The new year has not been kind to Uber. After failing to contain allegations of sexual harassment in the work place, Uber has fallen afoul of federal agencies who claim the company used a fake version of its app to thwart agencies. A federal judge in San Francisco has referred allegation of secrets theft to the U.S. Attorney's office for investigation.
Here is a timeline of some of Uber's troubles in recent months.
February 2, 2017 - Uber CEO Travis Kalanick quits President Donald Trump's council of business leaders amid pressure from employees and calls for boycotting the radio-cab-hailing app by customers.
February 19 - A former Uber engineer, Susan Fowler makes a slew of sexual harassment claims, alleging sexism within the workplace in a blog post about her year atUber. She lamented the fact there was no grievance redressal mechanism within the startup, and that higher-ups turned a blind eye to blatant sexism. Kalanick called what she described "abhorrent."
February 23 - Uber is sued by Waymo, a self-driving car company spun off from Google. Waymo alleged that Anthony Lewandowski, a former top executive at Google's self-driving-car project who jumped ship to join Uber, stole pivotal technology, giving a fillip to Uber's effort at capturing the nascent market for driverless cars.
February 28 - A video emerges online which showed CEO Travis Kalanick getting into a heated argument with a driver. The conversation which was littered with profanities, ended with a combative Kalanick dismissing the agitated driver's claims that sharp deduction in fares forced him into bankruptcy. In the video, Kalanick shouts that "some people don't like to take responsibility for their own s---. They blame everything in their life on somebody else. Good luck."
March 3 - A New York Times report reveals that the company has been wielding a secret weapon to thwart antagonistic government authorities who have been trying to curtail or shut down its ride-hailing services in cities around the world. One project, called 'Greyball' identified regulators who posed as riders while trying to gather evidence about the company breaking local laws governing taxis. Uber has claimed that by virtue of being a radio-wave based cab hailing service, its cannot be bound by existing archaic rules in many countries.
March 19 - Uber's president Jeff Jones resigns less than a year after joining the company. He tells the tech blog Recode that "the beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber."
March 25 - A report by The Information describes a 2014Uber team visit to a escort-karaoke bar in Seoul. According to the report, "four male Uber managers picked women out of the group, calling out their numbers, and sat with them." After the evening, a female Uber employee told HR that the trip made her uncomfortable.
March 25 - An Uber SUV operating in autonomous mode is involved in an accident. Nobody is seriously injured, and a police spokesperson reportedly said that Uber was not at fault
April 12 - The attrition of top executives continues with Rachel Whetstone, the head of communications, leaving the company.
April 27 - Lewandowski announces his decision to step down from Uber's self-driving car development team while investigations are ongoing.
May 5 - An audit report by the city of Portland, Oregon, emerges which reveals that the Justice Department is probing allegations that Uber used Greyball software to stymie authorities.
May 11 - A federal judge in San Francisco refers Waymo's petition that Uber is using its technology to the U.S. Attorney's office for investigation. The move adds legitimacy to Waymo's claim that Lewandowski illegally extracted and passed on sensitive information to Uber.
June 12 - Senior Vice President Emil Michael, a close ally of chief executive Travis Kalanick resigns.
June 13 - The embattled CEO Travis Kalanick tells employees in an email that he will take time away from the company he helped to found, citing the need to grieve for his recently deceased mother.
June 21 - Travis Kalanick resigns as CEO.
