Fowler is not at Uber. Nobody at Uber is taking responsibility.
No statement from Uber has been explicit that the behaviors are upsetting or that losing an engineer because of company culture as manifested in the workplace was upsetting. The statements have all been about how reading the post made people unhappy (perhaps because the behavior was made public). The loss of company value due to the fallout probably makes people unhappy too. Heck, any bad press will make people unhappy.
Uber's response narrative reminds me of a "What's really important here is how hitting you makes me feel bad about myself" bully.
On Tuesday I contacted Uber about Fowler's account. (I've supported them in New York City and Albany, albeit informally, and wanted to know if I needed to make the rounds and recant my support.)
The response? "Thank you for writing in to Uber Support...for any information related to the U.S. immigration ban, please see our Newsroom post..."
Thanks bot. I request again. "I can’t speak to your concerns or questions regarding this issue."
It's not illegal, it's just really not beneficial (to the litigant). So generally your lawyers will tell you to shut up, because you might say something that'll torpedo you in court, but it's not illegal.
Harassment of men in sexual ways is less reported or taken less seriously, in part, because the culture of sexism against women reinforces that male victims of the practice are somehow lesser.
Also, plenty of sex-stereotyping that rises to the level of an "ism" is generally positive for men ("big strong man help me move this <heavy object>" or "big virile man you have a beautiful wife"--a doubly sexist trope--and so on).
So while I agree we shouldn't reserve concern only for women, we must also not present the issue as though it is somehow equivalent or equally applied.
The fact is that sexism against women is far and away the majority case. We shouldn't choose to address one concern over the other if they were equivalent, but in this case focusing efforts on combating sexism against women will also work to reduce sexism against men naturally. So it's a win-win to focus on and prioritize combating sexism against women.
I wish Lyft expanded into other countries. I'm visiting Mexico and Uber seems to be the best way for foreigners to get around. Taxis there are known to overcharge, just like the taxis anywhere else.
Taxis in Brazil started organizing under apps like 99taxi and others before Uber existed there. It's not really rocket science technology and Uber isn't providing awesome support services (based on my experience with that). They shouldn't be feeling too secure in their position.
Agreed. Taxis in the Netherlands are often overpriced, outright scams[1], aggressive[2], have curiously non-functioning card payment despite policy, etc. Uber is available, but nothing else. I'd gladly switch to an alternative for a number of reasons.
To be fair, it is mostly just the taxis in Amsterdam that are notoriously bad — precisely because there are so many tourists. These taxi drivers would rather serve tourists with trips to and from the airport exclusively (it pays rather well, and you can easily scam the type of tourist that limits their visit to our country to just Amsterdam).
Taxis in most cities here are actually okay on the whole.
I've still encountered the "oh we'll have to go to an ATM instead" in the Hague despite explicitly asking the dispatcher if I could pay by card. That was for an expensive trip to Schiphol, for which 4(!) Uber drivers I had requested decided to cancel.
It can be that the same drivers will work for Uber (black level) and for taxi companies. The taxi companies that I've encountered in the NL don't have anything comparable to an app where you can hail and pay, so for that reason alone Uber still may provide a better service even though the drivers may be the same.
As someone who really relies on Uber for transportation in all the countries I travel to (no need to speak the local language) - I'm finally starting to appreciated the conflict associated with trying to be supportive of morally upstanding leaders versus desiring to deserve your fundamental needs.
Ironically, the Uber fiasco has now made me substantially more empathic to the single issue voters (Evangelicals, Right to Lifers, NRA Members, etc...) who voted for Trump regardless of his perceived faults.
> I'm finally starting to appreciated the conflict associated with trying to be supportive of morally upstanding leaders versus desiring to deserve your fundamental needs.
Using an app that removes the friction of having to communicate with people whose language you do not speak is certainly nice, but it's not a fundamental need. It's a choice and like all choices you trade one thing for another: convenience vs. supporting a stance that you can align morally with.
