A prototype self-driving car runs over a person due to negligence on the part of the test operator who was supposed to prevent it and failures on the part of the team who created the vehicle.
It was not negligence or failures that sent killers to an embassy before Mr. Kashoggi was scheduled to arrive, strangled him, cut him up into pieces, sent out a body double as a distraction, disposed of the evidence, and lied about everything.
The NRPI expression is something I first heard about on the HBO show Succession. Does that phrase have a history of use before that show? If I google it, I only come up with hits for the tv show.
I hadn’t heard NRPI until Succession but I’ve heard NHI for “No Human Involved” in the context of crimes committed against sex workers. The only thing that comes up on Wikipedia is the name of a CSI episode though so I’m not sure if it’s a term that’s actually used by police. I would hope not.
Wow, that lets everyone at Uber off the hook for the self driving car incident. The safety operator certainly isn’t blameless, but I’d argue that her eventual complacency should have been predicted and mitigated against by Uber.
If they're both "mistakes" then I guess what he's trying to say is that they deliberately programmed the car to run people over and it wasn't mere negligence?
You dont know, maybe the Saudi Royal Prince had a couple of drinks with his head of security, maybe said a few things under the influence. The head of security also had a few drinks, made a few drunk dials. You know how it is to be a Royal Prince, shit happens.
To be honest this won't assure anyone. This is not a very politically savvy move, to quite understate it.
EDIT: to expound further, the CEO has to have caught wind that the company is facing an amount of criticism for the killing of the pedestrian. To use it to justify another, popularly condemned act requires a good lack of political sense.
Guy is just a typical CEO who says what he needs to inorder to please his current audience. It would have been better to make no comment as he really was stuck between a rock and a hard place if you only consider it from the perspective of his role.
It's it really about the comment. Sometimes the reality is so stark that merely asking the question is the whole point, and the answer doesn't matter at all.
Not only Silicon Valley. I struggle to see the relation to the Trump administration here, but in any case they are deeply in the Saudis' pockets as well, same as with any other administration that came before. To paint the SA regime and the US leadership to be somehow in opposition to one another doesn't really make sense. The cold hard fact is that they need each other and act accordingly.
I struggle to see the relation to the Trump administration here
The OP is calling out the double standard. Accusing Trump of sexism while taking money from those who literally practice an entire lifestyle based on oppression of women, death to gays, etc.
Uber, WeWork, others are all perfectly happy to accept money from these highly dubious source. Adam Neumann talks about saving the environment while living large on oil money...
My standard is "don't take money from and ask for the forgiveness of murderers", while at the same time whining about Project Maven, or those providing services to ICE, or facial recognition...
It's appalling that this is even up for debate. Saudi money is blood money in the worst case, oil money in the best. Whatever keeps you in your Tesla though, right?
>The OP is just attempting bothsiderism
More made up words to prevent people from being called out on glaring hypocrisy.
Of course you don't see it; you never see it. But the rest of us do, believe it.
>I struggle to see the relation to the Trump administration here
SV CEOs and "personalities" refuse to sit on panels or visit the White House because they hate Trump and his administration. But they'll take money from Saudi Arabia. It's very hard to understand.
Thank you for clearing that up, I think I misunderstood your original comment to mean that the Saudis and the US administration are opposites.
I think you're right that there is some hypocrisy involved when CEOs publicly denounce unpopular politics only to support deplorable practices as soon as money is involved.
After the interview aired, the Uber head tried to disassociate himself from it, saying he had misspoken. “I said something in the moment that I do not believe,” Khosrowshahi said in a statement Monday. “When it comes to Jamal Khashoggi, his murder was reprehensible and should not be forgotten or excused.”
Not to gotcha this, but "I'm someone whose statements should not be taken to heart" is not a message I'd want to convey in an apology.
Then again, corporate communication is often a game of being as cynical as you can get away without getting arrested or having your business shut down, so maybe there's some meta-honesty here.
Anyone who exercised options or got stock 2014 onwards lost money. They hired the bulk of their employees saying they were a rocketship, and the employees who probably needed the $ the most were the ones who got fucked.
