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What Was Said at the Uber Dinner

151 points by viscanti 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
DigitalSea 12y ago
At first I was reeled in and started to see a different perspective on a pretty controversial story and then right towards the end, BAM! Nicole (author of the article) hits us with this important nugget: I will admit that I am friends with Emil. We were both White House Fellows serving in different departments during the first year of the Obama administration where we both quit our jobs to take civil service positions to improve our country. You would think someone commenting on such an important and controversial story in tech like this would fully disclose that she is in-fact friends with Emil and worked with him right at the beginning of the article? Seems like a big conflict of interest here and changes the tone from "see this from another perspective" to "I am defending my friend, so everything I write is going to be heavily biased" I feel as though even Nicole's account is sensationalist in itself. This line right here: At that point, I wanted to grab Emil. I kind of knew what Ben was up to. - A journalist asking questions at an event for journalists? Who would have thought such a thing would happen? Nicole then goes on to confirm what the previous lines of text confirmed that this is an emotional and personal response defending her friend: I am upset that Ben sensationalized what happened at that dinner. I am not trying to say that the original story by Ben wasn't sensationalist, but it wasn't a fabricated lie either. Emil said what he said, this article even confirms that. I have no issue with Nicole rallying to the defense of a friend, I would do the same, but I would at least disclose the fact before, not after.
- mcphage 12y ago
  > You would think someone commenting on such an important and controversial story in tech like this would fully disclose that she is in-fact friends with Emil and worked with him? But isn't the only reason you know those facts because she did disclose them? Like, right there in that line you quoted?
  - DigitalSea 12y ago
    No. The article would have held more credibility in my eyes if she was upfront about the fact there was a conflict of interest before continuing on with the article. Heck, even an article on the likes of Techcrunch with even a remote tinge of conflict of interest is disclosed in the first paragraph before you get into the article contents. I legitimately feel misled, I was to feel as though I was reading an impartial account of what happened that night only to be told at the end that the account was from a friend nonetheless. Lets be honest, in most cases, a friend will always defend another friend regardless of the context or the situation. It is rare that a friend will throw another under the bus, especially in a situation like this. This is why everything Nicole says is hearsay because she could easily be exaggerating what she thought she heard all for the sake of defending her friend. We do not even know for certain if Nicole heard anything to do with what happened, we were offered no new bits of information we did not already have.
    - dkrich 12y ago
      Interesting that you are seemingly willing to take several second-hand accounts and interpretations of what his comments were and the context in which they were made from sources nowhere near the room, yet are okay assuming that what she wrote is merely "hearsay" or "exaggerated" despite her claim that she was sitting next to them during the conversation. I don't, by the way, find this to be a coincident. It seems perfectly logical that you would sit near people you know at a dinner party.
- dkrich 12y ago
  Seems like a big conflict of interest here and changes the tone from "see this from another perspective" to "I am defending my friend, so everything I write is going to be heavily biased" Why? She is probably one of three or four people on the planet qualified to speak to what actually happened there. The idea that she should recuse herself from publicly posting an account of what she saw first-hand just because she's friends with the subject of the controversy doesn't hold water in my opinion. In fact, since pretty much every article that has come out (all by people who were not themselves in attendance) has had the goal of making attacks against the company and its executives, perhaps a friend of an executive who can offer a personal insight into what happened is the best person of all to write an account of what really happened. It seems that the public at large is more than happy to be spoon-fed facts from Pando Daily, Gawker, and BuzzFeed who carelessly level poorly-researched personal attacks heavily-weighted with personal opinions and biases passed off as "journalism" without actually asking themselves the simple question- "What has my own personal experience been?" I for one like Uber and Lyft, and use both regularly. Never have I or anybody I know experienced any serious problem after having used them several hundred times, despite the constant onslaught of accusations that females are at risk using it. Compare that to the taxi industry. In fact, just last week, after learning that I needed to pay for my ride with a card for expense reasons, refused to let me out of the cab and tried to drive me to an atm against my will and I had to call the police to make him stop the car. This is a true story. Happened last time I took a cab. Despite the fact that it is a law where I live that cabs MUST take a credit card. I'm certainly not suggesting that it is okay to spy on people with the intent of blackmailing or evening the score (and I suspect most everyone would agree with that). I'm just suggesting that we be fair in our criticism. Blogs have a very real incentive to get the most page views that they can and are more than happy to do so at anybody's expense. I've seen that happen enough to know not to take anything I read on the internet at face-value.
  - rosser 12y ago
    Disclosing the friendship up front isn't a recusal. It's simple honesty.
    - dkrich 12y ago
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  It was like four-and-a-half paragraphs. The author didn't "hide" the note about her connection to Emil at the end of a twenty-page snoozefest. Seems like plenty sufficient disclosure to me.
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    The proper thing to do is to disclose it right at the start since it obviously colors the whole report.
    - IbJacked 12y ago
      And doing so would obviously color how the report is perceived.
      - waterlesscloud 12y ago
        Yes. As it should.
      - prakashk 12y ago
        An up-front and prominent disclosure could also color my perception in the author's favor, and I'd be more inclined to give higher credence to author's arguments.
- ephemeralgomi 12y ago
  > You would think someone commenting on such an important and controversial story in tech like this would fully disclose that she is in-fact friends with Emil and worked with him? She did! You quoted it in your post!
  - DigitalSea 12y ago
