Olivia: In 2016, the Site Reliability Engineering team at Uber was over 25% women. Within a year, that number plummeted to less than 6%. Jackson: Whoa. That’s not a leak, that’s a flood. What happened? Olivia: That’s the question, isn’t it? This wasn't a random fluctuation. It was a symptom of a system so broken, it would take one 25-year-old's blog post to bring it all down. Jackson: And that’s the story we’re getting into today. Olivia: Exactly. That blog post became the foundation for the book we're diving into: Whistleblower: My Journey to Silicon Valley and Fight for Justice at Uber by Susan Fowler. Jackson: Right. And what’s incredible is that Fowler wasn't some seasoned executive. She was a young engineer who, as we'll see, had been fighting battles for her own autonomy her entire life, coming from a background of poverty and homeschooling to get to the Ivy League and then Silicon Valley. Olivia: Precisely. Her story became a cornerstone of the #MeToo movement, earning her recognition as one of Time magazine's 'Silence Breakers.' But to understand what happened at Uber, you have to understand the fight that started long, long before. It’s a fight she frames around a powerful idea from the philosopher Isaiah Berlin. Jackson: What’s that? Olivia: The desire to be a "subject, not an object." To be the author of your own life, moved by your own reasons, not an object manipulated by the will of others. Jackson: A subject, not an object. That feels like it’s going to be important. Olivia: It’s everything.

Olivia: This struggle for agency didn't start in a tech office. It started in her childhood, growing up in deep poverty in rural Arizona. She had this dream of becoming a professional violinist. She practiced for years, it was her whole identity, her one ticket out. Jackson: Okay, I can see the passion. The one thing that’s truly hers. Olivia: Exactly. And then one day, her competition bow—the one thing she couldn't easily replace—needed to be re-haired. She took it to a local luthier, and while he was working on it… it snapped in half. Jackson: Oh, no. Olivia: Just like that. And because of their poverty, there was no money for a new one. No one in the area could fix it. Her dream, her path out, just vanished overnight. She describes falling into a deep depression, feeling like her life was over before it had even begun. Jackson: Wow, so her dream of being a violinist just... ends? Because they couldn't afford a new bow? That's heartbreaking. It’s the perfect example of being an 'object'—her entire future changed by an external force she had zero control over. Olivia: It's a devastating pattern. And it happens again. After teaching herself her way into college and eventually transferring to the University of Pennsylvania, she discovers a new passion: physics. She’s brilliant at it, she joins a research group, and she’s on track for a PhD. She’s finally found her new path. Jackson: Okay, a comeback story. I like it. Olivia: But then, another student in her department, a young man named Tim, becomes troubled. He starts confiding in her, and his behavior escalates. He sends her photos of him self-harming and eventually threatens suicide. Jackson: That’s an incredibly difficult situation for anyone, let alone a fellow student. Olivia: She does what you’re supposed to do: she reports it to the department. But their response is horrifying. Instead of getting him professional help, the department chair and his advisor basically tell her, "This is your job now." They make her responsible for his mental health. Jackson: Hold on. The university, with all its resources, outsourced a mental health crisis to another student? That’s insane. Olivia: It’s worse. When she tries to set boundaries, they retaliate. They tell her she’s upsetting him. They threaten her academic standing. They rescind her master's degree in philosophy. They effectively destroy her dream of becoming a physicist. The very people who were supposed to be her mentors, her guides, became the external force derailing her life once again. Jackson: So first the violin, now physics. It feels like every time she finds a path, some broken system completely outside her control just shuts it down. She’s being treated like an object again. Olivia: Exactly. And she makes a vow to herself after the Penn experience: she will never, ever let fear stop her from doing what’s right again. She didn’t fight back then, and she regretted it. That vow becomes critical. Jackson: I have a feeling we’re about to see that vow get tested. This pattern of being treated like an 'object' by a broken system at Penn... it sounds like a dress rehearsal for Uber.

