Inside Uber's Aggressive, Unrestrained Workplace Culture (cnbc.com)

Excerpts from Mike Isaac's report for the New York Times: Interviews with more than 30 current and former Uber employees, as well as reviews of internal emails, chat logs and tape-recorded meetings, paint a picture of an often unrestrained workplace culture. Among the most egregious accusations from employees, who either witnessed or were subject to incidents and who asked to remain anonymous because of confidentiality agreements and fear of retaliation: One Uber manager groped female co-workers' breasts at a company retreat in Las Vegas. A director shouted a homophobic slur at a subordinate during a heated confrontation in a meeting. Another manager threatened to beat an underperforming employee's head in with a baseball bat. Until this week, this culture was only whispered about in Silicon Valley. Then on Sunday, Susan Fowler, an engineer who left Uber in December, published a blog post about her time at the company. [...] One group appeared immune to internal scrutiny, the current and former employees said. Called the A-Team and composed of a small group of executives who were personally close to Mr. Kalanick, its members were shielded from much accountability over their actions. One member of the A-Team was Emil Michael, senior vice president for business, who was caught up in a public scandal over comments he made in 2014 about digging into the private lives of journalists who opposed the company. Mr. Kalanick defended Mr. Michael, saying he believed Mr. Michael could learn from his mistakes.

Comments

Leaving a bit out

[russotto]

The boob-grabber got fired, as CNBC fails to note (but BusinessInsider does)

The baseball bat thing is probably a reference to Scarface. Whether a manager actually was referencing the movie when making the "threat" or the person talking to the reporter was using it for inspiration for making shit up, I couldn't say.

Re:Goes both ways

[MightyMartian]

It's one thing to go to the corner pub, or to go to lunch once in a while. I honestly would never hang out with a manager at their house.