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Tag: Uber

  • Sexual harassment: another top tech exec resigns

    A top executive and cofounder of Binary Capital has admitted to using his “position of power in exchange for sexual gains,” forcing him into resignation, according to media reports.

    The Information reported on Thursday that six women had accused Justin Caldbeck, a prominent venture capitalist of “unwanted and inappropriate advances”, with several saying the misconduct occurred when they sought funding or guidance while trying to start businesses.

    According to The Guardian, three of the women went public with their claims. Among them are Niniane Wang, who co-created Google Desktop; Susan Ho, co-founder of Journy and Leiti Hsu, another co-founder of Journy.

    While Wang alleged that Caldbeck tried to sleep with her while informally recruiting her for a job, Ho said the venture capitalist sent her text messages in the middle of the night suggesting they meet up while they were in the process of discussing investing in her startup.

    Hsu said Caldbeck groped her under a table at a bar.

    The three other women who preferred anonymity shared stories with The Information about sexually explicit text messages and advances from Caldbeck despite their professional relationships.

    Caldbeck had earlier denied the allegations before admitting them.

    Denying the allegations, he said: “I strongly deny the Information’s attacks on my character. The fact is, I have always enjoyed respectful relationships with female founders, business partners, and investors”.

    Admitting the allegations and resigning, Caldbeck said in a statement on Friday that “The power dynamic that exists in venture capital is despicably unfair,” adding: “The gap of influence between male venture capitalists and female entrepreneurs is frightening and I hate that my behavior played a role in perpetrating a gender-hostile environment”.

    This is the latest discrimination and misconduct scandal to rock Silicon Valley.

    Uber chief executive officer, Travis Kalanick was forced into resignation in the course of the past week for a major sexual harassment scandal as well.

     

  • Employees petition Uber for Kalanick to return as Travis 2.0

    Employees at Uber have signed a petition demanding Travis Kalanick be recalled as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company.

    Kalanick recently resigned his CEO position at Uber this week after pressure from major investors following the release of a report on Uber’s internal culture and a seemingly endless series of scandals.

    More than 1,000 current Uber employees signed the petition demanding the board reinstate Kalanick despite the overwhelming evidence that he needed to go.

    According to screenshots obtained by BuzzFeed, the petition says employees “need to revolt this” and that Kalanick was an “inspiration” who can “come back strong as Travis 2.0”.

    Recode reports that the petition says the board must “hear from Uber employees that it’s made the wrong decision in pressuring Travis to leave and that he should be reinstated in an operational role”.

    Since Kalanick’s resignation, there has been a predictable outpouring of support from Kalanick’s allies, essentially arguing that Kalanick’s “hard work” made up for the whole “allowing a culture of sexual harassment to flourish” accusations.

     

  • Uber Chief Executive, Travis Kalanick resigns

    Embattled Uber’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Travis Kalanick resigns from the ride-sharing company he helped found in 2009, according to reports.

    This is following a “shareholder revolt” led by some of Uber’s most prominent investors, the New York Times reports.

    An Uber spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that Kalanick has actually stepped down.

    The report states that five of Uber’s most prominent investors, including Benchmark, wrote a letter titled “Moving Uber Forward,” which recommended that the CEO step aside immediately.

    After hours of discussion, Kalanick agreed to resign.

    “I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life, I have accepted the investors request to step aside so that Uber can go back to building rather than be distracted with another fight,” Kalanick said in a statement given to the Times.

    However, Kalanick will continue to hold a position on Uber’s board of directors, according to a statement from the board given to TechCrunch.

    “Travis has always put Uber first. This is a bold decision and a sign of his devotion and love for Uber.

    “By stepping away, he’s taking the time to heal from his personal tragedy while giving the company room to fully embrace this new chapter in Uber’s history.

    “We look forward to continuing to serve with him on the board,” the statement read.

    Kalanick announced just last week that he was taking a leave of absence from the company following the release of a report into Uber’s toxic company culture by former Attorney General Eric Holder.

    Kalanick cited a recent family tragedy and internal issues at the company as reasons for the leave, saying in a letter to Uber employees, “…I need to take some time off of the day-to-day to grieve my mother, whom I buried on Friday, to reflect, to work on myself, and to focus on building out a world-class leadership team”.

     

  • Uber Director, Bonderman resigns after ‘sexist’ joke about women

    Billionaire businessman David Bonderman, a member of Uber’s board, resigned Tuesday after making what he called an “inappropriate” comment about women at a company-wide meeting that was aimed at addressing the harassment of women and other unprofessional conduct within the company.

