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At this point, it doesn't matter whether he's leaving because of accusations or if he's leaving because of everyone else's accusations – let's assume the latter

At this point, it doesn't matter whether he's leaving because of accusations or if he's leaving because of everyone else's accusations – let's assume the latter because that's more charitable. This is what a PR tailspin looks like. All your good people will leave, all your bad people will have to be fired, and consumer demand and driver supply will be affected. Perception is reality, and that means Uber are in real trouble here and it's gonna cost them a lot – maybe most of the exec suite – to get out of it. The key question is: who benefits? This is corporate politics by insurgent means, so I wonder who is emptying their opposition research briefing against Uber and why. Could even be an investor who wants to force leadership out, possibly as a prelude to driving Uber to an exit. Those tactics don't work unless the dirt exists, so this really, really doesn't excuse anything which Uber may (and, on the balance of probabilities, there's more than likely fire to go with this smoke) have done. And I don't think it's likely the individuals alleging harassment in particular are part of this at all, so anyone coming trying to impugn their motivations can go pound sand; but, as a byproduct of their legit and serious grievances, they created the environment where this kind of power-play can be made. So who benefits?

spadeisaspade 10y ago
10000% leaving bc of accusations AGAINST him. I know first hand. This guy doesn't deserve an ounce of benefit of the doubt. Lucky he was able to "resign" but I think people are smart enough to put two and two together.
bcherny 10y ago
I'd bet on Thiel. Not only has he pulled these sort of PR moves in the past, but Founders invested in 3 Lyft rounds (including leading its B round).
- exolymph 10y ago
  That seems veryyyyy speculative. Uber doesn't need any help hanging itself.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    ...And anyone with a brain will realize that the fastest way for the hanging to proceed, is to give Uber plenty of space, time, and rope.
justicezyx 10y ago
Uber's female and minority employees?
- genericpseudo 10y ago
  Absolutely the most important group affected here.
xorblurb 10y ago
> Those tactics don't work unless the dirt exists Dirt exists, this is obvious and well documented, and Uber does not even denies it. Now the tactics you are talking about are purely hypothetical. There is no need for a Machiavellian plan to exist for all downfalls and catastrophies (although sometime there is one.) So what exactly is "corporate politics by insurgent means"?
- genericpseudo 10y ago
  Investors have functionally no say in how Uber is run (so they can't raise issues in the boardroom); competitors want Uber dead. Two groups with incentive to get the composition of the boardroom changed.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    A lot of people who don't believe that Uber's business strategies have a place in a civilized society - so that's a third group for you.
kbenson 10y ago
> This is corporate politics by insurgent means Do you mind explaining that? I'm not sure I follow. It's obvious that a lot of dirt is coming out, but it seems to all be sourced internally. Or are you referring to people with media connections pushing the stories for more exposure (which I don't know if is happening or not)? I don't think there needs to be an explanation for why there's a lot of stories beyond it hitting the tipping point for many employees, but that doesn't mean there isn't one.
- genericpseudo 10y ago
  > Do you mind explaining that? I'm not sure I follow. This is obviously highly speculative, but Uber is a really leaky ship right now. This could be solely coincidence, but I am positing that – potentially – someone who wants increased influence at, or to increase pressure on, Uber may see opportunity here. To that end, they might be spinning parts of the narrative through their press relationships. In other words: never let a crisis go to waste...
  - skywhopper 10y ago
    I think it's just as likely that the people with grievances to air are far more likely to be listened to once an initial scandal breaks. As soon as the first tale hit the mainstream news, every editor and reporter suddenly had a reason to publish an otherwise ignorable story. Top execs leaving is more easily explained. This is the time if you have skeletons in your closet, assuming the internal investigation is real, before your dirty laundry is aired in the national news. And if you see this as Uber's death knell better to bail before it tarnishes your own rep to have worked there.
    - bsder 10y ago
      > And if you see this as Uber's death knell better to bail before it tarnishes your own rep to have worked there. Even if it's not Uber's death knell, as top exec it's probably better to bail now. You can take your "I ran X at Uber" managerial propaganda and cash in on that for a better position. An Uber IPO probably isn't going to be life-changing amounts of money anymore for these levels of people even with the sweet deals that the hoi polloi would never get, so time to move on.
msabalau 10y ago
