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With Her Blog Post About Toxic Bro-Culture at Uber, Susan Fowler Proved That One Person Can Make a Difference (recode.net)

Kara Swisher, writing for Recode: It was Lao Tzu who said that "the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." In the case of complete and utter change reeling through Uber right now -- culminating in the resignation of its once untouchable CEO Travis Kalanick -- it turns out that it began with one of the most epic blog posts to be written about what happens when a hot company becomes hostage to its increasingly dysfunctional and toxic behaviors. It was clear from the moment you read the 3,000-word post by former engineer Susan Fowler about her time at the car-hailing company that nothing was going to be the same. Titled simply, "Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber," the essay deftly and surgically laid out the map that the media and others would use to prove to its out-to-lunch board and waffling investors that Uber CEO Travis Kalanick had to go. In her account, Fowler was neither mean nor self-righteous, although in reading the story that she laid out about her horrible time there, it would have been completely fair for her to have taken that tone.

29 of 347 comments (clear)

  1. Uber Gets High Kalanick by FrankHaynes · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Film at 11.

    It's doubtful that Travis was the only problem child at Uber. He probably hired like-minded pals who remain in power there, so this won't be the last we hear of problems at Uber.

    But this isn't "bro culture" or "toxic masculinity", he's just an everyday, run-of-the-mill, common asshole. Plenty more where he came from.

    --
    slashdot: A failed experiment.
    1. Re:Uber Gets High Kalanick by GameboyRMH · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But this isn't "bro culture" or "toxic masculinity", he's just an everyday, run-of-the-mill, common asshole.

      "Bro-culture" and "toxic masculinity" are just side-effects of being a common asshole while having a penis.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    2. Re:Uber Gets High Kalanick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Toxic femininity is just side-effect of being a common asshole while having a vagina.

    3. Re: Uber Gets High Kalanick by Bartles · · Score: 1, Insightful

      What are you even talking about? I think what you are describing only exists in sjw fantasy land.

    4. Re:Uber Gets High Kalanick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you want to label it then this is an example of rape culture.

      If

      I think the one who wants most to label things, generalize, and stereotype is you. You know, kinda like how certain people would just label you as an example of SJW and push on stereotypes on you, insisting you believe in things you don't actually believe in.

      The ironing is delicious.

      Not that anyone was literally raped as far as we know

      Sure, and you're not literally fighting for social justice, nor are you literally a warrior. Doesn't mean SJW isn't an apt description of you and what you do!

      It's like at the end of Temple of Doom

      Sure, the Hollywood industry - which largely leans left - is highly sexist and racist. That's what many conservatives and libertarians and other groups have said all along. It's the left, not the right, who is the side full of sexists and racists.

      it's actually pretty fucked up when you think about it.

      Yes, if you actually think about it, you'll realize you've been batting for the wrong team, AmiMojo.

  2. Sooo you're saying she's privileged by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Since, you know, they investigated and found no actual evidence of her claims.

  3. Re:butterfly erection by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In retrospect, it is interesting to see that a reflective blog post from an engineer ended up in the casualties of CEO, most of the senior leadership and a few board members. Maybe the cracks were already there but nevertheless it has been surreal seeing this unfold in the space of 5 months. It is almost like watching the butterfly effect in action.

    NOw...let's see if anyone will hire her now, after all of this....

    She brought down a 'toxic' CEO, ok....but now, is she a bit 'toxic' too?

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  4. Slashdot editors don't care about Tech by Kohath · · Score: 1, Insightful

    We see 30 articles like this but nothing on the AMD Epyc chip announcement this week.

    I think we can safely conclude that Slashdot editors don't care about Technology.

    1. Re:Slashdot editors don't care about Tech by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is a community site.
      Everyone, even ACs can post articles.

      Sure, you can 'write your own site' and then you still complain that certain news is not posted in time ... so what is your point?

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  5. Re:Sounds like ... by gremlinuk · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And it's attitudes like this that bring the entire male species into disrepute.