    ImageFile: David Bonderman
    David Bonderman resigns after making sexist joke about women

    The comment came as an interruption of fellow board member Arianna Huffington, who was explaining the benefits of having more female representation on Uber’s board.

    “There’s a lot of data that shows when there’s one woman on the board, it’s much more likely that there will be a second woman on the board,” said Huffington, according to several people who heard the remarks.

    “Actually,” Bonderman interjected, “what it shows is, it’s much likely there’ll be more talking.”

    “Oh, come on, David,” Huffington said, in between awkward laughs. Addressing the crowd, she added, “Don’t worry, David will have a lot of talking to do, as well.”

    In an email that was sent later to company employees, Bonderman said, “I want to apologize to my fellow board member for a disrespectful comment,” calling it “inappropriate.”

    Bonderman, the 74-year-old co-founder of a private equity firm, also apologised personally to Huffington.

    “David has apologized to all Uber employees for a remark that was totally inappropriate and against the new culture we are building at Uber,” Huffington said in a statement.

    A few hours later, Bonderman resigned and released this statement: “Uber is examining the issues with its culture, and making significant changes and working to right what has been done wrong, which is extremely important for the future of the company. I do not want my comments to create distraction as Uber works to build a culture of which we can be proud. I need to hold myself to the same standards that we’re asking Uber to adopt.”

    Huffington also issued a statement praising Bonderman for his decision, “I appreciate David doing the right thing for Uber at this time of critical cultural changes at the company.”

    The incident came as Uber sought to move past a leadership crisis that has led to the departure this week of chief executive Travis Kalanick for a leave of absence and the exit of his close ally and confidant Emil Michael, a senior vice president at Uber.

     

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  • Uber in crisis amid unrelenting chaos as CEO steps down indefinitely

    The chief executive officer of ride-sharing business Uber will step down indefinitely as a damning report exposes the company’s toxic culture.

    Travis Kalanick sent a company-wide email on Tuesday announcing he would take an “unspecified” leave of absence from the company, conceding he needed to improve his leadership skills.

    “Recent events have brought home for me that people are more important than work, and that I need to take some time off of the day-to-day to grieve my mother, whom I buried on Friday, to reflect, to work on myself, and to focus on building out a world-class leadership team,” Mr Kalanick said in the memo.

    His mother died in a boating accident last month.

    The San Francisco company has been in meltdown this year, crippled by complaints that it condones sexual harassment, bullying and retaliation against those who make complaints.

    It has lost nine executives, and its global program to outwit local authorities trying to shut it down has been exposed.

    The 13-page report criticises how the company’s “hustlin” culture had encouraged “poor behaviour”, how illicit drugs and alcohol were being used at work events and how the company needed clear policies to combat discrimination and harassment.

    The company review was sparked by former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, who published a blog post in February that detailed allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation within the company.

    Read more>>

     

     

  • Heads roll as Uber gets tough on sexual harassment

    Heads roll as Uber gets tough on sexual harassment

    The housecleaning at Uber Technologies Inc. is just getting under way, as the ride hailing firm has fired more than 20 people after a company-wide investigation into harassment claims.

    Given the development, Uber has hired at least two high-profile senior executives whose job will be to set strategy and rethink branding.

    Law firm Perkins Coie LLP led the investigation, reviewing 215 human resources claims; while it took no action in 100 instances, it’s still probing 57 others.

    There’s also a separate investigation commissioned by Uber that’s being led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

    That group shared detailed findings with a subcommittee of Uber’s board of directors, but a summary isn’t expected to be made public until next week, a person familiar with the matter said.

    Uber also plans to take action on some of the report’s findings next week, the person said.

    “They’re showing that they’re going to take some concrete steps to address the matter,” said Evan Rawley, a professor at Columbia University’s business school, adding: “This issue is going to keep being at the forefront until the investigation is completed.”

    Read more here.

     

     

     

  • Uber fires former Google engineer at heart of self-driving car dispute

    Uber Technologies Inc said on Tuesday it fired the technology whiz it had hired to lead its self-driving unit, Anthony Levandowski, after he failed to comply with a court order to hand over documents at the centre of a legal dispute between Uber and Alphabet Inc’s Waymo unit.

    Uber had hoped Levandowski, one the most respected self-driving engineers in Silicon Valley, would help the ride services company catch up to rivals including Waymo, in the race for self-driving technology. Instead the hiring led to a court fight and the threat of criminal charges. Uber replaced him as the head of its self-driving car unit in April before finally making the decision to fire him.

