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Spotify has been accused of turning a blind eye to sexism in its workplace. Former sales executive Hong Perez has sued the streaming service over allegations that male execs have perpetuated systemic gender discrimination. The global head of sales reportedly provided higher compensation (including equity) to men, while multiple male executives received little punishment (and in one case, a promotion) despite sexual harassment claims.
On top of this, Perez described an overall hostile work culture, particularly from US sales head (and her boss) Brian Berner. He allegedly chose only men for drug-addled "boys' trips" to the Sundance Film Festival in 2016 and 2017, excluding women who were better-qualified for the ostensibly work-oriented visits. He also purportedly scapegoated Perez after getting in trouble over a buyer deal and taking free Madison Square Garden tickets, getting her fired for conduct violations that were really his.
Pereze added that she'd raised concerns over the lack of anti-harassment action with Spotify's human resources team before she left.
In a statement, Spotify claimed it doesn't tolerate discrimination "at any level" but simultaneously insisted Perez's lawsuit was "without merit."
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/19/spotify-sued-over-gender-discrimination/
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @04:08PM (3 children)
Yes I'm fine with it. It's their company and they get to do what they want with it. If they have a monopoly I'll boycott them and vote to the guy who'd drop their contract. But otherwise, let the market punish them for missing out on capable workforce by having their competitors pick us up. IBM only hired white Americans in black and white suites for a few decades until one day they woke up to find themselves losing whole markets to long haired hippies of all colors and creeds that have little qualms about bringing over H1Bs for whatever they were working on.
Discrimination laws are superfluous in competitive markets. What stops Spotify's competitors from hiring all the people Spotify rejected on discrimination grounds and end up with a superior workforce, service and products? They're not a monopoly. They're not infrastructure. They don't work with government...
These laws are necessary for other markets. But Silicon Valley? If you can get the job done they'll hire you or be drive out by the competition. No discrimination laws required.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 24 2018, @05:03PM (1 child)
You make a presumption here, which is no more and no less stupid than IBM's presumption that white Americans in black and white suits are the superior work force.
I would prefer to work for the company that relies on a meritocracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy [wikipedia.org] Being white, or non-white, isn't even a consideration in such a setup.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 24 2018, @08:17PM
There's nothing to presume when over half the adv.algo elective class are Asians. Sure, there some white male geeks still in CS hanging around. But at what ratio to the extremely talented minorities or the unbelievably hard working Asians? Gender especially is the case that the few women in the field are all there for the love of the field and their unusual talent in math and coding. So, assuming those discriminated from entering it based on whatnot will do extremely well in other companies is a VERY safe bet.
No you wouldn't. You'd never get promoted in a meritocracy since being good at programming means you're not as good at management. And that's assuming you'd even get a job. If the best are running things, the first thing they'll do is dispose of the inefficient shit happening all around us. And that's almost all the money going into the consumer market. In fact, there won't be too many consumers left. You'll have a dozen programmers doing software and hardware. And everyone else unemployed by automation.
Meritocracy is just trickle-down economy where you replace money with merit. It doesn't work without perpetual and exponential growth. And with computing even that's not enough.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday September 24 2018, @07:54PM
Who exactly are you referring to? Apple, HP, Compaq, Microsoft, and Sun during the time period in question were mostly led by stuffy white guys in black-and-white suits, and definitely not long-haired hippies. Neither are Bob Young or Marc Ewing of Red Hat. Heck, Linus never was a long-haired hippie either.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.