Uber is trying to revolutionize the taxi cab industry, whether the industry wants it or not. Despite the protest from taxi companies worldwide, Uber is facing it’s worst enemy: itself.
Their take no prisoners, super aggressive anything goes attitude are turning off investors, employees and even customers. Earlier this week, technology blog Buzzfeed discovered a top Uber executive proposed the idea of investigating and publicly trash journalists who criticize them. The executive, Uber’s senior business vice-president Emil Michael, said he thought such comments were off record, but did apologize for them and insisted they didn’t reflect Uber whatsoever. This slip up comes around a time when CEO Travis Kalanick is running a media charm offensive, especially in New York City. But there was a fancy dinner in the same city. This dinner included a Buzzfeed editor, journalist Michael Wolff, as well as Mr. Michael and Mr. Kalanick. It was at this dinner where Emil Michael suggested hiring researchers and journalists to fight back against members of the press saying negative things against Uber. There were speculations of looking into their professional and personal lives. Much of the fury was directed at Sarah Lacy, editor of tech website Pondo Daily. In an article, with some colorful language, Ms. Lacy accused Uber of sexism, arrogance, and poor treatment of their employees. Mr. Michael became so outraged at the article he started plotting revenge.
I’m glad they didn’t. Going the revenge route wouldn’t have helped Uber, instead, it would have made things worse. What I would like to see is Emil Michael and Sarah Lacy have a meeting, say over a lunch or dinner, with online bloggers and journalist present, to air their differences and come to some understanding. From a humanitarian public relations standpoint, this would be good for everybody. If you were an Uber exec, or if you were Sarah Lacy, how would you handle this situation? Is Uber under fire?