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

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."

That's cool

[b0s0z0ku]

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.

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[rhazz]

Except that...

The ride-hailing app's social team booked the tickets, saying they regularly organize theater trips and that it would be "fun to see the production."

They booked it so they could actually go see it.

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[fourbadgers]

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

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[rhazz]

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.

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[freeze128]

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

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[Hal_Porter]

I can hear the song in my head already.

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[Wintermute__]

Won't You - Come see about me..

What's so fucking brilliant about Uber though?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

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[Wycliffe]

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 doe

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

HALF

[PopeRatzo]

Uber Booked Half the Theater

also...

The company purchased 50 of 90 available seats

Do they not teach math in schools any more? I mean, for chrissake.

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[PopeRatzo]

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.

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[fahrbot-bot]

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 ...

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[afranke]

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?

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[PopeRatzo]

By booking more than half, they effectively also booked half.

So, if your boss tells you to come in for half a day on Saturday, and then insists you work until 5pm, he can pay you for a half a day because effectively, you worked half a day?

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[jbengt]

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

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[PopeRatzo]

And if you work 75% of the day, you can expect to be paid for the whole day.

I like the way you figure.

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[denzacar]

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

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

Unfortunately ...

[fahrbot-bot]

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

Some Things Never Change

[BBF_BBF]

New CEO, Same *sshole company attitude as before.