    Yes Nicole did, right at the end of her article. As I mentioned in another reply, even sites like Techcrunch who are no strangers to half-baked journalism themselves disclose conflicts of interest at the beginning of their articles. It is misleading in my opinion.
    - ephemeralgomi 12y ago
      Okay, so you've backed down from "You'd think she would have disclosed that" to "I would prefer she prefaced the article with that". I'm content.
    - omonra 12y ago
      I think you really are looking to say something critical. As you clearly have nothing substantial to say, your claim 'the disclosure is in the wrong part of the article' is specious. Let's man up and admit that the whole story that's been pushed over last few days is looking like BS.
      - knorby 12y ago
        And all that she's reporting is her own judgements of the incident and a light confirmation that the conversation took place. She confirms almost every detail that the buzzfeed article states, including the suggestion of targeting Sarah Lacy's personal life. They built different narratives of the event, largely colored by the biases of each. The journalist had a bias towards building sensation and the friend had a bias towards downplay. If you don't read news articles expecting the bias of a journalist, then I'm sorry, I don't know what you are doing. But until that ending line in the article, she was a well-placed, mostly unbiased, bystander.
    - 12y ago
- ddrmaxgt37 12y ago
  ad hominem
- colbyh 12y ago
  I'm a personal friend of Nicole and it didn't strike me as odd. She doesn't have a dishonest bone in her body, really. I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't even register that people might find her prior friendship to be a conflict of interest. Not saying it wouldn't have been helpful up front, but the message is still valid IMO. Understandably I'm a bit biased for the author, but I'm also not the biggest Uber fan so if that helps...
  - frostmatthew 12y ago
    > I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't even register that people might find her prior friendship to be a conflict of interest. If that were the case she wouldn't have mentioned it at all.
  - philsnow 12y ago
    The trouble with the order the article was presented in, is that it buries the lede (the lede here being that the author has a very significant personal bias, which can color the reader's perspective of the rest of the article). The author chose (subconsciously or not, strategically or not) to defer mention of that important fact to the end, by which point many readers will have already given up reading. It is a fact that people pay more attention to the beginning of an article and that a significant proportion of people fall off the end and don't finish.
    - philwelch 12y ago
      It only "buries the lede" for those who are desperate enough to find some reason to discredit it, which is going to be the natural impulse of most torch-and-pitchfork wielding people in this internet mob.
- rayiner 12y ago
  > Emil said what he said, this article even confirms that. Here's my big problem with all this: nobody defending this guy is saying "no, he didn't say that," or "no, he was joking," or even, "no, it was taken out of context." They're saying, essentially, that he wouldn't have disclosed his internal thought process if he knew it would be made public. I definitely wouldn't want one of my jokes or hypotheticals to be quoted out of context. But what I don't get is staying stuff you actually mean and then getting upset that people call you an asshole for thinking and believing the things you actually think and believe.
  - emiliobumachar 12y ago
    From the article: "I heard a mention of a Sarah Lacy and overheard Emil say that he felt terrible that by writing an article, Sarah had actually suggested that people choose less safe alternatives based on a charge of sexism that was really a personal attack on the CEO with no basis in fact. Emil then said that Sarah wouldn't like it if someone wrote false things about her or published an article that was factually wrong because we all have done things in our private lives we are not proud of. There was no anti-feminist sentiment, no attacking families, no attacking children, no anger, no threats against anyone, no action plan. Nothing. It was clear to me that this was all a vague, civilized conversation. I am a woman and I am sensitive to any kind of talk like that. " (my emphasis.) I don't know whether she's telling the truth, but she's definitely saying "no, he didn't say that" to the most grave things he's been accused of saying.
    - rayiner 12y ago
      He's also describing what she overheard to contravene the testimony of someone who was actually a party to the conversation.
- downandout 12y ago
  >I am not trying to say that the original story by Ben wasn't sensationalist, but it wasn't a fabricated lie either Is it not a fabrication when you take something that was clearly a hypothetical statement and report it as if you overheard it at a strategy meeting? Both Ben and Sarah's stories represented that this wasn't a hypothetical, but rather a plan that would be carried out against Sarah and her children immediately. IMO, that is a fabrication.
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    "take something that was clearly a hypothetical statement and report it as if you overheard it at a strategy meeting?" No one has done this.
    - downandout 12y ago
      Except for Sarah and Ben, along with every derivative article and news report published on this since this started.
    - nailer 12y ago
      Title of Buzzfeed article: "Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists" Even Ben's own quotes in that article indicate it wasn't a serious suggestion.
      - waterlesscloud 12y ago
        Right. What he did not do was present it as if it came from an Uber corporate strategy meeting.
  - likeagrownup 12y ago
    Are you related to Uber in any fashion? Because honestly, that's some bullshit that you just wrote write there. Nobody said it like they were at a strategy meeting. It was reported as it was: evidence that Emil is a shitbag who threatens reporters, and works at a company where that sort of thing is considered a fine course of action.
- andrep 12y ago
  Conflict of interest? What about the desire to break a story (and make your career) vs reporting what actually happened without sensationalising it?
michaelochurch 12y ago
"It'th about ethicth in journalism! ... Mom! Turn up the damn thermothtat! It'th freezing down here!" In all seriousness, Uber is scary. It's really going to ruin the credibility of a whole industry. Its unlikeable, bro CEO doesn't help. People have forgotten all about the old days of Silicon Valley when it was driven by people who wanted to build things, and now the spotlight is on douchebaggery and a general lack of accountability.
- at-fates-hands 12y ago
  Do you think this is the way it is, or this is your impression from how things are being reported? I have the same belief, but I wonder if there's tons of great startups who are flourishing because they keep their mouth shut and heads down and produce good stuff and nobody knows about them.
- geebee 12y ago
