<story><title>Uber’s vice president of product and growth Ed Baker has resigned</title><url>http://www.recode.net/2017/3/3/14805384/uber-ed-baker-resigns-travis-kalanick</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>genericpseudo</author><text>At this point, it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter whether he&amp;#x27;s leaving because of accusations or if he&amp;#x27;s leaving because of everyone &lt;i&gt;else&amp;#x27;s&lt;/i&gt; accusations – let&amp;#x27;s assume the latter because that&amp;#x27;s more charitable.&lt;p&gt;This is what a PR tailspin looks like. All your good people will leave, all your bad people will have to be fired, and consumer demand and driver supply will be affected. Perception is reality, and that means Uber are in real trouble here and it&amp;#x27;s gonna cost them a lot – maybe most of the exec suite – to get out of it.&lt;p&gt;The key question is: who benefits? This is corporate politics by insurgent means, so I wonder who is emptying their opposition research briefing against Uber and why. Could even be an investor who wants to force leadership out, possibly as a prelude to driving Uber to an exit.&lt;p&gt;Those tactics don&amp;#x27;t work unless the dirt exists, so this really, really doesn&amp;#x27;t excuse anything which Uber may (and, on the balance of probabilities, there&amp;#x27;s more than likely fire to go with this smoke) have done. And I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s likely the individuals alleging harassment in particular are part of this at all, so anyone coming trying to impugn their motivations can go pound sand; but, as a byproduct of their legit and serious grievances, they created the environment where this kind of power-play can be made.&lt;p&gt;So who benefits?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>untog</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think this requires a grand conspiracy to still make sense.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re an Uber employee that&amp;#x27;s been around for a while, you have significant value tied up in Uber stock. The senior management has long indicated little interest in going public, so in theory you have a lot of employees that are being prevented from becoming millionaires by their employer.&lt;p&gt;Worse, that stock is now decreasing in value (impossible to assess of course, but...) - might it not be better to leak all the things you&amp;#x27;ve seen in the last few years and hurry the departure of the senior staff at Uber? Then you&amp;#x27;ll get a new set of executives who will be much more open to going public and making you rich. Maybe not as rich as you might have been before all this started, but it&amp;#x27;s better than terminal decline.</text></comment>
<story><title>Uber’s vice president of product and growth Ed Baker has resigned</title><url>http://www.recode.net/2017/3/3/14805384/uber-ed-baker-resigns-travis-kalanick</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>genericpseudo</author><text>At this point, it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter whether he&amp;#x27;s leaving because of accusations or if he&amp;#x27;s leaving because of everyone &lt;i&gt;else&amp;#x27;s&lt;/i&gt; accusations – let&amp;#x27;s assume the latter because that&amp;#x27;s more charitable.&lt;p&gt;This is what a PR tailspin looks like. All your good people will leave, all your bad people will have to be fired, and consumer demand and driver supply will be affected. Perception is reality, and that means Uber are in real trouble here and it&amp;#x27;s gonna cost them a lot – maybe most of the exec suite – to get out of it.&lt;p&gt;The key question is: who benefits? This is corporate politics by insurgent means, so I wonder who is emptying their opposition research briefing against Uber and why. Could even be an investor who wants to force leadership out, possibly as a prelude to driving Uber to an exit.&lt;p&gt;Those tactics don&amp;#x27;t work unless the dirt exists, so this really, really doesn&amp;#x27;t excuse anything which Uber may (and, on the balance of probabilities, there&amp;#x27;s more than likely fire to go with this smoke) have done. And I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s likely the individuals alleging harassment in particular are part of this at all, so anyone coming trying to impugn their motivations can go pound sand; but, as a byproduct of their legit and serious grievances, they created the environment where this kind of power-play can be made.&lt;p&gt;So who benefits?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kbenson</author><text>&amp;gt; This is corporate politics by insurgent means&lt;p&gt;Do you mind explaining that?  I&amp;#x27;m not sure I follow.  It&amp;#x27;s obvious that a lot of dirt is coming out, but it seems to all be sourced internally.  Or are you referring to people with media connections pushing the stories for more exposure (which I don&amp;#x27;t know if is happening or not)?  I don&amp;#x27;t think there &lt;i&gt;needs&lt;/i&gt; to be an explanation for why there&amp;#x27;s a lot of stories beyond it hitting the tipping point for many employees, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean there isn&amp;#x27;t one.</text></comment>