  6. BAH! Everybody hates Uber by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It was an easy target. Let's see her try that with a real company with real money, not some damn unicorn that barely exists at all. This story is one about the triumph of political correctness, not civil rights.

    1. Re:BAH! Everybody hates Uber by hackertourist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This wasn't about political correctness, it was about common decency, and Uber's lack thereof.

    2. Re:BAH! Everybody hates Uber by zbobet2012 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Being sexually propositioned on your first day by an immediate superior and then punished when you turned them down is not and never will be okay. And that has nothing to do with political correctness. These facts have been more or less confirmed by Uber themselves. If she "tried" this at a "real" company, her boss would have been fired on the spot.

      I had the pleasure of meeting Susan at a conference before this all started and it saddens me that someone obviously so bright had to deal with that kind of bullshit.

    3. Re:BAH! Everybody hates Uber by hackertourist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Now, every pat on the butt or peck on the cheek is 'harassment'.

      no, it's harassment, without scare quotes. The chivalrous thing to do is to keep your hands off your coworkers until you're invited.

    4. Re:BAH! Everybody hates Uber by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I would posit, that the overuse of harassment or discrimination by those on the left, women and minorities have been what has rendered the terms less useful, and overused and abused.

      I would rebut, that the denial of harassment and discrimination, by those who don't want to admit it is a problem, mainly those on the right, existed back when they were dismissing such complaints out of hand, without even the pretense of consideration.

      Sure, there are plenty of real occurrences of these abuses, however when so many folks found out they could make $$$ by crying 'wolf' and suing....well, the legitimate cases got lost in the mass of fake ones, and now....everyone is scared at the places of employment.

      If only. The people who are scared are the ones who have legitimate grievances, but will be immediately be meet with cries of making it up, and otherwise being dismissed and ignored. The harassers, however, feel comfort in the defense they can easily arise.

      Its getting harder and harder to fire someone that is incompetent due to them being afraid of the fired employee crying discrimination or verbal sexual assault.

      But is it getting harder to discriminate unlawfully, or mistreat workers?

      And that really isn't "political correctness"...that is mostly from the left screaming racism/sexism at anyone that either disagrees with them,

      Actually, you are repeating a political dogma of the right, that they adopt the practice of screaming and throwing their hands up over the left disagreeing with them, and doing nothing about any of the criticism they receive, whether or not it has anything to do with racism or sexism.

      I would say, that for the right, it is "politically correct" to espouse the views you present, that they play that card with a repetitive refrain.

      OR may have actual studies that may show there actually are differences between the sexes, or races or racial cultures that are either pro/con when compared to other races/cultures or the opposite sex.

      Sorry but, you know people were citing "studies" back when it came to justifying slavery, Antisemitism, and sexism, therefore, your problem is that your alleged "researchers" are often discredited, as they fail to make a robust effort to defend their results, instead resorting to crying wolf over those mean liberals harassing them.

      Especially since the right is not at all hesitant to protest the studies that do not agree with them at all.

  7. And this is news because? by houghi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If Lao Tzu wrote about it, we hardly call this news. We have had many examples of people who made a difference. Even if you do not pay any attention at history, you will know about sports or technics where there are people who made a difference.
    Are we supposed to be in awe, because she was a woman, or what?
    Yes, sometimes 1 person makes a difference. Most of the time they don't.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  8. Re:butterfly erection by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He wasn't fired due to the blog post. The VCs wanted him out for a long time. There is a long history of "articles" about it on the web. It is possible the VCs wanted to get rid of him because of the culture though.

  9. Re:Snowflake kills company... by jellomizer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In terms of accounting employees are both. Calling someone who is suffering from an injustice a snowflake is just ignoring the problem. The gender equality in tech is a big problem. These companies are scaring off 50% of the potential workforce due to a bad environment.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  10. Re:butterfly erection by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes, it is definitely related to the IPO for sure. The VCs hinted that they wanted a more "mature" CEO before they did an IPO.

