
Uber  has a  law firm  investigating me – Susan Fowler - abduhl
https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/837339141520023552
======
thedz
The title of this submission is a strict paraphrasing (despite being in
quotes) of an already short tweet, which is pretty meh.

The full tweet is: "Uber names/blames me for account deletes, and has a
different law firm -not Holders - investigating me. I have hired"

"Uber names/blames me for account deletes" is a pretty bold claim, and doesn't
feel like a routine investigation.

~~~
gsylvie
Fowler has probably received a letter from an Uber hired lawyer asking her to
take down the blog and threatening to sue her for damages.

Why else would she hire a lawyer? I see no other reason why she would hire a
lawyer except to respond to a scary letter on scary letterhead that was
probably personally served to her doorstep. (Which alone is a horrible
experience one wishes on no one.)

Everyone, buy that Microservices book!
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1491965975/ref=as_li_tl?ie...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1491965975/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1491965975&linkCode=as2&tag=susanfowler-20&linkId=8e434210b002d00be8507454a75c11ff)

(I grabbed the link directly from Fowler's blog in case it includes any
affiliate juice for her.)

~~~
jlgaddis
It includes an affiliate code ("tag=susanfowler-20"). I don't know how much
that would pay out but I assume she'd end up with more if you just sent her
$1. (I'm hoping she provides a way for others to contribute towards her legal
costs.)

~~~
gsylvie
O'Reilly sends her royalty cheques, too, for every sale, so I'm sure it's
worth more than $1 to her!

------
alphonsegaston
I had an extended exchange with an Uber employee the other day, in which he
steadfastly refused to believe that Uber was going after Fowler after the
initial reports of this. Despite countless examples of this kind of behavior
in the past, he kept insisting that everything was only "alleged" or
"unverified."

I'm not sure what kind of cargo cult they have going on over there, but it
sure is effective at getting people to see past the most obvious examples of
straight up awfulness. Explains a lot about what happened to Susan.

~~~
dllthomas
I steadfastly refused to _expect_ , pending more data, investigation with
intent to discredit, disparage, or defame Susan Fowler.

This is still unclear but I certainly agree that it is very worrying. You can
bet that we'll be asking tough questions about it on Tuesday.

As an aside, I believe you simply meant "cult" \- "cargo cult" is specifically
to do with performing actions superficially resembling things that work
elsewhere without understanding (or replicating) the why of it. Your
accusation, of persisting in believing bizarre things in the face of evidence,
is more general.

~~~
alphonsegaston
Hey, thanks for commenting on this. I respect that you'll stand up internally
against any attempt to go after Susan. Apologies for not giving you more
credit in my original comment.

I used cargo cult because I expect that a lot of the willingness to dismiss
this behavior is out of expectation of a maybe-never-to-be-delivered gift from
the "IPO Gods."

Just to be clear, I'm not ascribing this to you, but I've had other
conversations with Uber employees who were explicitly cynical in their stance,
after this fashion.

~~~
dllthomas
Thanks!

------
mikestew
Umm, okay. I would fully expect this. Ms. Fowler seems to be a large liability
for Uber. I don't find it unreasonable that "Uber has a law firm investigating
<her>", if for no other reason than to find what she knew and when she knew it
(or something along those lines), were she to sue what are the potential
ramifications, et. al.

IOW, I'm not going to run in circles over a seven word tweet that could mean
about anything.

~~~
bigethan
The seven words in the HN title are not the tweet.

Part of the actual tweet is: "Uber names/blames me for account deletes" That's
a much more aggressive approach than the defensive reasoning you're conjuring
out of thin air.

~~~
joering2
By the way - what a stupid logic they apply.

Similarily it would be fine to say that I blame the cop for losing my job
because he pulled me over drunk and now I cannot drive to my work with
suspended DL.

------
rrggrr
Pro tip for whistleblowers: Hire an attorney before you blow the whistle, and
listen to their advice. Preferably an attorney who has litigated against your
employer in the past. If you simply must write a diatribe beforehand then
stick the facts of the issue at-hand (eg. discrimination) and avoid the
temptation to author a tell all. Even the best future employers will be given
pause upon learning of your tell all blog post, regardless of the rock solid
merits. In short: Don't let you feelings get in the way of your desired
result.

~~~
tonmoy
And people were asking why these women just don't sue. It seems people need to
be careful and think twice even when writing a blog post let alone sue.

~~~
xiphias
If you are refering to me, I asked why she doesn't go to a lawyer... I had
consulted lawyers many times in my life, but never sued.

~~~
tonmoy
No, I wasn't referring to that. I was referring to numerous comments on the
original post of Susan Flower's blog on HN

------
arkona
I may be missing something but why isn't the burden of proving those
allegations on Susan Fowler? Why are we so quick to point fingers at Uber
without even giving them the chance to defend themselves?

Many people hate Uber and what they do. There is a strong incentive to smear
the company. Smearing Uber has been done in the past when the whole
#deleteUber was started becaude Uber drivers were not force to participate in
the airport boycotts.

~~~
stale2002
This is not a court of law.

We as individuals can take a look at all of the evidence available about the
illegal things that Uber does, and decide for ourselves if the allegations are
credible.

This is not about 1 story by one woman who was harassed. This is a story about
a dozen women who are already coming forward, and a toxic culture that anyone
at Uber can confirm exists.

If Uber wants people to give them the benefit of the doubt, then maybe they
should stop doing so many terrible things.

