Uber's Silicon Valley Employees May Be Looking to Jump Ship (fortune.com) 92
Some San Francisco-based recruiters and executives at Uber's rival companies told the Financial Times in a Monday article that the number of Uber employees looking to leave the ride-sharing company has spiked. From a report: "One of the main reasons is lack of faith in senior leadership," one unnamed recruiter that previously worked with Uber told the FT. The news comes as the company weathers waves of criticism regarding its leadership, political stance, and internal culture. An Uber spokesperson told the FT that its current level of departures has been normal.
Re:Remember when they poached Carnegie Mellon? (Score:5, Insightful)
Poached? Does your boss own you? Have special rights?
Servile weasel.
Re:Remember when they poached Carnegie Mellon? (Score:5, Funny)
Poached? Does your boss own you? Have special rights?
Servile weasel.
Well, it beats being scrambled or fried, right?
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Really? Another story about Uber not being a paradise of capitalism and unicorns?
I never could have seen it coming that they were an evil company with evil leadership. Oh wait, unless I'd read anything about them in the last two years...
http://observer.com/2016/02/ub... [observer.com]
Re: Remember when they poached Carnegie Mellon? (Score:2)
Jump ship? (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, Uber has boats now?
Re:Jump ship? (Score:5, Funny)
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Uberseeboot, would that be a flying boat?
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When Chennai, India was hit with unexpected rain and a reservoir breached flooding the city, Ola drivers operated rescue service using boats. [qz.com]
My nose smells BS (Score:2, Informative)
You don't leave a 6 figure job because of "lack of confidence in management." You just don't. You milk that puppy until it's dry. Plus, at the end of the day Uber is already profitable in the US. They are bleeding money competing for market share in Europe and China. The whole "profitable in the US" thing escapes the headlines but the are making bank here and they will outside the US too once the market share fight is over.
Re:My nose smells BS (Score:5, Funny)
I thought every job in the silicon valley was a six figure job...
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Uber is in San Francisco, not in the Valley.
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Uber is in San Francisco, not in the Valley.
For most of us outside of the region, the terms are use interchangeably, regardless of geographical correctness. It's just a good moniker to describe the entire job market in the region.
Re: My nose smells BS (Score:2)
I understand the misuse but the places are culturally distinct. Even the few VCs with presence in both hire different kinds of people for their offices.
I remember talking with a taxi driver in Berlin who felt he knew the USA very well -- because he'd been to Miami six times. It's a cognitive bias I'm sure I suffer from too, but it doesn't mean it isn't worth correcting.
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There's a word for this. It's called "conurbation". Practice saying this out loud three times every morning in front of the bathroom mirror and I promise you that this small ritual will cure your pedanticism in record time.
Re:My nose smells BS (Score:5, Insightful)
You do if you can get another comparable job elsewhere that doesn't have the drama currently swirling around Uber.
Regardless of whether it's deserved or not, the media is currently dogpiling Uber. If you're super-committed to the organization and business model, sure, stick around. But if you're just after a paycheck, might as well try to find one that doesn't have a huge target from regulators and the media on its back.
Re:My nose smells BS (Score:5, Interesting)
It all comes down to options vest date. If you options won't vest till after the company is sure to be dead and gone, their is no more bet to be made. Strike price matters too, but if you aren't going to get near to vesting for another 3 years, and you know it's a house of cards run by clowns? (I don't know this, just supposing.)
Best bet might be to move along in a nice orderly fashion, before Uber becomes a resume stain.
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You don't leave a 6 figure job because of "lack of confidence in management." You just don't.
LOL. Your post makes it sound like a 6 figure software developer job is rare. My 6 figure job certainly wouldn't make me stick around if I lost confidence in management. Perhaps if I had some hyper-inflated $300k+ salary position I would stick around on a sinking ship, but $125k-$150k developer jobs grow on trees for anyone skilled enough to deserve that pay level. (even in the Midwest suburbs, not just SV)
Re:My nose smells BS (Score:5, Insightful)
You haven't been around much have you?
Six figures ain't much in the city these days. But senior people _do_ leave because they see trainwrecks coming, sometimes they are right, sometimes they're just butt hurt over something else and being stupid.
If you're working someplace and all the most senior operations people 'step back to spend more time with family' at the same time. Get ready, cause shit is coming.
The best time to look for a job is when you have one.
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Far too coherent, seem somewhat rational. No, you are not.
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If you're working someplace and all the most senior operations people 'step back to spend more time with family' at the same time. Get ready, cause shit is coming.
Quoted for eternity.
The best time to look for a job is when you have one.
Also, quoted for eternity.
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You don't leave a 6 figure job because of "lack of confidence in management." You just don't. You milk that puppy until it's dry.
