Hasta La Gadget!

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick metaphorically exited a moving vehicle Tuesday night and resigned from his position atop the company.

What challenges should Uber’s next CEO expect to tackle first? We asked some experts, and one thing is clear: Whoever lands behind the wheel should expect full throttle from Day One.

Jeff Reid, a professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and the founding director of the school’s entrepreneurship initiative, said success will flow from an improved corporate culture, which could start with filling the company’s numerous senior vacancies with “people with great integrity and the right gravitas.”

“I think the first thing you’ve got to do is clean up the culture. And that means putting the right people in place,” Reid said. The right management team, and accompanying management systems, will signal to employees, customers and Uber drivers “that things are truly going to change.”

Having the right people in place starts at the very top, Evan Rawley, a professor at Columbia Business School and an expert on corporate strategy and entrepreneurship, explained to HuffPost in an email.

Uber doesn’t need a visionary anymore, they need a capable pair of hands to steer the ship.

Rawley said Uber needs a new CEO who is an outsider, with experience running a big tech company.

“Uber doesn’t need a visionary anymore, they need a capable pair of hands to steer the ship through some known challenges,” Rawley explained. Those challenges include “fixing the culture, competition with Lyft, international competition, fixing or selling off the autonomous car business, dealing with regulators, [and] managing driver relationships.”

Reid and Rawley both said Uber also needs to put serious effort into recruiting and hiring a trustworthy chief financial officer.

Uber has attracted substantial amounts of outside investment, but it’s no secret the company is burning through money and needs to get its cash flow under control.

“The biggest issue for Uber is how to generate enough cash to fund internal investments,” said Rawley. “If they have to go back to the capital markets with so much red ink flowing, the current investors will take a huge haircut on their investment.”

Rawley also suggested a new Uber leadership team may view this as an opportune time to raise prices to help increase cashflow, and to bring in an external consulting firm like McKinsey & Co. “to ‘professionalize’ the organization.” 

You have to keep the drivers happy at the same time you’re investing in technology that might replace them. That’s not an easy task.

As for self-driving cars, Reid said it makes sense for Uber to continue devoting significant resources to develop the technology. He noted a new CEO will have to focus more on the company’s drivers as well.

“You have to keep the drivers happy at the same time you’re investing in technology that might replace them. That’s not an easy task,” Reid said. “But if you stop doing the things that are clearly manipulative in relation to drivers, that’s a good first step.”

Despite substantial challenges, Reid was optimistic about Uber’s potential.

“Uber has transformed the transportation industry. If they continue to innovate and work on the core business model, then I think they should continue to be successful,” Reid said. “But the self-inflicted wounds are significant.”

The CEO role isn’t Uber’s only vacancy. Take a look at how much the company’s top leadership has crumbled in the last six months:

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Dominique Heaggan-Brown, the former Milwaukee police officer who shot and killed 23-year-old Sylville Smith last August during a foot chase, was found not guilty of first-degree reckless homicide on Wednesday.

Smith’s death sparked days of unrest in the city.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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Imagine putting on a virtual reality headset, only for it to personally recognize you, no interaction necessary. Such functionality may be making its way to Samsung’s Gear VR headset, at least according to a patent that recently surfaced. This new patent details a means by which the Gear VR headset could know who is wearing it by analyzing the pressure … Continue reading

A campaign to generate awareness around postpartum depression is facing criticism for its imagery.

Sage Therapeutics launched “Silence Sucks” last month to encourage women to speak out about their struggles with PPD and seek treatment. The biopharmaceutical company is developing new treatment options for the disorder.

While many have praised Sage Therapeutics’ efforts to help women with PPD and shatter the stigma around this topic, the “Silence Sucks” campaign has come under fire for its choice of visuals.

Ads for “Silence Sucks” appeared on public transportation in the Boston area for the month of May. The initiative also offers a website with resources and educational material about PPD.

The ads feature photos of women sucking on pacifiers. The accompanying text reads, “When it comes to postpartum depression (PPD), Silence sucks. PPD is the most common medical complication of childbirth. That’s worth a conversation ― for you and your baby.”

