Uber: #Whatdoyoudo?

9 Pages·2018·0.267 MB·English

by  Stephen E Maiden, Gerry Yemen, Lynn Isabella

UVA-OB-1218
Jun. 26, 2018

Uber: #WhatDoYouDo?

You can’t believe your day started out this way. Looking at an email on your screen, all you see is the title
of it: “My boss just propositioned me for sex on my first day.” The sender was a 24-year-old woman named
Susan Fowler, a site reliability engineer (SRE). The date was December 4, 2015.
As a rising star in the human resources group of a hip and successful tech company, you were used to
headaches. They were part of your job. Handling them—the gripes and complaints of an overworked staff
s.
n during the hypergrowth start-up years—got you promoted to vice president at 28 years old. You are now the
o
si recently hired CHR of Uber, a ride-share company on the cusp of an IPO. This messy email was one of many
s
aterialsontactr permi issueYs oyuo ur ejuresta din htheeri teemd. a il from Fowler. Unfortunately, the words didn’t change. A screenshot from the
ute. Additional men.virginia.edu. Cpublishing.com fo c“lIlea’oAmiadmdt ! s!Apt hWwaLeniWh tyrha iAcs ty khuYo a ouStth f. w wiIgn aheokstar ?takv iDntietng arag ci i.nghn kAie rstdllr,?l. o ” bfOu1ou brnt l iettih t’s,(e I V a ganllla owodrpa yZye sonie f sgt ehmleeinrmo,g t th,th oeyera h ykUoenrBuoenE—wgR? hw ,A aor!ni)rg,dk hIa ts h?hw!o!eo l’Aisuc l ngdmey twlatonianvaygeg, elttarooi u dogg flr hiatk hbete o ed SvrmRienreEkye s twt eageaniermdlks e .sh neAadedn . wdHw hrateoi!t r tBeeg uneittt,
bds “My, my, my,” you say under your breath as you head to the company Box to read all the collected
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y at de entrepreneur and board member—the more you learned, the more you realized you lacked the whole story.
ope ar Now you wonder: How did you get here, and what will you do?
cbld
not ailas@
ase do y be avmission Clash with Human Resources
Plemaper Poking through documentation, you discover that two days after the Ziegler email, Fowler sat before her
direct HR supervisor, Christine Suarez, in a glass-encased conference room in Uber’s San Francisco
headquarters. Fowler spoke first.
“Ms. Suarez, I…”

1 Created from information in Susan Fowler’s blog post: Susan Fowler, “Reflecting on One Very, Very Strange Year at Uber,” Susan Fowler (blog),
https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber (accessed Mar. 29, 2018).

This public-sourced case was prepared by Stephen Maiden, Case Writer, Gerry Yemen, Senior Researcher, and Lynn A. Isabella, Associate Professor of
Business Administration. Although the case is based on actual events, all thoughts by and conversations between real people are entirely fictional and
were created for pedagogical purposes. The characters Chrissy Suarez, Vlad Ziegler, Jennifer Robinson, and Amar Gupta are also fictional. It was written
as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation. Copyright  2018 by the University
of Virginia Darden School Foundation, Charlottesville, VA. All rights reserved. To order copies, send an email to [email protected]. No
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise—without the permission of the Darden School Foundation. Our goal is to publish materials of the highest quality, so please submit any errata
to [email protected].
Page 2 UVA-OB-1218