If you're good enough to command a 6-figure job, then you're good enough to make it fairly easy to find an alternative employer if you don't like your current one. And anyway, what's being reported here is a desire to move jobs, not actual movement.
Plus, at the end of the day Uber is already profitable in the US. They are bleeding money competing for market share in Europe and China. The whole "profitable in the US" thing escapes the headlines but the are making bank here and they will outside the US too once the market share fight is over.
Profitability has nothing to do with it. The "lack of faith in leadership" that is being referred to is not about whether its profitable or not; it's about the repeated and on-going ethics issues that are coming out of the company.
But since you raised profitabil
Alternative Facts (Score:2)
It escapes the headlines for the same reason the Bowling Green Massacre escapes the headlines; it just isn't true. Uber loses money in every major market they operate in. There are only two possible paths to prof
Re: Alternative Facts (Score:2)
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No it doesn't. Uber's business model simply doesn't work. Uber is a company that drives people from A to B for money. There is no fundamental reason why they should be able to do it cheaper than other taxi companies, at least not if they are doing it legally. There's no disruptive technology here, there's just a taxi hailing app.
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Traditional taxis came up with a legalistic definition of taxi. For hire cars that can be hailed on the street.
A hailing app (especially one that works better than physically sticking you hand in the air) breaks the old regulatory model. Uber's aren't taxis, because of how taxi is legally defined.
Which still doesn't make Uber a particularly valuable company. It's still a competitive business and is going to have tight margins by its nature.
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No barriers to entry. Uber will never be able to cash out, the second they try, Lyft (or some other local version) undercuts them.
The fact drivers can work on all these services simultaneously, means they will drive for the service with the highest payments while customers hire the service with lowest rates.
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You don't leave a 6 figure job because of "lack of confidence in management." You just don't.
Well, you're wrong. I have done exactly this.
I left Toshiba more than 5 years ago. My job wasn't difficult, the pay was good, and my immediate supervisor and coworkers were OK to deal with. However, even back then, it was clear that at higher levels, they were making a lot of bad deals that looked good in the short term, but were not good in the long term. They also were transferring power from proven, profitable departments, to recent acquisitions that were questionably run. The only surprise to
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You don't leave a 6 figure job because of "lack of confidence in management." You just don't. You milk that puppy until it's dry. Plus, at the end of the day Uber is already profitable in the US. They are bleeding money competing for market share in Europe and China. The whole "profitable in the US" thing escapes the headlines but the are making bank here and they will outside the US too once the market share fight is over.
Having been on one of these (in dollars atleast) and had the company collapse underneath me. They didn't pay November's salary, and then try getting job mid-way through December when it became clear that there was no continuing. A six-figure salary that is missing 2/12 is no longer that attractive.
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You don't leave a 6 figure job because of "lack of confidence in management." You just don't.
Right. You use it to pad your resume and get a better 6 figure job. That other job may be better because it has more pay, works you less hours, a better team you get along with, or better long term prospects in stability or even better management. It all differs from person to person, and it will be easier to find a new job coming from a still functional company that has public reasons known for wanting to leave.
Tech bashing, not gossip (Score:2)
Uber is the new favorite whipping boy. IBM, Microsoft, Google, HP, they have all had their time in the mud too.
Re: Tech bashing, not gossip (Score:2)
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It always has been. (Score:3)
Leave San Francisco (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Leave San Francisco (Score:4, Insightful)
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Depends on the company/team. I for one would not care if one of my devs was a literal Silent Hill monster as long as it wrote good code with proper unit tests.
Be careful of IP rights (Score:2)
Depends on the company/team. I for one would not care if one of my devs was a literal Silent Hill monster as long as it wrote good code with proper unit tests.
Be careful of IP rights and assignments. The Due Process clause has not been explicitly extended to literal Silent Hill monsters yet and I do not believe there has been litigation in any jurisdiction establishing their right to be treated as persons for purposes of the takings clause or to sign legal documents as they might need to do when applying for a patent or assigning one to your company. That being said, state laws vary considerably and monsters have greater rights in some states than they do in othe
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I for one would not care if one of my devs was a literal Silent Hill monster as long as it wrote good code with proper unit tests.
Well, that's an awfully good way to end up with only one dev left. Would you not care if you couldn't keep more than the silent hill monster on your team?
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We're working on it. For a start, we've just elected a president that doesn't care about SJW issues and just grabs woman at the pussy.
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This is literally what a lot of former-Uber female engineers tend to comment on happening. If it were one or two, okay sure, but it's the vast majority of them.
You're all over the place.
literally
a lot
tend to comment
the vast majority
Please make up your mind and then tell us exactly what your allegations are and cite your source(s). I see a few genuinely alarming stories about Uber and a lot of rehashed hearsay being pushed to the front page--mostly by msmash.
