Uber’s management has spent the past two months struggling to contain a reputational crisis that began with a former employee’s description of rampant sexism inside the company. Airbnb, in contrast, has been quietly overhauling its hiring practices to attract more women — proving that it is not impossible to overcome the gender imbalances prevalent in Silicon Valley. Its experience should serve as an example — and not just for the tech industry.
As Uber has discovered to its cost, consumer-facing companies have good reason to pay attention to gender diversity.
Airbnb saw it as a priority because more than half of its hosts are female. In other parts of the service sector — wealth management, for example, where many clients are female — there is increasing awareness that the image a company presents to the outside world will affect its bottom line.