"Ultimately the root of any conspiracy theory is a strong desire to believe that someone, somewhere, is competent at what they're doing." -Amy Dentata
- genericpseudo 10y ago
  Point taken :-) But I don't think I'm advancing a conspiracy theory. There's a genuine crisis at Uber, and that's the important issue here; if a hundredth of what's been alleged is true then that's the main event here and all of this is really Valley inside-baseball navel-gazing. Let's not draw moral false equivalences here. Still, as a student of Valley dynamics, one has to acknowledge that realpolitik exists whenever things go really wrong. Given that, it's worth wondering whether any parties can take advantage of those conditions, especially given the non-existent state of board oversight in tightly-held SV companies. Chris Sacca and Mitch Kapor have already gone to the press on this (publically), so it's not even that much of a reach. This is, in some really grim ways, an opportunity which doesn't come around very often.
  - intrasight 10y ago
    An opportunity to write a great screenplay and make a blockbuster movie.
  - nostrademons 10y ago
    There doesn't have to be a single actor who benefits for there to be realpolitik. It could be that the the company has pissed off a number of people on the way up (this is a virtual certainty), and now that they smell blood in the water, they're all coming out. Think "information cascade", not "nefarious actor".
    - genericpseudo 10y ago
      That's actually what I was aiming to say, but the way I phrased it could unfortunately bear both interpretations.
    - postgeographic 10y ago
elastic_church 10y ago
> The key question is: who benefits? The employees because they'll have to pay more for talent?
booleandilemma 10y ago
Lyft?
anigbrowl 10y ago
This is corporate politics by insurgent means, so I wonder who is emptying their opposition research briefing against Uber and why. [citation needed] The fact that it could be doesn't mean it is. Firms can collapse under the weight of their own bad decisions without any outside engineering, and Uber has pissed off lots of people over a long time.
jlgaddis 10y ago
Perhaps you're thinking about it too deeply. Maybe it's just the other employees who are (finally) sick of all the shit?
- randycupertino 10y ago
  It's got to be embarrassing for the engineers who work there. It used to be a pretty prestigious/sought after place to work. Now it's tarnished.
untog 10y ago
I don't think this requires a grand conspiracy to still make sense. If you're an Uber employee that's been around for a while, you have significant value tied up in Uber stock. The senior management has long indicated little interest in going public, so in theory you have a lot of employees that are being prevented from becoming millionaires by their employer. Worse, that stock is now decreasing in value (impossible to assess of course, but...) - might it not be better to leak all the things you've seen in the last few years and hurry the departure of the senior staff at Uber? Then you'll get a new set of executives who will be much more open to going public and making you rich. Maybe not as rich as you might have been before all this started, but it's better than terminal decline.
- genericpseudo 10y ago
  That's more or less where I am, actually; not that this is a conspiracy, but something simpler, more subtle and less organized. I'm positing that the very real and very awful problems at Uber (again, to reiterate; those are the main issue here, I'm picking at side-issues...) have incidentally created an environment where some parties have powerful incentives to go in on Uber themselves.
  - deleted 10y ago
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ImTalking 10y ago
The market's invisible-hand benefits. If this corporation is toxic, then it fails and in it's place will come a better, more ethical, more resilient corporation.
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flylib 10y ago
Uber is not in real trouble, most people that use Uber don't know it is going on or don't even care
- ghaff 10y ago
  Which might even matter if this were a profitable business. But it's not. I expect that these "ride share" services will stay around but I also suspect that a lot of people who have developed expectations around them at their current subsidized pricing are in for a surprise when they become 2x or 4x more expensive.
- randycupertino 10y ago
  I kind of disagree, I know several people who stopped using Uber entirely because of all the recent scandals.
deleted 10y ago
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zouhair 10y ago
Never underestimate human stupidity.
praxulus 10y ago
>The key question is: who benefits? The women engineers who won't get harassed at companies that crack down on bad behavior to avoid sharing Uber's fate. It's a massive conspiracy by the Society of Women Engineers to bring down the worst parts of tech culture.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  What does one call a conspiracy that you agree with? A campaign?
ThomPete 10y ago
Other companies who can hire their talent. I actually don't believe all these stores are going to affect Ubers customer potential that much. Just like McDonalds aren't being affected despite one of their biggest hurdless is dealing with bad PR. Most consumers don't care or know about these things. Where it's really going to affect Uber is with regards to attracting talent.

