A top Uber executive was reportedly fired after word got out that he had obtained the medical records of the woman who was raped in 2014 during a ride by her Uber driver in India. It was reported that he got fired only after journalists started calling Uber asking questions about the incident.
The Uber executive, Eric Alexander was the president of business in Asia Pacific. He shared the records with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Senior VP Emil Michael, a report in Recode.
As reported by The Guardian, Alexander, Kalanick and Michael travelled to India to investigate into the rape case and cast doubts about the rape survivor’s account suggesting that it could be a part of a conspiracy by rival firm Ola to damage Uber.
The driver Shiv Kumar Yadav, who was convicted of rape and served life sentence, was facing four other criminal charges, prompting protests and anger against Uber for failing to do background checks on its drivers.
Alexander was fired right after Uber fired 20 of its employees over sexual harassment in the work sphere. The cab hailing app company also hired an Apple marketing executive Bozoma Saint John as Chief Brand Officer to rescue its tainted brand.
During Uber's ascent to becoming the world's most valuable startup, the San Francisco-based company took Silicon Valley's penchant for sexism, for cutthroat, unapologetic competition and distaste for government regulation and kicked it up several notches.
For a while, this worked well, pushing Uber's valuation to nearly $70 billion. But this year, Uber's aggressive corporate culture and 40-year-old Kalanick's self-admitted need to "fundamentally change and grow up" has caught up with it.
In addition to the sexual harassment allegations, Uber is the target of lawsuits, boycott threats and a federal investigation into claims that it has used a fake version of its app to thwart authorities. It's also been accused of corporate espionage by Waymo, formerly Google's autonomous vehicle arm.
(With inputs from AP)
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