There were so many other things he could have said and not created this maelstrom – "Of course Mr. Khashoggi's murder was reprehensible and inexcusable, but we're told by the Crown Prince that it was a rogue operation, and we trust that's the case. If a member of our board were involved in this sort of heinous act, I would be asking for his or her resignation."
But he didn't, and squirmed with a few "well, you're obviously deeper in this than I am" indications that he wasn't well-prepared on this issue.
It's tough for a CEO to go from talking to the press about the tech behind their tech company to talking about everything else in the world – that's what the CEOs of conglomerates and oil companies spend decades of their career being groomed into. In this case, he's learning on the job, the hard way.
> but we're told by the Crown Prince that it was a rogue operation, and we trust that's the case
We also believe in:
- the tooth fairy
- SantaClaus
And many other such examples besides. All that wriggling in order not to find a reason to resign and show some conscience. Either that or be blunt about it, what he really should have said was:
"Yes, Khashoggi was murdered. My investors unfortunately are lying murderous scum but I still have a company to run."
Do you really think that's what he should have said? Because that sounds like a vastly dumber thing to say, even if it's "honest".
The "rogue operation" story is "good enough". It's plausible. That doesn't mean it's true of course. It doesn't have to be. Nobody has to actually believe it. It's just good enough so that everyone involved can save the minimum amount of face required to move on.
The reason that the murder can be considered "a mistake" is that the fallout was far greater than estimated. Consider that the Saudis are killing political opponents all the time with very few issues.
It's probably the grandeur of the plot that made the difference here. If Khashoggi had just been shot in the streets by "unknown assailants" (Putin style), it wouldn't have been that big a deal.
It is plausible in the sense of "plausible deniability". Imagine MBS saying something like "That Khashoggi guy, I wish somebody hacked him to pieces!".
You can interpret that as an order, or you can interpret that as a more casual remark of frustration. If you're ordering a murder, you may well want that kind of ambiguity in the order.
Furthermore, sometimes an unwise underling implements the perceived will of the dear leader in a way that is counter to their interest, e.g the assassination of Pompey "on behalf" of Julius Caesar.
In a state like that it is about as plausible as a US general starting a war with Russia on their own. Anyway, I don't suspect we'll ever have a fair trial where these details will come out. Just more murders to cover up for the previous ones, possibly in the guise of executions by the judicial system or what goes for that in that country.
I don't think the power dynamics are that clear. The Saudi state is not at all under total control of MBS. Formally, his father is in power, there are other potential heirs to the throne. There is the possibility of intrigue.
In hindsight, it wouldn't make sense for MBS to order this killing, but it would make sense for a rival to blame the murder on him. That's hindsight of course. Equally plausible is the scenario where MBS is so self-absorbed, he orders the killing without regard to potential consequences.
An assassination team flew from one country to another, murdered a person in cold blood in an embassy and then exfiltrated the body in pieces. Such an operation does not get executed without orders from on high.
As a non-native speaker, I'm confused and irritated that the word "compare" is used in the meaning "equate". In math, I can compare any scalar value to any other scalar value; what I can't do is equate them. Is it indeed used incorrectly in this context, or am I missing something?
In this case “compare” is used in a less formal way, basically “these things are in the same category”.
If the speaker had said “those things can’t be compared” that would mean one was so much worse than the other that they weren’t even in the same category.
It’s the same sense of the word you might use in the saying “you can’t compare apples and oranges.” The conditions that make an apple good are not the same as the conditions that make an orange good.
It is the correct usage and it is not used to mean “equate” in this case.
compare - ”estimate, measure, or note the similarity or dissimilarity between”
To use the word “equate” may go a step too far because he did not actually say that the two are equal, he said that they were both mistakes. Saying that he “compared” rather than “equated” invites less criticism of their reporting.
Sorry you were downvoted for asking for language clarification. An anti-Saudi story will attract those with general anti-foreigner sentiment who like to police the comments to make sure we’re all red-blooded, freedom-loving flag-wavers. This one will also attract anti-capitalists, so it could be quite a rollercoaster.