Similarly, if I had 10 separate female friends that I trust tell me about how
this one guy had harassed them in different situations, I wouldn't bother
going to each of them and demand that they give me video evidence. I would
just stop talking to the guy, and warn my other friends about him. Doubly so
if the guy just responded by saying, "I will not confirm or deny any
allegations, but I would like to point out that nobody has any proof!".

If you are reduced to saying "No proof has been shown yet!", as opposed to
actually making an argument, putting your reputation on the line, then you
have already lost.

Or in otherwords, in order for me to give ANY weight to the "There are 2 sides
to any story", then Uber needs to come out and claim that there are 2 side.
Silence doesn't count. Silence in this case is admitting that they are in the
wrong.

~~~
lamontcg
Also there's an overall pattern of behavior, its not just women in the company
being harassed, its also the treatment of the drivers, all the things Lyft is
suing them over doing, and even their sketchy "rides of glory" post show that
their corporate culture just doesn't understand how to not be a complete
asshole.

------
hyperbovine
I only regret that I have but one app to delete

~~~
therealdrag0
Does anyone know if apps get a chance to phone home about their deletion?

Is the owner going to see a specific stat about this action?

~~~
bharath28
iOS has no documented event for apps to be notified when an app is deleted. I
assume it is the same in Android.

------
princeb
i thought the harassment story was bad but did everyone miss the totally
malfunctioning hr review process and awful culture in susan's story? I just
thought that was the hidden part of the iceberg - that there is some kind of
crazy lord of the flies thing going on there that is the root of all the
harassment and the other bizarre behaviour between teams there. I just don't
see it as a very nice place to work unless you thrive in these kind of lawless
every-man-for-himself environment.

~~~
ci5er
Same piece, right? Or was there a mini-series?

~~~
princeb
same piece! i guess everyone was caught up in the sexual harassment story, and
the crazy story of her getting her review post hoc revised and
transfers/scholarships cancelled became a side story? i found every single
part of her story aggravating, the hr process, the backstabbing, the
politicking, the sexual harassment, all of it.

------
Neliquat
It seems to me, that any decent Law firm would have told her not to tweet
about it imho. /ianal

~~~
noonespecial
You are right. A lawyer's job is to minimize your legal risk. The least risky
thing to do is to keep silent. That's what he'll reliably tell you to do.

It's _your_ job to decide how much risk you are willing to take to speak out.
Some fights are worth fighting.

------
tabeth
I'm pretty clueless about the law, but I don't really see what case Uber has
against her. How could they prove that she's the one that resulted in account
deletions?

Even if you suppose she's the one to blame, if what she claimed is true then
wouldn't their point be moot?

~~~
fictioncircle
[https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/02/27/it-admin-was-
aut...](https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/02/27/it-admin-was-authorized-
to-trash-employers-network-he-says/)

They are probably thinking they can go that route.

------
analyst74
I think going through the court system would be much better way to find out
the truth and serve punishment if needed, but only if the ground is a bit more
even between a major corporation and an individual.

Is there a way to support Fowler in some way, like contributing to a legal
fund?

------
AdmiralAsshat
Not surprising. Depressing, but not at all surprising.

~~~
asdfasdf32r3
Why is it depressing? The company needs to know where it stands. This tweet
could mean anything from her being stalked to legal representatives taking
pre-deposition interviews.

While it seems pretty cut and dried to me that Uber is in the wrong, don't
they have the responsibility and the right to investigate for themselves?

~~~
snowwrestler
Holder is supposedly investigating the situation for Uber.

A 2nd firm looking at Fowler specifically would imply a different (addl)
strategy--like litigation against her personally, or a PR campaign to smear
her.

------
laughfactory
Well I had not yet deleted the Uber app, but now? Gonzo! And it's not just
Susan's account, but all the revelations of how crappy their company culture
is, the immaturity and general misbehavior of their CEO (who clearly doesn't
understand how being a CEO of such a huge company means he needs to grow up
super fast and act like a decent moral human being).

------
devy
First off, I empathize her horrendous experiences of being harassed at Uber
and applaud her courage to speak out.

Susan runs a book club [1][2] and is a published author[3]. Her quick fame
rising from the recent press and a 24k+ follower and the amount of product
placements on her tweet feed has reminded that old saying: All Press is Good
Press.

[1]: [https://twitter.com/susansbookclub](https://twitter.com/susansbookclub)

[2]: [http://www.susansbookclub.com/](http://www.susansbookclub.com/)

[3]: [https://www.amazon.com/Susan-
Fowler/e/B01L8LPRWK](https://www.amazon.com/Susan-Fowler/e/B01L8LPRWK)

~~~
jmduke
It seems unwise to trot out "all press is good press" given the onslaught of
bad (and objectively damaging) press that has gone Uber's way in the past
week, which is to say nothing of the rest of your comment.

~~~
hikewitme
Somehow, even at scale, "all press is good press" still rings true for Uber,
as "bad press" has a way of reaching an unaware, untapped market for them.
Uber would regularly experience their largest spurts of user growth during
times of "bad press". Taxi protest in the UK? Record numbers across the board
in Europe that week. Driver accidentally kill a child? Millions download the
app to see what that's all about. Best yet is when a metro's city council poo-
poo's Uber's model or regulations, you'll see record growth in that city based
off of local news, and now Uber has a localized movement of riders they can
lobby to campaign for Uber against the city council. There's a playbook for
that.

The number of deletes rarely surpassed the number of signups during any given
"PR crisis" or #delete campaign. Fowler wasn't the first time, and it won't be
the last.