Reducing an argument to "needs" or "rights" is circular. Even across well-accepted cultures and moral systems, the lines between "needs" and non-"needs" is diverse (e.g. duty to god(s), duty to family honour, securing one's life, securing one's happiness through artistic expression, et cetera).
"Fundamental" was not an important qualifier in either of your posts. OP did not define what that meant in their context, and therefore it's not fair to nitpick based on that alone. They might as well have said "ticklish" for all the difference it made to their overall point.
If that's really what your whole post is about, why take the take to argue definitions? What does fundamental mean to you exactly?
It's either Uber, a local driver, or a translator. Without one of those three, I literally am unable to go anywhere in locales that don't commonly see english speakers. I'm not sure how much more fundamental than "I'm unable to travel".
Learning a few words in a language spoken locally at your target destination really really goes a long long way. Doesn't need to be the native language spoken, but Spanish and/or Portuguese will get you pretty far in large parts of the world. I'm more the Africa person but quite a few friends of mine travelled china and Nepal without ever resorting to an uber. It's harder, granted, but not fundamentally impossible.
I'm a Polish expat. Last time I was in Poland I made an effort to speak friendly Polish to my taxi driver.
He could immediately tell I wasn't fully Polish and launched into a bigoted tirade about Americans and refused to drop me off unless I paid him a large tip, because as an "American pretending to be Polish", "I can afford it".
He was not a licensed taxi driver, of course. But sometimes keeping your mouth shut and staying in your comfort bubble is exactly what you want. Thinking that learning please and thank you never hurt anyone is itself something you can only do from inside of a bubble.
I found out only afterwards when I tried to file a police report. I don't think it's reasonable to expect travelers to know how to vet the legitimacy of taxis they are getting into in a foreign country.
I understand but in many countries licensed cabs are pretty obvious with huge plates showing their license number and/or other markings and in my experience that's true for Poland too. I agree though Uber does remove the need to pay attention so therefore removes the risk of mistakes.
You are stuck so far inside that bubble that you can't see the walls :D
Imagine srriving at an airport and seeing they have signs up advising tourists how to determine the validity of a taxi. All well and good, until you find out the signs were fake and erected illegally by one taxi company to steer people away from their competitor.
Or head over to somewhere like Tunisia for a while. The line between legitimate and illegitimate is so blurred as to be nonexistent.
Even in my home town of Canberra we have a tightly regulated but loosely policed taxi industry, and there is no guarantee that the person driving the taxi is the same as the person whose licence is displayed on the dash.
I recommend removing your opening statement. Even with the smiley, it unnecessarily adds negativity to your comment. The rest stands just fine without it.
This cuts the other way too. Uber may be able to hold drivers accountable but I can't even count the number of shitty, dangerous drivers I've had. I've been down one way streets (into heavy traffic) the wrong way more than a few times. I've been driven in the wrong direction adding 10-15 mins to a 40min journey because the driver was blindly following GPS. In my experience licensed drivers know where they are going and tend to be above average drivers. And again, ensuring a car is licensed - at least where I'm from - is pretty simple. I use Uber in certain places and licensed taxi's in others but pretending that Uber gets you a safe ride is ludicrous.
Because of one bad taxi experience, you now will only use Uber? Do you think his attitude would be different if you spoke only English? He would have found a different excuse to extort you. It's that simple.
Sorry to disappoint you, I've gotten a lot of bad taxis as well. My Polish taxi driver experience was stellar though.
But yeah, pay no attention when you ask for an Uber and you might get someone purporting to be an Uber driver or something else.
Thirded. On a recent trip to Bangkok, we'd usually have an easier time finding a Grab car than an Uber. In both cases, the experience was positive, while Uber drivers seemed to have slightly newer cars, at a slightly higher price.
Same here; Grab worked fine in Kuala Lumpur (back then MyTeksi), with the added benefit of requiring the driver to use the meter.
It worked ok in a very touristic part of Thailand (Patong & Phuket City), with a lot of scammers (asking 700 THB for a ride that should be around 300).