When Sage Therapeutics shared photos of the ad on Instagram, people were quick to express their concerns. “As someone who suffered from PPD this advertising campaign is demeaning and degrading.” wrote one commenter.

“This ad campaign is disturbing. The conversation is worthwhile, but showing grown women with pacifiers in their mouths is severely misguided and infantilizing … What a missed mark on such an important conversation,” added another. “Showing adult women sucking on pacifiers while crying does nothing to legitimize the emotions experienced by women during postpartum depression, but rather, diminishes and trivializes their experiences.”

Over the past two weeks, the campaign has received international attention, as news outlets and social media users highlight the criticisms.

Postpartum depression survivor and blogger, Stephanie Sprenger, told HuffPost she also believes the campaign visuals are problematic. 

“While the intention behind it may be good, the imagery is absurd and not the right tone for addressing such a serious and widespread issue,” she said. “It is infantilizing and further isolates mothers with a visual that is silly and babyish. Opening up about postpartum mood disorders can feel humiliating, as it makes women feel defective and inadequate; adding a slightly embarrassing graphic does not improve this challenge.”

Blogger Rebecca Fox Starr, who suffered from severe postpartum depression after the birth of her second child in 2013, said she is a strong advocate for speaking out about PPD. Though the ‘Silence Sucks’ campaign seems well intentioned, she believes it was “terribly misguided.”

“I agree with the criticism that it is infantilizing and patronizing; I agree that the advertising team missed the mark,” she told HuffPost. “I can see how someone in the marketing team at Sage could have pitched this as an idea ― trying to capitalize on the success of the ‘NOH8’ campaign with the duct-taped mouths, for instance ― but I am shocked that this idea did not end up on the cutting room floor.”

Starr added that she believes the campaign is “silly” at best and “hurtful” at worst. “For a woman, at her lowest, to be told, effectively, ‘Don’t put your baby’s pacifier in your mouth to silence yourself, as you should be open to talking about your severe mental health issues!’ seems irresponsible, inconsiderate and completely ineffective,” the mom said, emphasizing that PPD is often not about the presence of the new baby but rather a mother’s unexplained feelings of despair. 

“When a person is experiencing postpartum depression (which can be almost identical to regular depression), they can be foggy, swimming through life as if under water,” she continued. “I cannot imagine that a confusing image, like the one portrayed in the Sage campaign, would encourage even one silent sufferer to speak out about her struggles. And, to me, that is very sad.”

Sage Therapeutics responded to the controversy in the Instagram comments section. A representative for the company also issued a statement to HuffPost.

″‘PPD Silence Sucks’ was created to increase awareness of and spark a dialogue about PPD, the most common complication of childbirth,” the statement reads. “We chose a provocative image to demonstrate the debilitating silence surrounding PPD and encourage meaningful conversations between women and their healthcare providers.”

The spokesperson explained that Sage Therapeutics developed the campaign with input from many different perspectives, including women who have struggled with PPD or have a high risk for it, doctors and maternal mental health advocacy organizations. She added that the campaign has fostered dialogue around PPD, which often goes undiagnosed despite affecting about 10 to 20 percent of women who give birth each year in the U.S.

As the statement notes:

“We recognize that it will take many voices from all perspectives ― patients, families, doctors, and policy makers ― to ensure that women with PPD are diagnosed and receive the care they need. We do not believe the burden of diagnosing PPD should fall solely on the patient and we have launched a separate physicians-focused awareness campaign to further encourage women and their doctors to have an open and honest conversation about PPD and screening, while pregnant and after delivery. We hope these two separate, but equally important efforts, help ensure that a mother’s health is treated as importantly as the baby’s.”

Jamie Zahlawya Belsito, a PPD survivor who serves as advocacy chair of the National Coalition for Maternal Mental Health, also shared a statement about the “Silence Sucks” campaign with HuffPost. Belsito experienced a sense of isolation and confusion during her PPD struggles due to lack of information and education within her community.

