Susan Fowler

Susan Fowler Physicist and Software Engineer Great blog at https://www.susanjfowler.com

"When some employees complained internally about what they felt was racist and misogynist branding created by CloudKitchens for customers, like "happy ending" for dessert at an Asian restaurant, Kalanick said the startup did not seek to accommodate the press or woke culture. " Wow. I am astonished that someone like Kalanick, who is in some ways so smart and business savvy, can make mistakes like this twice. In case anyone is unfamiliar with early Uber culture, I highly recommend reading Susan Fowler's account of being a female engineer at Kalanick-heyday-era Uber. https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-str…

You'd be surprised how many of us sit in the same boat. I'm constantly asking myself the same question — all the time. Years ago, I wanted to work for Amazon — eventually I got there (I'm here now) and although I do love it, I'm still asking myself: "what's next?" Coming from a networking administration background, building packet processing devices for AWS has been nothing short of a dream. But again, I'm still asking myself: what's next? As I write this, I don't think I'll ever have it all figured out. Don't know if I will ever figure it. However, it's part of the journey and along the way, I found a lot of comfort is Susan Fowler's post: https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/5/21/life-without-a-destiny

You'd like to know more about the author? https://www.susanjfowler.com/

This is cool as always, but in case anybody is seriously contemplating using it: this list is infamous for its complete uselessness for anybody actually trying to learn. It's mostly recommended because of 't Hooft's name, but it doesn't reflect how he actually learned physics himself, nor how anybody ever has, really. It's been "under construction" (i.e. completely abandoned) for two decades. Half the links are broken, and the ones that aren't tend to be whatever the top Google hit was in the 90s, not what's pedagogically best. If you're serious about learning physics, there are many much better roadmaps, like Susan Fowler's list (https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/13/so-you-want-to-learn-physi…

As an aside, what a great 2019 reading list! https://www.susanjfowler.com/reading-list

I find it weird that on her main page [0], she has put a large photo of hers with the title "Whistleblower". I mean, since when did whistleblowing become a profession/job?! And for someone who's supposedly working in the tech industry, does it really reflect good on the person to identify herself mainly as a whistleblower? [0] https://www.susanjfowler.com/

>Boldly expect acceptance, and my experience has been -- you will receive it. Thank you for your 2 anecdotes! Perhaps since Susan Fowler [0] followed your advice and did not achieve results, you will give her anecdote the same argumentative weight you give yours. But there is a troubling trend I want to oppose. People seem to argue that getting vindictively angry and fighting for your rights is wrong, and that its better to sit back and let others like you be oppressed. Fortunately, someone else has written on the subject far more eloquently than I have. [1] [0] https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-str… [1] https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

Uber is in a difficult position. On the one hand, Kalanick has built a massive company. On the other hand, Holder's investigation turned up serious problems with the work culture. And employees, drivers, and investors are caught between these. To understand it from the inside, the best source I've seen is Susan Fowler's post "Reflecting on one very strange year at Uber". https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-str…

As always, this is written by someone who admits to never having learned to reason abstractly about algebraic objects, because it is hard. Quoting from the OP: > The traditional arithmetic I learned in the early grades made sense to me because I could relate it back to real-world things. Later, when I was learning how to design, finding the area of a circle proved essential to practical tasks such as sizing hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders. I could do trigonometry by visualizing, for example, the cables on a suspension bridge. But algebra: no. For a different perspective, I recommend reading instead Susan Rigetti (nee Fowler)'s posts about overcoming challenges to learn Math and Physics. She says she had to solve what felt like "millions of exercises" to become familiar with many abstract concepts, until they finally clicked for her and she was able to reason about them. In her words: "Solving problems is the only way to understand mathematics. There's no way around it." https://www.susanrigetti.com/math https://www.susanrigetti.com/physics https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/26/from-the-fledgling-physici…

First up, I am no expert, but I have traveled this road for a while so I'll share a bit. I see Susskind's theoretical minimum is plugged here. Good. That is a fantastic place to start. Start at the beginning. Skip nothing. Leverage what you know against what you don't. You remember how to find an extremum of a function from Cal 1? The first order necessary condition for an extreme point is that the derivative of the function be zero. Remember that when you get to (deterministic) optimization and a gradient needs to be zero. Next with a constrained optimization you will see the reformulation of an objective function and constraints into one functional by using new variables (Lagrange "multipliers") so that when the gradient of this new functional is zero, not only are you somewhere in the intersection of the constraints and the objective, but you also meet the first order conditions necessary for an extremum to be found. (Second order sufficiency conditions (SOSC) are needed to show that you aren't instead at an inflection point but we are moving fast and breaking things) Hmm, I didn't say that very well, but there is much intuition to be found in optimization problems. This will serve you well in physics. Calculus of variations: Nail down cold how to derive the Euler Lagrange Equations for a functional. Hint, Apply the FONC (first order necessary conditions for an extremum) to the functional (now the Action) in question. See Lanczos "Calculus of Variations"…

