You know, in the 90s, Microsoft was considered to be a deeply unethical company. Would anyone now consider Microsoft on someone's resume to be a black mark?
I've worked at and helped hire for companies in Seattle, I've personally voted down people coming from MS (especially a few years back) because MS trains people to play certain toxic political games to get ahead. When those employees move to other companies those games tend to persist. ( This is generally a management tier problem )
That's an interesting comparison. Back in the 90s, Microsoft was considered unethical from a business standpoint, but not as a workplace.
Uber, on the other hand, has lots of claims of workplace harassment, sexism, general dysfunction, etc. etc. So an employee that tolerated working at Microsoft in the 90s could legitimately be looked at differently than someone who works at Uber today.
FTR, I'm not convinced it's right to judge employees in either scenario negatively. I'm just not sure they're the same scenario.
Recall when people where told to quit SCO, or they would never work for companies X, Y and Z? I think the companies that made that threat has forgotten about it at this point
People (and companies) forget quickly, especially if the person they're interviewing is pleasant and competent.
Honestly, I'm not sure that sexual harassment was a black mark on many companies in the 90's. The culture was different and (sadly) it just wasn't as big of a deal that it was happening. We've come a long way since then.
Microsoft's troubles were entirely due to their business decisions. There was never any suggestion that the engineers there were toxic. That is quite different to Uber's current reputation.
Idk. I worked at MS during the period being discussed, and it felt pretty toxic to me. Maybe its just that no one listened/cared back then... Having gone to HR, I can attest they cared as little about harassment then as Uber is displaying now.
What's interesting to me is that people seem so surprised with the level of toxicity in the software environment for women. Uber didn't happen in a vacuum. That behavior accumulates over time via interactions with hundreds of different companies. And thousands of HR reports that have been ignored. All of which have brought us to this point.
HR hasn't cared enough to stop it ever. At any company I've worked at. Brutal assessment, but spoken from a place of real experience.