https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/29/17406524/snapchat-sexist-toxic-workplace-culture-diversity-numbers-report

A former software engineer at Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. accused the company of fostering a “sexist” and “toxic” workplace culture, accusations company leadership did not deny, according to a report from Cheddar. Snap now says that it’s working hard to remedy the issues the engineer, Shannon Lubetich, highlighted — starting with improving its diversity figures. For the first time ever, Snap disclosed that just 13 percent of its technical workforce are women and that 22 percent of upper management are women, Cheddar reports. Those figures put Snap behind larger Silicon Valley social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, though diversity progress for the industry remains slow across the board.

Snap’s soul-searching over its workplace culture can be traced back to Lubetich leaving the company in November of last year, amid Snapchat’s redesign efforts and following a spike in bad press after a troubling earnings report. On her last day, Lubetich wrote an email to Snap’s entire engineering team encouraging employees to help create a “kind, smart, and creative” workplace culture. The note was reportedly widely discussed within the company and has kickstarted efforts to make working at Snap more inclusive and less emblematic of the male-driven startup culture that dominated the company’s early days.