In 2016, when clashes with taxi drivers broke out in 2016 in Paris, Uber’s then-chief executive Travis Kalanick texted fellow executives that “violence guarantees success” in what was a key market for the company.
Uber leveraged the violence against its drivers to win sympathy from regulators and the public, as it also did in South Africa where Uber drivers were burned when their cars were set on fire. (This look inside Uber’s internal deliberations came from records Uber lobbyist Mark MacGann turned over to the Guardian.)