  11. Re:butterfly erection by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    NOw...let's see if anyone will hire her now, after all of this....

    According to her blog post that she wrote in February, she left Uber in December and started work at Stripe in January. When a push came to a shove at Uber, "I had a new job offer in my hands less than a week later."

    She brought down a 'toxic' CEO, ok....but now, is she a bit 'toxic' too?

    The men who work at Uber should probably be viewed as "toxic" by future employers, as the bad boy mentality drives out good people.

  12. Re:Snowflake kills company... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 2, Insightful

    She already works at Stripe and would be happily hired by any company that isn't run by a bunch of sexual predators! Suck it, regressives! Hahahahaha!

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  13. Re: Sounds like ... by ooloorie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Although I agree with you that it was an inappropriate comment, I have to wonder if Susan Fowler would have gotten as much attention if she was not a young attractive female

    Of course not.

    And young attractive females have always had an easy time âmaking a differenceâ: allegations of sexual improprieties against men have often been fatal to the careers of those men, or simply fatal when the abuser was a white woman and the male was black.

    The idea that this is some newly developed superpower by women is not just laughably historically ignorant, it is offensive.

  14. Toxic to who? by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My wife works in the medical industry and more or less ignores what happens in technology. However this entire time with news stories on NPR and the nightly news she was firmly against 'bro-culture' and sexism in technology.

    When the Uber Miami Memo leaked I showed it to her as 'evidence' for the toxic, misogynistic, bro-culture that was everywhere. She read it through twice and then came back with, "Ok, so where's the sexism that people are complaining about?". Every single thing in there she thought was completely reasonable. ("Don't have sex with someone that is above you or in the same group.", "Don't do drugs".)

    There is a narrative that a lot of people are pushing and a lot of other people are onboard with defending without sitting down and listening to what some individuals consider offensive and toxic.

  15. Re:butterfly erection by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not excusing harassment, but going the HR route is the worst way to handle what should be an adult-adult situation.

    You're assuming that the other person is an adult. It might surprise you that not everyone who grows up is an adult. I've met more than a few children in the workplace. HR can either send them away or babysit them. If HR decides to babysit them, it's time to find a new job elsewhere.

  16. Re:butterfly erection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In retrospect, it is interesting to see that a reflective blog post from an engineer ended up in the casualties of CEO, most of the senior leadership and a few board members. Maybe the cracks were already there but nevertheless it has been surreal seeing this unfold in the space of 5 months. It is almost like watching the butterfly effect in action.

    NOw...let's see if anyone will hire her now, after all of this....

    She brought down a 'toxic' CEO, ok....but now, is she a bit 'toxic' too?

    Not in a million years. She's positively radioactive. The rest of her career is going to be on SJWelfare, which is why we're hearing talk about the "toxic bro culture," which is a dog whistle to the SJW Feminist types.

  17. Re:butterfly erection by gweihir · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Actually, she is. Going public with something like that is not acceptable, except if all other venues are exhausted and there is solid proof. That does not seem to be the case here. In actual fact, she has a duty to be loyal to her employer in this regard even after not working there anymore.

    The only ones that are going to hire her now are those that want her as a poster-girl. Anybody else will not touch her with a 10-foot pole. It does not even matter whether her claims are true or not for that.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  18. Re:She's out on her own. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You are a buffoon, and a fraudulent blow-hard, who could not engineer his way out of a wet paper bag, even armed with a skill knife and a pair of scissors.

    Not sure why everyone keeps mistaking me for an engineer. Not everyone in IT is in engineering or management.

  19. Re:butterfly erection by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If she has the skills and can do the job, then I'd hire her. If she 'whistleblows' on sexist practices, so what? I don't want that kind of stuff at my company. She would make the place better.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  20. Re:butterfly erection by St.Creed · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So... you're in a new job, relatively inexperienced, and on day one your manager asks you to have sex with him. Do you really think sitting down for a chat is an option at that point? This is so totally out of whack, you really need to involve HR pronto. If it starts from here, where will it end?

     

    --
    Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)