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> I wonder how much impact this will have. What were the consequences when Uber management was caught behaving badly in the past? In November 2014, Uber’s sen

by freyr 10y ago

> I wonder how much impact this will have. What were the consequences when Uber management was caught behaving badly in the past? In November 2014, Uber’s senior vice president Emil Michael suggested Uber hire a team of opposition researchers—equipped with a million-dollar budget—to dig into the personal lives of journalists who reported negatively about the company in order to dox, target and harass them and their families. One of his main targets was Pando founder and editor-in-chief Sarah Lacey, who had reported on the company’s sexist and misogynistic ways. Further proving her point, Mr. Michael said he thought Ms. Lacy should be held “personally responsible” if passengers who head Ms. Lacey’s advice and stop using Uber are sexually assaults by taxi drivers. Mr. Kalanick apologized on behalf of the company, but Mr. Michael didn’t lose his position. Well, there's your answer.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
What actually happened: "Emil was pushing Ben to answer why it was OK for journalists to publish false stories or attack a businessperson’s personal life. Ben was quiet. It was a pretty normal conversation about hypotheticals. There was no malice or yelling or fighting. It was a chat between the two of them that I happened to overhear. The last comment that I heard was when Emil hypothesized about creating a coalition for responsible journalism. Ben said that would likely fail because companies have no expertise in journalism. Emil flippantly said he could hire professional journalists for $1 million to get the expertise to make sure that they could respond when negative articles come out." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicole-campbell/what-was-said-at-the-uber_b_6198250.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicole-campbell/what-was-said-... Since when is discussing a philosophical hypothetical "behaving badly"? And again, the actual hypothetical is worth answering. Suppose Emil did, in fact, drop $1M on hiring journalists to do journalism to other journalists. Why is it "behaving badly" if Uber does journalism, but not if Techcrunch or Gawker does?
- hashkb 10y ago
  If you are hired by a corporation to respond to journalists, you are in PR, not journalism. You're not motivated by the truth.
  - freyr 10y ago
    The actual idea was to hire researchers and journalists to dig up dirt in the personal lives of critical journalists, not merely to respond to them.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - just2n 10y ago
    Since when is journalism motivated by the truth?
- ebbv 10y ago
  HuffPo should be disqualified as a source regarding Uber. As stated in the NYT piece, Arianna Huffington is on Uber's board. She has a clear interest in shining as positive a light as possible on Uber at all times.
  - malandrew 10y ago
    Ask yourself which journalists have A16Z or Andreessen himself as investors, who are also among the biggest investors in Lyft. This is an exercise left up to the reader. There is no journalism in Silicon Valley. Everything is PR. As Doerr said "No conflict, no interest."
    - RodericDay 10y ago
      In this light, Susan Rigetti seems to have published a solid piece of personal journalism.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Ok. Lets imagine Emil actually did exactly as described in his hypothetical: hiring people to investigate true facts and report them to the public. How is that somehow worse than Gawker hiring people to do that to Uber?
    - nkoren 10y ago
      When those "true facts" are the personal details of journalists and their families, researched and published specifically to make them fear for their safety. If you think that maliciously doxing people is perfectly fine as long as the dox are true facts, then you are a being a troll. If I have misunderstood your point, then I apologise and would appreciate clarification.
      - yummyfajitas 10y ago
        Doxing refers to identifying anonymous writers on the internet. So I'm not sure what you are referring to - Emil Michael was discussing reporting true but embarrassing personal facts about (public figure) Sarah Lacy. Specifically, the idea was to write articles like these, but with Sarah Lacy (founder of Pando) as the subject: https://pando.com/2014/02/27/we-call-that-boob-er-the-four-most-awful-things-travis-kalanick-said-in-his-gq-profile/ https://pando.com/2014/02/27/we-call-that-boob-er-the-four-m... https://pando.com/2014/10/06/venture-capital-and-the-great-big-silicon-valley-asshole-game/ https://pando.com/2014/10/06/venture-capital-and-the-great-b... So yes, my concrete question is why it's wrong to write the 4 most awful true things about Sarah Lacy, but it's perfectly fine to write the 4 most awful true facts about Travis Kalanick?
- freyr 10y ago
  So Emil talks about spending millions on PR to discredit their critics, and then his journalist friend writes an article discrediting a critic and contradicting everything he said. Sorry if I'm a bit skeptical.