  Here's a bit of background info on Emil Michael's career and degrees. http://blog.uber.com/Callinicos_Michael_Baker http://blog.uber.com/Callinicos_Michael_Baker "Emil Michael, formerly Chief Operating Officer of Klout, and prior to that was SVP of Field Operations at TellMe Networks, is joining Uber as our SVP of Business. Emil is known as one of the top deal guys in the Valley, a strategic deal maker who also brings experience scaling sales organizations. I am counting on Emil to be the leader of our business efforts and the face of Uber to our business partners and users globally. Emil starts with Uber today." From his bio on business week Mr. Emil Michael served as Senior Vice President Field Operations at Tellme Networks, Inc. He joined Tellme in June 1999 and he held several leadership roles as the director of business and corporate development, vice president of client development and acting general counsel. Mr. Michael led the client development, account management and solution delivery teams at Tellme. He joined Tellme from Goldman Sachs, Inc., where he served as an associate in the communications, media and entertainment investment banking group. At Goldman Sachs, Mr. Michael worked on several equity and bank debt financings. He also participated in merger and hostile takeover advisory projects for several of Goldman Sachs' Fortune 100 clients. He began his career as a strategy consultant at Gemini Consulting's converging markets laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mr. Michael received his bachelor of arts degree from Harvard and his law degree from Stanford University. From the wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Michael http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Michael An immigrant from Egypt,[5] Michael received his B.A. in Government cum laude from Harvard University, where he wrote for the Harvard Crimson[6] and served as president of the Harvard Republican Club. While he was president, the club changed its name to the Harvard-Radcliffe Republican Club in an effort to reach out to potential members who perceived the club as sexist.[7] He received his J.D. degree with honors from Stanford Law School.[5] So my understanding is that he isn't really a technologist, he is a Harvard government major followed by Stanford Law degree, he has a stint at Goldman Sachs, and he is a great deal maker. Of course, I can't prove a negative - does anyone know if he did substantial technical work at some point? Overall, I do think michaelochurch is accurate in pointing out that Emil Michael doesn't appear to be a lifelong technologist. He may represent a new trend in tech management - dealmakers who aren't really versed in technology and haven't really been directly involved in building technology products themselves. Is this relevant? It reminds me of a statement from Elliot Spitzer in the movie "Inside Job" about corruption in the banking industry and the banking crisis. Spitzer: "Well, high tech is a fundamentally creative business, where the valuegeneration and the income derives from actually creating something new and different" I'm not sure I agree anymore (the collusion not to poach, for example shows a pretty bad pattern of behavior), but it is something to think about. If tech becomes dominated by finance, law, deal "guys" (this is the term used by uber to describe him), we may very well lose that culture that kept some of this kind of thing at bay because we were, at our core, a group of builders, people who are deeply involved in making things. This transformation may already be well underway.
applecore 12y ago
Here is Michael Wolff's account of what happened at the dinner, whom Ben Smith, BuzzFeed's editor in chief, accompanied as a guest: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2014/11/19/behind-the-scenes-uber-buzzfeed-fracas/19269737/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2014/11/...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- badusername 12y ago
  And many others: http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/20/buzzfeeds-ben-smith-plays-dumb-about-company-investors-how-would-we-even-know/ http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/20/buzzfeeds-ben-smith-plays-... I'm not refuting any ethical questions that were being thrown around, but I would never trust Buzzfeed to do any honest and serious journalism. These are the same people that created the most annoying clickbait lists, sponsored news and their whole design seems to be centered around getting as many ad impressions as possible. Sensationalizing a story for their own benefits is not beyond them.
  - dkrich 12y ago
    Not sure why you are getting down-voted. I agree 100%. If we are going to discuss conflicts of interest, we should start with the fact that BuzzFeed's entire business model centers on getting the most page views in the shortest period of time they possibly can.
    - ericd 12y ago
      Yeah, we should probably collectively start referring to those sites as online tabloids so that people don't confuse them with high quality news organizations.
- jackmaney 12y ago
  Is it just me, or does Uber's CEO seem incredibly naive to think that any conversation with a journalist would ever be taken as "off the record"?
cousin_it 12y ago
It seems like everyone considers this the most important question: Should we, or should we not, have a witchhunt because of what this guy said over dinner? I think this is the wrong question to ask. I've seen quite enough internet witchhunts over the last few years, and have come to the conclusion that they are always harmful, because they are never proportionate. You can't have justice if your mechanism of justice isn't proportionate.
- calbear81 12y ago
  I don't think that's true. There are many instances in which we as a society have chosen disproportionate responses as a way to deter future infractions by others thinking about doing the same thing. Think about penalties doled out to corporations for bad behavior and/or when juries award large damages in cases of wrongful death from the police or what not.
  - peterwwillis 12y ago
    The only time the first example is disproportionate is when we fine corporations too little for their abuses, and that is never good. edit The damages you discuss are punitive damages, but again are not intended to be disproportionate; they are intended to be proportionate in a way that is an adequate remedy to the basis of a lawsuit (when compensatory damages won't work). Great judicial restraint is expected to be exercised in their application. Justice should always be proportionate. Sadly, there is often too little justice served in our society, and too much abuse, as evidenced by people defending disproportionate justice.
    - ganeumann 12y ago
      If this were true, then the difference between plea bargain fines and court-ordered fines would be the cost of a trial. This does not seem to be the case.
  - grey-area 12y ago
    And yet in between the infractions and the punishment, however extreme, comes a system of justice based on laws, presumption of innocence, and equality before the law. An imperfect system, but at least one which aspires to impartiality and justice. The parent is objecting to replacing that justice system with mob justice (which is usually disproportionate, harmful to everyone involved, and often just plain wrong).
lotsofmangos 12y ago
