Revelations about misconduct at the biggest startups and tech companies seem to saturate today’s news cycle—but it wasn’t always this way. In 2017, when penning her now famous 2,900-word blog post about the pervasive culture of sexual harassment at Uber, soon-to-be whistleblower Susan Fowler was stepping into uncharted territory. Her decision to share a blog post about her “very, very strange year at Uber” with the public would open the floodgates for women to share similar experiences of systematic sexual harassment in Silicon Valley and beyond. Fowler’s open letter not only led to the CEO’s ouster but it also caused a complete disruption of the status quo of workplaces, culminating in mass movements for women’s empowerment launched worldwide.
In her new memoir, Whistleblower: My Journey to Silicon Valley and Fight for Justice at Uber, Fowler details how this courageous act was entirely consistent with her life so far—a life characterized by extraordinary determination, a refusal to accept things as they are, and the desire to do what is good and right. Since taking her leave from Uber, Fowler, along with other “silence breakers,” was named Time’s 2017 Person of the Year and in 2018 was brought on as an opinion editor at The New York Times. Come with your questions and join Susan Fowler as she visits INFORUM to share her riveting story about breaking the silence and speaking truth to power.
Susan Fowler
Writer; Engineer; Author, Whistleblower: My Journey to Silicon Valley and Fight for Justice at Uber (Forthcoming); @susanthesquark
Mina Kim
Anchor and Host of Forum, KQED—Moderator