Practices pertaining to gender including sexual harassment and assault
A San Jose passenger recorded an Uber driver’s remarks while driving:
My dream is to have some drunk chick by herself also going home at the end of my shift and she wants me to come in. That would be the perfect ending to my day. … Half the work is already done, man. She’s isolated and she’s drunk. … I will get really drunk too and then I can’t be held responsible.
Uber indicated that it banned the driver from further rides for Uber.
Fortune reports that Uber’s engineering team is just 15.1% women — calling that figure “bad–even by tech industry standards.” (Compare Facebook at 17%, Google at 19%, Apple at 23%, and Airbnb at 26%.)
In February 2017, the New York Times reported misconduct by Uber employees: A manager groped a female co-worker’s breasts at a company retreat, a director shouted a homophobic slur at a subordinate, a manager threatened to beat an underperforming employee with a baseball bat, employees used cocaine at private parties, and an employee hijacked a shuttle bus and took it for a joy ride.
After an unnamed customer reported being raped by an Uber driver in India in December 2014, Uber executive Eric Alexander obtained her medical records and showed them to CEO Travis Kalanick and SVP Emil Michael. As of June 2017, Alexander had left Uber.
In a June 2017 lawsuit, the customer filed a lawsuit against Uber as well as Alexander, Kalanick, and Michael for intrusion into private affairs, public disclosure of private facts, and defamation. In addition to noting the impropriety of Uber managers obtaining and examining her medical records without her consent, she flagged the inconsistency between Uber’s public claims (“We will do everything … to help bring this perpetrator to justice and to support the victim”) and its actual action.
In a meeting about the prevalence of sexism within Uber, board member David Bonderman made a joke about gender stereotypes. He resigned the same day. Details.
Uber employees visited a South Korean escort bar.
When one member of the party later complained, Uber SVP of Business Emil Michael contacted Gabi Holzwarth (who had been dating Kalanick at the time) — asking that she tell anyone who asked that it was just karaoke. She refused, taking his request for a cover-up as impetus to discuss the incident publicly.
Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 305) reports that after Michael contacted Holzwarth, he alerted Uber SVP of Communications Rachel Whetstone who consulted with general counsel Salle Yoo and others — all hoping to conceal the situation so it wouldn’t leak.
Former Uber software engineer Susan Fowler posted a 4,000+ word report of her experience reporting sexual harassment at Uber. Among other problems, she reported multiple senior managers failing to take action on the problems she reported — and retaining the employees who engaged in misconduct.
Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 262, 266) adds details: Fowler’s manager hit on her during her first first day of work. She reported him to HR, with screenshots of his remarks, but Uber HR said it was his first offense and encouraged her to find a new team.
Uber’s Lyon, France office offered a promotion called “Avions de Chasse” (“Hot Chick”) in which a passenger could request an Uber vehicle driven by a scantily-clad woman.
Buzzfeed preserved Uber’s marketing material for this service and this offer.
When a GQ interviewer asked Uber then-CEO Travis Kalanick about the company’s rise making him increasingly desirable to women, he responded “Yeah, we call that Boob-er.”