Amid the flood of recent media attention of startup car service Uber – much of it negative – it’s worth examining some of the reasons the company has been targeted by some journalists. Over the weekend, entrepreneur-turned Venture Capitalist Mark Suster – who is not an investor in Uber - offered his defense of the company in an online blog post.
He begins by posing the question, Is Uber evil? “No. That’s silly. It’s a fantastic startup that has had a amazing impact on society. It’s not just about people like me who can (and do) turn up in nearly any city in the US and immediately book a ride. On that front it has revolutionized my life,” Suster said.
He also addresses the portrayal of Uber being overly aggressive in its business practices, saying that while this may be true in some cases, it is not so unusual for successful tech giants, including some of the most beloved firms like Apple, Google and Facebook.
“It’s a brutally competitive world out there, I’ve been on the sharp end of it and it doesn’t feel nice,” he said. “And I pick myself back up, dust off and think to myself that I need to think through the realpolitik of power and money and competition and no matter how unpleasant it is – it’s a Hobbesian world out there. It ain’t pretty – but it’s all around us.”
Suster adds: “Uber is no more aggressive than our industry’s finest. I’d say less so.”
He also addressed the recent comments by Uber SVP Emil Michael suggesting that the company assemble an entire research team to uncover personal information on members of the press and their families as a way to strike back at certain journalists.
“Yes. It’s pretty bad. But Emil Michael saying flippantly at a dinner that he wants to do oppo on negative journalists and Sarah Lacy in particular is not the same as actually doing it,” he said. “It was a stupid thing to say – especially in front of journalists. But if Emil’s friend who was at the dinner is to be believed – it didn’t sound so much like an impassioned plea as a throwaway comment in frustration. Impolitic? Sure. Scandal – me thinks not.”
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