So, a coalition for responsible journalism, staffed by company journalists with the job of responding to negative articles that affect the corporate bottom line. You know, I am not sure that is a coalition for responsible journalism. Perhaps their slogan could be: "This is about ethics in tech journalism". Also, given the article is by someone who overheard an Uber executive suggest that Uber should pay people a million dollars to say nice things about them and disparage opponents, I must admit I am somewhat skeptical of the tone the article is taking. Furthermore, given that Uber came out with an immediate apology and did not in any way claim that anything said by the journalist was false, I will treat a report by a professional politician who is both a friend and a colleague of Emil, with a grain of salt so large that Sisyphus couldn't roll it.
- wakemc 12y ago
  "BuzzFeed itself — a financial play as much as Uber is — has key investors who are investors in Uber's main competitor, Lyft. Those investors are, too, investors in PandoDaily. Does this have any bearing at all on the cost of tea in China? I don't know. But I know that little in this world is what it seems." That's directly from the end of the linked article in Applecore's post. I haven't been following this "scandal" particularly closely, but from what I have read, I haven't seen many people talking about this. If the identity of the author of the OP article causes you to take said article with a grain of salt, does a financial connection between Lyft and BuzzFeed produce another, similarly sized grain of salt?
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    About as big as the one created by the relationship between Uber and Buzzfeed via Chris Dixon, perhaps slightly bigger, but they sort of balance. edited to add - those two are much smaller grains though. As far as I am aware, the journalist has investments in neither and investors tend to have their fingers in lots of pies.
    - wakemc 12y ago
      Good point. There's a lot of money going a lot of different ways in this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2014/11/20/uber-investor-connections-lyft-pandodaily-buzzfeed/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2014/11/20/uber-investor... I suppose I'm somewhat inclined to discount BuzzFeed's reporting. It's probably not fair of me, but my opinion of them has definitely been dragged down by the general "clickbait-y" property of the site as a whole.
bravo22 12y ago
Amazing how money can buy you press to defend yourself.
downandout 12y ago
I am happy to see a first-hand account of this that backs up my understanding of what actually happened (and am shocked to see it published on HuffPo). Sadly, this won't get nearly the attention that the original did, because it's more fun to scream about sexism and threats against children. I'm guessing that, unlike the target of their story, neither Ben nor Sarah will get a single letter from the Senate asking why they abused their position in the media and sensationalized this event to the point of absurdity. Sadder still, Sarah Lacy will have better ad revenue for the month than she's probably ever had - from what essentially was a fabrication. This whole thing was disgusting, as was HN's wholesale acceptance of Sarah Lacy's nonsense as fact. I expected better.
leeber 12y ago
Imagine if Uber CEO made a comment like Elon Musk did about the "D" in P85D and having "velcro on the sides of his pants." The media would be ALL OVER that. Based on what I've read, Uber CEO sounds like a douchebag. But I'm not really sure, never met the guy or seen him in person, it's all from stuff read online. But clearly the media loves to hate this guy.
mc32 12y ago
If what she reports is how things developed, I think things look bleak for public discourse. It's as if we'll all have to censor our thoughts before pronouncing them. Sure, we can learn to think before we speak and have a lot of internal monologues, but, in the end it's the same. We internalize the thoughts and process them internally without being able to think out loud. I think it's a shame one cannot think out loud for fear things will be taken literally. Yes, we can mask things by 'anonymizing' the conversations, so instead of using a real person as an example, just say someone or 'journalists'. but it's a shame people's dinner conversations or even pub conversations will be taken as their official edicts and sanctioned pronouncements --when lots of times there is boasting, bravado, nervousness and other times there are threats and other unsavory conduct. However, it's unfair to see it all as the latter kind.
- alexqgb 12y ago
  It's as if we'll all have to censor our thoughts before pronouncing them. You know, this really isn't a problem for people who don't have thoughts about silencing critics by intimidating their families.
  - nailer 12y ago
    From the previous discussion PandoDaily is a ValleyWag-type gossip site. If someone was writing about your own personal relationships, would you ever think you "might be justified" in doing the same?
    - selmnoo 12y ago
      What do you mean "ValleyWag-type gossip site"? ValleyWag was actually calling out Valley companies for the misogynistic shit they should be called out for, while everyone else was sitting quietly on the side.
      - mc32 12y ago
        I can't speak for the OP. What I think the OP is saying is that some outlets thrive on being sensational --one thrives on Hollywood sensationalism, this one may thrive on valley sensationalism --it just so happens to coincide with a social issue in this case, but that may just be coincidental --that is, do they take on all social issues whether they drive page views or not, whether they create outrage or not? In other words, they both serve their own brand of red meat to their audiences.
imgabe 12y ago
Who ever would have guessed that Buzzfeed is not the paragon of sober, responsible journalism that we all thought it was? Next up: 24 things only people who have had their character assassinated by Buzzfeed will understand.
nailer 12y ago
dang, want to consider re-blocking Buzzfeed as a source? From the actual quotes in the first article it was obviously never a serious plan as the title insinuated it was. Now we have this. Someone's name's been trashed here on Hacker News and they didn't do anything wrong.
squozzer 12y ago
About the article - too little, too late. About Uber - not a big taxi user, but their idea is intriguing. About the Fourth Estate - sensationalism and some of the other sins of the press (e.g. coziness to govt, biz) have been around a while. Remember the Maine, mushroom clouds, Fox and MSNBC, and so far no real antidote save critical thinking - which isn't easy when untainted facts are scarce.
crystaln 12y ago
Why would anyone invite a BuzzFeed editor to an off-the-record dinner, and not expect a sensationalist click-bait article to come of it?
methodover 12y ago
Wow. This whole controversy is interesting only because of how completely trivial it is. Really? This is what people are upset about? A comment at dinner? And yet, in spite of it's complete triviality, it's important. Lots of people will scan their newsfeed and make the connection between Uber and "evil" -- and that matters.

