You can't please everybody. No matter what industry you belong in, critics will always be around. What are you supposed to do?
Most people will use the negativity as a chance to rise above it all and prove those critics wrong. Uber's Emil Michael's take? Hit them where it hurts.
It's hard to run a business. Period. It becomes even harder when you have to field more than a handful of criticisms every day on top of everything else you have to do. Uber's senior vice president clearly doesn't believe in constructive criticisms, nor at the very least the possibility that criticisms contain grains of truth his company can learn from.
In a Nov. 14 dinner hosted by Ian Osborne, a consultant for Uber and former adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron, Michael was heard suggesting that his company should consider spending $1 million, hiring opposition researchers to have them dig up dirt on Uber's critics in the press. He reportedly singled out Sarah Lacy from PandoDaily for her scathing posts about the company and its supposed support for a French escort service.
BuzzFeed reported the incident, building upon what one of its editors witnessed at the dinner. The editor was supposedly invited by Michael Wolff to the event and had failed to communicate the off-the-record nature of the gathering.
To be clear, Michael never said that Uber is engaged in such tactics. Rather, if it did, it would be justified. In fact, when someone piped in with concerns over getting caught, he brushed it off, saying "No one would know it was us."
After the report, Uber and Michael naturally received backlash. He backtracked, issuing a statement through the company's spokesperson, Nairi Hourdajian.
"The remarks attributed to me at a private dinner -- borne out of frustration during an informal debate over what I feel is sensationalistic media coverage of the company I am proud to work for -- do not reflect my actual views and have no relation to the company's views or approach. They were wrong no matter the circumstance and I regret them," said Michael.
Hourdajian also added that Uber has definitive policies against executives checking travel logs associated with journalists, citing an activity such as that is a clear violation of the company's data access and privacy policies.
Michael has also reached out to Lacy to apologize and was predictably shot down.