“Please call me Chrissy. You make me feel like an old maid.”
“Sorry, Chrissy. Thank you for meeting with me. I’m sure you’ve seen my email and the language used by
Vlad?”
“I have, yes.”
“Well, I know I’m new here, but this seemed incredibly inappropriate coming from my boss.”
“I understand. May I ask, did you do anything to bring this on from Vlad? To encourage it?”
“It was my first day! Like, the first half of my first day in the group. I had just finished two weeks of training.
No. I mean, I have never met him before. So, no. Is this normal behavior from him?”
s. Suarez shifted in her seat. “No. It is not. In fact, it is the first complaint HR has received about Vlad. He
n
o is an extremely high performer.”2
si
s
erialsntactpermi “But, isn’t this sexual harassment? A boss propositioning his employee for sex?”
matCoor Suarez paused for a beat to look at Fowler. She was a brunette, petite, with bright brown eyes and a fit
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Adrgishi and at one point a high school teacher.3 Fowler had been a babysitter and ranch hand who mostly taught herself
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y at de president directly to study physics. Now she was 24 years old. A physicist. A computer scientist.
ope ar
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you understand? You’ve got a seat.”
Fowler’s face corkscrewed. “I’m not sure I follow you. I’m excited to be with Uber, don’t get me wrong.
But are you telling me I have to work with Vlad after that?”
Suarez straightened and looked directly at Fowler. “No. You don’t have to. You have two choices: you can
find another team in Uber engineering to work with or you can stay where you are. We will talk to Vlad and

2 Created from information in https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
3 Maureen Dowd, “Being Susan Fowler: How the 26-Year-Old Brought Down Uber CEO Travis Kalanick,” Economic Times, October 23, 2017,
https://auto.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/being-susan-fowler-how-the-26-year-old-brought-down-uber-ceo-travis-
kalanick/61180373 (accessed Mar. 30, 2018).
4 Nina Zipkin, “12 Amazing Things We Learned About Susan Fowler, the Woman Who Disrupted Uber,” Entrepreneur, October 23, 2017,
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/303550 (accessed Mar. 30, 2018).
5 Created from information in https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
Page 3 UVA-OB-1218

tell him to cut it out. But that’s as far as we’ll go. Frankly, he’s too valuable to the company. He’s the type of
guy around here you are better off becoming indispensable with. He’s a riser.”
“That doesn’t seem like much of an option. I really want to stay on the team. I have a ton of expertise in
the exact project they are struggling with.”
“Then stay. Just understand that you are at risk of receiving a poor performance review from Vlad if you
want to file this complaint. And if he does, it would not be considered retaliation because you have been offered
a choice.”6
Fowler sat dumbfounded, looking like she’d just been startled awake. Suddenly, Suarez popped up from
her chair and looked down at Fowler. “Do you still want to file the complaint?”
Fowler looked up slowly and said with surprising force, “Yes.”
s.
n
o
si
s A Friday Night Awakening
erialsntactpermi A few months later, Fowler smiled as she walked into Uber’s spacious entry atrium. It was the usual Friday
ator
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Adrgishi over $50 billion and there was open talk of an IPO that would make everyone partying around her insanely
ute. en.vipubli rich.
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y at de the company in an interview as “Boob-er” because it helped him meet girls.7 On Mondays, stories made the
ope ar rounds about who had hooked up. Panties and condoms were even discovered in the stairwells a few times.
cbld
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Plemaper working on Uber’s pricing algorithm.
“Great. I’m loving it. I have a ton of autonomy. Been working on a production-readiness process. I’ve even
started writing a book on it.”
Robinson started singing, “This girl is on fire!”
“Ha! Yeah, big improvement.”
“What group did you come from again?”

6 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
7 Marco della Cava, Jessica Guynn, and Jon Swartz, “Uber’s Kalanick Faces Crisis over ‘Baller’ Culture,” USA Today, February 24, 2017,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/02/24/uber-travis-kalanick-/98328660/ (accessed Mar. 29, 2018).
8 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
Page 4 UVA-OB-1218

