This whole story feels like they took a frustrated guy venting at dinner and making it into a conspiracy.

Meanwhile, Sarah Lacey comments publicly and insultingly on people's political positions, emotions, and dating life.

What the man said was very stupid. But it feels a lot like, "She wants to attack our sex lives, politics, and call us terrible people? We should dig in to what she's done."

That's still unacceptable, but seems like blowing off steam and being frustrated at someone who makes money off of being mean and generating outrage.

Again, the behavior is totally unacceptable. But making this out to be a conspiracy rather than a frustrated executive ranting at someone who is known to be rude and very personal about the rudeness and who gets paid on pageviews and outrage is a little much.

The "blowing off steam" theory doesn't strike me as plausible. If it had happened at his local alley while talking with his bowling team, sure, maybe. But the CEO and and SVP of a $16 bn company don't sit down with a bunch of journalists by accident. Either the guy was intending to intimidate journalists (and Lacy in specific) or he is so dangerously clueless that a) he should not be a senior executive of anything bigger than a lemonade stand, and b) it would be hard to explain how he made it this far.

A journalist friend said that powerful people threatening journalists is routine, and that this sort of thing has a chilling effect on coverage. When smart people "accidentally" do something very self-serving, a reasonable working hypothesis is that they actually knew what they were doing.

Several relevant scenes from The Big Lebowski come to mind ... :)

(it'd make me seriously reconsider my choice of bowling-buddies, though :) )

OTOH, it could also be (certainly if it was serious and possibly if it was just venting) a sign of something bad. Sarah Lacey's criticism was that Uber have an "asshole culture." This does not exactly disprove her statement.

I'm not touchy. I think a lot of "PC outrage" (including possibly hers, I haven't really dug) is the nasty "fun to be outraged" variety. This has a terrible effect, turning corporate (also police and every type of official) vernacular into an unnatural lifeless sludge. I'm usually on the other side of these kinds of debates. But, there is such a thing as misogyny, asshole culture and such. They exist, and this might be a sign of it here.

Uber are an extremely aggressive company. They need that aggression to do the job they're trying to do which brings them into conflict all the time. Aggressiveness can spread. Uber is now a big company. They have many people's livelihoods, safety & privacy in their hands. There's a standard they need to meet. If a senior exec talks like this to reporters off the record, it may be the kind of talk that happens a lot.

It is a little disturbing, even as just talk.

"Look into your personal lives, your families" somehow magically became:

> threatening to reveal details of the location of their children

There's clearly a great deal of stupidity on both sides here.

Again, read Sarah Lacey's rebuttal piece in PandoDaily. Her first thought after hearing about the threats (by phone) is for the safety of her kids, who are not with her at that moment.

Don't misunderstand me here--I just think there are two sides to this story, and both sides are assholes.

1) How does someone being annoyed by a story make the reporter unreliable?

2) Why would they be in full damage control mode over the earlier articles or this one if they weren't true?

2) The thing about bad PR is that it doesn't have to be true. Regardless, I'm not even talking about the basic facts reported by Buzzfeed. I'm talking about Sarah's interpretation of them as a threat against her children, which is unwarranted by the original report and likely her own sensationalism.

2. Again, we have no reason to think this isn't true - they're in damage control mode trying to say it wasn't serious but nobody is claiming that it wasn't a real quote. Much as you seem to be personally invested in attacking her credibility, it's simply not possible to seriously claim that "My family and my children" (her words) is a particularly unreasonable interpretation of a threat to investigate “your personal lives, your families” (his words). Even assuming the most likely interpretation that the threat was to expose something about an adult (past legal mishaps, an affair, etc.) some of the most significant damage from those attacks would be suffered by children who don't really understand why their parents are being targeted.

Seems to me very clear that one's quite a bit deeper in the wrong than the other, "doing their business".

(also, I disagree with the term "sensationalizing" when the facts of what actually happened are in fact already "sensational" enough to stand for themselves. Stating that you're worried about your children when someone calls to investigate and dig dirt on "your personal lives, your families" isn't really adding any extra "sensation" to what is already out on the table, it merely informs me that she has children to worry about)

If she wasn't kowtowing to Kalanick's PR team, she was remiss and doubtlessly only hunting for page views. Definitely had it coming--turnabout is fair play.

I'm not blaming Sarah for the veiled threat that was made against her--I think it's petty and disgusting for an Uber executive to sink to the level of a gossip blogger. I'm just saying that Sarah is a gossip blogger and will milk this thing for all it's worth, so we can't just assume that she's being totally honest the way a private citizen would be.

The point of all this is that even if the victim was an unreputable person (which I have no reason to believe here, but even if) the data sifting and the threats are still wrong. Very wrong.

