Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

I remain flabbergasted by all of this upheaval at Uber. What's happening is the sort of housecleaning I would expect if the company had to file for bankruptcy or got caught flat out bribing judges or something. But really, what triggered all this was acting like jerks.

It seems to me, what should have happened (a long time ago) was that they got shut down for systematically breaking the law, or encouraging others to do so. That would have made sense.

But instead they are getting flayed alive by not much more than bad press for being jerks. Makes no goddamn sense.

A jerk is someone who borrows your car and doesn't pay for the dent he puts in the bumper. What happened at Uber was the creation of one of the most insanely hostile work environments in living memory, where flouting not just the law, but also basic standards of human decency, was not only accepted but encouraged at all levels of the company.

Did you work there? This narrative is almost comically hyperbolic.

I know exactly one person who works at Uber. She joined as an engineer about a year ago. I asked; she says it is less sexist than every other place she has worked (especially after all the press), and she likes her job. She also says it's a big company and she doesn't know if it's different in other parts.

If 50% of women at Uber are perfectly happy at their jobs, and the other 50% are being subject to an illegal hostile work environment, that is not a good track record.

Even if that number was 10%, or 1%, that is still a horrible track record.

They have perhaps taken the criticism and news to heart and changed their ways, but nobody at all denies that there WERENT problems before.

Uber itself has admitted that there were serious problems, and says that they re going to fix them.

Sure, but the claim is extraordinary and requires extraordinary evidence

You don't think it was extraordinary that David Bonderman interrupted Arianna Huffington to make a crude sexist remark about how he believes women on the board talk too much, during the all-hands meeting to unveil Uber’s plan for overhauling its corporate culture?

Yes, Uber board member David Bonderman said women talk too much at an all-hands meeting about sexism at Uber: https://www.recode.net/2017/6/13/15795612/uber-board-member-...

It's not fake news. It's not contested. He resigned in disgrace, because HE talked too much. You can listen to the audio yourself. It starts at 6:37.

LEAKED AUDIO: Uber's all-hands meeting had some uncomfortable moments: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-ubers-hands-meeting-tr...

Arianna Huffington: "And there is a lot of data that shows that when there is one woman on the board, it's much more likely that there will be a second woman on the board."

David Bonderman: "Actually what it shows is that it's much more likely to be more talking."

What he just did in front of the entire company at the worst possible moment is strong first hand evidence that speaks directly to the fact that the cause of Uber's horrible track record of sexism deeply pervades its board of directors. Making a remark like that at a time like that isn't just an anomaly out of the blue -- it reveals his true character and Uber's true culture.

It was nothing short of a vicious unfounded public personal attack on Arianna Huffington, Wan Ling Martello, and all of Uber's female employees.

David Bonderman Resigns From Uber Board After Sexist Remark: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/technology/uber-sexual-ha...

"Mr. Bonderman’s original comments, according to experts, also lack merit.

Tali Mendelberg, professor of politics at Princeton University, and Christopher Karpowitz, an associate professor of political science at Brigham Young University, conducted a study in 2012 concluding that men talked far more than women did at meetings. The professors convened 94 groups of five people and varied the number of men and women in the groups. Their study is in line with multiple others drawing similar conclusions — men talk more than women, and men interrupt more than women.

“The study shows that men will dominate the conversation if there are more men than women in the group, and they dominate by a lot,” Ms. Mendelberg said in an interview. “When you have just two women in the group, those women are much more silent than men are.”

Uber’s board of directors was composed entirely of men until 2016, when Ms. Huffington gained a seat. This week Uber said another woman had been added to the board: Wan Ling Martello, the executive vice president of Nestle in Asia."

It's a fact that women can speak more than men. But not sure why that is important during board meeting.