https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-str… For those that didn't google her. The first hit I got was a blog post about her sexual harassment at Uber. After reporting the incident: "I was then told that I had to make a choice: (i) I could either go and find another team and then never have to interact with this man again, or (ii) I could stay on the team, but I would have to understand that he would most likely give me a poor performance review when review time came around, and there was nothing they could do about that. I remarked that this didn't seem like much of a choice, and that I wanted to stay on the team because I had significant expertise in the exact project that the team was struggling to complete (it was genuinely in the company's best interest to have me on that team), but they told me the same thing again and again. One HR rep even explicitly told me that it wouldn't be retaliation if I received a negative review later because I had been "given an option". I tried to escalate the situation but got nowhere with either HR or with my own management chain (who continued to insist that they had given him a stern-talking to and didn't want to ruin his career over his "first offense")."

Ref: https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-str…

OTOH, if things were really bad, and you want to a chance to actually effect some change, write up a public blog post about it: https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-str…

> Is there something else known for other faculties, like math, physics, finance, ...? So you want to learn physics… https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/13/so-you-want-to-learn-physi…

Here's a guide on learning physics, aptly titled "So You Want to Learn Physics...": https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/13/so-you-want-to-learn-physi… Here are some old HN discussions about it as well: 8 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24088985 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18374994 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12691963

This might be useful: https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/13/so-you-want-to-learn-physi…

HR job is to prevent unions or any form of collective bargaining and protect the company from litigation. Susan Fowler's story can give you an idea of how HR works... https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-str…

> In only a year and a half she went from pre-algebra to grad QM while being a writer at NYT I found this hard to believe, so I looked it up. It appears she _did_ go from pre-algebra to grad quantum within a short time [1], but that was many years before she joined NYTimes in 2018. [1] https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/26/from-the-fledgling-physici…

I think it's just an accidentally fubared link. It's still published: https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/26/from-the-fledgling-physici…

I had the first impression as you but IIUC they are saying the rep's poor ethics/judgement are enough to make them unemployable and we should all realize and agree or our judgement is also questionable. E.g. Bob's super smart and gets 10 times the work done as anyone else but he also sexually harasses the secretary and dips into the petty cash drawer at least once a week. It should be clear we don't want to have Bob as our employee. See Susan Fowler's experience with her boss at Uber who sexually propositioned her repeatedly but HR said they would not remove because he was a high performer... https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-str…

Ask Susan Fowler whether you "cannot threaten or bully a tech employee" in a tech hotspot. https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-str… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Fowler

In addition to said here: * https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/13/so-you-want-to-learn-physi… There are plenty of textbooks and lecture notes available online and that article links to most of the popular choices. Make sure to choose correct order of topics to avoid getting stuck!

Or when women were allowed to vote. Or, when men started taking women's last names at time of marriage, because now men are now "traditionally" becoming property of the new family. Also, if this post was 500 years ago, then time flies fast. https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-str…

The sexism I see in her post: Upon joining, her manager sexually propositioned her; a subsequent manager sabotaged her performance reviews and attempts at transferring to keep a woman on his team; they gave leather jackets to SREs as a gift, but would only get jackets made for men (I think this is what you refer to as "the shirts"); she recalls many emails that she does not describe; HR claims she is the problem in all of her claims; she was threatened with firing over her claims of sexual harassment, and they backed off when she pointed out that was illegal. Those are the instances. What that tells me is that it was a deeply sexist system. See: https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-str…

I reread her memo, https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-str… It is discouraging, the corruption shown by just one of any of the people she interacted with. Then to see it in so many different people, so consistently, with no exceptions, is eye opening to me. But worst of all is their job titles: manager, director, executive, Human Resources. Part of their jobs was to get in the way of this very thing!

There was a blog post by her that I happen to read, called "Life Without a Destiny" https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/5/21/life-without-a-destiny What she wrote there totally resonated with me and stayed with me from the day that I read. It was as if she managed to put what I have been wondering into words.

I'm sorry, Im pretty sure the evidence is clear [1] This is just one example. "A top Uber executive, who obtained the medical records of a customer who was a rape victim, has been fired" > according to the media... Who else besides the media should we listen to?.. the employees? Like this one? " As most of you know, I left Uber in December and joined Stripe in January. I've gotten a lot of questions over the past couple of months about why I left and what my time at Uber was like. It's a strange, fascinating, and slightly horrifying story that deserves to be told while it is still fresh in my mind, so here we go" [2] [1] https://www.vox.com/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-india-assault-rap… [2] https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-str…

If you're ever interested in digging into other areas of physics, take a look at this blog post by Susan J Fowler which gives a comprehensive overview with references to various topics: https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/13/so-you-want-to-learn-physi…

> What semi-decent human being inside Uber came up with this? Susan Fowler advocated for ending forced arbitration as the "the single most important thing a company can do to prove to its employees that it is dedicated to acting ethically, legally, responsibly, and transparently": https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/5/20/five-things-tech-companies… No-forced-arbitration should be the norm. What other companies have the worst forced arbitration clauses?