Skip to main content

The context you need, when you need it

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters — and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our own.

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?

Join now

The Uber manager who headed Susan Fowler’s department has departed

AG Gangadhar ran the engineering unit where the former female engineer — whose blog post on sexism sparked recent investigations — worked.

AG Gangadhar, the head of the engineering department where former Uber employee Susan Fowler worked, has left the car-hailing startup.

former Uber engineer Susan Fowler
former Uber engineer Susan Fowler

The circumstances of his departure are unclear. But, as director of the infrastructure engineering group, Gangadhar was among the managers Fowler referenced in her explosive blog post about the year of sexism, sexual harassment and widespread mismanagement she endured at the ride-hail company, according to sources.

Uber confirmed his departure, adding that it’s unrelated to Fowler’s issues and that all her claims were investigated by law firm Perkins Coie. The company said it has taken every recommended action Perkins Coie made as part of the investigation, including firing 20 employees.

“We thank AG for his contributions to Uber and wish him all the best in his next endeavor,” an Uber spokesperson said in a statement.

Have more information or any tips? Johana Bhuiyan is the senior transportation editor at Recode and can be reached at johana@recode.net or on Signal, Confide, WeChat or Telegram at 516-233-8877. You can also find her on Twitter at @JmBooyah.

Throughout her essay, Fowler referenced a series of managers who had mismanaged her complaints about sexism and sexual harassment. Specifically, Gangadhar was referenced — though not by name — when Fowler wrote about a transfer to another team being blocked.

Several sources said this part of her blog is referring to Gangadhar, who is the “director” named:

“According to my manager, his manager, and the director, my transfer was being blocked because I had undocumented performance problems. I pointed out that I had a perfect performance score, and that there had never been any complaints about my performance. I had completed all OKRs on schedule, never missed a deadline even in the insane organizational chaos, and that I had managers waiting for me to join their team. I asked what my performance problem was, and they didn’t give me an answer.”

In addition, emails that Recode obtained indicate that engineers within Fowler’s department complained to higher-ups that Gangadhar and a subordinate manager were ignoring Fowler’s issues with another manager who had allegedly sexually harassed her.

“Multiple people are pissed off about this stuff being swept under the rug and not being taken more seriously that a new [lady engineer] was sexually harassed by a former manager,” read one email sent to Uber CTO Thuan Pham’s former executive assistant. That person later responded that Pham was aware of the situation and would discuss it with human resources.

That manager who Fowler claimed harassed her was fired five months after she first complained about him to human resources.

Fowler also mentioned Pham in her essay and said she reported the manager who blocked her transfer directly to him and nothing was done.

Some staffers said they were surprised that both Pham and Gangadhar remained in their positions, while other top executives as high-profile as Uber SVP Emil Michael and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick have been forced to resign.

The disconnect between Kalanick’s departure and Pham’s continued employment was highlighted in an internal email that circulated an employee petition to let Kalanick return to the company.

“Meanwhile, can someone explain to me where Thuan Pham resides here?” one staffer wrote in the email thread. “He was the only executive to make an appearance in Susan’s story and somehow this fact is repeatedly lost in the wind, as Susan herself pointed out today in her tweets. Can we just have some kind of public accountability for the concrete issue that has brought Uber to this extremely low point?”

However, sources say Pham has told staffers he had been exonerated by the two investigations, one done by Perkins Coie and the other done by former Attorney General Eric Holder’s law firm Covington & Burling.

The Information reported that part of the evidence Pham presented to the firms included an Oct. 25 email in which he assured Fowler she would not be fired for reporting her manager and that bad management was not acceptable. That said, it’s not clear what happened in the aftermath of that exchange.

The manager who allegedly blocked Fowler’s transfer was not fired but left the company in April 2017, two months after Fowler published her essay.


This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

More in Technology

Podcasts
Are humanoid robots all hype?Are humanoid robots all hype?
Podcast
Podcasts

AI is making them better — but they’re not going to be doing your chores anytime soon.

By Avishay Artsy and Sean Rameswaram
Future Perfect
The old tech that could help stop the next airborne pandemicThe old tech that could help stop the next airborne pandemic
Future Perfect

Glycol vapors, explained.

By Shayna Korol
Future Perfect
Elon Musk could lose his case against OpenAI — and still get what he wantsElon Musk could lose his case against OpenAI — and still get what he wants
Future Perfect

It’s not about who wins. It’s about the dirty laundry you air along the way.

By Sara Herschander
Life
Why banning kids from AI isn’t the answerWhy banning kids from AI isn’t the answer
Life

What kids really need in the age of artificial intelligence.

By Anna North
Culture
Anthropic owes authors $1.5B for pirating work — but the claims process is a Kafkaesque messAnthropic owes authors $1.5B for pirating work — but the claims process is a Kafkaesque mess
Culture

“Your AI monster ate all our work. Now you’re trying to pay us off with this piece of garbage that doesn’t work.”

By Constance Grady
Future Perfect
Some deaf children are hearing again because of a new gene therapySome deaf children are hearing again because of a new gene therapy
Future Perfect

A medical field that almost died is quietly fixing one disease at a time.

By Bryan Walsh