    Levandowski formerly worked for Alphabet’s Waymo self-driving division, which says he stole trade secrets by downloading more than 14,000 documents before he left. Levandowski is not a defendant, but his actions are at the heart of Alphabet’s lawsuit against Uber.

    Uber said in a letter to Levandowski filed in federal court on Tuesday that it was firing him because he had not complied with a court order to hand over the documents.

    He has declined to cooperate, citing his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. Levandowski’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Uber and Alphabet are battling over technology expected to revolutionise the way people use cars. Waymo claims its trade secrets made their way into Uber’s Lidar technology, which bounces light pulses off objects so self-driving cars can “see” the road. Uber denies these claims.

    Levandowski has 20 days to comply with the court orders, according to the Uber letter.

    Last month, Uber named Eric Meyhofer to replace Levandowski as head of its Advanced Technologies Group. Meyhofer will continue to lead the team, an Uber spokeswoman said via email.

    The New York Times reported Levandowski’s exit earlier on Tuesday, citing an internal email sent to employees.

    “Over the last few months Uber has provided significant evidence to the court to demonstrate that our self-driving technology has been built independently,” Angela Padilla, Uber’s associate general counsel for employment and litigation, wrote in an email to employees, cited by the Times.

    An Uber spokeswoman confirmed the letter’s authenticity and said the company has urged Levandowski to “fully cooperate.”

    Waymo has said Levandowski received stock worth more than $250 million for joining Uber, along with his portion of the $680 million that Uber paid last year for Otto, the self-driving truck company he formed after leaving Google. That amount assumes certain targets would be met, and it was not clear how his firing would affect those payments.

    A source familiar with the matter said Levandowski had not yet vested his Uber shares.

    Levandowski refusal

    Levandowski, a top engineer on self-driving technology, has turned into a liability for Uber in court. The company has acknowledged that his refusal to testify has hurt its defence efforts. Uber has never denied that he took the Waymo documents.

    Asked last month why Uber did not threaten to fire Levandowski to pressure him into turning over the documents, Uber attorney Arturo Gonzalez told Reuters, “We can fire him but we still don’t get the documents.”

    Uber had argued that it was acceptable to sideline Levandowski by preventing him from working on Lidar technology, but not firing him. But US District Court Judge William Alsup criticized the company, telling lawyers: “You keep on your payroll someone who took 14,000 documents and is liable to use them.”

    The judge theorized that Levandowski could have used Waymo’s documents himself even if he did not turn them over to Uber.

    “What prevented him from bringing a laptop to work every day and consulting the files?” Alsup asked Uber lawyers in April.

    Uber has been hit by a string of departures of senior executives and other negative news. Earlier this year, Uber was caught using its technology to avoid government regulators. Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick was seen on video berating an Uber driver, and the company also faced accusations of sexual harassment that led to an internal probe led by former US Attorney General Eric Holder.

    The Holder report will be shown to the board this week, a source familiar with the matter said, adding that next week, Uber plans to speak with employees about it.

  • Uber threatens to fire self-driving car engineer in Waymo Case

    Uber threatens to fire self-driving car engineer in Waymo Case

    Uber has threatened to fire an engineer accused by Alphabet self-driving Waymo unit of stealing confidential documents in a high profile trade secrets case between the two companies, according to a court filing.

    Waymo sued ride services company Uber Technologies alleging that former Waymo executive Anthony Levandowski downloaded over 14,000 confidential documents before leaving Waymo to subsequently join Uber.

    The case, which pits two companies battling to dominate the fast-growing field of self-driving cars, hinges on Waymo allegations that the information Levandowski took made its way into Uber’s Lidar system, a key sensor technology in self-driving cars.

    US District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco last week issued an injunction ordering Uber to keep Levandowski away from work involving the self-driving car technology at issue in the case, to prevent him and all other employees from using the materials and to return them to Waymo by May 31.

    Uber has told Levandowski that he must comply with the order to return Waymo documents or face possible termination, Levandowski’s lawyers said in a court filing on Thursday.

    The lawyers asked the judge to modify his order so that Uber is not required to fire Levandowski if the engineer asserts his constitutional rights against self-incrimination and refuses to produce documents.

    Uber representatives could not immediately be reached for comment on Levandowski’s filing, and a Waymo spokesman declined to comment.

