After an unnamed source leaked its financials to Valleywag, ride-sharing service Uber has promised to retaliate against both the source and the publication.
Yesterday, Valleywag reporter Nitasha Tiku posted a screenshot that showed Uber’s most recent weekly revenues. Tiku said the screenshot had been obtained from an anonymous source who took the capture when an Uber employee logged into the company’s system using the sources computer.
The figures don’t necessarily portray Uber in a bad light. In fact, as Tiku points out, it actually shows that Uber is making more money than people expected (even if it only shows revenues and not profits.) However, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick immediately went on the offensive, sending this response when questioned about the leak by AllThingsD:
“We obviously take the dissemination of our proprietary information seriously and we will be looking to take action against the individual leaker and Valleywag source in short order,”
By doing that, Kalanick essentially confirmed all the leaked information, when the prudent thing to do would have been to simply deny it, or ignore it. Threatening the source and publication also seems like a bit of an overreaction to a leak which ultimately puts his company in a good light.
Kalanick continued his threats by claiming Valleywag had failed to protect the anonymity of its source by somehow making the timestamp of the screenshot visible, which narrowed down the list of suspects. That prompted this response from Valleywag editor-in-chief, John Cook, via email to AllThingsD:
We didn’t publish any identifying information about the source of the screengrab. We don’t know who sent us that shot, and neither does Uber. As you know from reading the piece, the person who sent us the information got it after an unidentified Uber employee logged into an Uber administrative console from a computer that our source had access to. When we reached out to Uber last night, CEO Travis Kalanick helpfully confirmed the veracity of the information by threatening to claim we “outed” our source by failing to redact the timestamp information displayed in the screengrab. What he fails to understand — or is lying about in an effort to smear a critical reporter — is the fact that the person who provided us that screengrab is not the person who logged into Uber’s administrative console. If Kalanick retaliates against that employee, he will be not be punishing our source.
If Kalanick continues the feud, the story will now be about an inflexible, controlling and hot-tempered CEO, going after a mere employee, as well as taking on a publication known for its antagonistic attitude towards the tech industry. It can only end badly, and the best thing for him to do would be to handle it internally and quietly.