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That grouping of words is all over the place. I suggest learning basic grammar before making such assertions.
Re: Leave San Francisco (Score:2)
No, reality doesn't necessarily subscribe to your delusional narrative.
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Ethical and lawfull are not equal.
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Works for me! All the brogrammer-shitheads can move to Montana or whatever, non-sociopathic adults can have San Francisco back, and I only have to ignore head hunters from one company.
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He believes that flyover country is full of shitheads, and that he represents the "non-sociopathic adults* of San Francisco.
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I agree completely. It is wrong to make such a comment about Montana, or any other state in that part of the country IMO.
Instead, the "brogrammer-shitheads" should be sent to Mississippi. They'd fit in just great there. Alabama is probably also a great destination for them.
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There may be several thousand scattered around, but the concentration of competence is high in the Bay Area. It's why companies continue to sprout up in Silicon Valley, hire the best, do well, make a fortune, etc.
There's value to setting up shop in other places, but they're still likely to be areas of concentration of skills. There are smart people doing great work in Seattle, Boston, Las Vegas, Raleigh, Fairfax, etc. But you're going to have to work a little harder to grow a little slower. It's even ha
drivers better get out be for they go down and the (Score:2)
drivers better get out be for they go down and they end losing all they own when the uber insurance becomes useless
Typical spin (Score:2)
An Uber spokesperson told the FT that its current level of departures has been normal.
Sure, the levels are normal now, but that is not what the article, and recruiters, are saying. From the article:
the number of Uber employees looking to leave the ride-sharing company has spiked.
That means in the future departures should spike accordingly. Just because the Uber Cab Company doesn't see an issue now only means they aren't looking.
Normal top-of-bubble job hopping? (Score:5, Insightful)
This will be my second dotcom bubble, and just like the first I'm working in a non-startup company watching on the sidelines. One thing I noticed about last bubble is that towards the end, people were hopping jobs every 3 to 6 months to try to maximize their salary. If you could spell HTML and CSS back then, or were a reasonably skilled sysadmin, you could hop from startup to startup for 10 or 20% salary bumps just because there was so much of a frenzy.
I guess my question is whether this is normal job hopping or whether people don't want to be associated with Uber given their bad press. Based on reports from colleagues and acquaintances who've worked at startups, all of them have insane cultures so I doubt they're jumping for better working conditions. If they do make it to self-driving cars before the startup bubble pops, and fire all their employees^Windependent contractors, they'll have a near monopoly on phone-initiated taxi service since they're basically giving away rides to boost name recognition.
Unlike most /.ers, I'm inclined to believe some of the allegations about sexism and harassment in these startups. Most don't really have HR departments in the traditional big-company sense -- every big company I've worked for has just said "zero tolerance" and fired anyone involved. Startups work people in insane working conditions, grueling hours and close quarters; I'm sure a lot of employees don't really interact with people outside the company for much of their waking hours, which could definitely lead to "interpersonal issues." And I know anecdote != data, but most inappropriate behavior I've noticed in my career has been in salesy/marketing types -- those slimy middle aged guys leering at younger women that you hope you don't get stuck with when doing engineering work at a customer site. SV startups don't have tons of hardcore "nerds" -- most are just using app SDKs and JavaScript frameworks to write the majority of their code, and so they might trend to the extroverted side of the spectrum more than a heads-down coder working on C++ for an embedded IoT thingy. I hate to use the "brogrammer" stereotype, but I have seen it and while it's not generally true, it exists.
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And this is ultra-liberal Northern Virginia, immediately outside of Washington, D.C.
What planet are you on? NoVA is not "ultra-liberal" by any measure. The biggest tech industry there is most likely defense, and there's nothing about defense that screams "liberal". There are indeed a bunch of liberals inside DC proper, but DC itself is a somewhat small part of the DC metro area. There's some other pockets of liberalism, like downtown Alexandria, but overall NoVA is a fairly conservative place, though n
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I wear hiking boots at work all the time. There's nothing "macho" about modern hiking boots. These aren't Timberlands or steel-toed work boots; modern hiking boots are high-performance footwear, both lightweight and water-resistant, with tread optimized for very rough terrain. Also, there's a difference between hiking boots and backpacking boots (the latter is heavier and sturdier, with tread not as good for rock-hopping). Finally, there's nothing at all macho about the purple-trimmed hiking boots that
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but most inappropriate behavior I've noticed in my career has been in salesy/marketing types
Yeah. There might be sexism among programmers, but it's a rounding error compared to what sales teams do.
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What's more i
Uber worried? (Score:2)
Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?