    Earlier on Thursday Uber said it would appeal a judge’s order rejecting its attempt to arbitrate Waymo’s trade secret claims, according to a court filing. Alsup last week ruled that Waymo’s lawsuit should not be heard in a private forum, and instead should continue to be litigated in San Francisco federal court.

    Levandowski left Waymo in January 2016 and started Otto, a self-driving truck startup that Uber bought for $680 million in August. He had until last month run Uber’s self-driving car division, before stepping aside from those responsibilities pending the court case.

    Uber has not denied that Levandowski took Waymo documents, but says it has not used any Waymo technology in its cars. In his injunction order, Alsup said “few” of Waymo’s alleged trade secrets have been traced to Uber’s self-driving car technology, and that Waymo’s patent claims against Uber have proved meritless.

  • RRS foils attempted hijack of uber taxi in Lagos

    RRS foils attempted hijack of uber taxi in Lagos

    Operatives attached to the Rapid Response Squad of the Lagos State police command on Saturday foiled an attempt to hijack an UBER taxi arresting a suspect in the process.

    The suspect, Emmanuel John Ugbomah, 37, from Ndukwa, Delta State, was arrested in Oshodi Oke at 12:30 a.m while trying to escape after a botched attempt to hijack an uber taxi, a black Toyota Corrolla, 2009 model belonging to one Adebisi at Oshodi – Oke, Lagos.

    It was learnt that suspect in company of two other accomplices had boarded Adebisi’s uber taxi in Lekki. They reportedly told the victim they were going to Oshodi, to which he charged them N4,000.

    But on getting to Ikoyi, the trio told the driver to head to Dolphin where they said they were going to pick a lady friend.

    According to the driver of the vehicle, “Two of them came down from the vehicle and some minutes later they were back saying that the female friend was not going to join them and that he should keep driving to Oshodi – Oke.

    “When I was about to climb the Oshodi – Oke Bridge, one of them grabbed me from the back seat, another closed my mouth with his hand.

    “A gun-like object was pointed at my head and they were shouting that I should come down and come to the back seat”, he narrated.

    Continuing he said “Immediately I unbuckled the seat belt and opened the door, I saw some RRS policemen at the front. I screamed robbers! robbers! and ran towards them.

    “They immediately swung to action after I explained to them that my car was about to be stolen. They ran towards the direction of my car. They apprehended one but two escaped,” he added.

    The victim also claimed his Tecno C8 phone and a sum of eighty thousand naira were missing by the time he was composed.

    He identified Ugbomah as one of the suspect.

    However the suspect deny the robbery claim saying that he was an automobile mechanics and was on his way from Lekki to Oshodi after he had gone to fix a broken down vehicle for a customer when he was apprehended by the police at some minutes past midnight.

    Police sources however disclosed that preliminary investigations revealed that Ugbomah was not at his workshop at Marwa in Lekki as he told police in his statement.

    The source added that further investigations indicated that he has not been to his workshop since mid – March, 2017.

    Recovered from him at the point of arrest were charms, master key and a pistol shaped device.

    The suspect has been transferred to Special Anti Robbery Squad, Ikeja for further investigations.

  • Samsung gets approval to test self-driving car

    The driverless car race is getting even more crowded as Samsung has received the green light to start testing a self-driving vehicle in South Korea.

    According to CNNtech, the tech company will be testing a car fitted with sensors and cameras, referring to South Korea government statement on Monday.

    The Samsung self-driving car, as reported, will use artificial intelligence to study how the vehicle deals with bad weather and obstacles.

    South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has previously granted approval to carmakers like Hyundai and Kia as well as academic and research institutions but Samsung is the first electronics company to receive the government approval to test a driverless car on South Korean roads.

    Driverless car technology is already a crowded field. It includes big tech firms such as Google, Apple and Baidu, traditional car makers like GM and Ford, and ride-hailing startups Uber and Didi.

    “The car has become the next big ‘mobile device’, where the tech industry now sees… opportunities,” CNNtech quotes Robin Zhu, a Hong Kong-based analyst with Bernstein, as saying.

    “Many companies are investing because everyone else is doing it,” Robin Zhu added.

    Samsung so far appears more focused on developing technology for driverless vehicles than building its own car.

    In January, executives from Samsung and Harman talked about plans to create an autonomous car platform that could be sold to car manufacturers.

    The self-driving car Samsung will be testing is a Hyundai vehicle equipped with cameras and sensors, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News.

    Samsung didn’t immediately respond to a request for further information.