After five months of examining the company's culture,
Uber's new human resources officer, Liane Hornsey
concluded that the firm's treatment of women was no
worse than what occurs at other companies.
Uber's biggest employee problems are pay and pride, not
sexism, says HR boss “Wherever I have worked, I have
seen things that are not great for women,” Hornsey said
in a USA TODAY interview. “I don’t think it’s about tech,
or this city or this company. I think it’s about the
world of work, and I think that it’s something that we
have to take really super seriously.”
Liane Hornsey was formerly the VP of People Operations at Google for like 5 years I think. I'm far more inclined to believe her account of what things are like than any journalist lazily trolling for any disgruntled former employee to recount a story that will generate ad impressions.
Does Uber have a problem with women in particular because there is something special about Uber or does it have "a problem with women in particular" because it's a tech company and the media established a narrative with momentum that it is somehow worse than other companies in this respect. If Facebook or Github had been founded in 2009, they'd be the scapegoat for what is an industry-wide problem.
Thinking this is specific to Uber and that Uber is somehow worse, just leaves all other companies with an unexamined culture. Worse yet, it leads other companies to think "Our culture is fine because at least we're not Uber" when they probably have all the same problems.
You really should consider taking a close look at the biases that led you to consider a media interview from the head of Human Resources as the gospel truth.
Her job is to represent and protect the company. HR isn't there to give blunt, honest truth to journalists. They're there to say "everything's fine, no need to sue".
Buried at the very very bottom of the article as a footnote.
Glossing over the tragedy of unexpectedly losing one's mother and almost losing One's father. The media reporting on Uber absolutely disgusts me and demonstrates a culture far more toxic than anything I've heard about Uber.
My bet is that the media doesn't make public any email from Travis about this because it will likely show how the media is grossly misrepresenting things.
FWIW How people read online: why you won't finish this article.
So Greyball was fake? How about their Hell program? Or the fact that one of their executives illegally acquired a rape victims medical reports and circulated them around the office?
Uber has continuously demonstrated a total disregard for both the law and common decency. They lost the benefit of the doubt a long time ago.
Kalanick was aware and had seen the rape victim's health records and apparently it was an attempt (by Emil?) to figure out how to discredit the victim and her accusations.
These are horrific people and while I sympathize with Kalanick over the loss of his mother and his father's situation, I do not wish him any professional success.
I'm reminded of the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect - how we are constantly surprised when the media gets crucial details (which we are personally familiar with) so very wrong in their reporting.
You think this leave is his choice? I haven't seen anything indicating this was initiated by him or that he was setting the terms of the leave. Further, the board explicitly put in place reduced responsibility after he comes back. This seems very much imposed on him.
On a side note, I would love to see sources that show this is really voluntary. I am very curious about this. I actually think the real reason for his ouster is Uber's in ability to become profitable. A voluntary departure would undercut my thesis and I think it is always important to correct analysis.
Prices likely won't go up when taxis are gone. Uber doesn't consider taxis to be a competitor. Uber is trying to compete with car ownership. Liquidity begets liquidity. This is why marketplaces like stock exchanges and Amazon are natural monopolies.
So if prices don't go up, and prices are only held artificially low by burning VC money, what happens to the company? I'm not seeing an end-game that isn't "VCs pull out" or "prices go up".
Demand would drop if they charged more. This would have the following potential results:
- all driver earn more per trip, but may not make more per hour since there would be fewer trips to accept
- drivers who see a drop in the number of trips will be earning less or will have to exit the market if they don't earn enough.
- only when some drivers choose to exit the market would the remaining drivers be able to earn more per trip and and accept the same number of rides per hour.
Any company following Uber's loss leading strategy at the end of the day is fomenting more liquidity in order to gauge how much more demand there is at a lower price point. That gives them a profitability target to work towards by becoming more efficient.
> rely exclusively on white bros in their 30s with identical experiences.
According to Uber's diversity report, the racial composition of its workforce approximately matches the racial composition of San Francisco, Santa Clara and Alemeda counties, and its gender composition is roughly in line with the industry average in the Bay Area and is really no different than the gender composition at companies like Google or Facebook.
anti-Uber for this reason is just a specific case of Luddism. Just replace "Uber" in "anti-Uber" with whatever company would have instead driven down salaries in this industry and eventually put drivers out of work.
Even if they are breaking corrupt laws passed by the lobbyists working for the incumbents? Regulatory capture is a thing that harms society and Uber has done more to undo that harm than in this industry than anyone else.
If that would be true, they would not push for change in locations where regulations were sane. If they stood for pure market only, they would not sabotage competitors. They have their own lobbyist pushing for whatever suits them.
All the company needs is some pressure to shore up some long overdue culture debt. This is the fastest growing company in history after all. Not every aspect of the company was going to come out of the over perfectly baked when you grow that quickly. Uber isn't the first successful startup with this issue and it won't be the last.
Replacing the leader would be a terrible mistake. I'm not a religious person, but I do wish more people were familiar with the lesson taught in the parables of the Lost Son, Lost Sheep or Lost Coin. Redemption is always possible. Society as a whole would be much better off if we gave more people a chance to redeem themselves. Not considering people capable of redemption and considering people deserving of punishment without mercy is the reason we (the United States) have the disaster that is the largest incarcerated population in the World.
I don't see any reason why Charlotte Willner's account of what happened at Facebook couldn't apply just as easily to Uber. What makes you say that things are not in the same league? Katherine Losses' allegations are as salacious as anything I've heard about Uber (or many other successful early stage tech companies for that matter)
After five months of examining the company's culture,
Uber's new human resources officer, Liane Hornsey
concluded that the firm's treatment of women was no
worse than what occurs at other companies.
Uber's biggest employee problems are pay and pride, not
sexism, says HR boss “Wherever I have worked, I have
seen things that are not great for women,” Hornsey said
in a USA TODAY interview. “I don’t think it’s about tech,
or this city or this company. I think it’s about the
world of work, and I think that it’s something that we
have to take really super seriously.”
Liane Hornsey was formerly the VP of People Operations at Google for like 5 years I think. I'm far more inclined to believe her account of what things are like than any journalist lazily trolling for any disgruntled former employee to recount a story that will generate ad impressions.
It's kind of ironic that that article uses Elon Musk as his example, especially in light of this first hand account of an accomplish rocket scientist explaining how impressed he was with Elon Musk learning rocket science by himself.
I generally agree with the sentiment that we should end the cult of the CEO, but that doesn't negate the fact that some CEOs might actually deserve the praise and respect they get.
Until you've actually worked directly for the Elon Musks, Mark Zuckerbergs, Travis Kalanicks and Steve Jobses of the world, you shouldn't dismiss that they might have actually earned cults they've created.
I think redemption is definitely important space to allow for, however it probably shouldn't mean keeping everything as it is. Or rather, Kalanick can still redeem themself not as the CEO of Uber
Liane Hornsey was formerly the VP of People Operations at Google for like 5 years I think. I'm far more inclined to believe her account of what things are like than any journalist lazily trolling for any disgruntled former employee to recount a story that will generate ad impressions.
Does Uber have a problem with women in particular because there is something special about Uber or does it have "a problem with women in particular" because it's a tech company and the media established a narrative with momentum that it is somehow worse than other companies in this respect. If Facebook or Github had been founded in 2009, they'd be the scapegoat for what is an industry-wide problem.
Thinking this is specific to Uber and that Uber is somehow worse, just leaves all other companies with an unexamined culture. Worse yet, it leads other companies to think "Our culture is fine because at least we're not Uber" when they probably have all the same problems.