spadeisaspade 10y ago

10000% leaving bc of accusations AGAINST him. I know first hand. This guy doesn't deserve an ounce of benefit of the doubt. Lucky he was able to "resign" but I think people are smart enough to put two and two together.

bcherny 10y ago

I'd bet on Thiel. Not only has he pulled these sort of PR moves in the past, but Founders invested in 3 Lyft rounds (including leading its B round).

exolymph 10y ago
That seems veryyyyy speculative. Uber doesn't need any help hanging itself.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  ...And anyone with a brain will realize that the fastest way for the hanging to proceed, is to give Uber plenty of space, time, and rope.

justicezyx 10y ago

Uber's female and minority employees?

genericpseudo 10y ago
Absolutely the most important group affected here.

xorblurb 10y ago

> Those tactics don't work unless the dirt exists Dirt exists, this is obvious and well documented, and Uber does not even denies it. Now the tactics you are talking about are purely hypothetical. There is no need for a Machiavellian plan to exist for all downfalls and catastrophies (although sometime there is one.) So what exactly is "corporate politics by insurgent means"?

genericpseudo 10y ago
Investors have functionally no say in how Uber is run (so they can't raise issues in the boardroom); competitors want Uber dead. Two groups with incentive to get the composition of the boardroom changed.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  A lot of people who don't believe that Uber's business strategies have a place in a civilized society - so that's a third group for you.

kbenson 10y ago

> This is corporate politics by insurgent means Do you mind explaining that? I'm not sure I follow. It's obvious that a lot of dirt is coming out, but it seems to all be sourced internally. Or are you referring to people with media connections pushing the stories for more exposure (which I don't know if is happening or not)? I don't think there needs to be an explanation for why there's a lot of stories beyond it hitting the tipping point for many employees, but that doesn't mean there isn't one.

genericpseudo 10y ago
> Do you mind explaining that? I'm not sure I follow. This is obviously highly speculative, but Uber is a really leaky ship right now. This could be solely coincidence, but I am positing that – potentially – someone who wants increased influence at, or to increase pressure on, Uber may see opportunity here. To that end, they might be spinning parts of the narrative through their press relationships. In other words: never let a crisis go to waste...
- skywhopper 10y ago
  I think it's just as likely that the people with grievances to air are far more likely to be listened to once an initial scandal breaks. As soon as the first tale hit the mainstream news, every editor and reporter suddenly had a reason to publish an otherwise ignorable story. Top execs leaving is more easily explained. This is the time if you have skeletons in your closet, assuming the internal investigation is real, before your dirty laundry is aired in the national news. And if you see this as Uber's death knell better to bail before it tarnishes your own rep to have worked there.
  - bsder 10y ago
    > And if you see this as Uber's death knell better to bail before it tarnishes your own rep to have worked there. Even if it's not Uber's death knell, as top exec it's probably better to bail now. You can take your "I ran X at Uber" managerial propaganda and cash in on that for a better position. An Uber IPO probably isn't going to be life-changing amounts of money anymore for these levels of people even with the sweet deals that the hoi polloi would never get, so time to move on.

