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Comment by tim333 | Hacker News Reader

They should probably fire Emil Michael or similar. The

"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.

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Given the Benny Hill-esque series of blunders by Uber in recent memory, I'm not sure it's safe to think that Emil Michael and his behavior is the exception at Uber, rather than the rule, and that firing him would rid them of this type of behavior/culture.

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.

You may be right, but its still clear that Emil Michael is toxic and not suited for a leadership position of anything larger than a shoebox. He should be fired.

>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.

yeah, quite likely

And you have the love the sequence of events:

(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.

And apparently a specific rumor about a specific person they wanted to validate.

As if to drive the point home.

They want to "give the media a taste of its own medicine"? They already are. It's called marketing and advertising. The press, political parties and private businesses constantly manipulate people's opinions. They both use elements of fantasy and attention grabbing headlines.

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!

To be fair, there's a big gap between saying how you could spend a million dollars and spending a million dollars.

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.

I get the feeling that there's a side that Buzzfeed and Pando aren't mentioning.

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?

That is extremely speculative. I know you're just asking questions, but let's give her the benefit of the doubt. Most people don't do things like that and it's not nice to imply otherwise absent any evidence.

It's speculative, but not extremely so. Most people don't randomly suggest they'd be justified going after other people's families after simple criticism, so let's give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

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.

Most people aren't Uber.

What specifically did she do that would justify investigating her family?

I'm sure they should fire him, but from what I've seen and heard around town, this is an expression of their culture, not some outlier.

App was a great step forward, but it's clear they have a poisoned culture. Emil isn't a bad apple, he's the same as the rest of the barrel.

Perhaps this is not a case of a barrel full of rotten apples, but a barrel full of durians.

Anyway, the idiom is "one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel."

yeah that is not....

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