Uber settles with woman over obtaining medical records after she was raped

https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/09/uber-settles-lawsuit-with-woman-who-accused-executives-of-obtaining-medical-records-after-she-was-raped/

by bdcravens • 9 years ago

59 43 9 years ago

techcrunch.com

partycoder2• 9 years ago

As usual, Uber throwing money at people to clean up after their mess.

Where is this money coming from? You.

Stop. Using. Uber.

Simon_says2• 9 years ago

Isn't Uber currently losing money? I think the money for this is coming from VC firms.

maxxxxx2• 9 years ago

Who take money from our pension funds for example.

bastawhiz• 9 years ago

It depends on the city. Uber is not uniformly profitable everywhere.

TomK32• 9 years ago

And the 11 billion invested. Luckily that money is burned at a breath-taking rate and we can see the closing of Uber sooner than later.

partycoder2• 9 years ago

It is true that significant part of that money comes from investors.

However it is expected to ultimately be self-sustaining and come from you.

GoatOfAplomb• 9 years ago

Isn't Uber losing money on every ride?

jeffdavis• 9 years ago

They aren't a charity. Either they are making money from the ride, or they are using your choice of uber as a way to attract more investment.

briankelly• 9 years ago

Think that depends on the area. I imagine they're not in most big US cities at least.

DrScump• 9 years ago

yes, but they'll make it up in volume. /s

jacquesm4• 9 years ago

I hope she took them to the cleaners. Whatever makes executives think they can get away with this is an open question, I also strongly believe that regardless of whether or not the woman pursues this there should be some kind of criminal penalty for the executive(s) involved assuming they are found guilty. And then there is the question how they managed to obtain these records in the first place, the local authorities really should be interested in that.

anarchimedes2• 9 years ago

Naive question: when does the executive and cultural behavior represent enough of a risk to be a tipping point for investors to completely pull their investment?

garmaine2• 9 years ago

And have the limited partners pull their funds and/or file lawsuits because you backed out if one of the few out of the park financial successes your fund had?

jacquesm4• 9 years ago

Calling Uber a financial success at this stage is a bit of a stretch they certainly are a success in terms of traction and volume.

austincheney• 9 years ago

I would say that is likely the wrong question. Investment is a matter of giving up money in the expectation it will return value. If the morality or ethics of a company are so utterly repulsive that this question should be raised the investor has to ask if they can throw their investment money away. Most people are not willing to throw money away even if disgusted.

anarchimedes2• 9 years ago

I was thinking along the lines of the recent payoff for the data breach, the myriad of sexual harassment claims.. etc. Each of those represent a legal risk with a financial impact that, to someone ignorant about the VC space, would make me think twice about the going concern of the business.

gaius2• 9 years ago

Evidently, repeated incidents of rape are OK with these investors. But on the other hand, their hands may be tied; once you have invested how do you then back out? Your investment bought you X shares in the company, so the only way out is to find another investor to take them off your hands, and this is an illiquid market.

misun783• 9 years ago

Repeated incidents of rape? Firstly, no Uber employee was actually involved in the rape. This case was about a rogue Uber driver. When Uber starts operating at the scale it currently does, all sorts of bad actors end up as Uber drivers. Of course this doesn't justify Uber's investigation into the rape, but please stop spreading misinformation and paranoia.

icebraining3• 9 years ago

What does "pull their investment" mean, though? Uber has burned through most of their cash, and the assets they have are mostly unsellable (name recognition, relationships with partners, workers with experience, etc). When you buy a lottery ticket, there's nothing to gain from ripping it apart before the numbers are called.

tertius• 9 years ago

So then pretend he/she said "stop investing more" instead of what you read that he/she meant.

justboxing• 9 years ago

Uber has burned through most of their cash, and the assets they have are mostly unsellable

Source?

jacquesm4• 9 years ago

The only normal way for an investor to 'pull their investment' is to sell their stock to another party. If the stock is worth more now than it was when they bought in then there is a chance the investors will be happy to sell but if the stock is worth less they are more likely to want to take the chance on the longer term to avoid the write-off.

Of course that opens them up to an even steeper drop in value.

And then there are the shareholder agreements that may limit what they can do with their stock as well as lock-up terms and the various authorities.

Shareholders are usually not in a position to claw back their investment unless this has been agreed upon up front and the conditions for such a clawback have been triggered and the company still has the money. If the company does not have the money then some or all of the execs may be personally liable for it but I have never seen a case where that succeeded.

pimmen2• 9 years ago

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; engineers, is there really no other company with the same interesting problems to work on but Uber? I can understand staying with a company past a big scandal and shake up in management, who knows, maybe you’ll be remembered as one of the people who made the company better now that the only way is up. But when scandal after scandal after scandal rolls by, and the common denominator of them is the very people who works there, is this really the company you want to support?

