I am struggling to think of something productive to contribute to this discussion, because this absolutely incensed me.
In lieu of anything else: Susan deserves to be commended for her bravery in writing this.
In lieu of anything else: Susan deserves to be commended for her bravery in writing this.
If you work at Uber, quit, and/or contact the board and tell them that this behavior is unacceptable and the people responsible need to be fired. If the culture won't change, the CEO needs to be fired.
If you work in tech, bring up this article with your manager or CEO and tell them that this behavior is unacceptable, opens the company up to ridiculous amounts of lawsuit risk, will hurt recruiting, depress morale, and that you will quit if harassment complaints aren't taken seriously.
This. Companies don't change until there's a huge price to be paid for not changing. When top recruits start turning down Uber because of their sexist policies/politics, then Uber will be forced to change.
If so, that would imply that the engineering culture is being distilled into an evermore toxic workplace, since those who stay are those who make the place toxic or are simply people who try to work around it.
It would take an extremely focused and persistent effort on the part of upper management to change this trajectory before the company implodes, as I suspect is inevitable in the long run should my assumptions prove accurate.
You've interviewed us all, have you?
I don't find the accusations surprising or outside the realm of possibility at all.
My evidence for this is every man in tech who is reacting with shock to this story
rather than
My evidence for this is that every man in tech is reacting with shock to this story
If not, I guess neither of us exist, because I (sadly) wasn't.
Edit: Originally said: So let's leave out the "every man" crap and focus on making the world a better place, please.
As grzm points out, I'm an idiot. Disregard the above sentence.
But still, people who wouldn't appreciate this crap definitely exist, and our quitting/refusing to be recruited would likely still make a point.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13683594
Edit: minor wording change.
I've seen a 100% male company (quite small, not 75-100 people) and seriously worried about how things would go when some women were hired. Bit rough at first but it worked out for them (luckily). In a small company a bad lawsuit or two could be a serious threat to the survival of the place.
A lot of what is in this article is not even exclusive to women.
Culture has a long inertia, it replicates and grows by itself. So yes, toxic workplace become ever more toxic and no a toxic culture cannot be improved.
Where do I send the bills for my groceries, then? Would you prefer email or snailmail?
Obviously, if you don't think you can easily get another job, stay.
And you know; 100% of the women engineers I know have similar stories. 100%. That's insane.
These stories need to come out so the guilty companies and their toxic environments are exposed for all to see.
I'd encourage everyone here to pick up a copy of her O'Reilly book -- it's very good. Hopefully she gets all the income and none of it goes to Uber...
I started reading the article with the view of "If it's really that bad, just quit. Burn that bridge with thermite, and never look back." I finished the article wishing there were more Susan J. Fowlers in the world.