Some people still find it important that the victim's qualities enter the discussion, and this is what is meant by "victim blaming". We can talk about it, sure, and I'd be interested in what you have to say, but it's neither here nor there in this discussion. Otherwise we would spiral into "he did -- she did" which is not of value of anyone.

Agreed. If you follow the context of the comment thread, that's not the idea I was questioning.

But this type of stuff has happened to Uber enough times that they've developed quite a shady reputation. Uber has lost the benefit of the doubt in many people's eyes because at the very best, they hire shady people to do shady things for them. At the worst, they're stalking private citizens and intimidating them to keep quiet.

Also, if you don't interpret "families" as including children, what do you interpret it as? Her parents? Does that make it better?

It avoids the "think of the children" reaction, so yes.

Play fair. Don't be a Prolog interpreter.

While confrontational by nature, I do not see any of the parts displaying stupidity, but perhaps yourself. Please try to live up to your chosen handle for this exchange.

A frustrated guy venting at a business dinner, attended by an influential crowd, specifically addressing a person they just hired that could (and probably would) make this "conspiracy" happen for real if he made the call.

See, personally, I think even in a perfectly informal off-the-record setting, what he suggested was simply wrong and should be called on it. Whether you're frustrated or not. Unless it was extremely clear from the context it was just a joking "haha we should .." with no intent to follow through, then, maybe then it becomes acceptable to say these sorts of things in an informal off-the-record setting, assuming you're sufficiently acquainted with the current company that you know they won't be put off by such a tasteless remark.

What he called for was a personal attack on someone's personal life. With a straight face, to his hired media mouthpiece. It's IMO not very different (though obviously less illegal) from telling your hired muscle "we should teach that person a lesson, beat them up a little", with no intent to follow through, obviously. The window to make that last bit over-abundantly clear evaporates within a minute or so. And even then, in what sort of company does he think it's okay to even begin to vent about that sort of thing, even without intent to follow through? Surely a lot more private than some fancy I-thought-it-was-off-the-record dinner.

Obviously his own moral compass didn't prevent him from saying these things, in the first place. That's exactly why he should be called on "venting" such ideas. Even when he honestly had no intent to follow through, he's a powerful man, speaking directly to someone whose task it would be to make this happen, someone might take it seriously and warm to the idea that such behaviour could be acceptable.

powerful and wealthy people NEED to be scrutinized. when we do, we often discover that they are sociopathic scum like several of the executives at Uber have turned out to be.

Reporters and journalists can and do scrutinize people. However, what has become of journalism is that for sites like Pando Daily/Tech Crunch/? etc. they are gossip magazines about Silicon Valley business people and software developers. Not only are they talking about the companies, they are talking about the personal lives of the people that make up the companies.

Given the work/life balance of most startups and successful companies, it is tough to judge the differentiation between a tech company's executives. There are reasonable legal precedents being set for common tort law with celebrities, however when do the executives of a company become a 'Public Figure' and lose their right to privacy? Why is it okay to follow someone and publish everything they say and do?

The same thing, of course, can be said for journalists. The lines are being blurred all around.

Is that really your position? Or do you want somebody in the room to be a responsible grownup?

(Of course, preferably both sides would be grownups, but one side crawling into the gutter does not excuse the other side for also doing so.)

Journalists are not special beings, but it is typically presumed that they report in good faith, and without ulterior motives. I know that isn't always true, but it's true often enough that I think the burden of proof would be on the people being investigated to prove that the journalist's intent was malicious.

Yes! Extremely unprofessional and completely unacceptable regardless of whatever it is she did to "deserve" it.

By the way, is there a link to this article she wrote that is allegedly so over the line?

b) The page view journalism model rewards writers for being inflammatory and exaggerating. This means you really need to keep a close eye on writers for disinformation because when something spreads, it happens really fast, within hours. Rather than lengthy investigative pieces, the model is basically a fire hose of shit and watching which chunk sticks and goes viral. This also means writers tend to produce volumes of articles attacking the same or similar individuals and organizations. Some of the ludicrous stories I've seen recently track back to writers with minimal to no credentials and a long stream of irrelevant "stories." One piece of shit stuck and it blows up. What these guys are doing is more closely analogous to trolling and hate speech than informed research.

I'm not the kind of person who imagines the world is constantly devolving towards a lower state. I think the negatives from the current nature of "journalism" are outweighed by the positives we have gained from the same communications & publishing trends.

The best thing you can do as an individual is to not read stories from these sorts of groups. The headlines are misleading, the stories are often irrelevant and misinformed. Stick to places that publish accurate titles and require writers with some sort of credentials.

