While Uber has been trying to battle the sexist and misogynistic environment at their workplace, one of its board members named David Bonderman decided it was simply okay to crack a joke about women at their all-hands meeting yesterday. This immediately spurred outrage against the incompetent approach of the company towards fixing its culture.
Thus, moments later, Bonderman has resigned from the board of directors to not harm the company’s ongoing efforts to better the internal gender biasing. Uber was accused of workplace sexual harassment by a former female engineer a couple months back. The said remarks were backed by others within the rid-hailing giant and Uber called for an independent investigation into the situation, who’s results and recommendations have been made public today.
bonderman statement pic.twitter.com/JnP935pq3T
— ಠ_ಠ (@MikeIsaac) June 14, 2017
This development was first reported by the New York Times, where Bonderman himself confirmed his decision before releasing an official statement. He states that he was reckless and not thinking straight when he made the snark comment about women on stage at the meeting, which had been organized to assure the company’s employees of the opposite. Talking about his inexcusable actions in an email statement, Bonderman mentions:
Today at Uber’s all-hands meeting, I directed a comment to my colleague and friend Arianna Huffington that was careless, inappropriate, and inexcusable. The comment came across in a way that was the opposite of what I intended, but I understand the destructive effect it had, and I take full responsibility for that.
The said action has spiraled down after an audio recording of the meeting, as reported earlier, revealed that Bonderman made an inexcusable comment about the increase in female representation on the board. He said that adding more women to the board is going to only lead to more talking — an utterly sexist statement that was said to Huffington Post founder and fellow board member Arianna Huffington. Further, talking about his departure, he continues to add:
I do not want my comments to create distraction as Uber works to build a culture of which we can be proud. Uber is examining the issues with its culture, and making significant changes and working to right what has been done wrong, which is extremely important for the future of the company.
Speaking of his decision to depart Uber, Arianna Huffington in a statement said,
I appreciate David doing the right thing for Uber at this time of critical cultural changes at the company.
Uber has recently been marred with intense troubles, which kicked off with the sexual harassment allegations and have now caught up to the company. It has also been accused of tracking Lyft drivers, debarring local regulators from using its platform, CEO Travis Kalanick getting into an argument with an UberBlack driver and its embroiling lawsuit with Google’s self-driving unit Waymo.
As for the outcome of Holder’s investigation, Uber has let go around twenty employees including Kalanick’s second-in-command and Senior VP of Business, Emil Michael. Even the chief executive has decided to take a leave of absence, due to some recent tragic events, handing over the responsibilities of the $68 billion ride-hailing giant to his highly competent staff members.
