November 18th, 2014
Go ahead, Santino. Defend them now.
The best part of this story isn’t that the Uber executive Emil Michael suggests spending one meeeelion dollars on oppo research into the private lives of journalist critical of the company’s business practices. Or that he only wants to hire eight reporter/writers, meaning that they’d be getting $125k a year, which is pretty good pay by media standards.
It isn’t that Uber’s non-apology for Michale’s remarks is really just a complaint that the dinner where he made them was supposed to be off-the-record–though that hadn’t been communicated to all of the attendees.
It isn’t even the revelation that Uber has already dipped into the travel logs of journalists who have used the service.
No, the best part of this story is that Emil Michael, a guy who made his bones with Klout–which might be the biggest joke in the social media sector–“sits on a board that advises the Department of Defense.”
A guy whose credentials are “measure your social media influence!” and “use an app to create a competing taxi service!” has been selected to provide advice to the most powerful military force in the history of the world. Awesome.
I’m sure ISIS must be terrified.
Galley Friend A November 19, 2014 at 9:17 pm
Hmmm… http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2014/11/19/behind-the-scenes-uber-buzzfeed-fracas/19269737/