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

[eggpaul]

"misleading public statments"

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[jjswan33]

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

This. Whether the discrimination was real or not.

 

[kylealden]

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

I think an important thing to remember here is that if this wasn't actual discrimination, it could still be blinding incompetence.

Let's say for a second that the employee in question had serious performance issues, was excluded from meetings for being actively disruptive, couldn't be trusted with operations, and generally wasn't working out. (Gross counterfactual, but there you go.)

The employee complains to HR about discrimination days before an IPO and you fire her? Immediately? You don't do a listening tour to investigate her concerns? You don't consider restructuring your marketing leadership to put her in a more appropriate role? You don't ask her to take a voluntary leave while you investigate (and presumably she gets rich on the IPO)? You fire her immediately?

I'm not in HR, but if that's not retaliation, it's incredibly concerning management behavior nonetheless.

There's plenty we don't know, but the burden is on Rivian to explain why this shouldn't be setting off alarm bells.

 

[freshpow]

WSJ also published an article and I found the following re: manufacturing quality and pricing most concerning to me, personally.


"The lawsuit claims several other executives at first brushed off her statements about Rivian’s vehicles being underpriced, only to agree later that prices would need to be increased post-IPO after a male executive raised the issue.

Ms. Schwab also raised concerns internally about the manufacturing process and Rivian’s ability to assure vehicle quality and safety to customers, the complaint alleges. She said she suggested that the first deliveries go to Rivian employees and alleges other executives initially dismissed the idea, then later adopted it."

 

[kylealden]

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.

I'm just saying if one of my execs was accused of serious discrimination by a direct report, even if he was already planning to let her go, I'd probably take a second to sort it out before proceeding with the plan. Not to mention if I was about to IPO.

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.

There's a version of which where we all say "Oh wait, the incredibly qualified head of marketing was systematically excluded from up to date production information and otherwise kept out of the loop? That explains some things."

 

[Craigins]

I'm just saying if one of my execs was accused of serious discrimination by a direct report, even if he was already planning to let her go, I'd probably take a second to sort it out before proceeding with the plan. Not to mention if I was about to IPO.

oh definitely. The only way it should have gone through is if there was plenty of documentation before hand leading up to the decision, then her complaint just moved up the time table.

Then also her blog timing would be perfect as well. Rivian in the quiet period and can't adequately respond to the allegations. It does the most damage to the company.

 

[jjwolf120]

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.

Jumping to conclusions without all of the facts causes harm wherever it is done. Since I am not required to jump to a conclusion, I prefer to keep an open mind until I have received more evidence.

 

[yizzung]

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.

Probably not in this case. She was hired in Nov 2020 and fired in October 2021. Typical equity comp deal is a one-year cliff followed by monthly vesting of stock. If you don’t make it through year one, you typically vest zero shares and are therefore leaving with only your earned salary to date and a cash exit package. It’s actually a pretty raw deal to fire someone at 11 months, especially if done without cause. Not surprised she sued.

 

[Dark-Fx]

Regardless of what actually happened, the timing of all these events just seem like the perfect storm in either direction.

 

[kvenom]

Not a good look for Jiten Behl (chief growth officer) or RJ

 

[yizzung]

Regardless of what actually happened, the timing of all these events just seem like the perfect storm in either direction.

Indeed. Which was 100% determined by the 30-something year old Chief Growth Officer who (based on LinkedIn profile) hasn’t been in this league of rodeo before.

In a case like this the hiring/firing manager better be damn sure that all legal ducks are in a row in anticipation of a potential law suit. If he pulled the trigger without extensive advanced legal consultation, this won’t go well for him.

The company on the other hand will likely endure. They can settle with a big fat check and barely dent the balance sheet. The long term hit to reputation could be bad though.

 

[Texasag05]

I will say the wsj article is more informative than the tech crunch. Optics are not good to say the least. As always, be patient and let’s hear the whole story and facts. I have a sister who does patent law in the tech world and unfortunately with a lot of startups she does see this kind of workplace environment.

 

[yizzung]

I will say the wsj article is more informative than the tech crunch. Optics are not good to say the least. As always, be patient and let’s hear the whole story and facts. I have a sister who does patent law in the tech world and unfortunately with a lot of startups she does see this kind of workplace environment.

22 years in Silicon Valley. Sadly it’s still the norm in a lot of places. She’s right.

 

[RivianXpress]

"
Ms. Schwab also raised concerns internally about the manufacturing process and Rivian’s ability to assure vehicle quality and safety to customers, the complaint alleges. She said she suggested that the first deliveries go to Rivian employees and alleges other executives initially dismissed the idea, then later adopted it.

The lawsuit further says that Ms. Schwab was skeptical about the company’s ability to achieve certain delivery targets and that she advised it to set a more realistic objective. Rivian said in a securities filing Monday that it plans to deliver just over 1,000 vehicles to customers by the end of the year, while earlier filings didn’t include a year-end production target."

From WSJ

 

[thedole]

Bloomberg Article States:

Schwab said she’d warned that vehicle sales would lead to losses because they were “underpriced,” manufacturing needed to be “refined” before promising a safe vehicle to consumers and that a company statement in a regulatory filing that 1,000 vehicles would be delivered in 2021 wasn’t achievable, according to her complaint.

Not what you want going into next week.

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