
Uber board director and CTO under pressure in sexual harassment investigation - flinner
https://www.recode.net/2017/5/16/15616024/uber-sexual-harassment-work-hostility-investigation-executive-turnover
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diebir
Nothing there. The article says "maybe they will fire CTO and Graves" and then
goes on to discuss how bad it would look. The initial premise however is that
the firings would be done to make the company look better. Makes zero sense
and contains no new information.

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marvel_boy
>He has already been frequently away from the office, sources say, and his
absence is unlikely to have a huge impact on the day-to-day operations of the
company.

> But he is a loyalist
    
    
      This explains a lot.

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dnautics
That's interesting. In a bigger company how much of a responsibility should
the CTO have to handle harassment incidents. Imo, as long as he or she hands
off to the coo (say), or hr chief, the responsibility is complete. The CTO
should not be regularly dealing with these sorts of issues, that's not what
they were hired for.... (With understanding that _legally_ that may not be the
case)

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maxxxxx
There is this famous quote from I think Steve Jobs. It says that once you are
VP or CT* there are no excuses for things going wrong in your department. You
are the responsible person.

~~~
nullnilvoid
Does that imply that Kalanick should be fired? Certainly, it is in his
department and should be responsible.

~~~
dcole2929
Honestly yes. His investors have put money into the company as much because
they believe in him as because they believe in the idea but at this point all
the evidence is pointing to the idea being sustainable but Travis not being.
They're hemorrhaging money fighting a losing war with regulators, Lyft, and
the taxi monopoly but if they get self driving cars working (which is no
guarantee) they are poised to be something incredible. Given all this it can
easily be argued that Kalanick is doing more to harm Uber than to help it. If
I'm an investor, or on the board, while I might not be ready to throw him out
on his ear quite yet, it's absolutely a conversation I'm having.

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hashkb
> [Firing these guys] would certainly prove that Uber no longer rewards “high
> performers” in spite of human resources infractions.

No... it would only prove they are willing to throw a few to the mob to save
the rest.

~~~
ondross
It doesn't really "prove" either one, but it is a step in the right direction.

I think we should be encouraging companies to address their issues. Being
cynical about it doesn't really help.

That said, I agree with you that if they think their hands are now clean,
they've sort of missed the point.

~~~
korzun
> It doesn't really "prove" either one, but it is a step in the right
> direction.

Mind sharing whatever information you have that shows that CTO was aware of
everything HR and other managers were trying to sweep under the rug?

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ejlangev
Another day, another negative Uber story. They've totally lost control of the
narrative about all this stuff.

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ondross
To be fair, this isn't a new story. It looks like a positive development to
me: they're obviously taking the investigation seriously.

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r_coase
Was there any new information from the investigation in this article or was it
strictly a hit piece? I've read it twice and the only thing it is saying is
that two executives were responsible because of their position in the org
chart, which isn't new information AFAIK.

Since it doesn't seem that Graves or Thuan did anything wrong, I'm trying to
understand what vested interest recode has in terms of trying to get either
executive thrown under the bus. Do they just want another executive out, any
executive, so they can write another piece about people who have left the
company?

At worst, one can make some sort of claim of professional negligence due to
their positions but it's entirely possible the buck stopped with Renee. We
simply don't have enough information to judge either of these two at this
point but Recode is painting them as guilty. If they have smoking gun
evidence, they should present that, but if they are trying to ruin the lives
of these two for the sake of ad impressions, that's incredibly slimy and a
breach of professional ethics for a journalist.

The only new information AFAICT are a few insider opinions about these two
executives that may have come from someone being merely descriptive or with an
ax to grind. Those quotes were also completely unrelated to the investigation.
Recode isn't practicing journalism here. They are using a few quotes to craft
they own story that is pure speculation. Last I heard, that's called fiction,
not journalism. One should not be writing fiction that will be interpreted as
fact when it can cause real people to be hurt without merit.

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hackunomatter
> Since it doesn't seem that Graves or Thuan did anything wrong

Wait, what? Did you read the article? If Fowler reported her problems to Thuan
himself, then he _most certainly_ bears responsibility, and needs to answer
for that. Same with Graves: he was head of HR for periods over that time, and
needs to answer too.

