
Uber's SVP of engineering is out - runesoerensen
http://www.recode.net/2017/2/27/14745360/amit-singhal-google-uber
======
ogezi
I also read his post about wanting to do something else, so I was very
surprised when I heard that he had gotten a job at Uber.

I think that Kalanick made the right decision by asking him to resign. They
can't afford to have any more controversies surrounding them especially at
this time.

I hope all that has happened at Uber can overall make the tech industry better
for everyone.

~~~
Arizhel
I disagree. On the face of it, this totally reeks of scapegoating.

Uber has many allegations right now that its current culture tolerates
harassment, meaning that current employees (including managers most notably)
are alleged to have committed harassment _while at Uber_.

This guy is accused of harassment not at Uber (according to the article), but
at a previous job at Google. There's no mention of any allegations of
harassing behavior at Uber. So maybe he did harass someone at Google, or maybe
he didn't and someone bad-mouthed him.

If Uber intends to clean up its culture, shouldn't they be first looking at
people who have _recently_ been accused of harassment, such as Susan Fowler's
first boss, and can those people first? Instead, they find some guy who's been
bad-mouthed by a prior employer (which isn't unusual when a company or manager
is mad that someone left), and sack him to try to appease everyone and show
that they're "doing something".

~~~
kafkaesq
Low-hanging fruit. Generally, it's far easier to get rid of someone for lying
("You lied about about your reasons for leaving your previous company, it
seems") than to prove novel allegations against them.

~~~
softawre
Right. You can sack anybody for anything of course, but convincing the HR
department there is low liability for a lawsuit is another thing.

------
alphonsegaston
I wonder how many execs the investors will let Kalanick burn through before
they go after him. It seems like they could solve a lot of their image
problems by deposing him. Just look how easily the public was deceived with
Uber vs Lyft in the JFK immigration ban strike. He must be quite adept at
managing them.

~~~
hackuser
> I wonder how many execs the investors will let Kalanick burn through before
> they go after him.

An interesting point. What value does he add by remaining? It's a serious
question; what are his strengths and weaknesses as a CEO?

A major part of the CEO's job is to be the public face, to maintain the
business' reputation, and to handle crises. The results don't look good right
now in terms of those requirements, but of course it's also not accurate to
rely on a snapshot taken at someone's worst moment.

Also, we all know that many founders don't make good CEOs of large
organizations. Those are different skill sets.

~~~
adrenalinelol
Uber's valuation is contingent on it becoming a monopoly or something close to
it. That isn't going to happen w/o a pitbull CEO. Travis knows the business
better than anyone else @ this point. A threshold of bad PR that is counter to
said goal would have to be met, and I don't think this is it.

------
e15ctr0n
> “As I entered the fifteenth year of working at Google, I've been asking
> myself the question, ‘What would you want to do for the next fifteen?’

Given that he joined Uber on January 20th [0], he's out in 5 weeks total.

His interest in running his own philanthropic foundation also didn't last much
more than a year [0].

Sounds like he needs to rethink what he's going to do for the next 15 years.

[0] Uber Hires Former Google Search Chief Amit Singhal as SVP of Engineering
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13445597](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13445597)

------
officelineback
>But within a year, rather than do good, Singhal had gotten a top job at Uber.

Heh. A not too subtle burn.

~~~
r00fus
I think it's disingenuous to conflate Uber with "not do good". I say this as
someone who deleted the Uber app after Susan Fowler's story. .

~~~
kaspm
I think s/he was saying that the article implied that, not the commenter.
Commenter was complimenting the good turn of phrase.

------
minimaxir
Important note from article: "To be clear, Singhal’s dispute with Google has
nothing to do with that situation [Susan's Fowler's article] or the recent
lawsuit that Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has waged against Uber’s Otto
division."

~~~
epistasis
"Nothing to do" seems like protesting too much, since the next sentence is:

>But having Singhal at the head of an organization under siege over sexual
harassment issues when he was not candid with Uber over his departure from
Google was considered untenable.

Which makes it sound like "we don't know what to believe but we're getting rid
of him because it looks bad."

This framing seems unenlightened and also not so flattering to Uber. I wonder
if that's the framing Uber presented to recode, or if it was their own.

~~~
rhizome
_Which makes it sound like "we don't know what to believe but we're getting
rid of him because it looks bad."_

Wouldn't it be more reasonable to say that this might be an admission that
their HR department has sucked for a very long time, and this is part of
dealing with it?

~~~
epistasis
I think that if Uber were to say that straight out, it would allay some of my
negative feelings towards them! (And maybe they have and I missed it, I
haven't had chance to follow this closely.)

------
grandalf
Wow, I think a lot of people learn from their successes and mistakes in
previous jobs and bring that knowledge into their next job.

