The stories about sexism at Uber are couched in the overall story about a great company doing great things, led by a great leader, and this is a setback that needs to be dealt with.
Look at any of the recent stories about Theranos. It's a bad company doing bad things, and Holmes is probably a criminal.
And if you don't think that irresponsibly deploying unlicensed driverless cars is as bad as outsourcing your tests because you aren't quite there yet with your technology, I beg you to reconsider.
One of those is worse than the other. To my knowledge so far, Holmes is not responsible for acts that genuinely put people's lives in danger. Uber is.
You think a glorified taxi company has put more peoples' lives in danger than a company that knowingly sold, deployed, and signed off on an health instrument and lab work that simply did not work?
An instrument and lab work that people relied on to accurately assess the contents of their blood?
An instrument and lab work that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services said "did not comply with certificate requirements and performance standards"
and deemed a:
"immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety"
The reason that the stories about Theranos are about a "bad company doing bad things and Holmes is probably a criminal" is because they are exactly that!
Uber is a taxi company that most people enjoy using, has not fraudulently screwed people over, has at least on a surface level removed a level of racism (my roommate no longer has to ask me to flag a cab down for him btw), and can be linked to a reduction in drunk driving. Yes, their CEO is a douche, and they have a horrible company culture, but they are not systemically screwing people over like Theranos was.
"If Travis Kaladick or whatever his name is were running the company, the narrative would be very different."
Now, given that Uber and Travis have been disparaged by both the press and HN on a regular basis, how would the narrative be different if he was running Theranos?
Do you actually believe that if Travis was in Elizabeth's shoes, we would speak more positively about the general situation?
I don't see how that's true, given that we speak very negatively about him already, and what he has done (behaved like a douche, promoted a bad culture) is, arguably, less egregious than what she has done (committed outright fraud, stolen investors money, possibly killed or at very least jeopardized peoples' health).
Well, of course they do - there are many more men founding startups overall, so they'll get most of the press even if the publications were actually more likely to report women's accomplishments.
With less than 20% of startups having one woman founder (Crunchbase, 2014), what do you expect the press to do?
It is a little like that. It isn't proportional.
Jessica Livingston is one of the two people who dreamed up YC. Paul Graham soon wrangled his previous confounders in on it. I hear vastly more about the three male cofounders than I do about the one female cofounder. Nor do I ever here her get credit proportional to PG. He was the front man. He was replaced by Sam Altman. Sam now gets most of the press.
Maybe this is Jessica being savvy and sidestepping the sexist bs in the world by trying to avoid press. Maybe she is way smarter than me. But I think YC is probably more "her baby" than Paul's or Sam's, yet I never see it framed that way.
If women are 2% of founders and get 1% of the credit, they are still being shorted.