Just look at this discussion

People are correct to freak out when someone targets another person by digging into their private lives, the problem is a lot of tech journalists have gotten away with this, especially when the founders or entrepreneurs in question have been libertarians or right-wingers.

Of course you would have to completely ignore the constant pattern of scummy behavior from Uber that is perfectly consistent with this particular incident.

"spending 'a million dollars' to hire four top opposition researchers and four journalists. .... they’d look into “your personal lives, your families,” and give the media a taste of its own medicine"

proposal is a bit out of order. The money to throw $1m around that kind of way comes from Google and like investors and they could object that they don't want to be associated with that stuff.

And given the publicly documented exploits of Travis Kalanick I think there's a strong case to be made that Uber's toxic culture comes from the top.

Culture always comes from the top, toxic or otherwise, imho.

(1) First their senior business executive (Michael) not only floats his plan at very public venue, but mentions both the budget ($1M) and the number of researches (4) they were thinking of hiring.

(2) And then later, in damage control mode, the spokesperson (Hourdajian) tries to clean up by saying they've "never considered" doing opposition research -- despite Michael having just named both a specific budget they were thinking of allocating, and a specific number of researchers they were thinking of hiring.

Here's the marketing copy on Uber's website right now: "WELCOME TO ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE", "TIME, VALUE, AND CONVENIENCE — YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL", "HAVE MORE FUN WITH THE PEOPLE WHO MATTER MOST", "YOUR SHORTCUT TO EVERYWHERE IS ARRIVING NOW".

Oh really, so you're fine spewing total bullshit but you're gonna have a hissy-fit and act like a toddler when someone writes a sensational article?

Get over yourselves!

But if someone who worked for me started talking about exacting revenge on enemies -- in a public forum or not -- I would definitely have a problem with that.

The executive mentioned 'they'd be justified' in digging up dirt on Sarah Lacy. I wonder on what basis that one would justify that - the article mentions Lacy's criticism for a dumb ad campaign in France, but that doesn't seem like something that would provoke a response saying 'we'd be justified on digging up dirt about you'.

Does anyone know if Sarah Lacy has dug up dirt on Uber staff and their families?

EDIT: according to other posters, who read the website in question, Sarah Lacy regularly reports on people's personal lives. Which sounds like exactly what the under person was talking about doing back.

Pando also shares a common investor with Lyft, so there's that...

I've desperately avoided commenting on anything related to his because I've known Travis for about a decade, but... you are sadly mistaken. Uber has a downright toxic culture. Sarah might have gone a little far here and there, but it is not because Travis is capitalistic, but because he's turned into some kind of megalomaniac nearly unrecognizable from the person I knew a decade ago.

I recently saw a lovely email sent by Travis for an offsite reminding everyone that they were not allowed to fuck their subordinates and he, by extension, was not allowed to fuck anyone. That isn't just toxic to women. That is downright scumbaggery.

That sounds like a reasonable reminder of the rules and protocols. Unless you are suggesting that the power differential can be overcome and managers should have sex with their subordinates.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of VC money does that to people. Looking forward to the documentary about Uber after its function is turned into a commodity.

What's wrong with that?

Personal flame wars on the net are one thing, but involving your company in that shit? The minute you take money and hire other people it's not your personal sandbox. This 4chan crap should at best come with a huge "my opinions are my own" disclaimer and should never involve your company.

That sounds very speculative and about someone's state of mind. Could you give concrete examples of what you mean?

There was no mention of revealing the location of children.

There was no mention of "rifling" through the location metadata of another female journalist.

There was no "implication" about leaking customer data.

As far as I can tell, the article amounts to almost exactly what's in the headline: dirt digging.

If you want to criticize Uber, it's certainly possible to do it without exaggerating or making stuff up, otherwise you risk making legitimate critics look like sensational buffoons.

"In fact, the general manager of Uber NYC accessed the profile of a BuzzFeed News reporter, Johana Bhuiyan, to make points in the course of a discussion of Uber policies. At no point in the email exchanges did she give him permission to do so."

Or does "rifling" mean something else to you?

I guess it's talking about the travel logs from 2 paragraphs above?

But at the same time, the point isn't that "the Uber GM found some hideously private information about the journalist," the point is that regardless of what their "information policy" is, the GM could access the account of the journalist, and was apparently comfortable doing so based on his own discretion and sense of propriety rather than explicit permission. If his sense of propriety was fine, and the information was innocuous, then that particular event wasn't a big deal. But it kind of makes lie of the idea that another high-level individual at Uber who may have, shall we say, different ideas about propiety could not abuse the information that Uber is entrusted with.

To access detailed customer information required getting a one-time-use key, which is generated from a request that references other documentation (bug reports, customer support requests, etc) as well as a justification.

