What Uber SVP of business Emil Michael suggested at an influencers-only dinner party in Manhattan Friday – that the $17 billion ridesharing company should spend a million bucks to “dig up dirt” on critical reporters – made me giggle.
The part about Uber’s highly sexist “hot chick” drivers campaign – not so much.
Like Streetwise Editor in Chief Galen Moore wrote earlier today, “It’s sad that so much of this centers around a crass attitude toward women.” Whether it’s Uber CEO Travis Kalanick telling GQ how awesome getting laid is, thanks strictly to his company’s success, or Emil Michael flippantly telling a room full of journalists (and Ed Norton) that bad press coverage warrants million dollar bounties, it’s clear – “How out of touch do you have to be to realize this kind of thing is bad for box office?”
The answer: A shit ton. Times a thousand.
But not everything is the Watergate scandal. Michael’s idiotic comments aren’t the Watergate scandal.
I’m no Uber defender, of course. In September, reports highlighted what I still believe to be the concerning ability for iPhone owners, who aren’t necessarily Uber drivers, to download the UberDriver app onto their phones, just by finding the leaked link on the internet. It sullied, perhaps permanently, my image of Uber. It’s hard for me to read any bit of Uber press without wanting a closer look.
Yes, the Emil Michael comments really did make me laugh. Because they’re so so stupid. And I’ll unequivocally defend BuzzFeed’s coverage – Michael’s words were the very definition of newsworthy – because it adds to the narrative of Uber as ruthless and heartless. But those comments shouldn’t surprise anyone, and they’ve probably been spoken, in some way or another, by countless executives and politicians on a daily basis for quite some time.
Uber’s company culture may indeed be sexist. Uber executives may very well have dreams of exposing their critics in the media. But these aren’t exclusive to Uber (which is a bigger conversation for another day).
I’ve admitted to – currently – having a negative bias towards Uber. So, yes, when BuzzFeed’s report came out, I laughed. But I also had the urge to write 2,000 I-told-you-so words about Uber.
I slept that urge off, and now I’m writing to tell people reading this that I don’t give a shit. If Uber really wants to “dig up dirt” on journalists they will. But there’s a 99.9 percent chance that has never and will never happen. If the CEO wants to brag about his sex life (probably a remarkable one), that’s fine too.
The company’s apparent lack of any moral compass and its continued displays of poor judgment should indeed cause some concern. Especially, given that Uber, when it works well, is such a positive thing for so many.
Chicago Inno’s Jim Dalke, who is one of many reporters covering Uber, deleted his Uber app. And I don’t blame him; it’s comical how little Uber seems to care sometimes. But I’m not going to delete the Uber app.
For one, I like using it sometimes. Two, I’m lazy. And three, I’d then have to consider scrapping all my Apple products, because Apple has its problems, too. The difference is that Uber just doesn’t seem to care who it offends. And it goes out of its way to make this fact known.
But let’s be honest: Uber isn’t a threat to the First Amendment. It’s just insecure.