That's a really oppressive patriarchy we live in, when a single blog post with no evidence and only hearsay is enough to spike a massive protest and boycott...
This kind of trolling and the flamewar you started are not acceptable on HN, and we've warned you about it before. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use the site as intended in the future.
From my understanding, Susan is well respected within the SV community, and obviously from Uber's response she struck a nerve. I understand what you're getting at, but I think you're ignoring a lot of context.
> tnones :That's a really oppressive patriarchy we live in, when a single blog post with no evidence and only hearsay is enough to spike a massive protest and boycott...
>
jonathankoren : What was his point?
It's an insinuation that the patriarchy doesn't exist, or is toothless based on the fact that one woman's story sparked a protest against Uber.
Which is of course a stupid point. One swallow doesn't make a summer, one exception doesn't disprove a rule and of course any complex system can have exceptions, contra tendencies and still have a dominant character.
No one said that patriarchy works like a totalitarian state, crushing anything and anyone which doesn't adhere to a strict set of rules.
Just for reference when a credible person stands up and says "this happened to me" that's basically the definition of strong first-person evidence, and by definition not hearsay.
Even those of you that choose to be skeptical have to admit Uber has been developing a history of unethical, asshole behavior almost since its inception.
The Fowler incident is the last straw for many people. What is happening right now is decidedly not simply the result of "a single blog post".
I think you've just kicked yourself with your jerking knee.
This is exactly the behaviour you'd expect under a really oppressive system: given a low-risk way to protest the oppression, people take it. Women and those sympathetic to the cause of equality can easily delete their accounts and take alternatives, so they do.
Consider the contra: if this wasn't an oppressive system, if there weren't real causes for complaint, nobody would care-- and so nobody would delete their accounts over the story.
"This is exactly the behaviour you'd expect under a really oppressive system: given a low-risk way to protest the oppression, people take it." Welcome to 2017, where crying wolf has no negative impact on them if proved untrue.
"Women and those sympathetic to the cause" Because by default, all women are automatically part of the cause.
"Consider the contra: if this wasn't an oppressive system, if there weren't real causes for complaint, nobody would care-- and so nobody would delete their accounts over the story." Of course, there's never been a case where a person has been really offended, got loads of people on side only to turn out to be false?
Regardless of her respect in SV, we can only look at the facts. Why is she the only person to leave Uber over this? Why have there not been previous cases of this? What evidence is there that the events unfolded as she suggested? All these things and more should be considered.
> Welcome to 2017, where crying wolf has no negative impact on them if proved untrue.
This smells like underlying bias to me, I'm afraid. Crying wolf in many of these areas has frequent negative impact -- hell, speaking out with good cause has negative impact. Who wants to volunteer to be at the centre of the next ethics in game journalism storm?
But this specific action -- choosing to no longer use the services of a company -- does have few repercussions, which does make it a good way to protest.
> Because by default, all women are automatically part of the cause
This could have been worded more felicitously, sure. Substitute "those negatively affect by the oppression and those sympathetic to them" and the point stands.
> Regardless of her respect in SV, we can only look at the facts.
As others have said, it seems you didn't look at the facts here. But regardless, the original point is not about the author, it's rejecting the idea that people are only able to delete their Uber accounts to protest the patriarchy because the very patriarchy they're protesting doesn't exist.
> This smells like underlying bias to me, I'm afraid. Crying wolf in many of these areas has frequent negative impact -- hell, speaking out with good cause has negative impact.
It said in a mocking sense, but given the benefit of a doubt - it's difficult to read intention.
> Who wants to volunteer to be at the centre of the next ethics in game journalism storm?
Lot's of people. Not everybody of course. There's lot of sociopaths/psychopaths that exist undiagnosed amongst us. I don't think that has any value in the argument as we really don't know this person.
> But this specific action -- choosing to no longer use the services of a company -- does have few repercussions, which does make it a good way to protest.
Ha! PR is one of the most important aspects to a company. Why do you think Google is so successful? Perception often outweighs truth.
