--- title: Susan Fowler on the Aftermath of Speaking Out Against Uber description: In her new book 'Whistleblower,' Susan Fowler reveals what happened after her blog post about gender discrimination at the startup went viral. canonical: https://time.com/5784464/susan-fowler-book-uber-sexual-harassment/ author: Susan Fowler article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-02-17T12:00:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:42:24.150Z article:section: Ideas og:title: I Spoke Out Against Sexual Harassment at Uber. The Aftermath Was Terrifying og:description: Susan Fowler describes what happened after her story went viral og:url: https://time.com/5784464/susan-fowler-book-uber-sexual-harassment/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ebbadd9f7ba2735/6988f3f1929faddc42beebce/susan-fowler-person-of-year-2017-time-magazine-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1686 og:image:height: 948 og:image:alt: susan-fowler-person-of-year-2017-time-magazine-2 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: I Spoke Out Against Sexual Harassment at Uber. The Aftermath Was Terrifying twitter:description: Susan Fowler describes what happened after her story went viral twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ebbadd9f7ba2735/6988f3f1929faddc42beebce/susan-fowler-person-of-year-2017-time-magazine-2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # I Spoke Out Against Sexual Harassment at Uber. The Aftermath Was More Terrifying Than Anything I Faced Before > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: TIME Person of the Year 2017: The Silence Breakers [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Person of the Year 2017: The Silence Breakers](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/jbtW5SvJ.m3u8) (5:02)  _Published 2017-12-06. For giving voice to open secrets, for moving whisper networks onto social networks, for pushing all of us to stop accepting the unacceptable, the Silence Breakers are the 2017 Person of the Year._ by [Susan Fowler](https://time.com/author/susan-fowler/) ## Susan Fowler Feb 17, 2020 12:00 PM UTC  Susan Fowler, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, former Uber engineer Billy & Hells for TIME by [Susan Fowler](https://time.com/author/susan-fowler/) ## Susan Fowler Feb 17, 2020 12:00 PM UTC In February 2017, I published a [blog post](https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber) about my experiences with [sexual harassment and gender discrimination](https://time.com/5340575/uber-federal-investigation-gender-discrimination/) at Uber, where I had recently left my role as a software engineer. In it, I described a year of employment that began with a sexual proposition from my manager and only grew more demeaning and demoralizing from there. The post quickly went viral, tapping into a conversation about [systemic discrimination](https://time.com/4704219/silicon-valley-sexism-project-include/) throughout Silicon Valley. What I wrote changed the world, some said: for the first time, a woman had spoken up about mistreatment, the world listened to her, and she walked away unscathed. And, in those early days, it really did seem that I had turned the tables, and I started to wonder if most of my fears had been unfounded. It seemed too good to be true. And it was. I was soon jolted out of my daydream, and I awakened into a nightmare. It started with strange stories from my family, friends and acquaintances. Reporters had been contacting them from day one and asking for information about me, but now they were also being contacted by people who didn’t seem to be reporters at all, who asked questions about my personal life, questions about my past. Initially, it was mostly my relatives and friends from Silicon Valley who were being contacted, but then they—whoever “they” were—began contacting people I hadn’t spoken to in years, like an old neighbor I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager. “Someone’s digging really deep on you, Susan,” my neighbor said, “and it’s scary how far back they’re going.” Whoever was trying to dig up dirt on me was going deep into my history, talking to people that I’d forgotten I’d even known. I didn’t know who was trying to get this information, and I didn’t know how they were able to find out so much about my past. I didn’t know what they were looking for, and I didn’t know what they were going to find. It was terrifying. Eventually, private investigators started reaching out to me directly. At the time, I rarely answered my phone, but one day, when I was waiting for a furniture delivery and expecting the furniture company to call me, I received a call from a number I didn’t recognize and I answered it. A woman was on the line. She gave me her name, identified herself as a private investigator, claimed that she was working on a case _against_ Uber, and asked me to help her. I declined with a laugh, then did some detective work on my own; a quick Google search showed that the PI firm that she worked for had been hired in the past for cases in which people were trying to discredit victims of sexual misconduct. I was being attacked on other fronts, too. My phone would “ding” whenever I received a two‐factor authentication text belonging to my email or social media accounts, which meant that someone was trying to access them. I changed my passwords frequently, and eventually got a second phone for 2FA texts, but it wasn’t enough. My Facebook account was hacked several times, as were several old email accounts I hadn’t used in years. Around the same time, my younger sister’s Facebook account was hacked. The moment she told me that someone else had gotten into her account, I logged in and looked at the messages I’d recently sent her. I watched in horror as they went from “unread” to “read.” I