Uber Shuts Out Alphabet Execs from Board Meetings

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14 points·nyangosling··6 comments

Non-paywalled article: http://www.businessinsider.com/alphabet-david-drumond-barred...

From the Business Insider article:

> The situation is similar to when Google CEO Eric Schmidt left Apple's board after his company started working on Android, its own mobile operating system similar to Apple's iOS, except that Drummond hasn't given up his board seat.

It's only kind of similar. Schmidt left Apple's board while Drummond has been essentially forced out, and Google was working on a direct competitor to Apple's iOS, which would have been a pretty glaring conflict of interest. I guess Uber's self driving cars research would be a conflict of interest for Drummond too, but Drummond is just a SVP of corporate development, so he wouldn't really deal with any of the development of the self driving cars at Google.

> Uber also is shielding information from board “observer” David Krane, who runs a subsidiary of Alphabet called GV, a venture capital firm that is one of Uber’s top shareholders, says another person familiar with the arrangement.

That's odd. There has to be more going on there, yes?

I don't think it's odd because there is now a direct conflict between Uber's future direction (autonomous cars for hire) and Google X's self driving car project.

Regardless of any claims about a possible Chinese wall between Google Ventures (GV) and other Alphabet divisions, Uber is right to limit information access to direct competitors even if they are investors/advisors.

Don't their investors have a legal right to this information?

Maybe, but Uber is not known for being a company that cares about what the law says.

[paywalled article]

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