“Micro services.”
“Oooh. Vlad’s group.”
“You know him?”
“Girl, every woman at Uber knows Vlad—knows to stay away from him.”
Fowler’s eyes went wide. “That’s why I left the group. He made these creepy comments to me. My first
day!”
“That’s ridiculous. Getting propositioned by Vlad is like a rite of passage. It happened to me too! You
know what’s the craziest thing—that I actually reported it to HR.”
s. “Me too!” said Fowler. “I even went over Vlad’s head to upper management. Nothing ever happened to
n
o him, though.”
si
s
erialsntactpermi HR fAosr tsheex uwaol mhaernas csmomenpta.r Tedh es tmoroieres, tthheeyy s dpioskcoe vtehree dan tghraiet rn toh eleys asl lt hgaont. fBoeufro oref ltohnegm, ah padla nre wpoasr theadt cZhieedg.l er to
ator
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ditional nia.edu. ng.com f Back in the Conference Room
Adrgishi Fowler sat with quiet confidence before Suarez two weeks later in the same conference room. All four
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ope ar
cbld “But that’s not—”
not ailas@
ase do y be avmission you “foLrewt amrdee dfi.n”i sh. Vlad is a top performer. He has never been reported to HR before, outside of the chats
Plemaper “That’s not correct!”
“It is correct, Miss Fowler.” Suarez glared across the dark oak table. “It is correct and the other women
I’ve just met had nothing negative to say about Vlad either. Nothing at all. It is just you, Miss Fowler. So I
suggest you drop it and return to work.”
The lie was so breathtaking that Fowler simply rose from her chair, turned, and walked out the door.
“Bro Culture” on Steroids
For about six months, things got better. Sort of. Fowler threw herself into the job. Working alongside some
of the most talented engineers in the Bay Area, Fowler persevered to meet impossible deadlines. The work was
stimulating and intense and the growth in the company’s value was dizzying. Fowler’s restricted stock units
Page 5 UVA-OB-1218

were rising. On a calendar, Fowler ticked off each day to the vesting date when she would own her stock, free
and clear.
But cultural problems continued to surface. Robinson told Fowler about the infamous “Miami letter” that
Kalanick had emailed to the 400 Uber employees in 2013 before an all-expense-paid party weekend to Florida’s
Shore Club. Therein, the CEO had offered advice on avoiding a $200 “puke charge,” drug use, and throwing
beer kegs off buildings.9 He had also advised, “Do not have sex with another employee UNLESS a) you have
asked that person for that privilege and they have responded with an emphatic ‘YES! I will have sex with you’
AND b) the two (or more) of you do not work in the same chain of command. Yes, that means that Travis will
be celibate on this trip #CEOLife #FML.”10
Then there were tales from the “workstation” in Las Vegas during the summer of 2015, just before Fowler
joined the company. Beyoncé performed at the rooftop bar of the Palms Hotel. Employees lounged by the
pool, drank, and hit nightclubs. Cocaine use was rampant in the bathrooms at private parties.11 One employee
s.
n hijacked a private shuttle bus, filled it with friends, and took it on a joy ride. A director shouted a homophobic
o
si slur at a subordinate during a meeting.12 A manager groped several female co-workers’ breasts and was fired 12
s
erialsntactpermi hours later.
ator And it wasn’t just the “bro culture,” as Fowler referred to it. At one team meeting, Fowler watched in
mCo
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ute. Aden.virgipublishi (wEhxichhi bhiat d1 )d sruivcehn a gs r“eLate tg brouwildthe.r1s4 bBuuiltd F,”o “wAlelrw aalysso b sea whu dsotlwinn’,s”i d“eTso. e-stepping,” and “Principled confrontation,”
bds One day she emailed her boss, Amar Gupta, after other engineers she respected transferred to a less chaotic
or redistristore.darnbusines ethneg inneexetr idnagy .o rganization in the company. Fowler asked for a transfer too. Gupta called Fowler into his office
y at de “I can’t transfer you,” he said.
ope ar
cbld
not ailas@ “Why not? I received a perfect performance score in my last review. That’s the requirement.”
ase do y be avmission “You are not being technical enough.”15
Plemaper “Technical? I’ve never missed a deadline and other managers are waiting for me to join their team.”
“You’ve had undocumented performance problems, Susan.”16

