Motivated sources motivate other sources. You're seeing discontent among Uber employees play out as a line of newly-minted, motivated primary sources. This is w

Motivated sources motivate other sources. You're seeing discontent among Uber employees play out as a line of newly-minted, motivated primary sources. This is why a news cycle can, on occasion, feel like the Eye of Sauron: it's not that people are suddenly paying attention, it's the constant reminder to indecisive sources that they can now air their grievances and find traction on them with that attention. Attention is exponential and each negative story sharpens it more than the last, compounding as the cycle deepens. Journalists are acutely aware of this phenomenon. Just one particularly controversial story can pull dozens more out of the woodwork as sources say hey, you think that's bad, I've got something to talk about too. One runs a story that's a little bit wrong or controversial, and a bunch of sources will materialize out of the blue to correct, or add to, the record. Often, they remain sources once they realize it's child's play to get away with it and that sourcing can serve their ends, too. The original CIR reporting here is mostly based on Spangenberg's October deposition, but they talked to five people to report on it. Five. That's really hard to pull off even for a well-connected reporter. Rough times for Uber if the bad news is flowing this freely, and I don't think we are done with this cycle by a long shot. Kalanick's exes are talking, for Christ's sake: if there's a Richter scale for news cycles, former lovers sourcing to help shit on your company is about a 9. That's a bad sign and a boatload of chum in the water. There will be followups on this stuff until Christmas. Mark my words. As a counterexample, Theranos was a surprisingly tight ship once that WSJ missile landed; I expected far more of the same momentum you're now seeing with Uber once their cycle got going, and there was a little but not nearly as much. Smart money would be that Theranos takes better care of its people than Uber. Source behavior during negative PR cycles is a good signal on this, and why it's important to pay attention to care and feeding of people who have damaging things to say.