This key would only work against a single customer, and expires after some time.

The requests themselves are regularly audited internally to prevent abuse.

This is the level of internal privacy guarantees a company like Uber needs. No employee should have unmonitored, carte blanche access to customer data.

The fact that the CEO can access data at whim should be very troubling. That means they don't have even the most basic infosec guidelines in place.

All of those things are in his statements. He doesn't have to spell it out for you to know what he means.

There was no need. It's kind of like when someone says "we know where you live", "watch your back", etc -- the implication is clear.

EDIT: Oh my God, they also have the location data of the comings and goings of lots of politicians and industry regulators, don't they? Late night trips from locations some of those people might not want made public? If they'll so casually threaten a mother's kids, threaten journalists with $1M smear campaigns, what else have they already done?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/03/god-view-...

Wow I forgot about this fiasco. It literally reads like a scene from The Circle. Disturbing.

>> But what is wrong with threatening a woman's children? Clearly you dont have children. If you dont see anything wrong with this notion, having a thoughtful discussion with you is a moot point. Do you work for uber ?

You do if you're a psychopathic megalomaniac who got shoved money up the ass by shriveling old millionaires for having a business model that is based on siphoning money off less-than-minimum wage workers.

This is a direct attempt to shut her up -- this an attempt to silence their critics via blackmail -- and they hoped it wouldn't get mainstream press coverage. They hoped she would find out just via whispers from those who were there.

It may not meet the legal definition -- but there is a clear demand and menace:

The demand is that journalists do not write negative stories on Uber.

The menace is that Uber will retaliate against any journalists by digging up dirty on them personally and thus hurting either their reputation, careers, or relationships.

The primary reporter that Uber was talking about at that dinner is Sarah Lacey at PandoDaily. Sarah has been very critical of Uber in the past. She also has two very young children and has written a lot about what it's like to start a company and pitch investors while being pregnant and/or having young kids at home.

The obvious implication is that they were going after her kids.

Here's her response, in PandoDaily: http://pando.com/2014/11/17/the-moment-i-learned-just-how-fa...

> The obvious implication is that they were going after her kids.

Obvious implication? I think it's more of a convenient assumption you're making to suit your own personal grudge against Uber.

The comments he made were clearly idiotic, but your eagerness to interpret them in the most extreme and sensational way possible is no better.

What's really cute is that even Uber doesn't even deny that this happened. No, that's all on you, dear HN commenter.

No. Just no. This type of behavior is unacceptable around here - it may be in vogue around /r/TumblrInAction or GamerGate but it has no place here.

If you want to attack the substance of someone's argument fine but personal attacks, especially name calling are completely out of bounds in any sane venue of discussion. And note that Asparagirl has not attacked you personally throughout this entire conversation, much less resort to juvenile name-calling.

Personal side note: the "SJW" insult removes any shred of credibility you may have had.

"your families" = "your children"

I don't think that's a reasonable assumption to make. "Your family" could just as easily be referring to adult family members only (spouses, siblings, parents, etc.).

It seems like you're jumping to that conclusion solely because it makes his comments more inflammatory.

Vague talk of investigating 'your families' comes off more as an attempt to intimidate; arguably the vagueness is intended to provoke anxiety and worry to a greater degree than a specific allegation (as above) that could be refuted or debunked.

Even simply exposing that information is a threat, possibly causing a chilling effect - which is exactly what this Uber exec wants.

>disturbed individuals [...] looking for a target

What??? Where did you get here from "digging up dirt". (For one, you don't need dirt to post someone's name on /b/ or whatever you have in mind.) The level of hyperbole on this submission is awful and pains me to read.

The comments were about "digging up dirt". Sleazy as that is, it doesn't even require personal contact.

"No, no, we won't look ONLY into your children, we'll ALSO look into your spouses, siblings, and parents."

> These people are scum. Uber was a neat app, but I have PLENTY of alternatives these days.

You won't consider them only because alternatives exist? What are you trying to say there?

Like "That's it facebook, you have abused my privacy one too many times, I will disconnect for a whole week-end."

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_body_scanner

If their product stands on its own, they don't need to keep doing this.

Every major company does this, just not in the ham fisted way that Uber has done. Want NYT tech reporter to give positive reviews of Apple? Give him special access to newsworthy stories from inside, early access to devices, free gear, fly him out to special events and treat him like a prince. He gives an overly critical review? Take it all away. He'll have to hear from his friends at WSJ how great this year's event was, or how cool the devices are. They'll be special, he won't.

What you've described - while highly problematic - is a pretty big distance away from "blackmail".

It's like comparing a hang glider to a jumbo jet. Sure, both are bad behavior and have some common motivations, but the moral gap is gigantic.