He created this bro-themed caricature of a corporate culture, and he did so for no reason other than enjoying that sort of atmosphere, or being incompetent to stop it. Or both.

Let's not start some sort of myth of martyrdom around Kalanick by conflating these two. Although, yes, this strategy of braking local regulations and expecting to win a power struggle with every government anywhere was also on its last leg when he left, and would've gotten to him as well, sooner or later.

I mean, their whole model was to go places, ignore the law and continue operating until they either got thrown out, or they pumped money to the right places to get the law changed.

Scofflaw corps get nailed sooner or later, and a corp the is built on breaking laws might break some laws investors care about...

Regulatory capture doesn't do you much good if nobody cares when a business breaks regulations, though :)

I think American society does care about businesses following laws and regulations. I think a narrow segment of the press is wowed by 'outlaw cool' and investor funding, but that is not the same as America as a whole.

Obviously corps are gonna lobby, but I think we as a society should and do draw a distinction between lobbying to change a law that you are not breaking and lobbying to change a law you are breaking. I am pretty sure most legislators who aren't closet anarchists take a dim view of things like that. I will wager a large amount that a vast majority of regulators take a dim view of things like that.

While sexual harassment is, of course, indefensible, that story didn't really make Uber sound like the frat house implied by "bro-themed caricatures", it just makes them sound dryly indifferent to the employee's complaint. Are there other events that gave Uber that title?

By working with licensed drivers/companies or licensing their drivers, they would have avoided much of that problem, admittedly that would add to their revenue vs profit/yearly loss issues they have now. Lyft is in a similar boat, trying to lower loss-per-ride and get to a profitable state. It appears based on media reports that Lyft, despite not sharing many of the conflicting business approaches Uber used, is actually ahead of Uber at working its way to profitability.

...which is because the company was built on ignoring laws and regulations to the detriment of both employees (not called employees by the company) and outsiders (competitors) from the very start, so no wonder that nobody is sympathetic to the company.