<story><title>Interview with Susan Fowler</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/style/susan-fowler-uber.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>linkregister</author><text>I think that Susan Fowler is the single most influential individual in Uber&amp;#x27;s history, even more so than Travis Kalanick.&lt;p&gt;1. #deleteuber was a flash in the pan. It fizzled because it was based on a falsehood, that Uber had broken an airport strike by cancelling surge. Uber cancels surge for all notable events. Lyft somehow avoided judgement, despite also failing to honor the strike. The impetus behind the campaign was a combination of that strike action and Kalanick&amp;#x27;s presence on President Trump&amp;#x27;s ill-fated executive council.&lt;p&gt;2. Greyball is a multi-million dollar suit, it will likely be settled for less. Because Uber was only foolish enough to abuse it in a couple of cities (according to news stories and law suits, who knows what legal discovery will unearth!), the scope is limited. Furthermore, the cities that ban Uber also ban Lyft.&lt;p&gt;3. Lyft&amp;#x27;s meteoric growth in 2017 can be primarily linked to the sexual harassment stories about Uber. They even based their entire advertising campaign on it, &amp;quot;how you get there matters,&amp;quot; emphasizing the moral superiority of using Lyft over Uber. The ad campaign is incredibly poignant and effective. Lyft has deftly turned the fiasco to its advantage.&lt;p&gt;Susan was able to accomplish what no person had successfully done by publishing an account on her blog of what happened. Because she had not sued the company for damages, she was not held to silence from a legal settlement. Any opponent claiming she was an opportunist had no evidence, because she didn&amp;#x27;t file suit nor was seeking damages.&lt;p&gt;Because of her, an entire chain of events was set off. The intense public pressure, that slammed customer growth, hampered recruitment, and impacted Uber investors&amp;#x27; social lives (yes, that was a major factor!) was primarily from Fowler&amp;#x27;s revelation of the company&amp;#x27;s indifference to sexual harassment.</text></item><item><author>abalone</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; The Waymo lawsuit only happened when it did and only effective as it was because of the chaos Susan Fowler initiated.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This seems a bit much. Why on earth would Google wait to sue? Their case was not at all dependent on internal turmoil at Uber.&lt;p&gt;Fowler deserves a lot of credit but there was significant chaos pre-blog-post (#deleteuber) and after (Greyball). Uber was having a new crisis every other week it seemed, all stemming from a cavalier, bro-y culture. That all added up, Fowler&amp;#x27;s post included, to a leadership change.</text></item><item><author>fpoijasw</author><text>Hey engineer at Uber here. I&amp;#x27;m a male engineer started working at Uber two years ago. I&amp;#x27;m seeing a lot of comments here that is discrediting Susan Fowler&amp;#x27;s accomplishments in taking TK down, and I would like to correct the notion that the culture&amp;#x2F;TK himself&amp;#x2F;Waymo is what brought TK down.&lt;p&gt;To preface I&amp;#x27;ve work both at Google as an engineer, and frankly speaking the engineering culture at Uber didn&amp;#x27;t differ all that much. Both org had the same amount of soft misogyny, politics, and HR that protected its highest performers. In fact a lot of characters mentioned in Susan&amp;#x27;s blog post works at Google today. So what led up to the downfall of TK? Susan Fowler&amp;#x27;s blog post. What she described is what a lot of people go through in every company, but she was brave enough to post her experience using her real name. I&amp;#x27;m willing to bet if she never posted her blog post none of this would&amp;#x27;ve happened, and it would&amp;#x27;ve been business as usual at Uber.&lt;p&gt;Susan Fowler exposed the weakness in our culture and it catapulted an internal French Revolution where every head had a possibility of getting axed. This put our executives in a disarray and naturally external enemies decided to strike at us when we were weakest. The Waymo lawsuit only happened when it did and only effective as it was because of the chaos Susan Fowler initiated.&lt;p&gt;So please stop discrediting Susan Fowler, what she did was really the catalyst, the trigger, for Uber to set course on a better path. It&amp;#x27;s just too bad she wasn&amp;#x27;t able to stay and see the real impact of her words. Ubers a great place to work now.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CaptainZapp</author><text>&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  2. Greyball is a multi-million dollar suit, it will likely be settled for less. Because Uber was only foolish enough to abuse it in a couple of cities 
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
For starters: It cost them their license in London. Transport for London didn&amp;#x27;t look kindly at those shenaginas and apparently didn&amp;#x27;t believe Uber that they didn&amp;#x27;t employ those dirty tricks in London.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s the source for Uber only abusing it in a couple cities? Uber?&lt;p&gt;The problem with that is that Uber is one of the utterly least trustworthy companies in existence. I, for one, assume that the lie by default, whenever they make a statement.</text></comment>
