Rivian hit with Gender Discrimination Lawsuit by ex-sales and marketing head, Laura Schwab

[Longhorngirl]

Interesting timing. I wanted to share this for those who will be participating in the DSP. What really grabbed my attention is the allegation of. “Rivian‘s misleading public statements and flawed business practices”. I guess we are lucky that this came out before the IPO, which would surely have a negative impact on the share price.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/04/r...ation-lawsuit-that-alleges-toxic-bro-culture/

Here is the article from Medium where she writes about the the toxic bro culture. She specifically addresses her concerns about the launch of the first 1,000 vehicles and how there was no organization set up to successfully deliver them.

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[LoneStar]

fuk.... my enthusiasm for going all-in on the DSP is on a roller coaster the last couple of days...

 

[IronChefBoyardee]

https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/04/r...ation-lawsuit-that-alleges-toxic-bro-culture/

Here is the relevant blog post.

 

[bac4uw]

https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/04/r...ation-lawsuit-that-alleges-toxic-bro-culture/

Here is the relevant blog post.

Ew. That doesn't sound good. Gender (or any) discrimination in the workplace is BS.

 

[kylealden]

Rivian built a brand by explicitly marketing to a set of opinionated values, and the particular set of customers who care about them. A side effect of that is that you are going to be held accountable to the constellation of values those those customers bring with them.

It wasn't clear to me from her post how systematic or pervasive what Schwab experienced was, but it was clear to me in watching the IPO materials that there's a lot of sameness in the executive ranks. I hope to see Rivian's leadership step up to acknowledge this and be specific about how they're addressing it once the quiet period ends. Unfortunately I think we'll get a mealy-mouthed statement about how they value diversity and gave equity to conservation and culture is important.

And for those of us who have had constructive (or less constructive) feedback on communications recently, it's hard to imagine that "exclude marketing leaders from crucial information" helped that go well.

What a bummer.

 

[xyskis]

?

 

[jjwolf120]

One should take into account that this accusation may or may not be true.

 

[xyskis]

One should take into account that this accusation may or may not be true.

It stuck out to me that the roadshow videos were almost all men except for their CFO/HR. Then I remembered how nice Uncle RJ was to kids and potential customers and the environment and didn’t think much more of it. This puts that video in a starkly different context.

 

[kylealden]

One should take into account that this accusation may or may not be true.

One should err on the side of believing women and survivors.

 

[jjwolf120]

One should err on the side of believing women and survivors.

One shouldn't come to conclusions before all of the evidence has been examined. I neither believe nor disbelieve her assertions.

 

[kylealden]

One shouldn't come to conclusions before all of the evidence has been examined. I neither believe nor disbelieve her assertions.

I'm not going to waste any more time on this line of conversation, but I'll leave you with this: "Neither believe nor disbelieve" is a nonsense phrase. The word you're looking for is "disbelieve."

Make the choice to trust people when they tell their story. You're not a court of law; your choice to believe Schwab's recollection causes nobody harm.

Defaulting to suspicion actively harms people around you. Probably in ways that would surprise you.

 

[LoneStar]

We never speculate in a forum..... but one would sure question the motivation to lie about this - which is normally to "get rich" by a lawsuit. But people in those executive positions are already going to score huge money from the IPO. You know they all got lucrative stock options to join.

 

[Scott]

One shouldn't come to conclusions before all of the evidence has been examined. I neither believe nor disbelieve her assertions.

I agree. My title has a VP in front of it. I also feel left out / excluded from some things I shouldn't be. It isn't always discrimination. I also have forgotten to include people on decisions they should have been included on in the past.

That said, there are definitely plenty of corporate cultures where such discrimination is real and a problem. I have no knowledge where Rivian falls here, and they can't comment because of the quiet period.

edit: if she did get fired 2 days after making this complaint, that will be quickly provable, and be very very damning for Rivian.

 

[Craigins]

One should take into account that this accusation may or may not be true.

Typically there are 3 sides to every story. Person As side, person Bs side, and what actually happened. I've seen this personally at work before, coming out of a meeting and a coworker had a completely different take of what happened in the meeting. The way they described it I wouldn't have believed we were in the same meeting.

An alternative take on her story, they decided to reorg and eliminate her position so they stopped inviting her to the meetings since she wouldn't be with the company much longer. I've also seen this happen before.

And from Rivian's history, they don't seem to have a marketing and sales department, so I was surprised to hear they had an exec of one.

 

[Longhorngirl]

One should err on the side of believing women and survivors.

Agreed. I remember the announcement of her hire last year and was really impressed that someone with her extensive experience would leave her job at Aston Martin and join a start up. When you look at her resume, she has had an impressive career in the automotive industry. It makes her more believable. If she was just looking for a quick buck, why not have sued Jaguar, or Land Rover, or Aston Martin?

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