started to hear rumors about myself and my motivations in writing the post—rumors that were often accompanied by phrases like “someone close to Uber,” “someone close to the board” or even “someone _at_ Uber.” The first rumor I’d heard had come from a reporter who called me in late February to see if I could confirm something: that Lyft had paid me to write a defamatory blog post about its primary competitor. It was obviously false, and I told the reporter so. Within a few days, I heard versions of the same rumor from other reporters, from people in the tech industry and from employees at Uber, all centered on Lyft’s paying me to write the blog post. As soon as this rumor died down, another one quickly took its place: that powerful venture capitalists in Silicon Valley had been responsible for writing the blog post and making it go viral; in some versions of this rumor, those “powerful people” were investors in Lyft, Google or my husband’s company. A reporter from _Business Insider_ wrote in an email (which I never responded to) that she was covering a “conspiracy theory that someone related to your husband’s company encouraged you to write the post and then helped it go viral after you wrote it.” --- As terrifying and infuriating as the investigations and rumors were, nothing was as scary as being followed, which started happening shortly after I published the post that February. I noticed a peculiar car parked outside my house. When I walked from my house to the BART station on my way to the office, I’d often see the same car drive past me. (_Or is it really the same one?_ I would wonder.) Whenever I left the office, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being followed. I told myself that I was imagining it. Then, one afternoon in early March, I left work earlier than usual. As I walked down the back steps and turned the corner toward the street, I noticed a man jump—as if in surprise—and start walking after me. I changed directions as I walked, going down side streets, and whenever I glanced back, I saw him following a short distance behind. I eventually ducked into a Whole Foods, and watched as he walked past, sighing in relief. But when I went back out into the street, the man was leaning on a tree, looking down at the sidewalk. I had to walk past him, and he followed closely behind until he moved ahead of me, stopped, turned around and looked right at me. Panic rose in my throat, and I felt my heart beating so loudly I could hear it. I looked around for the police, hoping to find someone, anyone, who could help. Then I bolted as fast as I could down the street, into the BART station and onto a train. That was the first time I knew I was definitely being followed, and it wasn’t the last. I didn’t know who or what I was up against. I suspected it was Uber, though at the time I had no concrete evidence to back that up. Several security researchers offered to look into it, and came back with the names of various private investigation firms that Uber had hired in the past. Its most recent PI firm, I was told, [was Ergo](https://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12127638/uber-ergo-investigation-lawsuit-fraud-travis-kalanick), an opposition research company run by former CIA operatives. This terrified me even more. I feared that Uber would send a private investigator to break into my home, either while I was there or while I was out. Another former employee, [Morgan Richardson](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/former-uber-worker-claims-company-investigator-illegally-ent), described an intimidating incident with an investigator who entered her apartment without her permission (Uber denied that the man came inside). If they did it to her, what would stop them from doing it to me? What if, I wondered, someone had already come to my home and I just didn’t know? A deep, aching terror fell over me as I prepared for the worst parts of my life to become public. Meanwhile, I was growing increasingly isolated—I was working from home, and there were very few people I could talk to about the things that were happening; more than once, I confided in a friend, only to have our conversation parroted back to me by a reporter a few days later. I felt sick to my stomach every day and had trouble sleeping. I’d lie awake in the middle of the night, racking my brain for memories of every mean thing I’d ever said, every mistake I’d ever made, every wrong thing I’d ever done, every lie I’d ever told, every person I’d ever hurt. I was haunted by every fight, every angry text message, every mean word, every breakup. I went over and over in my head everything I’d said that could be misinterpreted, that could put me in a bad light and undermine the authority of my claims. At times, the anxiety, fear and horror of it got so bad that I would curl up into a ball on the floor and cry until I felt numb. Sometimes I would stand in the shower, turn on the water, cover my mouth with my hands and scream until my voice was hoarse. Part of what felt so scary was the randomness of it all: I never knew what to expect. One morbid thought gave me comfort, however, and it’s what I told myself every time I noticed someone following me, or whenever I was warned about possible threats against my life: if anything happened to me, if I was harmed or killed, everyone would know exactly who was responsible. ---  TIME Person of the Year 2017: The Silence Breakers Billy & Hells for TIME Three years have passed since I published that blog post and shared the story of what I experienced at Uber. The company hired [former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder](https://time.com/4676521/uber-sexual-harassment-eric-holder/) to investigate its culture, which ultimately led to CEO Travis Kalanick’s departure—and just months later, my story became