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Uber CEO Calls Saudi Murder of Khashoggi 'a Mistake', Scrambles To Backtrack (axios.com) 49

Posted by msmash from the new-lows dept.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told "Axios on HBO" that the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was "a mistake" by the Saudi government, and then he compared it to Uber's self driving accident in which a woman died. From a report: An hour later, Khosrowshahi called Axios to express regret for the language he used. The next day he sent the following statement: "I said something in the moment that I do not believe. When it comes to Jamal Khashoggi, his murder was reprehensible and should not be forgotten or excused."
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Uber CEO Calls Saudi Murder of Khashoggi 'a Mistake', Scrambles To Backtrack More

Uber CEO Calls Saudi Murder of Khashoggi 'a Mistake', Scrambles To Backtrack

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  • We need to punish him. Cancel Uber.

    • Is Uber him ? Is him Uber ? If you want to punish at random, punish also his maid, his shoeshiner, his dogwalker, his wife, his kids, his electricity supplier, how dare they have any contractual connection with this infamous so-called-human-beign ?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        No, I just want to get rid of Uber.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Holi ( 250190 )
        He's the one making the most money from Uber, the drivers certainly aren't. It's not like Uber disappearing is going to make all those drivers stop driving for Lyft too.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by gDLL ( 1413289 )
          So, in your view, all drivers combined make less than this guy ? ... And are you also saying that incomer per driver from Uber+Lyft = income from Uber ? a+b=a ?

      • the low guy does the time for the self driving death.
        The safety driver may face some time for it but not any of coders or engineers who setup the car?

        • the low guy does the time for the self driving death.

          Nobody is "doing time" for what was clearly an accident.

          If we are going to start putting people in prison for incompetence, we are going to need a lot more prisons.

          • they are trying to pin the death on the Safety driver for looking at an screen even when part of the job is monitoring systems.

            • they are trying to pin the death on the Safety driver for looking at a screen even when part of the job is monitoring systems.

              There was plenty of incompetence at multiple levels, including the safety driver (who was fiddling with her cellphone, not "monitoring systems"). None of it rises to the level of criminal behavior.

              Prisons are for dangerous people, not stupid people.

      • How DARE you speak that way, your hate flows across all, hurting everyone who read your words! How DARE you use a presumed pronoun of "he"! Maybe Dara presumes zhe, or xim, or another preferred pronoun. I mean if we are going to cancel Uber, we need to get into the right frame of mind!

    • Cancel Uber

      That's a bit much; how about just shooting him and giving raises to the drivers?

      • That's a bit much; how about just shooting him and giving raises to the drivers?

        On the other hand I don't think that goes quite far enough. What if we torture him to death, then dismember the body and dump into into drums of acid?

  • But at best, it was torture gone wrong, and losing sight of that even for a second means the bad guys win.

    • Even if we don't lose sight of that, the bad guys are still winning.

    • it was torture gone wrong,

      An example of torture "done wrong" would be coffee and a breakfast burrito, followed by a blowjob.

      Whatever was meant to happen to Khassoggi, the Sauds both sent a message and got away with it (which certainly didn't hurt the message any).

      Maybe you need a cup of fucking coffee.

    • Re:It might have been a mistake (Score:5, Insightful)

      by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Monday November 11, 2019 @11:18AM (#59402998)

      But at best, it was torture gone wrong, and losing sight of that even for a second means the bad guys win.

      Yeah, right .. torture gone wrong. I always bring a bone saw, assorted suitcases and ear buds for my music whenever I schedule a torture session. But I leave it up to my secretary to ensure travel my arrangements allow for a quick fly in/out schedule, so that I can leave the country before anyone knows the the victim has gone missing.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        Yeah, right .. torture gone wrong. I always bring a bone saw, assorted suitcases and ear buds for my music whenever I schedule a torture session.

        Everyone knows a proper torture session isn't complete without a table full of various (and often bloody and/or rusty) tools and implements with which the torturer can at least appear to be picking from. You don't have to necessarily plan or expect to use them, they just help create the required ambiance. You want to make sure your victim gets the full, expected torture experience otherwise you've done them a real disservice.

    • But at best, it was torture gone wrong

      "Gone wrong?" There yes torture, yes, but when you saw someone's head off, I'm pretty sure you're trying to kill him

  • Business opportunity (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dirk Becher ( 1061828 ) on Monday November 11, 2019 @10:29AM (#59402822)

    Can Uber's firmware be coded to recognize middle--eastern journalists?

  • Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LatencyKills ( 1213908 ) on Monday November 11, 2019 @10:58AM (#59402920)
    OK, I'll confess to only following this with 5% of my attention, but I'm not even sure what he was going for here. That and Uber running down a bicyclist is no worse than the murder of Khashoggi? That the murder of Khashoggi wasn't that bad? That an Uber running down a cyclist wasn't that bad? And now he backtracks and says, yes, the murder of Khashoggi was very bad. Meaning he believes the death caused by Uber was as well? Or wasn't?
    • Simple: after Travis, SoftBank wanted a gimpy, indecisive catamite in charge who wouldn't pose a threat (or generate unnecessary controversy... sic).

      They wanted stupid; they got stupid.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      Well, I'd call both events "Mistakes", and bad ones at that.

    • I can only assume that he means that Uber running down the woman was the successfull endpoint of a drawn out plan to silence a critic? I guess we'll have to check her social media feeds to be sure.

  • He's actually not so far off (Score:3)

    by Synonymous Cowered ( 6159202 ) on Monday November 11, 2019 @11:30AM (#59403032)
    "When it comes to Jamal Khashoggi, his murder was reprehensible and should not be forgotten or excused." He's right. And that's not all that far off from the Uber death either. It was reprehensible and should not be forgotten or excused. They didn't make a simple mistake. They intentionally disabled safety systems to “reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior.” The self driving software determined that emergency braking was necessary but was able to do it because that feature was disabled. If the software was so bad at identifying actual emergencies (without excessive false positives) that they needed to disable the safety systems, then maybe they should have made the software better before putting it on the road. They didn't make a mistake. They intentionally gambled with people's lives because they wanted to be first to the fully-driverless finish line.

  • Nothing new here. The Iraq war was a mistake too. You're allowed to call it a huge mistake.
    The problem with MBS is that he was already very hard to defend and then he attacked someone who was part of the Washington Press Corps. This undercut the narrative that MBS was part of us and led to a confusing situation. For Lockheed et al the situation is clear: as long as MBS pays 80 billion of protection money he belongs to us. Not a minute longer but hey, he's still committed. Trump understands that . Pundits l

  • In the moment (Score:3)

    by Glasswire ( 302197 ) on Monday November 11, 2019 @01:32PM (#59403610) Homepage

    "I said something in the moment that I do not believe..." Liar. What we say in the moment IS what we believe. What you say the next day is spin. .

  • is equipped with AI controlled bone saws for your comfort and convenience.
  • So let me get this straight. The clearly thought out (albeit horrifying) comparison, aimed pretty squarely at placating the country that has a large investment in his company, was actually just a case of verbal leakage, when *in fact* he truly believe nothing of the sort. Claiming something that stupid is far, far worse than just keeping your mouth shut and letting the company as a whole disavow your opinion. Chalk it up to a bad day. Plead ignorance of the actual story. Play it off as poorly constructed sa
  • You're not supposed to reveal so concisely what psychopathic/sociopathic monsters CEOs tend to be. Naturally they admire war criminal regimes and strongmen like the misogynistic Saudi Royal Family and that murderous criminal scumbag, Mohammed bin Salman, who is still as of this writing at large.
  • So how did he backtrack? "I was wrong. It was not a mistake."?

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