Only when you start holding the top-level people accountable will the culture
change. Throwing some flunky under the bus will never bring about serious
change.

~~~
r_coase
Without bearing witness to that communication, how can you assign blame? What
was said/written? There are so many unknowns here that it's all entirely
inconclusive right now, yet people are happy to assign blame and
responsibility with almost no information and evidence.

Is that how you'd want your trial to be conducted if you were the accused?

There are serious allegations here that merit more than a peanut gallery trial
by public opinion and speculation.

I'm not saying we shouldn't hold top management accountable, but we should
have actual facts and details on what transpired so we know who to hold
accountable.

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hackunomatter
The investigation is ongoing, and the results will be announced by the end of
the month. You are already passing judgment that they should not be held
accountable, when you don't have any facts either! All I'm saying is that _if_
the investigation concludes that Thuan was informed directly by Fowler and did
nothing, _then_ he deserves to be fired. Same with Graves.

~~~
r_coase
You're putting words in my mouth. I didn't say they shouldn't be held
accountable. I'm saying those responsible should be held accountable.

There's not enough information yet to say who is responsible.

The message to Thuan could have been such that he had to delegate to to HR.
With issues like these the buck stops in HR. There are all sorts of issues on
how to handle these issues and sensitive terminations. If you mishandle things
like this you end up stuck between a sexual harassment lawsuit and a wrongful
termination lawsuit.

You always delegate issues like this to HR and your lawyers.

Graves and Thuan would be responsible if they either did not delegate
appropriately or if they actively interfered.

Furthermore, all sorts of miscommunication may have transpired. If the
executives were contacted by email for example, what's to say that the email
didn't have a bad subject line and never got read.

We simply don't have facts and we can't hold the right people accountable
until we have those facts. Maybe Graves and Thuan are the right people, _but
we don 't know that yet_

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gotothedoctor
As soon as a senior executive becomes aware of any kind of illegal activity,
malfeasance or behavior for which the company could be held liable, it becomes
their responsibility.

When Fowler reported her harassment & HR's failures directly to Thuan, he
became obligated by fiduciary duty to deal with the problem. Thuan could not
just hand it off to HR because HR (which was Graves' responsibility) had
already failed Fowler--which is why she reported it to Thuan.

Uber has never disputed Fowler's report, which points directly at Thuan &
Graves. We'll see at the end of the month, but this kind leak from Uber
suggests that the publicly released version of Holder's report will be PR
puffery that'll blame it all on Thuan & Graves & attempt to vindicate
Kalanick. Expect Huffington as the media messenger. She'll be outraged when
anyone dares to suggest Travis knew. And ask if the interviewer is actually
questioning Holder's integrity.

I'm not sure who'd believe that Kalanick didn't know about any of it
regardless.

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EternalData
[https://backchannel.com/how-the-tech-press-forces-a-
narrativ...](https://backchannel.com/how-the-tech-press-forces-a-narrative-on-
companies-it-covers-5f89fdb7793e)

"A company’s narrative moves like a clock: it starts at midnight, ticking off
the hours. The tone and sentiment about how a business is doing move from
positive (sunrise, midday) to negative (dusk, darkness). And often the story
returns to midnight, rebirth and a new day."

I feel like Uber is starting to see if it can hit midnight.

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fil_a_del_fee_a
A. Huffington is on the board of Uber? Ugh.. Another reason to use Lyft.

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xyzzy_plugh
May I ask why? If she were on the board of Lyft, would you feel different?

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fil_a_del_fee_a
I really don't like her website. She is a propagandist. If she was on the
board of lyft, I would probably still use lyft, but I would be wary.

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ybrah
>As a high-profile non-white engineering executive at a company that is under
scrutiny for its lack of diversity among its technical employee

Why does this matter

~~~
ska
Doesn't the next sentence answer your question?

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jimmywanger
No, it doesn't.

All of a sudden, Asian people become a minority when it suits the narrative.

There are plenty of Asians (South and East) at all the tech companies being
castigated for lack of ethnic diversity. You can't have it both ways.

~~~
ska
The next sentence is about morale. I fail to see how your comment is relevant.

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jimmywanger
Because Asians are generally not considered minorities for purposes of
diversity. Whether that's right or not is another subject.

Since they're not considered minorities, the lack of diversity and their
ethnicity should not affect morale at all.

~~~
ska
Ah, well that is certainly not what the article was claiming, or what the
context of the quoted sentence is.

So whether or not your contention is correct, it is of no help to the original
comment.

