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Uber CEO on Gender Equality, Trump Sued Over Transgender Ban, Meet Baby Zuck

By
Valentina Zarya
Valentina Zarya
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By
Valentina Zarya
Valentina Zarya
Down Arrow Button Icon
August 29, 2017, 7:51 AM ET

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Valentina (@valzarya) here. Entrepreneurs may soon have more protection against harassment, we get the rundown on Uber’s new CEO, and there’s a new—female!—Zuck in town. Have a lovely Tuesday.

EVERYONE'S TALKING

•The dish on Dara. While Uber's new CEO is not a woman, he will nevertheless be tasked with turning around the company's culture, which has been called hostile to female employees. Here's what we know so far about the track record of the ride-hailing app's new chief, Dara Khosrowshahi, who most recently led travel bookings website Expedia:

  • Expedia has a fairly clean public record when it comes to treatment of female employees (one caveat: thanks to arbitration clauses in many employment contracts, it's very possible that female employees have brought private complaints against the company).
  • The company did get some criticism earlier this year when it opted not to pull its ads from The O'Reilly Factor after a New York Times report revealed sexual harassment allegations against host Bill O'Reilly.
  • When it comes to gender diversity of its overall workforce, the company is roughly on par with the rest of the country: 50% of its employees and 25% of its tech group is female. (For context: 47% of the workforce of the U.S. is female while about 24% of tech workers are women.)
  • The company is outpacing its tech industry peers when it comes to women in leadership: 35% of its leadership team is female, whereas the number is closer to a quarter for most Silicon Valley companies.
  • Last summer, the company released the results of an internal compensation analysis, reporting that it does not have a gender pay gap. Fortune

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

•A win for VC in CA. While the law is clear about protecting employees who are sexually harassed at work, it doesn't do much to help entrepreneurs who receive unwanted advances from investors. That may soon change in California, where the legislature will consider a bill that would add investors to the list of professionals who can be held liable for harassment. Fortune

•Secretary Haley? With Rex Tillerson apparently on the outs with the White House after his comment that President Trump "speaks for himself" on the violence in Charlottesville, there's plenty of speculation about whether he'll retain his post as secretary of state—and if not, who might replace him. One name that's come up again and again: U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. Fortune

•Trump sued...twice. President Donald Trump was sued twice on Monday over his plan to ban transgender soldiers from the U.S. military. The suits, which were brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Human Rights Campaign, claim the president's plan violates the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution. The groups are seeking court orders barring the enforcement of the ban and preventing transgender service members from being discharged, blocked from promotion, or denied medical care.Fortune

•Dear baby Zuck. Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan announced Monday the birth of their second daughter, August. The couple publicly posted a letter they wrote to her, urging the newest addition to their family to take advantage of her childhood and expressing optimism for the future world she will inhabit. Read it in full here: Fortune

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Joyus founder Sukhinder Singh Cassidy has joined the board of Urban Outfitters.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

•Theranos 2.0?A college dropout-founded startup says that its portable blood analyzer can run a complete blood-cell count from a fingerprick test done at home. No—I'm not talking about Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos. Tanay Tandon and Deepika Bodapati have raised $3.7 million from investors to start blood-testing firm Athelas. Bloomberg

•Sharapova Opens up. Our friends at Money sat down with tennis star Maria Sharapova, who triumphantly returned to the court this week at the U.S. Open. Last night, she played and won her first match since a doping suspension sidelined her for over a year. Money

•The queen of blockchain. JPMorgan Chase exec Amber Baldet is on the forefront of the blockchain, which Bloomberg describes as "the novel combination of cryptography and distributed computing that gave life to Bitcoin in 2009." Baldet is helping lead a group of big finance and tech companies experimenting with Quorum, a powerful blockchain that they hope will enhance client privacy. Bloomberg

•Aaaand I'll be eating candy. Joan Benoit Samuelson, who won gold in the first Olympic women’s marathon in 1984, is running the Bank of America Chicago Marathon in October, where, at age 60, she will try to become the first female sexagenarian to crack a three-hour race. WSJ

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QUOTE

Because I am a badass woman and they are all boys. I win every time.
Recode co-founder Kara Swisher on how she manages to break news in a male-dominated industry
About the Author
By Valentina Zarya
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