Item — HN Reader

Can't say I'm shocked to see Uber's dishonesty here. From all the other claims against them (Lyft and sexual harassment) it seems like this type of behavior is standard operating procedure.

This culture is set from the top. It's only a matter of time that Travis will step down. Sooner the better so they can start working on improving integrity throughout the organization.

In the 90's, Microsoft was skewered for a lot less.

3 comments

Based on what proof. The article provided nothing in the way of evidence, just Google's claim. They could claim anything. Since when did HN stop exercising healthy skepticism?

Based on Uber producing the device in question eventually. It's in the article.

And the argument was that they did not go forward on that design. So they took it, investigated it and <please believe this> did not use anything they learned in the process.

Doesn't really matter whether they went forward with the design or not. Google alleged "You took our lidar design, and you could only have gotten that design if Levandowski stole it." Uber initially: "No we didn't!" Uber later: "Actually, here it is, but doesn't matter because we don't like that design anyway."

Uber is playing games that 5 year-olds play when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

Let's assume for a moment that this previous design bore many similarities to the google design (which could have happened just because the same people built it not solely because stolen files were used), what if the previous design were only worked on when it was Otto and was discarded when Uber acquired Otto? What would happen then?

Google has specifically stated that their suit is against Uber and not Levandowsky. If this previous design was worked on wholly at Otto pre-acquisition than this lawsuit should be against Levandowsky and in arbitration. This suit is already 1 month old and Uber acquired Otto on September 18th. That's a mere 6 months. If the previous design were scrapped around that date or really only saw significant development before that date, than this lawsuit should be dismissed and focused wholly on Levandowsky and select Otto employees for whom they have evidence to believe were complicit in the alleged acts.

Right now it looks like Google is fishing for an opportunity to hurt and slow down a competitor using a lawsuit instead of being the lawsuit against the person who should have been the defendant in the first place, Levandowsky.

There are hundreds of engineers working on a self driving car effort of their own design for many months even years before Otto was acquired and this lawsuit is wholly unfair to the work those engineers have put in to making that happen. Google is looking a lot like Oracle here using the law to slow down and hurt engineers doing good work.

That's not how the US legal system works. When Uber acquired Otto they became subject to all legal claims against Otto. The notion that an acquisition should somehow extinguish liability is just ridiculous; it would lead to companies engaging in all sorts of shell game M&A activity just to dodge lawsuits.

Also based on a pattern of behavior. These issues are systemic and have been going on for years. This is the same company that ignores sexual harassment claims, illegally tracks and blackmails journalists, deploys highly questionable anti-competitive tactics at will.

You should still wait for hard evidence before accepting Google's claims. Otherwise you will end up accepting false claims simply because they match what you believe about Uber.

Making false claims in the media that have been designed to resonate with and reinforce the current zeitgeist is a pretty easy trick to pull and a lot of people fall for it.

It's easy enough to avoid by waiting for hard evidence

> Otherwise you will end up accepting false claims

I think you mean "may". A lack of hard evidence backing up a claim doesn't necessarily mean the claim is false.

I used to work at a very successful tech company that became the Goliath in its market and saw first hand how the media vilified us and interpreted every little thing we did through evil-colored glasses. I few issues were legitimate criticisms but they were textbook cases of situations where Hanlon's Razor should have been applied. Everyone assumed malice where there there was at worst poor judgement. Eventually the media cycle reached a fever pitch to drive clicks and everything was interpreted in the worst way possible to drive whatever narrative people (just like you) wanted to believe.

Cite me a single shred of evidence to support your claim that they have blackmailed a single journalist.

Uber and its closest competitor Lyft engaged in pretty much all the same competitive actions but only Uber is criticized for them. Everyone criticizes Uber for subsidization tactics to win market share and conveniently ignores that Lyft does the exact same. My observations with my former employee roughly aligns with what I've seen with Uber. 20% or so is legitimate criticism (due to poor judgement) and 80% is hyperbolic and applied to us and our competitors and applies to Uber and its competitors.

Near as I can tell this is a phenomena that applies to every single unicorn that has viable competitors. It happened to Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, etc. near as I can tell, the only difference that I can tell between how Uber is being treated and they were treated come down to the zeitgeist when they came of age. The past 2-3 years has seen a sharp increase in polarization of the political atmosphere with a lot more social justice folks in journalistic positions than in years past and Uber is the favorite whipping boy. For example, Apple has been subject to this as well. Apple was widely criticized over labor practices of its suppliers in China despite the fact that it had and continues to have some of the best practices and policing of suppliers in the industry.

Take the Susan Fowler situation. It's a shame and it never should have happened, but in the very same week when her blog post of allegations was published, there was an actual sexual harassment case filed in an actual court against Tesla, but almost no one heard about that because the media loves Tesla.