Why did you become an engineer? I can understand if your answer is money, respect or ”doing math and coding is fun” really, that’s enough for me, you don’t need to do it to save the world, and Uber does offer money, respect, and opportunities to do math and code. But, wouldn’t you rather sleep knowing you don’t support a company that screws over people like this poor woman? There are plenty of companies screaming after good engineers, why do you support such a rotten, morally bankrupt management by writing their code for them? Can you honestly talk about the stuff you knew your company did, and all the opportunities out there you passed on, to your children with a straight face?

Because I would like to see the snakes in Uber’s management write their own code and explain away responsibility the next time a scandal hits them.

chronic193• 9 years ago

I did it for the money. Uber pays well.

Either that or finance to exploit arbitrage opportunities.

Game_Ender• 9 years ago

Is this a new thing?

If a group of people X did bad things in the past and they are no longer affiliated with Z. Why should learning more about those bad things in the past affect your current interactions with Z? It’s essentially a different group of people.

It’s similar to the issues people have with Europe over the crimes they committed in the colonial era. People are legitimately upset about it, but judge the current governments on their recent actions. Time scales are of course different, and it does not excuse future transgressions, but those our judged on their own merits.

misun783• 9 years ago

I will also directly address this comment as an Uber engineer without any deep vested commitment to Uber i.e. not an early employee who can't leave for the FANGs of the world for the same incentives.

Your viewpoint is incredibly naive and dangerous I am sorry. There are a few nuances worth understanding:

1. A lot of Uber's rotten culture stems from top-down, from Travis, who while not intending malice, operated from a viewpoint of fear and paranoia. That very top-down set up has now been replaced all the way up from the CEO. Why would someone not want to be part of that especially when you're able to see the change first-hand. Past skeletons still need to be cleared out but what happens once the company starts afresh?. You owe it to yourself to keep an open mind and not prophesize the very one-sides narrative that sells a lot better in the media circles.

2. While I can sympathize with #1, I am not sure how you can make the claim that Uber is in the business of screwing people over. It's outsized impact to consumers – both riders and drivers – is the favorite aspect of working at Uber. Most of us would otherwise be busy forcing people to click on spammy ads. Uber for me has helped blur the line between digital and human impact and I have first-hand noticed the impact from my work. Think about how fewer riders need to drink and drive because of Uber. In most of our cities, drivers who initially would have no source of part-time income, are now able to make money for all sorts of needs (help kids pay for college, side-gig while recovering from an injury are ones I have heard first-hand recently). Hearing these stories is inspiring. It compels you to get rid of the bad parts and be part of the change. In addressing your direct comment, I am proud to tell my kids the opportunities I have helped create for people across the world.

Now if only we figured out to sell our story better and win people over such as yourself. Give us some time :)

pimmen2• 9 years ago

I do agree that a lot of Uber’s impact is positive on both riders and drivers. Every time an Uber scandal rolls by I’ve heard the same two quotes from friends and family; ”Really? All I know about Uber is that when I used them in a completely foreign country it was still the best taxi experience I’ve ever had” or ”My son drives for them to get money on the side in college”. People are amazed about these two sides; management not really caring about who or what is in the way and the employees such as yourself delivering such great value.

I’m not going to pretend my employer is Jesus or something, they’ve done their fair share of bad stuff that puts their name in the paper too, but I personally feel like there is a line. When you witness so many cases of the management prioritizing profit over being decent, doesn’t that bother you? I could pull up five serious cases of abuse of trust Uber is directly responsible for that happened just this year, is there a number of infractions on the magnitude this poor woman has suffered that would make you leave?

ben_jones• 9 years ago

All it takes for a 22 year old straight out of school to write ad tracking code, spam software, or god knows what else, is 120k combined compensation. No, software developers are not any different from lawyers, finance, big oil, or any other industry with deep institutional issues that routinely subvert humanity.

jimnotgym2• 9 years ago

I can see why Uber don't think the law applies to them. It's probably because the law in the UK, for instance, doesn't apply to them[0]. this group already showed at tribunal that Uber should be charging sales tax, and HMRC (IRS for the UK) is refusing to take action. The conclusion many are coming to is that there is a sweetheart deal between the UK and our colonial masters in the US to allow Big Tech tax free access to our backwater.

[0]https://goodlawproject.org/uber-case/

Blazespinnaker• 9 years ago

Didn't think. I believe it's reasonable to use past tense now. They really shook things up.

The question remains though if it's reasonable to continue to use uber. Is it a good idea to reward such awful behavior in the startup phase? IMHO, I think not. I'd prefer to use lyft and hopefully send a message (however minuscule) that startups shouldn't act this way at any point in their life.

jimnotgym2• 9 years ago

I just call a taxi firm. I always know the local firms number, because it is a transposition of my desk phone number at work! I take a lot of calls wanting a taxi, and god are people rude to people they think they can get away with. I have half a mind some days to say 'yes, be with you in 10 minutes'.

Uber settles with woman over obtaining medical records after she was raped

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