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.
For years it was almost cliché for Silicon Valley founders to believe they could move fast and break things (including laws) because they believed they were making the world a better place in the long run. Mark Zuckerberg justified playing fast and loose with regulators and our data in large part because he was fulfilling a global mission of “connecting people.” Elon Musk appeared to treat regulatory fines as a cost of doing business while pioneering an electric vehicle revolution that could help combat climate change.
