then suit who would drag on for months.
And one more thing, not to downplay managers contributions, but developers are the ones making things happen, we really need more credit for our work.
[+] [-] softawre|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flootch|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vacri|9 years ago|reply
In today's economically-rationalised times, there isn't much in the way of non-essential work anymore. Fire the janitorial staff and see how long your 6-figure staff stick around, for example. Or for a more direct example, fire your sales and marketing staff, and see how long the company survives.
Yes, you can always find an example of a company that works without a person in position X (including plenty who don't have in-house developers), but almost everyone is hired today to fill a need rather than a head-count.
[+] [-] rmcfeeley|9 years ago|reply
I enjoyed it. Raised a lot of interesting questions that I think we're all going to be debating in coming years. Privacy, surveillance, transparency, etc.
Genuinely surprised how rarely it comes up in these discussions about toxic corporate tech "culture"