Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by KirinDave 3232 days ago
It's interesting to me how many people who say the environment is "not toxic" are men in the tech organization who've been there a long time.

I've helped 2 women find new work, moving from the chaos of Uber. Both saying variants of "the shit I took there was only offset by the stock's possible valur and the waymo stuff calls that into question."

Is the divide between men and women's experience there that intensely different, I wonder?

2 comments

We (I work at Uber) dealt with insane growth in a toxic fashion and are now paying down the debt of letting toxicity rule us for the last three years. I'm still of the opinion that we are doing that, even if it's only to enable the shareholders to make their money. And we're doing that through efforts that, anywhere else, would be noteworthy and exciting. Everyone I work with has various classes of stories like these, but by and large the non-minority men have not been so negatively affected as those who don't have that going for them. I've been through the ringer myself, but I've been in a spot where I can come out ahead despite having been in the same reporting structure as Susan Rigetti.

A lot of us are still here in hope that the folks like Saad, Gandahar and Kalanick who have left are replaced with people with an ounce of emotional intelligence like Frances Frey. Folks who are in a position and mindset to force the structure of the company to grow. Seeing Kalanick apologists like Saad leave is one of the best signs we might finally be ready to do that. It's going to be a long slow slog of 'losing' people like them until we're in a place where we're not actively villains, but I still think the company could do it or I'd be gone.

I appreciate your comment and your decision not to obfuscate your identity. Thank you very much.
I'm not related to Uber in anyway, but being a man with a longer tenure in a company shouldn't be a reason to discount someone's opinion (or possibly in your comment's case, hinting that they were the reason for toxicity).
My post doesn't dismiss anyone's opinion. Heck, it explicitly asks for comment on why this might be so. Nor was I hinting that any one person is the cause. I do not think it is the work of any one person, even Travis.

But it's striking what a very reliable classifier the union of 'man?' and 'yearsAtUber >>> (> 4)' is in figuring out who's vocally unhappy about Travis leaving. Perhaps I am simply suffering from availability bias and therefore don't know about all the satisfied and successful women at Uber speaking up that their experience is positive.