It does not seem appropriate to fire someone who hasn't acted badly in his
current job. The opportunity for finding out about his past was before he was
offered the position.

~~~
traek
His reason for leaving Google (a "credible" sexual harassment allegation) is a
liability for Uber. If he had disclosed it before he was offered the position,
he likely would not have been offered it.

It seems completely appropriate for a company to take steps to limit their
liabilities.

~~~
mamp
Based on what is being written about Uber's culture it's not obvious he
wouldn't have been offered job if this had been known. Now it's clearly a
liability.

------
isanganak
What exactly did Singhal do at Google that got him in that situation?

~~~
oh_sigh
That almost certainly isn't going to be released publicly unless there is some
kind of lawsuit that happens. The only thing we know is that Google labeled it
'credible', but we have no idea how they came to that decision.

~~~
neduma
That means it is true. Google is same boat as Uber in terms of sexual
harassment events.

~~~
r00fus
You really need to add snark tags. Your deadpan is too convincing.

~~~
dosgonlogs
[http://www.businessinsider.com/kelly-ellis-claims-she-was-
se...](http://www.businessinsider.com/kelly-ellis-claims-she-was-sexually-
harassed-at-google-2015-3)

[http://www.gadgette.com/2016/01/19/what-i-learnt-from-
being-...](http://www.gadgette.com/2016/01/19/what-i-learnt-from-being-
sexually-harassed-at-google/)

[https://prezi.com/jtikgiukl0tl/sexual-harassment-in-
google/](https://prezi.com/jtikgiukl0tl/sexual-harassment-in-google/)

[http://nypost.com/2014/05/28/staffer-slaps-google-with-
sexua...](http://nypost.com/2014/05/28/staffer-slaps-google-with-sexual-
harassment-lawsuit/)

More light on todays news: [http://gizmodo.com/former-google-engineer-blasts-
companys-hr...](http://gizmodo.com/former-google-engineer-blasts-companys-hr-
after-sexual-1792802747)

------
kchoudhu
On a scale of 1-10, how hard is it to keep your dick in your pants at work?

I just don't get the mindset that results in someone thinking "yeah man, it is
totally ok to make a pass at a coworker in a professional environment"

~~~
btilly
Based on my memory of how I met my wife, with the right person it is a 10.

That was, however, the first and probably last time for me. And given the
context, we were both kidding ourselves as long as possible about the mutual
attraction. By the time anything resembling a pass happened, it was obviously
desired on both sides.

The truth is that we are human. No matter how much people try to avoid
romantic entanglements at work, it happens. Regularly. And sometimes they
don't work out. The challenge is how to handle that situation. And this is a
difficult challenge indeed.

~~~
kafkaesq
_The challenge is how to handle that situation._

Exactly. Like simply wait for enough (obvious) green lights before making a
move. Like, you know, mature, consenting adults. A modicum of tact and
subtlety couldn't hurt, either ;)

 _No matter how much people try to avoid romantic entanglements at work, it
happens._

And indeed, it's silly (and borderline delusional) to pretend otherwise.

~~~
astrodust
There's a big gulf between romantic entanglement and unwanted, creepy
flirtation.

~~~
kafkaesq
Yup - a huge one. So a good rule of thumb might be: If you have to ask
yourself, "Would it be creepy if I..." \-- well, yes, it probably would be.

~~~
oxryly1
That can fail in a most face-palming way. For example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG1_hw7UhsM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG1_hw7UhsM)

~~~
astrodust
Yeah, that's pretty clearly deep into the _skeeze_.

------
dmourati
Trying to kill two birds with one stone here?

~~~
kevinburke
Even without the recent allegations it feels like lying about the
circumstances surrounding the exit from your last company would be a fire-able
offense, especially at the executive level.

~~~
mildbow
idk.

Should he have disclosed it? Of course, because that would have lessened the
impact when it did come out.

Maybe he thought it was over and done with. And, since it was an _allegation_
vs proven maybe he didn't want to muddy waters.

However, to say that an _allegation_ must be reported when taking a new job is
pretty harsh. Innocent till proven guilty surely?

>> "Uber execs found out about the situation after Recode informed them of the
chain of events between Singhal and the search giant this week."

Punish the person responsible in Susan's case. If anything, this feels like a
person's career was taken down due to a witch hunt.

To me, this action by Uber's executive team is not one of cleaning house: it
shows a lack of spine.

~~~
kevinburke
Google found the allegations credible and was prepared to fire him until he
resigned. That seems like "guilty" to me, and certainly something you need to
mention to a new employer, if only to avoid stories like this one.