part of a [watershed movement against sexual misconduct](https://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2017-silence-breakers/). I could never have predicted the positive impact my story had in Silicon Valley and throughout the world, nor could I have predicted the backlash and terror that my loved ones and I faced because of it. And I’ve asked myself countless times whether I would do it all over again if I truly knew just how bad the bad part of speaking out would be. Some days, when I think about all of this, I wish I hadn’t come forward. At times I fear that if I could have seen how this decision would affect my life, I would not have gone through with it. But that would have been the wrong choice. Writing that post was the right thing to do, regardless of the consequences. Speaking up comes at great personal cost. Being a whistleblower is not easy. It is not glamorous or fun. It will terrify you and scare you and forever change your life in ways that will be beyond your control. But, despite all of this, shining a light in the darkness is the right thing to do. In some cases, like my own, it is the only way to leave the world better than you found it. _From_ [_WHISTLEBLOWER_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525560122/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=time-books-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0525560122&linkId=ead40c292428d3f82e514f8c27cbe0a3) _by Susan Fowler, to be published on February 18, 2020 by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2020 by Susan Rigetti._ ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] We can't all be ****. We can't all be asking for it. I am here to give you permission to be angry. This reality might not have to be our reality anymore. I felt this crushing sense of powerlessness. This is the time to take my power back. Here's my story. Uber promises. Investigation into sexual harrassment. Fox News cutting its ties with Bill O'Reilley. I felt it was my duty for the women who are silent to be brave. It's okay to stand up for yourself. Taylor Swift appearing in court today. Harvey Weinstein, the New York- People forget a lot that there's a human behind this. Someone who was very hurt and wronged. [ MUSIC ] [ CROSSTALK ] I always thought maybe things could change for my daughter. I never thought things could change for me. [ MUSIC ] Honestly, I was furious. I have had a man grope me in front of multiple collegues and I was tired of wondering if it was something I wore, I was tired of wondering if it was a vibe I was giving off and when I talked to other women they were furious too >> I felt that if I can speak out, may be if I just stand up then someone else would stand up with me >> There wasn't a place For us to report these experiences. But I sure did talk about it a lot over the years. The least I could do was actually tell my own story and validate theirs for them in a way, just as I was hoping someone much bigger than me would help validate my story. And I knew that other women Would continue to apple for jobs there and that made me feel really uncomfortable. I was afraid of the retaliation, I know the power of patriarchy. I know what men can do when their angry. They did everything that they could to prevent me from raising my concerns further. They asked me if there were other girls, maybe that he has done this too and can I go get them. I had to show them that I wasn't lying And it's like they took me for a joke. And if they couldn't stop us from talking, well, they were gonna stop everybody from listening to us. People digging into my Instagram and pulling up sexy photos as if they kind of discredited me. Well, I've seen you in committee. You're really tough. Why didn't you just hit him? Why did you let it go on for so long? I was a smart young woman that had gone to college, that knew how to fight, and I still was manipulated and conned. I felt ashamed that I hadn't spoken out sooner, not having the strength earlier on to make it stop. The feeling of being humiliated as a woman And there's a point you think is it my fault? For so long I went around harboring this ridiculous belief that because I was a non white woman in my 20s, it was expected that I would have to be treated this way. We don't have to just live like this. Few things could change from my daughter I never thought things could change from me. I'm here to give you permission to be angry, people are afraid specially women where conditioned since birth to be polite. To be nice, to be kind, to be liked to not make waves. ****. We can't all be crazy, we can't all be ****, we can't all be asking for it. And I'm telling you that all the people who stand up, all the people who speak out you are teaching people how to treat and you should not be shamed for that. The shame is not ours to hold, the shame is on perpetrator. Me Too can be a conversation starter or it can be the whole conversation. It took away the power from the predator. And placed the power on the victim. And maybe, just maybe we would be able to get a glimpse at the magnitude of this problem. The amount of people sharing the stories with me is so intense. People that were complete strangers reached out to tell very personal stories. It's What they did with this and they did a lot and not only in France in Hong kong japanese. The most months >> I feel like the day that I spoke up and I said you are a sexual harasser I changed >> some of the. Things in the night. [ FOREIGN ]. It's an honor to be the person that hey I spoke up about this. I took on the risk. And I was very humbled and I was very proud. I'm very glad now that the story has been heard. It's a direct response to that arrogance and that show of power and [ UNKNOWN ]. A sense, we won't be silenced. 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