Agreed. I wish they would just state the facts, and avoid the SJW nonsense. I don't care about the author's thoughts on identity politics - I just want the substance of the story.
Calling out the prime goal of remedying a toxic sexist culture in an article that is being written because of said company's toxic sexist culture isn't identity politics nor SJW, it's reality.
Here's reality: kowtowing to leftist media pressure in the name of making a company more 'sensitive and diverse' (i.e., hiring people for any reason other than their competence, such as their addition to 'diversity'), will kill it. Full stop. Ridesharing is quickly turning into a low margin, commodified business, and the more time Uber wastes with this nonsense, the more of an edge its competitors will gain on it.
Unfortunately, your observation applies to all American companies.
Diversity can contribute value in many contexts, but diversity for the sake of diversity is a distraction. Homogeneity can also contribute in many contexts as well. Homogeneity and diversity exist on a spectrum and the right balance between those two depends on what you're optimizing for. There is no silver bullet.
That all said, the only diversity that really matters is diversity of knowledge, experiences, opinions and thoughts. Not all experiences, opinions and thoughts are relevant to the task at hand. Diversity of identity is generally a poor proxy for the type of diversity that has utility.