Everyone I've spoken to that has ever worked at a successful unicorn has related similar stories of unfair criticism, especially when there were viable competitors whose investors are powerful and can drive a story through the journalists they've invested in or have strong relationships with. There's a reason why investors like Marc Andreessen have invested heavily in the career of well known Silicon Valley journalists and it's not because those journalists have an exit strategy that will net him a 10x or 100x return.

> Cite me a single shred of evidence to support your claim that they have blackmailed a single journalist.

Google "uber blackmail journalist". It's an almost 3-year story now. People seem to have short memory when it comes to Uber, but they've been pulling shady shit since almost day one. We've been through many of such discussions on HN since then, they're all searchable through Google and Algolia (the search bar at the bottom).

I get that media outlets can all band against particular company - I believe that's actually happened with Susan Fowler case. But Uber has a long history of frequent misbehaviour; that's not vilifying, that's what this company is.

I just did the search you suggested. It turned up results, none of which show a single example of blackmail. The best I found was a drunk executive speculatively talking about funding opposition journalism on a journalist who was allegedly extraordinarily critical of Uber. Ironically, it looks like you just illustrated one of my points since I'm pretty sure that that journalist and the journalists who broke that stories are both Marc Andreessen funded.

So again, please show me where they blackmailed a journalist because I failed to find any evidence for that. What happened in particular situation you just cited doesn't even come close to meeting the criteria for being blackmail. That said, I want to be charitable here, so I'll assume you're talking about some other incident around that time that I'm unfamiliar with. Was there some other instance you're talking about where they blackmailed a journalist as you've claimed?

> In particular, Michael is reported to have singled out PandoDaily editor-in-chief Sarah Lacy, suggesting that he already knew something about her and could have his team of journalists confirm it.

First article. It's basically creating chilling effects against reporting against Uber. I'm sure every journalist, and every person, has done something they wouldn't want to wind up in an article of the New York Times - and unless a company like Uber goes up against them, those things almost always don't.

That's editorializing, not blackmail.

Here's an alternate account of that conversation by someone else that was at the dinner that suggests that it was a completely different conversation than was portrayed:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6198250

I did some more research and it turns out Ben works for Buzzfeed, which shortly before that conversation got a $50 million investment from A16Z, which is one of the biggest investors in Lyft. I'm not suggesting Lyft is the one playing dirty here but given all the money Andreessen has poured into journalists I wouldn't be surprised. VCs generally operate on the "no conflict, no interest maxim".

> but almost no one heard about that because the media loves Tesla.

because it's a totally different story and probably will favor tesla. her report is pretty vague. and if you know that hiring engineers is pretty hard, you would also know that it's not just that a company is discriminating. I mean in the place where I live, searching for a good engineer is extremly hard. Also in the schools there are only sitting one or two woman and 28 other guys, it's not just that there are a lot of woman who want to work in tech, there aren't.

> there was an actual sexual harassment case filed in an actual court against Tesla, but almost no one heard about that because the media loves Tesla.

I'm always skeptical of these kind of claims about "the media", and if you're talking about AJ Vandermeyden there seem to be plenty of reports:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Vandermeyden+tesla

Please compare the number of upvotes and comments on HN for both stories. I better you the upvotes and comment activity difference between both stories is one if not two orders of magnitude greater.

Travis won't step down, and no one can make him. He still has a majority of the voting rights (Wait, is that right? I know I heard that somewhere).

He seems like the type to let the ship sink, just so long as he gets to stay the captain.

As any entrepreneur who believes in their own vision should imo.

I've been thinking about this lately. The whole character assasination of Uber happenned in the last 2 months - while all the issues, have, allegedly, been around for a long time. And all this publicity right in time for the multi-billion lawsuit...

Now, I don't know enough about the situation to come to any conclusions, but the fact that no one here on HN have yet expressed the same doubts.

I disagree that the reporting on Uber's crap started two months ago:

"Peter Thiel: Uber is most ethically challenged company in Silicon Valley" (2 years ago)

"Uber employees used the platform to stalk celebrities and their exes" (4 months ago)

"Uber's dirty tricks quantified: Rival counts 5,560 canceled rides" (3 years ago)

"Uber Database Breach Exposed Information Of 50,000 Drivers" (2 years ago)

"Uber VP: we could spend $1M to take revenge on journalists" (2 years ago)

"Uber secretly investigated its legal foes — and got caught" (9 months ago)

"Lyft Accuses Former COO of Stealing Confidential Docs Before Joining Uber" (2 years ago)

"Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us" (2 years ago)

It's all the YC companies, if you've noticed. They're searching all of them for dirt. Some of that dirt is real, though. I'm taking a wait and see attitude to let things play out in court. There's no prize for being the first to judge someone.