Big Tech’s Reckoning Won’t Stop With Uber
Founders find it harder to act above the law as they build their empires.
Dubious tactics.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Life for big tech companies looks increasingly different to how it did five years ago. Back then, Uber Technologies Inc. used a secret “kill switch” to thwart police from probing its data systems in more than a dozen countries. It forged into cities where its gig-economy model broke local rules, going above the heads of mayors and courting heads of state with aggressive charm offensives that saw the likes of then-French economy minister Emmanuel Macron make personal calls on Uber’s behalf to solve its regulatory problems.
These details and more are laid bare in text messages and emails, part of more than 124,000 confidential documents leaked to the Guardian, which show how Uber executives were fully aware they were acting above the law, jokingly referring to themselves as “pirates” and “f***ing illegal.” Uber says it has transformed itself since 2017 under the leadership of Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi, and it is indeed a different company today from the one that founder Travis Kalanick started. In fact, the documents underscore how much the landscape for tech founders has changed.