by freyr 10y ago

yummyfajitas 10y ago

What actually happened: "Emil was pushing Ben to answer why it was OK for journalists to publish false stories or attack a businessperson’s personal life. Ben was quiet. It was a pretty normal conversation about hypotheticals. There was no malice or yelling or fighting. It was a chat between the two of them that I happened to overhear. The last comment that I heard was when Emil hypothesized about creating a coalition for responsible journalism. Ben said that would likely fail because companies have no expertise in journalism. Emil flippantly said he could hire professional journalists for $1 million to get the expertise to make sure that they could respond when negative articles come out." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicole-campbell/what-was-said-at-the-uber_b_6198250.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicole-campbell/what-was-said-... Since when is discussing a philosophical hypothetical "behaving badly"? And again, the actual hypothetical is worth answering. Suppose Emil did, in fact, drop $1M on hiring journalists to do journalism to other journalists. Why is it "behaving badly" if Uber does journalism, but not if Techcrunch or Gawker does?

hashkb 10y ago
If you are hired by a corporation to respond to journalists, you are in PR, not journalism. You're not motivated by the truth.
- freyr 10y ago
  The actual idea was to hire researchers and journalists to dig up dirt in the personal lives of critical journalists, not merely to respond to them.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- just2n 10y ago
  Since when is journalism motivated by the truth?
ebbv 10y ago
HuffPo should be disqualified as a source regarding Uber. As stated in the NYT piece, Arianna Huffington is on Uber's board. She has a clear interest in shining as positive a light as possible on Uber at all times.
- malandrew 10y ago
  Ask yourself which journalists have A16Z or Andreessen himself as investors, who are also among the biggest investors in Lyft. This is an exercise left up to the reader. There is no journalism in Silicon Valley. Everything is PR. As Doerr said "No conflict, no interest."
  - RodericDay 10y ago
    In this light, Susan Rigetti seems to have published a solid piece of personal journalism.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Ok. Lets imagine Emil actually did exactly as described in his hypothetical: hiring people to investigate true facts and report them to the public. How is that somehow worse than Gawker hiring people to do that to Uber?
  - nkoren 10y ago
    When those "true facts" are the personal details of journalists and their families, researched and published specifically to make them fear for their safety. If you think that maliciously doxing people is perfectly fine as long as the dox are true facts, then you are a being a troll. If I have misunderstood your point, then I apologise and would appreciate clarification.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      Doxing refers to identifying anonymous writers on the internet. So I'm not sure what you are referring to - Emil Michael was discussing reporting true but embarrassing personal facts about (public figure) Sarah Lacy. Specifically, the idea was to write articles like these, but with Sarah Lacy (founder of Pando) as the subject: https://pando.com/2014/02/27/we-call-that-boob-er-the-four-most-awful-things-travis-kalanick-said-in-his-gq-profile/ https://pando.com/2014/02/27/we-call-that-boob-er-the-four-m... https://pando.com/2014/10/06/venture-capital-and-the-great-big-silicon-valley-asshole-game/ https://pando.com/2014/10/06/venture-capital-and-the-great-b... So yes, my concrete question is why it's wrong to write the 4 most awful true things about Sarah Lacy, but it's perfectly fine to write the 4 most awful true facts about Travis Kalanick?
freyr 10y ago
So Emil talks about spending millions on PR to discredit their critics, and then his journalist friend writes an article discrediting a critic and contradicting everything he said. Sorry if I'm a bit skeptical.