“When I saw the ‘PPD Silence Sucks’ campaign, it brought about a whole new vision of what my experience would have been had this campaign been out and about in the Boston metro area during the times that I experienced postpartum mood disorders,” she said in her statement, adding that she supports the effort to bring this issue to the light and help normalize and destigmatize PPD. 

“The images of the campaign make you wonder what’s going on with that woman. That man. That provider. The images make people look twice, and read the information on the visual. It makes people think and hopefully want to know more.”

Though the imagery missed the mark for many women, here’s hoping the company’s efforts to help mothers struggling with PPD are fruitful. 

Breaking the silence around postpartum depression is an important cause, and perhaps the feedback on this campaign will help inform future efforts to advocate for women.

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On Tuesday, 18-year-old Ryan Stocker was charged with two counts of felony sexual assault at the Windsor County Courthouse in White River Junction, Vermont. 

A few things you need to know about Stocker is that he is a senior in high school who allegedly sexually assaulted two women, ages 16 and 18, who attend Green Mountain Union High School with him. He’s currently facing between three years and a full life sentence in prison if convicted on those two felony counts. According to local media outlet Daily UV, Stocker could face even more chargers as police investigate additional allegations that’s he’s committed similar crimes, one possibly involving a 15-year-old girl. 

One thing you don’t need to know about Stocker is that he’s an honor roll student. 

As BuzzFeed reporter Tyler Kingkade tweeted, the Daily UV’s article covering Stocker’s trial was wildly problematic. “Chester Honor Role [sic] Student Faces Potential Life Sentence,” the Daily UV’s headline reads. 

“Student accused of sexually assaulting two girls, but you wouldn’t know that from this @thedailyUV headline,” Kingkade tweeted. 

The short sentence below the headline (that’s usually used to sum up the story) apparently had to include that the girls Stocker allegedly assaulted were drunk at the time. While this short sentence isn’t included in the tweet, it is included if you click into the story. 

“Two teen girls say they were drunk when sexually assaulted,” the sentence below the Daily UV’s headline reads.  

The Daily UV’s framing of this story is problematic for a number of reasons. First, as Kingkade noted, the headline doesn’t even include that Stocker is facing a life sentence for allegedly sexually assaulting two women. (And, not for nothing, they spelled “roll” incorrectly in their Twitter headline.) 

Secondly ― and more importantly ― identifying Stocker as an “honor roll student” only fuels the delusional argument that an abuser’s crimes can somehow be nullified if he has a promising future. Just like we didn’t need to know that Brock Turner was an “All-American swimmer” with a “promising” future ― we don’t need to know Stocker is an honor roll student.

All too often, the media focuses on the details of the abuser’s life simply because that’s all they have to work with as the identity of the victim is not on public record. Including details about a person who’s been accused of sexual assault is not a bad thing, but only to a certain point. This balancing act becomes problematic when the details of the abuser’s life ― his bright future lost, his loving parents grieving, the great college he’s no longer attending ― become the story instead of the crimes he’s on trial for in the first place. 

While the Daily UV’s article is a small example, it represents a larger issue: The public and the media believe a rapist looks and acts a certain way.

Someone who gets good grades, is good at sports and happens to be white couldn’t possibly assault a woman, right? 

His grades, his athletic abilities, the fact that he may be a “good friend” ― none of this matters. These facts are irrelevant because a person can still get good grades and rape someone. Because a rapist is usually not some big, scary monster lurking in an alleyway waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting, innocent victim.

A rapist is usually someone you know, someone you’re friends with, someone your family is friends with. Seventy percent of people who experience sexual assault know their attackers. Out of juvenile sexual assault cases, 93 percent knew their attacker. 

In the same breath, it is still rape even if the victim was wearing revealing clothing, flirting, in a relationship with their abuser, doing drugs, and, yes, even if the victim was drinking.

Just as the perfect victim does not exist, the perfect abuser doesn’t either. 

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Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.

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