Uber Fires Exec, Loses Bid to Keep Doc Private, Says Management Changes Coming (Jun 7, 2017)
Rather than treat each of yet another set of Uber news as a separate item, I’m bundling three together into a single grab-bag item here. The most notable (and damaging) is the revelation that one of Uber’s senior execs in Asia led an effort to obtain the medical records of an Uber passenger who was raped by her driver and shared the records with CEO Travis Kalanick and others. He wasn’t fired as part of the 20 terminations that resulted from the first investigation which concluded this week, but has apparently been subsequently, allegedly as a result of the digging by Recode reporters. That’s somewhat absurd given how far-reaching and aggressive the investigation was said to have been, but may reflect a slightly higher bar for executive behavior being set as a result of recent arrivals in the management ranks. Secondly, board member Arianna Huffington, who has been acting more as apologist than change agent in this whole saga, both defended Uber’s culture and said management changes were coming in an appearance on CNBC. The latter is new, though not entirely unexpected, while the former is more evidence of a somewhat mystifying attempt to downplay what are obviously damaging signs of a sick corporate culture at Uber. Lastly, Uber lost the latest round in its court case with Waymo, and will now have to turn over documents relating to Uber’s acquisition of Otto, which could provide some more evidence Waymo needs to make its overall case stick. Overall, plenty more evidence here of both the nasty culture and the difficulty of turning it around, and also that Waymo is going to get at least some of what it’s looking for out of the court case.
via Recode (Asia exec fired), CNBC (management changes coming), Bloomberg (acquisition doc to be provided to Waymo)
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