151 points by viscanti 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

At first I was reeled in and started to see a different perspective on a pretty controversial story and then right towards the end, BAM! Nicole (author of the article) hits us with this important nugget: I will admit that I am friends with Emil. We were both White House Fellows serving in different departments during the first year of the Obama administration where we both quit our jobs to take civil service positions to improve our country. You would think someone commenting on such an important and controversial story in tech like this would fully disclose that she is in-fact friends with Emil and worked with him right at the beginning of the article? Seems like a big conflict of interest here and changes the tone from "see this from another perspective" to "I am defending my friend, so everything I write is going to be heavily biased" I feel as though even Nicole's account is sensationalist in itself. This line right here: At that point, I wanted to grab Emil. I kind of knew what Ben was up to. - A journalist asking questions at an event for journalists? Who would have thought such a thing would happen? Nicole then goes on to confirm what the previous lines of text confirmed that this is an emotional and personal response defending her friend: I am upset that Ben sensationalized what happened at that dinner. I am not trying to say that the original story by Ben wasn't sensationalist, but it wasn't a fabricated lie either. Emil said what he said, this article even confirms that. I have no issue with Nicole rallying to the defense of a friend, I would do the same, but I would at least disclose the fact before, not after.

mcphage 12y ago
> You would think someone commenting on such an important and controversial story in tech like this would fully disclose that she is in-fact friends with Emil and worked with him? But isn't the only reason you know those facts because she did disclose them? Like, right there in that line you quoted?
- DigitalSea 12y ago
  No. The article would have held more credibility in my eyes if she was upfront about the fact there was a conflict of interest before continuing on with the article. Heck, even an article on the likes of Techcrunch with even a remote tinge of conflict of interest is disclosed in the first paragraph before you get into the article contents. I legitimately feel misled, I was to feel as though I was reading an impartial account of what happened that night only to be told at the end that the account was from a friend nonetheless. Lets be honest, in most cases, a friend will always defend another friend regardless of the context or the situation. It is rare that a friend will throw another under the bus, especially in a situation like this. This is why everything Nicole says is hearsay because she could easily be exaggerating what she thought she heard all for the sake of defending her friend. We do not even know for certain if Nicole heard anything to do with what happened, we were offered no new bits of information we did not already have.
  - dkrich 12y ago
    Interesting that you are seemingly willing to take several second-hand accounts and interpretations of what his comments were and the context in which they were made from sources nowhere near the room, yet are okay assuming that what she wrote is merely "hearsay" or "exaggerated" despite her claim that she was sitting next to them during the conversation. I don't, by the way, find this to be a coincident. It seems perfectly logical that you would sit near people you know at a dinner party.
dkrich 12y ago
Seems like a big conflict of interest here and changes the tone from "see this from another perspective" to "I am defending my friend, so everything I write is going to be heavily biased" Why? She is probably one of three or four people on the planet qualified to speak to what actually happened there. The idea that she should recuse herself from publicly posting an account of what she saw first-hand just because she's friends with the subject of the controversy doesn't hold water in my opinion. In fact, since pretty much every article that has come out (all by people who were not themselves in attendance) has had the goal of making attacks against the company and its executives, perhaps a friend of an executive who can offer a personal insight into what happened is the best person of all to write an account of what really happened. It seems that the public at large is more than happy to be spoon-fed facts from Pando Daily, Gawker, and BuzzFeed who carelessly level poorly-researched personal attacks heavily-weighted with personal opinions and biases passed off as "journalism" without actually asking themselves the simple question- "What has my own personal experience been?" I for one like Uber and Lyft, and use both regularly. Never have I or anybody I know experienced any serious problem after having used them several hundred times, despite the constant onslaught of accusations that females are at risk using it. Compare that to the taxi industry. In fact, just last week, after learning that I needed to pay for my ride with a card for expense reasons, refused to let me out of the cab and tried to drive me to an atm against my will and I had to call the police to make him stop the car. This is a true story. Happened last time I took a cab. Despite the fact that it is a law where I live that cabs MUST take a credit card. I'm certainly not suggesting that it is okay to spy on people with the intent of blackmailing or evening the score (and I suspect most everyone would agree with that). I'm just suggesting that we be fair in our criticism. Blogs have a very real incentive to get the most page views that they can and are more than happy to do so at anybody's expense. I've seen that happen enough to know not to take anything I read on the internet at face-value.
- rosser 12y ago
  Disclosing the friendship up front isn't a recusal. It's simple honesty.
  - dkrich 12y ago
sliverstorm 12y ago
It was like four-and-a-half paragraphs. The author didn't "hide" the note about her connection to Emil at the end of a twenty-page snoozefest. Seems like plenty sufficient disclosure to me.
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  The proper thing to do is to disclose it right at the start since it obviously colors the whole report.
  - IbJacked 12y ago
    And doing so would obviously color how the report is perceived.
    - waterlesscloud 12y ago
      Yes. As it should.
    - prakashk 12y ago
      An up-front and prominent disclosure could also color my perception in the author's favor, and I'd be more inclined to give higher credence to author's arguments.
ephemeralgomi 12y ago
> You would think someone commenting on such an important and controversial story in tech like this would fully disclose that she is in-fact friends with Emil and worked with him? She did! You quoted it in your post!