> This could have been worded more felicitously, sure. Substitute "those negatively affect by the oppression and those sympathetic to them" and the point stands.
It was just a throwaway point about your default stance. We all have unconscious bias, I'm not holding it against you. My point was that we should all be aware of it.
> As others have said, it seems you didn't look at the facts here.
I've now read a lot of articles regarding this topic (it's interesting isn't it?).
> the original point is not about the author, it's rejecting the idea that people are only able to delete their Uber accounts to protest the patriarchy because the very patriarchy they're protesting doesn't exist.
> This is exactly the behaviour you'd expect under a really oppressive system: given a low-risk way to protest the oppression, people take it. Women and those sympathetic to the cause of equality can easily delete their accounts and take alternatives, so they do.
But this isn't by definition evidence of that structure existing. Simply agreeing or disagreeing with a point of view can lead to the same outcome. And with "a really oppressive system", I would expect to see a much more solid foundation to the accusations.
Signs this may be false:
- No evidence of communications
- No witnesses to the events have come forward
- No names of the people involved
- No pursuit for legal rights
- Disabled comments on blog
- Uber directly addressing the blog (if they knew they were in the wrong, they would want this to go away)
- HR woman didn't sympathize with her accusations
Signs this may be true:
- Uber had an internal meeting regarding the accusations
- Uber are conducting an internal investigation
- Uber's history of being a tough working environment
Her claim is that Uber is an oppressive system and everyone just buys it at face value. Who has the jerking knee?
I think it takes more work to assume ALL OF THE PEOPLE she was dealing with at Uber were in on some kind of sexist conspiracy against her than to think that maybe her perception's out of alignment. Even worse is to think that all these employees at uber hr can't recognize sexism and deal with it appropriately... it's her word against a bunch of people who I have no reason to think are unreasonable.
Really, it's the assumption that Uber is an oppressive system from the get go that allows people to jump on her bandwagon and start deleting apps.
Do you realise that racism and sexism are not conspiracies? If they were conspiracies, you would be a prime example of a co-conspirator: dismissing one woman's testimony because no men have testified in agreement with her.
Here is now HR takes part in "the conspiracy": they take no action against a man who is in a senior position because they do not want to lose their jobs.
Here is how "all these employees" take part in "the conspiracy": they do not speak up because the issue is not affecting them personally, they don't want to rock the boat, and maybe they feel that the woman in question is just a pain in the arse because she always talks back and challenges assumptions, so why would anyone stand up for her?
Sexism is not a conspiracy, it's a learned behaviour. You can't eliminate sexism by breaking the conspiracy, you have to find ways to adjust institutionalised behaviour.
Consider the classic story about the monkeys and the electrified bananas: monkeys in captivity were shown bananas. If any monkey went to pick up the banana, the entire cage would be electified, shocking all the monkeys. Eventually the monkeys would best up any monkey trying to pick up the bananas.
Then the researchers started replacing the population, and stopped electrocuting the monkeys. The society still best up monkeys trying to get the banana. Long after there were non of the original monkeys in the group, and none of the monkeys had been electrocuted, they still beat up any monkey trying to pick up the banana.
So too, in any institution the new people learn ways and means from the incumbents. They learn that certain people are beyond reproach, long after any remaining incumbents can remember why. They learn that certain issues are smply not discussed, and do not question why.
How do you get that institutionalised behaviour back to normal?
It's a question of who do you give the benefit of the doubt to? The woman who says "things are really bad at Uber for women" (and can point to plummeting diversity figures to back it up) or the company with the dodgy ethical history in many areas of employment law?
And that's also what makes the protest so appealing. The protestors _don't have to justify themselves_ to you; they don't have to meet your arbitrary bar of "yes, this is now real enough for me to consider it as sexism, you are permitted to complain".
They can just decide who they believe, and act accordingly. And have.
What are you saying? That being upset that women are being sexually harassed at the workplace shows that women aren't being sexually harassed at the workplace, or that it isn't a big deal?