Olivia: It was the perfect, tragic dress rehearsal. She lands in Silicon Valley, works at a couple of startups, and then gets a job at Uber, the hottest company in the world at the time. She’s an SRE, a Site Reliability Engineer, a highly respected role. She’s excited. This is it. Jackson: And how long does that excitement last? Olivia: About one day. On her very first day on her new team, her manager, a man the book calls Jake, starts sending her inappropriate messages on the company chat. Jackson: Her first day? What did he say? Olivia: He starts talking about his open relationship, how he and his girlfriend are looking for new partners, and how things get "a little more open on vacations." He’s clearly propositioning her. Jackson: Unbelievable. So she reports him to HR, right? This seems like the most open-and-shut case of harassment imaginable. Olivia: She does. She takes screenshots, documents everything, and goes straight to HR. And this is where the system reveals itself. The HR representative, Karen, tells her that yes, this is clearly sexual harassment. But… Jackson: There’s a ‘but’? Olivia: The ‘but’ is everything. Karen tells her that since Jake is a "high performer" and it’s his "very first offense," they don't feel comfortable doing anything more than giving him a stern talking-to. Jackson: His first offense? How could they possibly know that? Olivia: They couldn't. And as Susan later finds out from other women in the company, it was a blatant lie. Multiple women had reported this exact same manager for the exact same behavior. HR knew. They just lied. Jackson: Wow. So HR isn't there to help the employees. It’s there to protect the 'high performers' and, by extension, the company. Olivia: It’s a legal shield. And to make it worse, they give Susan a "choice." She can either stay on Jake's team—and risk him giving her a bad performance review in retaliation—or she can transfer to a different team. She’s the one being punished for reporting. Jackson: That’s not a choice; it’s a threat. And this is where the book gets its reputation, right? It’s not just one bad apple. It’s the whole orchard. Olivia: It’s the whole orchard. And nothing illustrates the absurdity of the system better than the leather jacket incident. Jackson: I’ve heard about this. It sounds almost too ridiculous to be true. Lay it out for me. Olivia: The SRE organization, which is about 150 people, decides to order custom leather jackets for everyone. A cool perk. But at this point, the number of women on the team has cratered to just six. Jackson: The 6% you mentioned at the start. Olivia: That’s them. Management sends out an email saying they’ll be ordering jackets for all the men, but not for the six women. Jackson: What was the reason? Olivia: The reason was that they couldn't get a bulk discount on the women's jackets because the order was too small. And, they argued, it would be "unfair" to the men if the company spent more money on the women's jackets than the men's. Jackson: Wait. They literally put a price tag on equality, and it was a few hundred dollars? For a multi-billion dollar company? That’s not just a micro-aggression, that’s a macro-insult. Olivia: It’s a perfect, distilled example of the entire culture. The women weren't even worth the cost of a jacket. When Susan reports this to HR, she’s told she’s the problem. Her manager then pulls her aside and threatens to fire her for reporting it, citing California's at-will employment law. Jackson: This is where that vow she made comes back, isn't it? The vow to not be silenced by fear. Olivia: It’s the breaking point. She realizes the system is unfixable from the inside. It’s designed to protect itself, to protect the powerful, and to grind down anyone who questions it. And that’s when the stakes get even higher.

Jackson: So she decides she has to go public. But that’s a huge risk. She’s a young engineer, Uber is a giant. They could ruin her career. Olivia: And they tried. This is where the story turns into something out of a spy thriller. After she leaves Uber and is trying to move on with her life, she meets with Sarah Lacy, a journalist who had also been targeted by Uber. Jackson: What did she learn? Olivia: Lacy introduced her to what she called the "opposition playbook." It’s a systematic strategy powerful entities use to destroy their critics. They hire private investigators. They dig into your past, contacting old friends, neighbors, even professors from a decade ago, looking for any dirt. They follow you. They hack your accounts. They spread rumors to discredit you. Jackson: This is terrifying. It's not just losing your job; it's a full-on psychological warfare campaign. And this was happening to Susan? Olivia: It was. She was being followed. Her friends were getting strange calls. She felt like she was going crazy, but Lacy confirmed it for her: "You are not crazy. This is what they do." Jackson: What gave her the courage to hit 'publish' on that blog post, knowing all that? Olivia: It goes back to that core theme. She was tired of being an object. She reflects on Stoic philosophy—the idea that you can't control what others do, but you can control your own character and your own actions. She realized that staying silent, giving in to fear, was a choice. And she chose to be a subject. She chose to tell the truth, regardless of the consequences. Jackson: And the consequences were massive. Olivia: The blog post, "Reflecting on One Very, Very Strange Year at Uber," went viral instantly. Millions of reads in hours. It triggered a massive public outcry. Uber was forced to hire former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct an independent investigation. Jackson: The Holder Report. That was a huge deal. Olivia: It was. The report validated her claims and exposed the deeply toxic culture. It led to over 20 employees being fired, and ultimately, it created so much pressure that Uber’s board forced the CEO, Travis Kalanick, to resign. Jackson: All from one blog post. Olivia: All from one person deciding she would no longer be an object. She refused to be a casualty of a broken system. Instead, she became the force that broke it.

Olivia: So when you look at the whole story, it’s so much more than a tale of workplace harassment. It was the culmination of a lifetime of fighting to be the author of her own story. She wasn't just taking on a manager or a bad HR department. Jackson: She was taking on a system that repeatedly tried to turn her into an object. A system that tells you your dreams don't matter because a bow snapped, or your career doesn't matter because a "high performer" is more valuable, or your equality doesn't matter because it costs more than a man's. Olivia: Exactly. The book is a testament to the idea that individual courage, when aimed at a systemic weakness, can have an earth-shattering impact. Her story didn't just change Uber; it sent a shockwave through all of Silicon Valley and became a catalyst for the #MeToo movement in the tech world. Jackson: It makes you wonder how many brilliant people are pushed out of their fields, not because of a lack of talent, but because of these broken systems. How many potential Susan Fowlers just quietly quit because the fight is too exhausting? Olivia: It’s a sobering thought. But her story also offers a powerful counter-narrative. It shows that even when you feel powerless, your voice can matter. It’s a profound story of resilience. Jackson: It really is. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What part of Susan's journey resonated most with you? The early struggles, the corporate gaslighting, the final act of courage? Find us on our socials and let us know. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.