9 Kara Swisher and Johanna Bhuiyan, “ Uber CEO Kalanick Advised Employees on Sex Rules for a Company Celebration in 2013 ‘Miami Letter,’”
Recode, June 8, 2017, https://www.recode.net/2017/6/8/15765514/2013-miami-letter-uber-ceo-kalanick-employees-sex-rules-company-celebration
(accessed Mar. 29, 2018).
10 https://www.recode.net/2017/6/8/15765514/2013-miami-letter-uber-ceo-kalanick-employees-sex-rules-company-celebration.
11 Mike Issac, “Inside Uber’s Aggressive, Unrestrained Workplace Culture,” New York Times, February 22, 2017.
12 Issac.
13 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
14 Rodrigo Bastos, “Toxic Organizational Culture and Lessons Learned from Uber,” Target Teal, August 14, 2017,
https://targetteal.com/en/blog/uber-organizational-culture/ (accessed Jun. 14, 2018)
15 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
16 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
Page 6 UVA-OB-1218

Fowler decided not to push. At the next review season, Fowler received another perfect score.17 She let a
few more months pass and then approached Gupta again to transfer.
“I’m sorry, Susan, your performance review was updated after the official reviews were, uh, calibrated. So
you’re not eligible for transfer.”
Fowler saw red. “What calibration? You can’t just change my performance without telling me!”
“I’m telling you now. Besides, management doesn’t believe you are demonstrating enough upward career
trajectory.”18
Fowler shook her head. “But I’m publishing a book with O’Reilly. I’m speaking at major tech conferences.
What else—”
s. “This conversation is over. You need to prove yourself as an engineer. Transferring teams is a privilege.”
n
o
si
s That night, Fowler realized that the altered performance review would also cost her a spot in the Uber-
erialsntactpermi staprognesteodr.e dC oSrtnanerfeodrd. F Coor mthpeu ftiresrt Sticmieen icne yPeraorsg,r sahme schriee’dd. bBeuetn s htaek ailnsgo dreurreiandg hneirg hemts palnody ewe eceoknetnradcst. 1a9n Fdo Gwoleorg fleeldt
ator
mCo California’s discrimination laws for the first time.
ditional nia.edu. ng.com f Leather Jackets and Sexism
Adrgishi
bute. den.vispubli femaBley efnalgl in2e0e1r6s, hfaedm dalreo pepnegdin teoe rlse sws etrhea nv o6t%in.g20 aFboowutle Ur ebveern’s obvreor hceualtrudr eh ewr imtha nthaegierr fbeoeta.s tTinhge apbeorcuet nkteaegpei nogf
or redistristore.darnbusines halel.r Eovne hryis t itmeaem a bseecxaisuts eem ita mil awdaes hseimnt ,l osohke fgoorowda rtod esdti lilt htoa vHe Rw otom keene pw oa rrkeicnogr dw igtohi nhgim. . Fowler documented it
y at de Things came to a head over leather jackets, of all things. The head of engineering took measurements to
ope ar fit each of the 126 engineers for a leather jacket as a reward for reaching a goal. One day, the women received
not cailabls@d awnr oetme atihl astt,a “tiInfg y tohue yw coomueldnn r’te ajullsyt iwfya nptla ecqinuga laitny ,o yrodue rs fhooru tlhde rmea sliiznec ey othue arere w geerteti nogn leyq suixa liwtyo mbye nn.o Tt hgeet tdiinrge ctthoer
ase do y be avmission jmacokreet sp.e21r Bjaecckaeut sfeo rth tehree waroem seon m. Iafn yyo mu ceann, wfine dc alena tohredre rja tchkeeitrss fionr bthuelk m. Ietn ws’o buuldlkn ’dt ibsceo fuanirt ttoh atth yeo mu elink et,o w sep ecnand
Plemaper do that. Best I can offer.” Again, Fowler forwarded the email chain to HR.
The following week, Suarez didn’t rise as Fowler strode into the same glass-encased conference room.
Fowler sat down at the same dark table, waiting for Suarez to look up from a notebook.
“I’ve received your emails, Miss Fowler. All of them. About many things. This week you’ve emailed me
about leather jackets.”
“Yes.”