Seriously dude. What are you trying to say?
Let's not pretend that these allegations came like a bolt from the blue. They've been floating around Uber for years now. The only thing different here is that someone publically put their name on it.
I've never once heard rumors like these until recently but I've noticed an uptick in people saying that there HAS been, when there hasn't been rumors to begin with.
I lead a team of women doing computational pharmaceutical research. 12 women and 3 males, and 2 female undergrads and 2 male undergrads.
But hey, your narrative is that I'm out of touch with women because I'm not a woman so how could I possibly know, and I wouldn't want to ruin that little victory for you.
I wouldn't call having a woman as a direct report a "close friend." The fact that you immediately reached for your employees as cover, makes me think that you don't have anyone else to use.
I find it doubly absurd to think that your reports would talk to you about these things. First you're in a position of power over them, and we're dealing with a topic that goes hand in glove with abuses of power. Second on a personal note, you appear to be completely dismissive that any such claims could possibly have merit to them. Finally, look at your choice of name. I commend you for not going with "pussypuncher".
You've become uncivil and made personal attacks on HN many times. That's not allowed here, even if your cause is 100% right and all of your views are correct. We ban accounts that do this, so please stop doing this.
You've also been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That's another abuse of this site, and we ban accounts that do that as well. HN can't both gratify intellectual curiosity and be a battlefield, so please use the site as intended.
I would disagree with your characterization, of "uncivil" and "personal attacks", but I will admit that this has become a flame war.
I will say this, HN's very recent position of trying to remain apolitical when the topic of social and political issues regarding tech companies is completely untenable, and I think the recent discussions about Uber has shown that. You can't bring up the very relevant topics of either diversity or sexual harassment in Silicon Valley, without people coming out of the woodwork and quite loudly declaring that either the accusations are false, or they're not that bad. These positions can not go unchallenged, as they have been shown to be false many times before and with just as many actors, and perpetuate the very problem being highlighted.
So what are we going to do about it? Ignore it? I'm not because I too much about a liberal civil society. Ignoring the ideas doesn't just perpetuate them, but gives them strength and credibility, when they quite frankly they were discredited when I was young.
Since HN has made it a policy to stick its collective head in sand regarding these issues, I think the only option HN is willing to take is clear. Ban me, because I'm not going to stop, because I take these topics very seriously. I don't say that out of some sort of defiance, I say that because I know myself. It will happen again, and again, and again. Either you're going to have to remove all discussions from the front page as soon as these topics come up, or you're going to have to ban accounts including mine to ensure an off topic prosaic comments like "I like the old logo better."
The rule isn't that HN must be apolitical, it's that accounts should not use HN primarily for politics. That's a necessary rule, otherwise the site will drown in flames.
Yes, commenters here show up with all sorts of opinions and competing (often bad) ideas. HN is divided because society is divided. Presumably the same divisions would show up in any large-enough sample. The question is what do we do given these divisions, since we can't eliminate them.
If we stepped back a couple posts and jk had cited the recent, public claims of employees tracking celebs & ex's, Uber self-driving cars exiting SF b/c they are above licensing laws and myriad other slights of rules/regs this discussion could have stayed on point.
Damn, you're right and too late to edit. I was grabbing straws, admittedly not very informed about Uber's goings on. I do recall seeing Uber internal strife claims repeatedly over the last two years. Specific examples do not come to mind at the moment.
Tangentially: Stalking an ex is a perfect example of sexual harassment, albeit not necessarily toward another member in that organization.
Fowler is not at Uber. Nobody at Uber is taking responsibility.
No statement from Uber has been explicit that the behaviors are upsetting or that losing an engineer because of company culture as manifested in the workplace was upsetting. The statements have all been about how reading the post made people unhappy (perhaps because the behavior was made public). The loss of company value due to the fallout probably makes people unhappy too. Heck, any bad press will make people unhappy.
Uber's response narrative reminds me of a "What's really important here is how hitting you makes me feel bad about myself" bully.