More stories of sexism, harassment and debauchery at Uber emerged Wednesday in a New York Times report detailing the company’s aggressive corporate atmosphere.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has announced an investigation into the company’s workplace culture following a blog post from former employee Susan Fowler on Sunday that listed a litany of sexual harassment, sexual bias and mismanagement that she said she encountered while working there.
“What she describes is abhorrent and against everything Uber stands for and believes in,” Kalanick said in a statement Sunday. On Tuesday, Kalanick reportedly held a Q&A meeting with employees, in which he apologized for past incidents and promised the workplace culture would improve.
If Fowler’s blog post and the Times report are any indication, there appears to be much room for improvement.
Read more: Uber harassment scandal will hurt, but not in same way as #DeleteUber campaign
The Times said Wednesday it interviewed more than 30 current and former Uber workers, and reviewed a number of company emails, chats and meeting logs. Among the incidents witnessed by sources:
One Uber manager groped female co-workers’ breasts at a company retreat in Las Vegas. A director shouted a homophobic slur at a subordinate during a heated confrontation in a meeting. Another manager threatened to beat an underperforming employee’s head in with a baseball bat.
Another part of the Times report described the wild scene at an Uber party in Las Vegas:
Uber’s aggressive workplace culture spilled out at a global all-hands meeting in late 2015 in Las Vegas, where the company hired Beyoncé to perform at the rooftop bar of the Palms Hotel. Between bouts of drinking and gambling, Uber employees used cocaine in the bathrooms at private parties, said three attendees, Tümbet and a manager groped several female employees. (The manager was terminated within 12 hours.) One employee hijacked a private shuttle bus, filled it with friends and took it for a joy ride, the attendees said.
The company is currently facing at least three lawsuits alleging sexual harassment or verbal abuse, the Times reported.
Aimee Lucido, a software engineer at Uber, wrote a blog post Monday in which she acknowledged problems at Uber, though she noted the company was hardly unique.
“I think this is disgusting and appalling and horrifying and yet I am not surprised at all,” she wrote. “In fact, I’m most surprised at how surprised everyone else seems to be. . . . Sexism is a problem everywhere. . . . It needs to be a wake-up call for everyone.”
Lucido, though, was encouraged by Uber’s response: “I am pleased with how quickly Travis has responded to this. We are better situated to handle this sort of problem than we have ever been in the past, and I have high hopes for our new heads of diversity and HR.”
Uber is valued at nearly $70 billion, and its IPO — if and when it ever comes — is being eagerly awaited by both Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Experts said the latest revelations are unlikely to derail Uber in the long term, thanks to its massive popularity and market share, despite occasional consumer backlashes.
“I think Uber will be fine in the end,” Santosh Rao, head of research at Manhattan Venture Partners, told MarketWatch’s Caitlin Huston.
This article originally appeared on Marketwatch.
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