[mike128]

There's been a lot of stories lately putting Uber in a bad light. It makes me wonder if it's not their competition who is behind it. Taxi industry lobby perhaps?

[awqrre]

Or it could be Uber itself that's behind it.... to get all the bad press out of the way.

[CSMastermind]

It's Google. They hired a PR firm to attack them when they sued them over stolen autonomous vehicle tech.

[ithinkinstereo]

There was plenty of bad press, pre-Waymo lawsuit.

It's also worth noting that Google also has a sizable stake in Uber via their investment arm, Google Ventures.

1. https://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-...

[blueline]

i dont think google is behind the PR stuff either way but wouldn't this just be hedging bets if they were?

[ithinkinstereo]

Why wouldn't they want Uber to be massively successful? This way they get both a big cash payout plus their equity stake in Uber rockets to the moon.

Accusing Google of the recent spate of bad PR is bizarre to me. There are plenty of players that have a much higher vested interest in dooming Uber than Google.

[_jal]

The bad press started way before the Otto flap.