I think we are missing some information here:
"All suggested that he leave his job, but he was adamant that he could not. "
The question is why? what conditions need to occur where a man who most likely can get another job easily enough and who has switched jobs before decides that ending his life his a better course of action then switching jobs.
They wrote that he eventually saw a psychiatrist, was he prescribed SSRI medication (I.E. Prozac)? If so, the other articles on HN suggest that that may be the cause, and not Uber's work environment.
All of that isn't to say to Uber's work environment is ok, but unless there was some form of coercion to keep the job (debt, noncompetitive wages, medical insurance issues), I don't think it's fare to blame Uber for the suicide. Mass worker exodus or a union is the way to change a company's work environment.
Getting a job "easily enough" is still a big risk to take when you own a home and have a wife and two kids. I was in a job that deteriorated to the point that it was making me so miserable I would get physically ill around 3-4pm on Sundays due to having to go to work on Monday. It took me about 5-7 months to get to the point where I quit.
It is not an easy step to take. I was 24-25, enrolled in a Master's program (easy enough to explain why I left without a job) living in a house that I was not paying rent for and had the full support of both my parents and my fiancé. I didn't want to be a burden to my family. I was scared it would take me another 7 months to find a job like it did when I graduated from college in 2010. I had bills to pay. All of that was overwhelming despite me logically knowing I would be fine and that I wouldn't starve or go homeless or miss a bill payment because my fiancé or parents had stated so.
I can only imagine the pressures he thought he faced at home if he felt like it was his responsibility to take care of his family. It was probably so overwhelming that he saw no other out.
It is hard to describe to someone who never experienced a job that is overwhelmingly and exclusively awful how much of an impact it makes on you. And I am not talking about a job that you don't like or don't enjoy. I mean a job that has zero redeeming qualities and a culture that is incredibly toxic. You feel like a failure at work. You are miserable. And you see an out (quitting) but if you quit (without a job) there are a whole bunch of questions. And in some ways those unknowns are even worse than the misery. But then you go back in the next day and go "no way the prospect of losing my home can be worse than this." Then you go home and it is "no way my job can be worse than losing my home and failing my wife and kids." And it both cases you realize that, yes, somehow, both of those statements are true. The job is more miserable than losing the home which is more miserable than the job which is more miserable than letting down my wife and kids which is more miserable than my job which is more miserable than...
... and suddenly you find yourself with a gun in the front seat of your car because there is nothing in life that is not miserable. Nothing.
> It is hard to describe to someone who never experienced a job that is overwhelmingly and exclusively awful how much of an impact it makes on you. And I am not talking about a job that you don't like or don't enjoy. I mean a job that has zero redeeming qualities and a culture that is incredibly toxic. You feel like a failure at work. You are miserable. And you see an out (quitting) but if you quit (without a job) there are a whole bunch of questions.
This is one of the most brilliantly perceptive comments I have read here. I encourage you to write an article based on this.
I am early enough in my career that I would feel utterly uncomfortable doing that. My blog is under my real name. It would be so easy to look at my resume and go oh. That company. Woof. I don't really want my public feelings of that experience tied to me like that. This isn't a startup. This is a non-tech business that has been around for decades. Don't burn bridges and all that.
I will add this tidbit... you would literally have to pay me "f--k you" levels of money for a middling developer to even think of going back to that company. My professor had the ability to get my a coding job at a completely different location (physical and business-side) inside that same company (I was in Procurement previously) for about 150k (almost 3x what I was making). $150k in a rust belt city is a lot of money. Due to my work history there I would have been immediately vested and they had a 6% 100% match on a 401k. My commute would have been 10 minutes. I literally laughed at him. The amount of money that could get me back in those doors is way out of the reach of a 9-5 systems programmer. The first dollar figure where I would have to pause would be in the $1 mil a year range. And I honestly don't know if I would have said yes even to that.
I think many very pertinent stories and points of view never surface because of the very real threat of retaliation or ostracism - burning bridges, as you say.