- DigitalSea 12y ago
  Yes Nicole did, right at the end of her article. As I mentioned in another reply, even sites like Techcrunch who are no strangers to half-baked journalism themselves disclose conflicts of interest at the beginning of their articles. It is misleading in my opinion.
  - ephemeralgomi 12y ago
    Okay, so you've backed down from "You'd think she would have disclosed that" to "I would prefer she prefaced the article with that". I'm content.
  - omonra 12y ago
    I think you really are looking to say something critical. As you clearly have nothing substantial to say, your claim 'the disclosure is in the wrong part of the article' is specious. Let's man up and admit that the whole story that's been pushed over last few days is looking like BS.
    - knorby 12y ago
      And all that she's reporting is her own judgements of the incident and a light confirmation that the conversation took place. She confirms almost every detail that the buzzfeed article states, including the suggestion of targeting Sarah Lacy's personal life. They built different narratives of the event, largely colored by the biases of each. The journalist had a bias towards building sensation and the friend had a bias towards downplay. If you don't read news articles expecting the bias of a journalist, then I'm sorry, I don't know what you are doing. But until that ending line in the article, she was a well-placed, mostly unbiased, bystander.
  - 12y ago
ddrmaxgt37 12y ago
ad hominem
colbyh 12y ago
I'm a personal friend of Nicole and it didn't strike me as odd. She doesn't have a dishonest bone in her body, really. I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't even register that people might find her prior friendship to be a conflict of interest. Not saying it wouldn't have been helpful up front, but the message is still valid IMO. Understandably I'm a bit biased for the author, but I'm also not the biggest Uber fan so if that helps...
- frostmatthew 12y ago
  > I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't even register that people might find her prior friendship to be a conflict of interest. If that were the case she wouldn't have mentioned it at all.
- philsnow 12y ago
  The trouble with the order the article was presented in, is that it buries the lede (the lede here being that the author has a very significant personal bias, which can color the reader's perspective of the rest of the article). The author chose (subconsciously or not, strategically or not) to defer mention of that important fact to the end, by which point many readers will have already given up reading. It is a fact that people pay more attention to the beginning of an article and that a significant proportion of people fall off the end and don't finish.
  - philwelch 12y ago
    It only "buries the lede" for those who are desperate enough to find some reason to discredit it, which is going to be the natural impulse of most torch-and-pitchfork wielding people in this internet mob.
rayiner 12y ago
> Emil said what he said, this article even confirms that. Here's my big problem with all this: nobody defending this guy is saying "no, he didn't say that," or "no, he was joking," or even, "no, it was taken out of context." They're saying, essentially, that he wouldn't have disclosed his internal thought process if he knew it would be made public. I definitely wouldn't want one of my jokes or hypotheticals to be quoted out of context. But what I don't get is staying stuff you actually mean and then getting upset that people call you an asshole for thinking and believing the things you actually think and believe.
- emiliobumachar 12y ago
  From the article: "I heard a mention of a Sarah Lacy and overheard Emil say that he felt terrible that by writing an article, Sarah had actually suggested that people choose less safe alternatives based on a charge of sexism that was really a personal attack on the CEO with no basis in fact. Emil then said that Sarah wouldn't like it if someone wrote false things about her or published an article that was factually wrong because we all have done things in our private lives we are not proud of. There was no anti-feminist sentiment, no attacking families, no attacking children, no anger, no threats against anyone, no action plan. Nothing. It was clear to me that this was all a vague, civilized conversation. I am a woman and I am sensitive to any kind of talk like that. " (my emphasis.) I don't know whether she's telling the truth, but she's definitely saying "no, he didn't say that" to the most grave things he's been accused of saying.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    He's also describing what she overheard to contravene the testimony of someone who was actually a party to the conversation.
downandout 12y ago
>I am not trying to say that the original story by Ben wasn't sensationalist, but it wasn't a fabricated lie either Is it not a fabrication when you take something that was clearly a hypothetical statement and report it as if you overheard it at a strategy meeting? Both Ben and Sarah's stories represented that this wasn't a hypothetical, but rather a plan that would be carried out against Sarah and her children immediately. IMO, that is a fabrication.
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  "take something that was clearly a hypothetical statement and report it as if you overheard it at a strategy meeting?" No one has done this.
  - downandout 12y ago
    Except for Sarah and Ben, along with every derivative article and news report published on this since this started.
  - nailer 12y ago
    Title of Buzzfeed article: "Uber Executive Suggests Digging Up Dirt on Journalists" Even Ben's own quotes in that article indicate it wasn't a serious suggestion.
    - waterlesscloud 12y ago
      Right. What he did not do was present it as if it came from an Uber corporate strategy meeting.
- likeagrownup 12y ago
  Are you related to Uber in any fashion? Because honestly, that's some bullshit that you just wrote write there. Nobody said it like they were at a strategy meeting. It was reported as it was: evidence that Emil is a shitbag who threatens reporters, and works at a company where that sort of thing is considered a fine course of action.
andrep 12y ago
Conflict of interest? What about the desire to break a story (and make your career) vs reporting what actually happened without sensationalising it?

michaelochurch 12y ago

"It'th about ethicth in journalism! ... Mom! Turn up the damn thermothtat! It'th freezing down here!" In all seriousness, Uber is scary. It's really going to ruin the credibility of a whole industry. Its unlikeable, bro CEO doesn't help. People have forgotten all about the old days of Silicon Valley when it was driven by people who wanted to build things, and now the spotlight is on douchebaggery and a general lack of accountability.