<story><title>Interview with Susan Fowler</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/style/susan-fowler-uber.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>linkregister</author><text>I think that Susan Fowler is the single most influential individual in Uber&amp;#x27;s history, even more so than Travis Kalanick.&lt;p&gt;1. #deleteuber was a flash in the pan. It fizzled because it was based on a falsehood, that Uber had broken an airport strike by cancelling surge. Uber cancels surge for all notable events. Lyft somehow avoided judgement, despite also failing to honor the strike. The impetus behind the campaign was a combination of that strike action and Kalanick&amp;#x27;s presence on President Trump&amp;#x27;s ill-fated executive council.&lt;p&gt;2. Greyball is a multi-million dollar suit, it will likely be settled for less. Because Uber was only foolish enough to abuse it in a couple of cities (according to news stories and law suits, who knows what legal discovery will unearth!), the scope is limited. Furthermore, the cities that ban Uber also ban Lyft.&lt;p&gt;3. Lyft&amp;#x27;s meteoric growth in 2017 can be primarily linked to the sexual harassment stories about Uber. They even based their entire advertising campaign on it, &amp;quot;how you get there matters,&amp;quot; emphasizing the moral superiority of using Lyft over Uber. The ad campaign is incredibly poignant and effective. Lyft has deftly turned the fiasco to its advantage.&lt;p&gt;Susan was able to accomplish what no person had successfully done by publishing an account on her blog of what happened. Because she had not sued the company for damages, she was not held to silence from a legal settlement. Any opponent claiming she was an opportunist had no evidence, because she didn&amp;#x27;t file suit nor was seeking damages.&lt;p&gt;Because of her, an entire chain of events was set off. The intense public pressure, that slammed customer growth, hampered recruitment, and impacted Uber investors&amp;#x27; social lives (yes, that was a major factor!) was primarily from Fowler&amp;#x27;s revelation of the company&amp;#x27;s indifference to sexual harassment.</text></item><item><author>abalone</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; The Waymo lawsuit only happened when it did and only effective as it was because of the chaos Susan Fowler initiated.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This seems a bit much. Why on earth would Google wait to sue? Their case was not at all dependent on internal turmoil at Uber.&lt;p&gt;Fowler deserves a lot of credit but there was significant chaos pre-blog-post (#deleteuber) and after (Greyball). Uber was having a new crisis every other week it seemed, all stemming from a cavalier, bro-y culture. That all added up, Fowler&amp;#x27;s post included, to a leadership change.</text></item><item><author>fpoijasw</author><text>Hey engineer at Uber here. I&amp;#x27;m a male engineer started working at Uber two years ago. I&amp;#x27;m seeing a lot of comments here that is discrediting Susan Fowler&amp;#x27;s accomplishments in taking TK down, and I would like to correct the notion that the culture&amp;#x2F;TK himself&amp;#x2F;Waymo is what brought TK down.&lt;p&gt;To preface I&amp;#x27;ve work both at Google as an engineer, and frankly speaking the engineering culture at Uber didn&amp;#x27;t differ all that much. Both org had the same amount of soft misogyny, politics, and HR that protected its highest performers. In fact a lot of characters mentioned in Susan&amp;#x27;s blog post works at Google today. So what led up to the downfall of TK? Susan Fowler&amp;#x27;s blog post. What she described is what a lot of people go through in every company, but she was brave enough to post her experience using her real name. I&amp;#x27;m willing to bet if she never posted her blog post none of this would&amp;#x27;ve happened, and it would&amp;#x27;ve been business as usual at Uber.&lt;p&gt;Susan Fowler exposed the weakness in our culture and it catapulted an internal French Revolution where every head had a possibility of getting axed. This put our executives in a disarray and naturally external enemies decided to strike at us when we were weakest. The Waymo lawsuit only happened when it did and only effective as it was because of the chaos Susan Fowler initiated.&lt;p&gt;So please stop discrediting Susan Fowler, what she did was really the catalyst, the trigger, for Uber to set course on a better path. It&amp;#x27;s just too bad she wasn&amp;#x27;t able to stay and see the real impact of her words. Ubers a great place to work now.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>albedoa</author><text>&amp;gt; #deleteuber was a flash in the pan. It fizzled because it was based on a falsehood, that Uber had broken an airport strike by cancelling surge. Uber cancels surge for all notable events.&lt;p&gt;Not to get too caught up on this, but #deleteuber was in response to them being perceived as breaking the strike by operating at the airport &lt;i&gt;at all&lt;/i&gt;. So the fact that they cancel surge for all events wasn&amp;#x27;t accepted as an excuse. Canceling surge just provided more fodder.</text></comment>