I think that people who expose the mistakes, weaknesses, and perhaps even evildoing associated with people and companies are seen in the collective mind as whistleblowers, who appear usually to be regarded - and treated - badly. This is a sad but real tendency of human nature.
The irony is that many whistleblowers do a great public service, and at the very least keep entities honest by exposing their wrongs. If everyone turned aside and pretended not to notice that the emperor had no clothes, we would be in a dark place indeed.
This isn't a criticism, by the way: I suffer from the same misgivings, which war against my instinct and desire to tell the stories of the injustices I've seen firsthand.
> what conditions need to occur where a man who most likely can get another job easily enough and who has switched jobs before decides that ending his life his a better course of action then switching jobs.
From my perspective (which isn't as bad as considering suicide over changing a job...but still pretty bad in terms of depression), there's a huge mental block in terms of ability to interview, especially given the terrible interview practices across most of the industry (5+ hour algorithm regurgitation sessions).
This would require "studying" algorithms for hours a day to refresh my memory. In my currently depressed state there's not a chance that I could bring myself to do that once I'm off work for the day...nor could I possibly imagine even participating in the interview process itself right now even if I felt confident in my ability to vomit back algorithms to the interviews.
As others have written, it is similar to people reluctant to leave abusive relationships. Just as people who have not suffered clinical depression can advise to "just snap out of it", those who have not experienced this phenomenon, or are psychologically less vulnerable to it, will say "just get another job".
I know some people, especially women, in this situation right now. They are under tremendous stress at work, sometimes marginalized or bullied. But they are forced to stick through it due to equity agreements.
Leaving means some wont see their equity grants vest. Some may be forced into major tax payments if they leave (due to options.) And some lose it alltogether. The way these things work, sometimes you end up paying enormous taxes and still end up with largely illiquid equity, which may remain illiquid for years. It is hard enough to land a job where the equity is worth something. People stick it out because a liquidity event can be life changing and liberating.
I realize equity agreements are created for retention, but they have the unfortunate impact of keeping people in jobs when it is better for both employee and employer to part ways. Something needs to be done about that. I don't know what.
I'm not really sure how you know my friend, or even which friend I'm speaking about, so I don't know how you'd know her situation. She's handcuffed because she's put in years of effort and hoping for a liquidity event before she leaves, lest she leave with little or nothing. She's miserable for entirely different reasons -- due to treatment she receives at work from what she tells me.
Not sure why this would be surprising -- this situation is very common across startups. I am a co-founder also, and I have equity vesting agreements, understandably, as I want retention; I don't want employees constantly leaving with the next wind that blows. At the same time, I'd hate to keep a miserable employee who isn't fully productive. I'd like to think I set a good enough workplace culture that there wouldn't be harassment/bullying, but who knows...
What is more wicked, and beyond me as a business owner, is US tax treatment on illiquid equity. That really needs to change.
>But they are forced to stick through it due to equity agreements.
That isn't what 'forced' means. Any of the people you are talking about could quit. They control their own lives and are responsible for them. Some theoretical equity in a company does not somehow hijack personal agency.
It's going to be darkly ironic if we are finally able to talk about certain medications' involvement in suicides and violence because Uber is forced to use that data for its own defense.
But I don't care how we talk about it -- we've lost too many good people in this world because we're afraid to talk about well-known and well-documented side effects.
I imagine people are wanting to blame Uber because there have been other reports of bullying, hazing, sexism, etc. in the company. Couple that with all the accounts of Uber's willingness to test or even flout the law and it doesn't paint a nice picture.
The question is why? what conditions need to occur where a man who most likely can get another job easily enough and who has switched jobs before decides that ending his life his a better course of action then switching jobs.
They wrote that he eventually saw a psychiatrist, was he prescribed SSRI medication (I.E. Prozac)? If so, the other articles on HN suggest that that may be the cause, and not Uber's work environment.
All of that isn't to say to Uber's work environment is ok, but unless there was some form of coercion to keep the job (debt, noncompetitive wages, medical insurance issues), I don't think it's fare to blame Uber for the suicide. Mass worker exodus or a union is the way to change a company's work environment.