at-fates-hands 12y ago
Do you think this is the way it is, or this is your impression from how things are being reported? I have the same belief, but I wonder if there's tons of great startups who are flourishing because they keep their mouth shut and heads down and produce good stuff and nobody knows about them.
geebee 12y ago
Here's a bit of background info on Emil Michael's career and degrees. http://blog.uber.com/Callinicos_Michael_Baker http://blog.uber.com/Callinicos_Michael_Baker "Emil Michael, formerly Chief Operating Officer of Klout, and prior to that was SVP of Field Operations at TellMe Networks, is joining Uber as our SVP of Business. Emil is known as one of the top deal guys in the Valley, a strategic deal maker who also brings experience scaling sales organizations. I am counting on Emil to be the leader of our business efforts and the face of Uber to our business partners and users globally. Emil starts with Uber today." From his bio on business week Mr. Emil Michael served as Senior Vice President Field Operations at Tellme Networks, Inc. He joined Tellme in June 1999 and he held several leadership roles as the director of business and corporate development, vice president of client development and acting general counsel. Mr. Michael led the client development, account management and solution delivery teams at Tellme. He joined Tellme from Goldman Sachs, Inc., where he served as an associate in the communications, media and entertainment investment banking group. At Goldman Sachs, Mr. Michael worked on several equity and bank debt financings. He also participated in merger and hostile takeover advisory projects for several of Goldman Sachs' Fortune 100 clients. He began his career as a strategy consultant at Gemini Consulting's converging markets laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mr. Michael received his bachelor of arts degree from Harvard and his law degree from Stanford University. From the wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Michael http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Michael An immigrant from Egypt,[5] Michael received his B.A. in Government cum laude from Harvard University, where he wrote for the Harvard Crimson[6] and served as president of the Harvard Republican Club. While he was president, the club changed its name to the Harvard-Radcliffe Republican Club in an effort to reach out to potential members who perceived the club as sexist.[7] He received his J.D. degree with honors from Stanford Law School.[5] So my understanding is that he isn't really a technologist, he is a Harvard government major followed by Stanford Law degree, he has a stint at Goldman Sachs, and he is a great deal maker. Of course, I can't prove a negative - does anyone know if he did substantial technical work at some point? Overall, I do think michaelochurch is accurate in pointing out that Emil Michael doesn't appear to be a lifelong technologist. He may represent a new trend in tech management - dealmakers who aren't really versed in technology and haven't really been directly involved in building technology products themselves. Is this relevant? It reminds me of a statement from Elliot Spitzer in the movie "Inside Job" about corruption in the banking industry and the banking crisis. Spitzer: "Well, high tech is a fundamentally creative business, where the valuegeneration and the income derives from actually creating something new and different" I'm not sure I agree anymore (the collusion not to poach, for example shows a pretty bad pattern of behavior), but it is something to think about. If tech becomes dominated by finance, law, deal "guys" (this is the term used by uber to describe him), we may very well lose that culture that kept some of this kind of thing at bay because we were, at our core, a group of builders, people who are deeply involved in making things. This transformation may already be well underway.

applecore 12y ago

Here is Michael Wolff's account of what happened at the dinner, whom Ben Smith, BuzzFeed's editor in chief, accompanied as a guest: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2014/11/19/behind-the-scenes-uber-buzzfeed-fracas/19269737/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2014/11/...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
badusername 12y ago
And many others: http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/20/buzzfeeds-ben-smith-plays-dumb-about-company-investors-how-would-we-even-know/ http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/20/buzzfeeds-ben-smith-plays-... I'm not refuting any ethical questions that were being thrown around, but I would never trust Buzzfeed to do any honest and serious journalism. These are the same people that created the most annoying clickbait lists, sponsored news and their whole design seems to be centered around getting as many ad impressions as possible. Sensationalizing a story for their own benefits is not beyond them.
- dkrich 12y ago
  Not sure why you are getting down-voted. I agree 100%. If we are going to discuss conflicts of interest, we should start with the fact that BuzzFeed's entire business model centers on getting the most page views in the shortest period of time they possibly can.
  - ericd 12y ago
    Yeah, we should probably collectively start referring to those sites as online tabloids so that people don't confuse them with high quality news organizations.
jackmaney 12y ago
Is it just me, or does Uber's CEO seem incredibly naive to think that any conversation with a journalist would ever be taken as "off the record"?

cousin_it 12y ago

It seems like everyone considers this the most important question: Should we, or should we not, have a witchhunt because of what this guy said over dinner? I think this is the wrong question to ask. I've seen quite enough internet witchhunts over the last few years, and have come to the conclusion that they are always harmful, because they are never proportionate. You can't have justice if your mechanism of justice isn't proportionate.

calbear81 12y ago
I don't think that's true. There are many instances in which we as a society have chosen disproportionate responses as a way to deter future infractions by others thinking about doing the same thing. Think about penalties doled out to corporations for bad behavior and/or when juries award large damages in cases of wrongful death from the police or what not.
- peterwwillis 12y ago
  The only time the first example is disproportionate is when we fine corporations too little for their abuses, and that is never good. edit The damages you discuss are punitive damages, but again are not intended to be disproportionate; they are intended to be proportionate in a way that is an adequate remedy to the basis of a lawsuit (when compensatory damages won't work). Great judicial restraint is expected to be exercised in their application. Justice should always be proportionate. Sadly, there is often too little justice served in our society, and too much abuse, as evidenced by people defending disproportionate justice.
  - ganeumann 12y ago
    If this were true, then the difference between plea bargain fines and court-ordered fines would be the cost of a trial. This does not seem to be the case.
- grey-area 12y ago
  And yet in between the infractions and the punishment, however extreme, comes a system of justice based on laws, presumption of innocence, and equality before the law. An imperfect system, but at least one which aspires to impartiality and justice. The parent is objecting to replacing that justice system with mob justice (which is usually disproportionate, harmful to everyone involved, and often just plain wrong).

