Buying news coverage and crying misogyny in the ride-sharing industry

Today I read a little piece in Time magazine bringing GamerGate up as an example of sexism in the tech industry. It seemed to mostly focus on Uber and an apparent comment to BuzzFeed about investigating PandoDaily founder and journalist Sarah Lacy due to her anti-Uber coverage. Seems Miss Lacy and her outlet had been on a bit of a crusade against Uber. Dwelling on silly remarks, accusing the company of negligence in an assault case concerning one of its drivers because he had prior non-violent drug offenses, and going on a tirade against the company for a branch in one French city offering to let sexy ladies drive around passengers following a BuzzFeed piece on the matter.

It all came to a head when an Uber executive apparently made a remark to a BuzzFeed reporter about investigating Lacy. A Mic piece making heavy use of PandoDaily is cited by Time, which rails about how people should delete Uber from their phones because misogyny. Miss Lacy is apparently going even further by talking about how she “fears for her life” and that of her family. Ashton Kutcher, an Uber investor, also got attacked for suggesting that investigating a shady journalist might be a good thing. Personally, I agree with him even if his stint in Two and a Half Men comes off the contemptuous abuse Chuck Lorre gave and has given to the show’s former star Charlie Sheen. Well, Ashton, I am here to tell you that there is indeed nothing wrong with investigating a shady journalist, especially if she is actively working against your business interests at the behest of Uber’s competitors.

Oop, what did I just say? Did I say Uber’s competitors are the reason for PandoDaily’s relentless attacks on the service? Prove it, you ask? Gladly. You see, the investors in PandoDaily are no big secret. They are listed on the outlet’s about page. Now you could step away right now and the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe, or you keep reading, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

First on their little list is Mr. Marc Andreessen, who founded the eponymous firm Andreessen Horowitz with Ben Horowitz. Mr. Andreessen’s just so happens to have given $60 million to Lyft last year, a ride-sharing company just like Uber. Andreessen’s a pretty crucial figure in understanding the depth of corruption at PandoDaily and BuzzFeed so we will be coming back to him a lot. Next on our list is the Founders Fund, which is unsurprisingly another investor in Lyft. In fact, Founders and Andreessen Horowitz are such big investors in Lyft that they’ve managed to land their people seats on the board of the company. One of the founders of Founders is Peter Thiel, who is explicitly mentioned as one of the start-up investors for PandoDaily and has attacked Uber as “unethical” in the recent past.

Next name on the list is Mr. Tony Hsieh, who does not appear to be an investor in Lyft, but he did set up his own ride-sharing company in Las Vegas called Shift where Uber has just recently attempted to break into the market, unlike Lyft with no designs on the city yet. The next name is Zach Nelson and he does not appear to have any money invested in Lyft, but one of the investors in his company, Netsuite, just so happens to be a big fan. Isn’t that right Mr. Andreessen? Andrew Anker, the chair of Pando, is another name, but he appears to be mostly a media guy and I am not seeing any connections to Lyft or other competitors. Base Ventures is our next item on the list and no connections to Lyft or Andreessen, so we’re in the clear right? Oh wait, the firm’s founder just happens to be good friends with Mr. Hsieh and the seed money for his firm came from a major investment in Mr. Hsieh’s company Zappos. Apparently the ties between Base Ventures and Zappos are still going strong and the firm’s founder is even working closely with Hsieh’s Vegas Tech Fund.

Next on our list is Mr. Chris Dixon, a lovely chap, works for Andreessen Horowitz these days I hear. He’s such a good employee, even representing his firm on the board of BuzzFeed after they injected $50 million into the site a few months ago. Next up is the Jumpstart Foundry and it does seem this one is clean without any obvious connections to Uber competitors, though it has worked with Uber recently. Up after that is Saul Klein, a partner at Index Ventures, which is a major investor in a French ride-sharing service called Drivy. One has to take note that Lyft, unlike Uber, has no operations in Europe. Then we come to Josh Kopelman, whose firm First Round Capital was one of the early seed investors for Uber. While The New York Times advertises this as an example of Pando performing a delicate balancing act, the truth is that any stake FRC has in Uber has likely significantly diluted given that there is no indication they have made further investments beyond those in the early years.

Chattanooga Renaissance Fund is up and this is another with no apparent connections to any ride-sharing companies or their investors. Matt Cohler is the closest we get to a real connection to Uber as the firm Benchmark is a major investor and holds a seat on the company’s board. Our next entry is the CrunchFund run by Michael Arrington, which is another investor in Uber. You may be thinking “Oh, they get money from all sides so this is surely a sign of their objectivity!” Except, the first problem is Arrington was the founding head of TechCrunch when he set it up, but was swiftly booted out as a result. Given that Sarah Lacy was a TechCrunch writer, who was reportedly Arrington’s desired replacement at the outlet after his departure, and she brought on Arrington to Pando along with several other former TechCrunch writers who departed over his ousting, his interests in financing the outlet can be reasonably seen as having ulterior motives.