17 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
18 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
19 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
20 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
21 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
Page 7 UVA-OB-1218

“Yes. Leather jackets.” Suarez fixed Fowler with scalding eyes. “Have you noticed, Miss Fowler, that the
common theme in all these reports you’ve been making is you?”22
“Me?”
“You. It seems to me, and to all of us in HR, that you might be the problem.”
“That’s ridiculous! I’m not even a main character in most of the sexist situations I’ve forwarded you. It’s
all been documented. I’m certainly not an instigator.”
“It’s all been documented? Honey, there’s not even a firm record outside of your reports that any of these
incidents even happened.”23
Fowler set her jaw. “That is simply wrong. I have email and chat records I can show you with other female
s. engineers around each incident.”
n
o
si
s “Oh is that right? Do you all talk a lot? How unprofessional. You do know we’re trying to run a business,
erialsntactpermi nooftte na gyoosus iapr eh toaulksein. gY. oWu hkanto ywo uw ahraet ?ta”l kSiunagr eazb’os uvto. iWce hwaet netm sahirl ialld. d“rIe wssaenst ytoou k anlol wus ew. hWo hyaotu c ahraet traolkoimngs tyoo.u H uoswe.
ator
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Adrgishi have left the engineering group recently.”
ute. en.vipubli “That’s not my problem,” Suarez seethed. “Different people are better suited to different jobs. Different
bds
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y at de Fowler rose to leave. “I’ve got to go.”
ope ar
not cailabls@d “Go and do your job!” Suarez shouted.
ase do y be avmission The Final Straw
Plemaper Things started moving quickly after that. Just five days later, Gupta invited Fowler into the office normally
used for reviews. “I heard about your run-in with HR. I’m afraid we’ve got to have a difficult conversation,
Susan.”
Fowler’s body tensed in her chair. “Okay.”
“You’re on thin ice here for reporting my manager, our group head, to HR24 over this leather jacket thing.
I’m not sure what you were thinking. See, California is an at-will employment state, which means we can fire
you if you ever do this sort of thing again. And I will.”
Fowler’s eyes spread wide. “That’s illegal. You just threatened me.”

22 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
23 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
24 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
Page 8 UVA-OB-1218

“Illegal? Look, I’ve managed people for years in this state. I know what’s illegal. I’m telling you facts. You
keep reporting things to HR, you’ll be fired. Facts. Nothing illegal about it.”
After the meeting Fowler reported the threat to HR and to Uber’s CTO, who both admitted the threat had
been illegal.25 But still, nothing was done about it. A week later, in December 2016, Fowler found a new job.
On her last day at Uber, she calculated that of over 150 engineers, just 3% were women.26
The Blog Post Drops and Here You Are
Two months later, Fowler decided to write a blog post about “one very, very strange year at Uber.”27 She
had already started working as the editor-in-chief of Increment, dubbed “The New Yorker of Silicon Valley,” for
the payment-processing company Stripe, but the questions hadn’t stopped from friends and colleagues. Why
had she left Uber? Fowler was brutally honest in her post. About the sexual harassment, the sexism, the bro
s.
n culture, the failures of HR and in senior management. The blog post dropped February 19, 2017. Within hours,
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si it went viral. Fowler was forced to disable the comment section because there were too many to keep up with,
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25 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
26 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
27 https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber.
Page 9 UVA-OB-1218

Exhibit 1
Uber: #WhatDoYouDo?
14 Uber Cultural Values

Uber Mission Customer Obsession
Celebrate Cities Make Big, Bold Bets
Meritocracy and Toe-Stepping Make Magic
Principled Confrontation Be an Owner, Not a Renter
Winning: Champion’s Mindset Be Yourself
Let Builders Build Optimistic Leadership
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