Nothing there. The article says "maybe they will fire CTO and Graves" and then goes on to discuss how bad it would look. The initial premise however is that the firings would be done to make the company look better. Makes zero sense and contains no new information.
>He has already been frequently away from the office, sources say, and his absence is unlikely to have a huge impact on the day-to-day operations of the company.<p>> But he is a loyalist<p><pre><code> This explains a lot.</code></pre>
That's interesting. In a bigger company how much of a responsibility should the CTO have to handle harassment incidents. Imo, as long as he or she hands off to the coo (say), or hr chief, the responsibility is complete. The CTO should not be regularly dealing with these sorts of issues, that's not what they were hired for.... (With understanding that <i>legally</i> that may not be the case)
> [Firing these guys] would certainly prove that Uber no longer rewards “high performers” in spite of human resources infractions.<p>No... it would only prove they are willing to throw a few to the mob to save the rest.
Was there any new information from the investigation in this article or was it strictly a hit piece? I've read it twice and the only thing it is saying is that two executives were responsible because of their position in the org chart, which isn't new information AFAIK.<p>Since it doesn't seem that Graves or Thuan did anything wrong, I'm trying to understand what vested interest recode has in terms of trying to get either executive thrown under the bus. Do they just want another executive out, any executive, so they can write another piece about people who have left the company?<p>At worst, one can make some sort of claim of professional negligence due to their positions but it's entirely possible the buck stopped with Renee. We simply don't have enough information to judge either of these two at this point but Recode is painting them as guilty. If they have smoking gun evidence, they should present that, but if they are trying to ruin the lives of these two for the sake of ad impressions, that's incredibly slimy and a breach of professional ethics for a journalist.<p>The only new information AFAICT are a few insider opinions about these two executives that may have come from someone being merely descriptive or with an ax to grind. Those quotes were also completely unrelated to the investigation. Recode isn't practicing journalism here. They are using a few quotes to craft they own story that is pure speculation. Last I heard, that's called fiction, not journalism. One should not be writing fiction that will be interpreted as fact when it can cause real people to be hurt without merit.
As soon as a senior executive becomes aware of any kind of illegal activity, malfeasance or behavior for which the company could be held liable, it becomes their responsibility.<p>When Fowler reported her harassment & HR's failures directly to Thuan, he became obligated by fiduciary duty to deal with the problem. Thuan could not just hand it off to HR because HR (which was Graves' responsibility) had already failed Fowler--which is why she reported it to Thuan.<p>Uber has never disputed Fowler's report, which points directly at Thuan & Graves. We'll see at the end of the month, but this kind leak from Uber suggests that the publicly released version of Holder's report will be PR puffery that'll blame it all on Thuan & Graves & attempt to vindicate Kalanick. Expect Huffington as the media messenger. She'll be outraged when anyone dares to suggest Travis knew. And ask if the interviewer is actually questioning Holder's integrity.<p>I'm not sure who'd believe that Kalanick didn't know about any of it regardless.
<a href="https://backchannel.com/how-the-tech-press-forces-a-narrative-on-companies-it-covers-5f89fdb7793e" rel="nofollow">https://backchannel.com/how-the-tech-press-forces-a-narrativ...</a><p>"A company’s narrative moves like a clock: it starts at midnight, ticking off the hours. The tone and sentiment about how a business is doing move from positive (sunrise, midday) to negative (dusk, darkness). And often the story returns to midnight, rebirth and a new day."<p>I feel like Uber is starting to see if it can hit midnight.
>As a high-profile non-white engineering executive at a company that is under scrutiny for its lack of diversity among its technical employee<p>Why does this matter