I'm not sure whether watching HBO's Silicon Valley or just pulling up HN has given me more belly laughs at the inanity of the current state of tech over this past 12 months.
https://www.crunchbase.com/funding-round/3561e0558d4fa07f0dc...
On the other hand, the internet offers a layer of perceived anonymity that causes people to say things they never would, or should, in person. Things that they would be ashamed if that had to repeat to peers, in person.
It's a strange time to be alive.
The theory says it shouldn't matter who you are it should only be based on your professional ability. And in theory it wouldn't make a difference to the ability of a company to function whether the gender or racial mix was one sided or not.
The reality is different. The reality is that having a uniform gender and race mix across a company causes all sorts of problems to the culture which in turn flows through to the companies actions and behaviours. And so if you want your company to be healthy you need to have at least some mix of men and women and races because the fact is that employees simply behave differently when there is a mix.
Given the politics of the situation, reasonable people might hear in this: "A woman should not be hired for this role."
Imagine the optics of replacing a sexist old man with another sexist old man. Worth the risk to shareholder value?
On another note it's getting harder and harder to separate the news out of Uber from satire. Watching the car accident continue over again at head office feels like I'm sometimes caught reading The Onion.
On the scale of things said about women by men in power this is about a 2/10, there's many much more egregious examples of sexism out there for people to be upset about.
The comment in itself is an everyday (unacceptable but everyday) example of misogyny. But to judge it based on the abstract is frankly absurd.
However, the comment, as does everything, exists in context. If he said this a year ago...its in the report. If he said it two years ago, everyone laughs. To say it not just in the present moment, but AT THE MEETING where Uber is trying to move beyond this culture is unacceptable. It isn't about the comment itself even, its about how the comment undermines everything Uber is trying to do right now. If they had not let him go they likely would have opened themselves up to lawsuits from every other person they fired, and the attempts at cultural change would have literally died at birth.
What possess someone to say something like that at a time like that. Maybe try keeping ya gob shut.
Maybe it'd be nice for a change if men in power were generally saying pleasant things about women.
That there are worse things happening in other places doesn't mean we can't also expect better behaviour from those in front of us now.
P.S. Hello from the south island
It also seems like, given the context of the remarks, the (probably little) harm this causes him, and the potential for a new board member who's hopefully more inclusive, that hopefully something good comes of this.
Not so cheeky coming from this person at that time and place, though.
Edit: Curious at the downvotes for an honest attempt at a reasonable discussion on the issue. Such are the times.
If he hasn't learned by now what is appropriate behaviour, why do you think he'll ever learn?
And if he doesn't learn rapidly and advance with best practices in corporate culture and governance, then he's not capable of the leadership and management responsibilities of a board member.
The 'teachable moments' were at least 3 years ago, if not much earlier. The firing offence is ignoring them.