~~~
zigzigzag
There's a big difference between guilty and "Google found it credible". The
latter could mean almost anything, but presumably as he denied it there wasn't
actual film of it happening or any other hard evidence. Bear in mind, a big
part of feminist/SJW culture is to never disbelieve a 'victim': literally, to
make an accusation is to automatically be credible unless there's clear
evidence you made it up.

Expecting a guy who clearly believes he was let go due to an unfounded
malicious accusation to tell every future employer about it seems extreme. He
obviously expected that Google would not leak his personnell notes, apparently
that was a mistake.

~~~
tptacek
That's not what the story says happened. The story says, according to their
anonymous sources, Singhal was about to be fired over the harassment incident,
and Google instead allowed him to leave gracefully.

~~~
zigzigzag
I read the story. I don't see how that contradicts what I said. He was
effectively let go: told he could resign with dignity or be fired, same result
in the end.

~~~
pvg
Article: "He was about to be fired and resigned"

You: "Accused of a crime he didn't commit, he escaped into the Los Angeles
underground. Today, still wanted by feminists and SJWs, he survives as a
soldier of fortune"

------
perseusprime11
How did he go from rewriting Google's search algorithm to managing an entire
engineering workforce at Uber? That seems like a crazy shift from maker to
manager.

~~~
mahyarm
I'm pretty sure he was a manager of a lot of people at search when he left.

------
sna1l
"You could not tell that there were any problems, though, from the outward
behavior of both sides. When Singhal left, said sources, Google settled major
outstanding grants he had and his own goodbye letter read more like a
retirement missive. More to the point, it gave no hint of acrimony between
himself and his longtime employer."

It is disappointing that because this guy was a superstar, Google acted like
nothing happened.

~~~
SilasX
It looks like he may have been asked to leave as a result of the allegations,
since they directly coincided with his departure, so that looks like Google
did a lot more than "act like nothing happened".

------
sremani
"In this City, you are innocent until you are investigated."

\- Syriana

------
keeptrying
Scapegoating.

------
BadassFractal
The inquisition is back and you too could be a heretic soon.

------
koolba
From the article (emphasis mine):

> “As I entered the fifteenth year of working at Google, I've been asking
> myself the question, ‘What would you want to do for the next fifteen?’ The
> answer has overwhelmingly been: Give back to others. It has always been a
> priority for me to give back to people who are less fortunate, and make time
> for my family amidst competing work constraints — but on both fronts, I
> simply want to give and do more,” he wrote. “Now is a good time to make this
> important life change.”

> But within a year, _rather than do good_ , Singhal had gotten a top job at
> Uber.

There's nothing inherently "not good" with changing jobs. If anything, you get
an opportunity to make more money, make a bigger impact on new projects, and
bring in others that you've worked with prior to join you. The latter can
markedly improve their lives as well through the same (pay bump, new work,
etc).

Implying that leaving Google for Uber is inherently not "do[ing] good" is
pretty slanted.

~~~
hallmark
Give me a break. When a successful tech executive says, "It has always been a
priority for me to give back to people who are less fortunate," the Gates
Foundation or the US Digital Service come to mind. Getting another highly paid
job is not at all in the same class.

~~~
koolba
> Give me a break. When a successful tech executive says, "It has always been
> a priority for me to give back to people who are less fortunate," the Gates
> Foundation or the US Digital Service come to mind. Getting another highly
> paid job is not at all in the same class.

Says you.

If you have the opportunity to make a bunch of money moving on to a new gig,
hire your old co-workers, and work on new technologies like self driving
cars[1], I'd say that's going to have a much larger impact than picking up a
hammer and building houses Jimmy Carter style.

Also, using the Bill Gates, who's probably 2+ orders of magnitude wealthier
than Singhal, as a comparison point isn't fair either.

[1]: _Guessing on this one as I have no clue what projects he personally
oversaw at Uber._

~~~
vacri
> _Also, using the Bill Gates, who 's probably 2+ orders of magnitude
> wealthier than Singhal, as a comparison point isn't fair either._

You don't have to be Gates-wealthy to be a philanthropist. Hell, I did some
philanthropy when I was earning only $35k a year - I saved up $2k and sent out
an invite to a dozen friends for them to do any short course of their choosing
up to $150 and I'd pay for it. And that's small potatoes - there are thousands
upon thousands of people out there working long-term as volunteers for good
causes despite also being on or near minimum wage.

The idea that philanthropy is only the domain of the ridiculously wealthy is
just bizarre.

~~~
koolba
I'm not saying you have to be Gates-wealthy to do philanthropy, I'm saying
dropping your career to do nothing but philanthropy doesn't scale or sustain
if you're significantly less wealthy.

~~~
vacri
Taking a high-paying job, hiring your already well-paid ex-colleagues, and
working on toys for the upper-middle class wouldn't strike most people as
'giving back to the less fortunate'.