It was also not a situation that lasted long as Arrington and CrunchFund partner M. G. Siegler were both ousted from Pando by shareholders in a matter of months due to their unwillingness to completely sever ties with TechCrunch. One should not be surprised by their lack of influence, since CrunchFund’s attempts to raise money for a new fund had a target that was just two-thirds of Andreessen Horowitz’s investment in Lyft. Suffice to say, CrunchFund had little influence over Pando even when it was an early seed investor with long-standing professional ties to its founder.

Here we move on to Greylock Partners and we get right back to a major Lyft investor. A partner for the firm Simon Rothman was an adviser to Lyft and later joined the board of Sprig, a company set up by Lyft’s former Head of Growth with the help of a $10 million infusion of cash from Greylock. Accel Partners does not donate to Lyft, but they have been helping to finance French ride-sharing company BlaBlaCar as it attempts to expand throughout Europe, though not to the U.S. market. Menlo Ventures is our next entry on the list and is the last of the four Uber investors who have also been Pando investors, and the one with the most recent and substantial investment.

Nearing the end of the list we have Lamp Post Group, another firm that has no investments in Uber or its competitors. Lerer Ventures is up next and I will just go ahead and include SV Angel along with it since both firms are invested in Uber’s competitor Sidecar. Going one step further, Ken Lerer, Executive Chairman of BuzzFeed happens to also be the Lerer of Lerer Ventures. Our next investor on the list is Ooga Labs, which is another one of Lyft’s investors and whose founders happen to have started out at a company in which Pando chairman Andrew Anker was an investor. Redpoint Ventures moves us close to the end and, in this case, it happens to be an investor in InstantCab, alongside Andreessen Horowitz. Our last two entries in the list are Jeff Jordan, another Andreessen Horowitz employee and former President of Peter Thiel’s Paypal, with the final investor being Hsieh’s Vegas Tech Fund.

For those not keeping count, six investors in PandoDaily are also investors in Lyft with two of the related firms holding board seats at Lyft and one of the investors also serves on the board of BuzzFeed, three investors in PandoDaily are financially tied to Tony Hsieh who is creating a competing service in Las Vegas called Shift where only Uber is competing at the moment, three investors have no financial ties to any competitors or Uber, two investors are investors in Sidecar and that includes a firm run by the executive chairman of BuzzFeed, two investors are invested in European competitors where Lyft and Sidecar remain absent, and one investor is invested in InstantCab.

While there are indeed four Uber investors who are investors in PandoDaily, only two of them seem to have any substantial foothold in Uber. One other investor was an investor in the early years of Uber and has apparently made no further investments after 2011 (Lyft was founded in 2012). Another Uber investor run by TechCrunch’s founder seemed to be funding PandoDaily due to its inclusion of numerous former TechCrunch writers and its own contributions to Uber were likely minimal in comparison to the investments of Andreessen and other Lyft investors given its relatively sparse resources.

Interestingly, although Miss Lacy fails to disclose the financial ties of her outlet in her pieces, these disclosures do happen at other occasions. Most notably in a piece done on competition between Uber and Lyft, where Lyft is clearly favored as the “nice” company, which contains disclosure about the outlet’s financial ties. Yet, it seems the disclosure takes great pains to make it appear as though they are speaking out against their own chief investors by listing all four of the Uber investors, while excluding two of the Lyft investors and ignoring that Andreessen Horowitz actually covers three individual investors.

Even more important than the number of investors, is the extent of the investment in Pando and in other companies. Most of the Uber investors invested in Pando have less substantial holdings than the Lyft investors, and in the case of investors in European competitors and Hsieh’s own competing company their investments are of imminently greater financial significance than investments in Uber. The overlap of major Pando investors with major investors in BuzzFeed who also have substantial investments in Uber competitors is even more telling. Not to mention the fact those investments in competitors, especially Lyft, are generally far more recent than investments in Uber is another cause for suspicion.

Conveniently, by invoking misogyny and sexism against Uber and then invoking fear out of the response of an executive, Lacy has made investigation of her ethics as a journalist seem like a horrendous slight against all women. For all aspiring corrupt female media barons who may have found themselves at risk of exposure by going a little too far in your paid-for media coverage, remember these twelve words: “I am a woman, and I am in fear for my life!” They may just save your career.