lotsofmangos 12y ago

So, a coalition for responsible journalism, staffed by company journalists with the job of responding to negative articles that affect the corporate bottom line. You know, I am not sure that is a coalition for responsible journalism. Perhaps their slogan could be: "This is about ethics in tech journalism". Also, given the article is by someone who overheard an Uber executive suggest that Uber should pay people a million dollars to say nice things about them and disparage opponents, I must admit I am somewhat skeptical of the tone the article is taking. Furthermore, given that Uber came out with an immediate apology and did not in any way claim that anything said by the journalist was false, I will treat a report by a professional politician who is both a friend and a colleague of Emil, with a grain of salt so large that Sisyphus couldn't roll it.

wakemc 12y ago
"BuzzFeed itself — a financial play as much as Uber is — has key investors who are investors in Uber's main competitor, Lyft. Those investors are, too, investors in PandoDaily. Does this have any bearing at all on the cost of tea in China? I don't know. But I know that little in this world is what it seems." That's directly from the end of the linked article in Applecore's post. I haven't been following this "scandal" particularly closely, but from what I have read, I haven't seen many people talking about this. If the identity of the author of the OP article causes you to take said article with a grain of salt, does a financial connection between Lyft and BuzzFeed produce another, similarly sized grain of salt?
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  About as big as the one created by the relationship between Uber and Buzzfeed via Chris Dixon, perhaps slightly bigger, but they sort of balance. edited to add - those two are much smaller grains though. As far as I am aware, the journalist has investments in neither and investors tend to have their fingers in lots of pies.
  - wakemc 12y ago
    Good point. There's a lot of money going a lot of different ways in this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2014/11/20/uber-investor-connections-lyft-pandodaily-buzzfeed/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2014/11/20/uber-investor... I suppose I'm somewhat inclined to discount BuzzFeed's reporting. It's probably not fair of me, but my opinion of them has definitely been dragged down by the general "clickbait-y" property of the site as a whole.

bravo22 12y ago

Amazing how money can buy you press to defend yourself.

downandout 12y ago

I am happy to see a first-hand account of this that backs up my understanding of what actually happened (and am shocked to see it published on HuffPo). Sadly, this won't get nearly the attention that the original did, because it's more fun to scream about sexism and threats against children. I'm guessing that, unlike the target of their story, neither Ben nor Sarah will get a single letter from the Senate asking why they abused their position in the media and sensationalized this event to the point of absurdity. Sadder still, Sarah Lacy will have better ad revenue for the month than she's probably ever had - from what essentially was a fabrication. This whole thing was disgusting, as was HN's wholesale acceptance of Sarah Lacy's nonsense as fact. I expected better.

leeber 12y ago

Imagine if Uber CEO made a comment like Elon Musk did about the "D" in P85D and having "velcro on the sides of his pants." The media would be ALL OVER that. Based on what I've read, Uber CEO sounds like a douchebag. But I'm not really sure, never met the guy or seen him in person, it's all from stuff read online. But clearly the media loves to hate this guy.

mc32 12y ago

If what she reports is how things developed, I think things look bleak for public discourse. It's as if we'll all have to censor our thoughts before pronouncing them. Sure, we can learn to think before we speak and have a lot of internal monologues, but, in the end it's the same. We internalize the thoughts and process them internally without being able to think out loud. I think it's a shame one cannot think out loud for fear things will be taken literally. Yes, we can mask things by 'anonymizing' the conversations, so instead of using a real person as an example, just say someone or 'journalists'. but it's a shame people's dinner conversations or even pub conversations will be taken as their official edicts and sanctioned pronouncements --when lots of times there is boasting, bravado, nervousness and other times there are threats and other unsavory conduct. However, it's unfair to see it all as the latter kind.

alexqgb 12y ago
It's as if we'll all have to censor our thoughts before pronouncing them. You know, this really isn't a problem for people who don't have thoughts about silencing critics by intimidating their families.
- nailer 12y ago
  From the previous discussion PandoDaily is a ValleyWag-type gossip site. If someone was writing about your own personal relationships, would you ever think you "might be justified" in doing the same?
  - selmnoo 12y ago
    What do you mean "ValleyWag-type gossip site"? ValleyWag was actually calling out Valley companies for the misogynistic shit they should be called out for, while everyone else was sitting quietly on the side.
    - mc32 12y ago
      I can't speak for the OP. What I think the OP is saying is that some outlets thrive on being sensational --one thrives on Hollywood sensationalism, this one may thrive on valley sensationalism --it just so happens to coincide with a social issue in this case, but that may just be coincidental --that is, do they take on all social issues whether they drive page views or not, whether they create outrage or not? In other words, they both serve their own brand of red meat to their audiences.

imgabe 12y ago

Who ever would have guessed that Buzzfeed is not the paragon of sober, responsible journalism that we all thought it was? Next up: 24 things only people who have had their character assassinated by Buzzfeed will understand.

nailer 12y ago

dang, want to consider re-blocking Buzzfeed as a source? From the actual quotes in the first article it was obviously never a serious plan as the title insinuated it was. Now we have this. Someone's name's been trashed here on Hacker News and they didn't do anything wrong.

squozzer 12y ago

About the article - too little, too late. About Uber - not a big taxi user, but their idea is intriguing. About the Fourth Estate - sensationalism and some of the other sins of the press (e.g. coziness to govt, biz) have been around a while. Remember the Maine, mushroom clouds, Fox and MSNBC, and so far no real antidote save critical thinking - which isn't easy when untainted facts are scarce.

crystaln 12y ago

Why would anyone invite a BuzzFeed editor to an off-the-record dinner, and not expect a sensationalist click-bait article to come of it?

methodover 12y ago

Wow. This whole controversy is interesting only because of how completely trivial it is. Really? This is what people are upset about? A comment at dinner? And yet, in spite of it's complete triviality, it's important. Lots of people will scan their newsfeed and make the connection between Uber and "evil" -- and that matters.