specific managers – Page 5

March 12, 2018March 14, 2018

Salle Yoo demanded $100 million when leaving Uber, got most of it

Business Insider reports that when then-General Counsel Salle Yoo prepared to leave Uber, she sought a $100 million severance package, entailing the repurchase of her Uber shares. Travis Kalanick thought that amount was excessive, but BI says the final amount was “tens of millions” although less than 2/3 of her requested amount.

BI reported Yoo grounding her demand in thoughts about gender:

Yoo thought it was only fair because she had seen male executives ask for huge exit packages and get them. She had spent her career at Uber encouraging women to lean in. So she took her own advice, opened her negotiations with Kalanick by shooting high and held her breath.

March 12, 2018March 12, 2018

Salle Yoo questioned Kalanick’s handling of Levandowski

In addition to insisting that Uber hire outside investigators to check what improper information Otto held, then-General Counsel Salle Yoo questioned other aspects of Kalanick’s handling of that acquisition. Business Insider explains that she said she wanted Uber to fire Levandowski long before the company did so, and also that she was excluded from critical discussions about Levandowski. Business Insider reports that these disagreements led to Yoo’s departure from Uber.

March 12, 2018

Kalanick blamed Yoo for mishandling investigation of Otto

Loooking back at an outside investigator’s report that Uber managers did not receive, Kalanick blamed then-General Counsel Salle Yoo, suggesting that too many legal issues were falling through the cracks of her team.

March 12, 2018March 13, 2018

Company leaders did not read report about confidential material held by Otto

Uber then-General Counsel Salle Yoo had insisted that Uber hire outside investigators to check for confidential information improperly held by Otto, before Uber acquired Otto. The resulting report revealed that Otto CEO Anthony Levandowski had copied Google information. But Uber leaders never saw the report because it was sent to outside counsel. Instead, they learned about the report only incidental to Google’s litigation against Uber alleging theft of Google secrets.

March 12, 2018March 12, 2018

Considered releasing unflattering information about an employee critical of the company

Planning a response to reports of sexual harassment by employee Susan Fowler, Travis Kalanick and colleagues considered releasing unflattering information about Fowler during her time at Uber. They ultimately did not do so.

March 6, 2018March 14, 2018

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s Tweet criticized as “insulting” and “destroy[ing] months of hard work”

Responding to a study by MIT researchers that found low earnings by Uber drivers, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi replied:

MIT = Mathematically Incompetent Theories (at least as it pertains to ride-sharing).

Inc.com criticized Khosrowshahi’s response, calling that Tweet inconsistent with a company “eager to learn from its mistakes and play nice with others” and questioning Khosrowshahi’s “mocking tone.”

February 7, 2018February 12, 2018

Kalanick’s stated objectives for acquisition of Otto

In litigation with Google about alleged theft of Google intellectual property, Google counsel presented notes from John Bares, then director of Uber’s driverless car center in Pittsburgh, from a December 2015 meeting with Uber then-CEO Travis Kalanick discussing:

TK what we want
source
all of their data
Tagging
road map
pound of flesh
IP

On one interpretation, the “what we want” was what Uber wanted from a prospective acquisition of Otto — but notably, what Otto would in turn bring from Google (where key staff had worked previously). In particular, Uber had no fight with Otto and no reason to want a “pound of flesh” from Otto. In contrast, Uber’s tensions with Google were longstanding and well known. In that case, these notes would also indicate Uber intentionally wanting “all of their [Google’s] data” as well as Google’s “source [code]” and more.

January 19, 2018March 12, 2018

Kalanick defended Otto founder Anthony Levandowski

Against the advice of then-General Counsel Salle Yoo and without support from then-Chief Business Officer Emil Michael, Uber then-CEO Travis Kalanick pushed forward with the acquisition of Otto, a startup for self-driving trucks.

Bloomberg reports multiple reasons why Kalanick could have been concerned about the deal and Levandowski’s tactics.

One, Otto consisted primarily of ex-Google staff, and Uber’s acquisition of Otto angered Google leaders, including co-founder Larry Page.

Two, before the deal closed, Uber’s investigators learned that Levandowski had possessed five disks of data from Google’s driverless effort including “source code, design files, laser files, engineering documents and software related to Google self-driving cars.” Uber’s investigators also knew that Levandowski’s claims to have destroyed the disks could not be verified. Kalanick said he did not read the investigators’ report.

Three, Levandowski asked Uber to protect him from legal attacks from Google, and Kalanick agreed to do so.

Even when Google sued Uber over the acquisition, and Levandowski invoked the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination to decline to cooperate with litigation, Kalanick continued to support Levandowski, claiming he would eventually be vindicated.

Bloomberg further reports Kalanick calling Levandowski his “brother from another mother.”

Business Insider adds that Kalanick had vouched for Levandowski. Meanwhile, Emil Michael, then Uber’s head dealmaker, did not support the acquisition because he thought the price was too high.

January 18, 2018

Kalanick asked security team to examine employee email for leaks

While on leave, Kalanick asked Uber’s security team to examine an employee’s email to see if that person was leaking information related to a damaging story.

See Bloomberg report.

January 18, 2018February 12, 2018

Kalanick lobbied for preferred successor; Board suspected a secret side deal

Bloomberg reported that Kalanick lobbied to pick his own successor, former GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt. The Uber board rejected this proposal, suspecting that Immelt had promised Kalanick to serve only briefly, facilitating Kalanick’s return.