msabalau 10y ago

"Ultimately the root of any conspiracy theory is a strong desire to believe that someone, somewhere, is competent at what they're doing." -Amy Dentata

genericpseudo 10y ago
Point taken :-) But I don't think I'm advancing a conspiracy theory. There's a genuine crisis at Uber, and that's the important issue here; if a hundredth of what's been alleged is true then that's the main event here and all of this is really Valley inside-baseball navel-gazing. Let's not draw moral false equivalences here. Still, as a student of Valley dynamics, one has to acknowledge that realpolitik exists whenever things go really wrong. Given that, it's worth wondering whether any parties can take advantage of those conditions, especially given the non-existent state of board oversight in tightly-held SV companies. Chris Sacca and Mitch Kapor have already gone to the press on this (publically), so it's not even that much of a reach. This is, in some really grim ways, an opportunity which doesn't come around very often.
- intrasight 10y ago
  An opportunity to write a great screenplay and make a blockbuster movie.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  There doesn't have to be a single actor who benefits for there to be realpolitik. It could be that the the company has pissed off a number of people on the way up (this is a virtual certainty), and now that they smell blood in the water, they're all coming out. Think "information cascade", not "nefarious actor".
  - genericpseudo 10y ago
    That's actually what I was aiming to say, but the way I phrased it could unfortunately bear both interpretations.
  - postgeographic 10y ago

elastic_church 10y ago

> The key question is: who benefits? The employees because they'll have to pay more for talent?

booleandilemma 10y ago

Lyft?

anigbrowl 10y ago

This is corporate politics by insurgent means, so I wonder who is emptying their opposition research briefing against Uber and why. [citation needed] The fact that it could be doesn't mean it is. Firms can collapse under the weight of their own bad decisions without any outside engineering, and Uber has pissed off lots of people over a long time.

jlgaddis 10y ago

Perhaps you're thinking about it too deeply. Maybe it's just the other employees who are (finally) sick of all the shit?

randycupertino 10y ago
It's got to be embarrassing for the engineers who work there. It used to be a pretty prestigious/sought after place to work. Now it's tarnished.

untog 10y ago

I don't think this requires a grand conspiracy to still make sense. If you're an Uber employee that's been around for a while, you have significant value tied up in Uber stock. The senior management has long indicated little interest in going public, so in theory you have a lot of employees that are being prevented from becoming millionaires by their employer. Worse, that stock is now decreasing in value (impossible to assess of course, but...) - might it not be better to leak all the things you've seen in the last few years and hurry the departure of the senior staff at Uber? Then you'll get a new set of executives who will be much more open to going public and making you rich. Maybe not as rich as you might have been before all this started, but it's better than terminal decline.

genericpseudo 10y ago
That's more or less where I am, actually; not that this is a conspiracy, but something simpler, more subtle and less organized. I'm positing that the very real and very awful problems at Uber (again, to reiterate; those are the main issue here, I'm picking at side-issues...) have incidentally created an environment where some parties have powerful incentives to go in on Uber themselves.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ImTalking 10y ago

The market's invisible-hand benefits. If this corporation is toxic, then it fails and in it's place will come a better, more ethical, more resilient corporation.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

flylib 10y ago

Uber is not in real trouble, most people that use Uber don't know it is going on or don't even care

ghaff 10y ago
Which might even matter if this were a profitable business. But it's not. I expect that these "ride share" services will stay around but I also suspect that a lot of people who have developed expectations around them at their current subsidized pricing are in for a surprise when they become 2x or 4x more expensive.
randycupertino 10y ago
I kind of disagree, I know several people who stopped using Uber entirely because of all the recent scandals.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

zouhair 10y ago

Never underestimate human stupidity.

praxulus 10y ago

>The key question is: who benefits? The women engineers who won't get harassed at companies that crack down on bad behavior to avoid sharing Uber's fate. It's a massive conspiracy by the Society of Women Engineers to bring down the worst parts of tech culture.

lostlogin 10y ago
What does one call a conspiracy that you agree with? A campaign?

ThomPete 10y ago

Other companies who can hire their talent. I actually don't believe all these stores are going to affect Ubers customer potential that much. Just like McDonalds aren't being affected despite one of their biggest hurdless is dealing with bad PR. Most consumers don't care or know about these things. Where it's really going to affect Uber is with regards to attracting talent.