Uber whistleblower Susan Fowler claims she was followed after making allegations: "It was terrifying"
Susan Fowler said she feared for her life after exposing the toxic culture at Uber, one of Silicon Valley's biggest businesses. The Uber whistleblower, whose explosive blog post led to the resignation of the company's CEO, alleges that Uber hired investigators to follow her.
Fowler had previously been an engineer at the company. She wrote a blog post in February 2017 describing sexual harassment allegations as well as what she calls "a culture that had values that were about aggression." Her claims eventually led to an overhaul of Uber's structure that included several firings. They also shined a spotlight on what she described as the male-dominated culture of Silicon Valley.
Speaking in her first TV interview that aired Tuesday on "CBS This Morning," Fowler claimed there was severe fallout from making her harassment allegations public.
"It was terrifying," she said. She claimed to realize "very quickly" that she had been "followed."
"I would hear these rumors that were being spread through the press trying to discredit me," she said.
When asked who she thought was following her, Fowler claimed it may have been private investigators "because they seemed to be professionals."
"I suspected it was Uber," Fowler alleged.
Uber said in a statement to CBS News, "The company has no knowledge of ever hiring anyone to follow or personally investigate Susan Fowler." It said in another statement, "Susan's courage to speak up was a catalyst for much-needed change at Uber and in countless other organizations around the world."
Fowler disputed Uber's statement denying knowledge of anyone being hired to follow or investigate her, "calling it "interesting."
She said, "When I talked to the new Uber CEO and I asked him – I asked him over Twitter chat, actually, whether the company was still having private investigators follow me, and he said he 'killed all that crap,' and that was reassuring to me for two reasons."
She explained the first reason was that she saw the exchange as "further evidence confirming that Uber had been actually doing this," and the second was "he had taken steps to stop it."
"And I thought that that was a good sign," Fowler said.
Asked if she regretted her experience and aftermath, Fowler said she did not. She also said she would encourage other women in similar positions "to stand up and speak out."
"I'm just one of many," she pressed. "I'm the small voice in a really big choir of men and women who have stood up and said, 'We have experienced this stuff, too.'"
Fowler recently authored a book detailing her experience and allegations, titled "Whistleblower: My journey to Silicon Valley and fight for justice at Uber." She dedicated the book to her daughter, Seymour Grace.