Oh yeah, Saudi's brutally tortured and murdered Khashoggi, Uber's self-driving car ran over a woman, and I forgot to take out the trash this week on trash day. All mistakes, all equal. Are we going to hold this over their heads forever, it was /just a mistake/.... /s
"I didn't read the CIA report" well neither did I but from the coverage alone I would never call this a "mistake". Also they own 1/5th of your company, do some fucking research, if anything you should be more informed about this than the average American.
I'm getting rather sick of this bury-your-head-in-the-sand tatic more and more people are taking when it comes to reprehensible things. "I didn't read the CIA report", "I don't read his tweets", "I didn't read the muller report", "I didn't read the whistleblower report" - IT'S YOUR GOD DAMN JOB, I don't know why we continue to allow ignorance of current events directly related to people's jobs to be a valid excuse.
I agree with you but in my opinion this could be seen as another symptom of societies with proliferating unaccountable leaders (in the so-called free world). We may think of some as harmless showmans that are all bark and no bite but they are dangerous precisely because they set precedents with what they say, how they behave and especially because of the lack of consequences thereof. We can only hope that it's about to change...
Would you please not rant like this in HN comments? Venting indignation doesn't make this place better, and whatever substantive comment you have to make can be made in a way that adds information, not noise. When the froth rises all the way to allcaps, that's particularly a sign of the wrong thresholds being passed.
Also, please don't post the same comment twice: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21505062. Duplication is a sure way to add noise not signal. (Also, when there are duplicate submissions, we'll probably merge them, in which case your comment will appear twice in the same thread or we have to make special effort to exempt it from merging, and also move any replies that it got so that the replying users aren't punished for your duplication.)
Feedback taken, I apologize and will refrain from ranting in the future. I was unaware of the merging of stories being a normal thing on HN as I regularly see multiple stories posted about the same topic (not same link). I posted on one story then went the the home page, saw it posted under a different link and copied my comment over as it appeared to be where more discussion was happening.
I'd be curious to hear what information you derived from my answer; you might be surprised how wrong it is.
The main thing going on is that we've learned—the hard way—over the years to keep the moderation channel out-of-band where possible. To do otherwise has a crossing-the-streams effect that blows up into a off-topic and low-quality discussion. Since we're trying to value quality over quantity in all things, we try to avoid that. It doesn't follow that we feel unbothered by money laundering, criminals, or thugs.
Wow, just to restate this conversation in a different way: the ceo of a major company would rather remind the world of the time their car _killed_ someone then condemn a murder by one of his investors.
Good on the journalist for asking tough questions and not letting him weasel out.
This definitely reminds me of the scene where Gavin gets pelted with a water ballon and storms into his office yelling “There was a time where guys like me could have guys like that killed! But, times have changed.” And then turning to his lawyers, “unless...”
In Silicon Valley someone would probably say "It is problematic to get a contributor to internalize something when his compensation depends on him considering it a corner-case."
>Khosrowshahi’s call for forgiveness of the Saudis, Uber’s fifth largest investor, included a callous comparison to the company’s missteps in the self-driving technology space where, in March 2018, one of its vehicles accidentally struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona.
>Khosrowshahi’s call for forgiveness of the Saudis
The Saudis planned and carried out the brutal murder of minor dissident on foreign soil. Forgiveness? This is embarrassing. Where are the SV overlords, calling this out?
The challenge for an only-upvote system is articles like this, which perhaps aren’t flag-worthy, but will induce enough users to rage-vote to hit the front page.
I’d downvote it if I could, but I wouldn’t flag it outright even though it’s the kind of “gotcha” story which has no content of its own, and doesn’t tend to elicit particularly interesting commentary.
I thought it was intellectually interesting in that I wasn’t at all expecting Khosrowshahi to say that. Then it seriously got me to rethink how deep KSA’s talons are in Silicon Valley. I came up in the Sun Microsystems and Google generation of early profitability and fierce independence. This anti-unicorn era of unprofitability and obsequious dependence is disappointing. But if you are beholden to your funder then you are beholden to their politics. It really was the SV business angle I found interesting.
That's as strong a case as anyone could make and I appreciate it. Perhaps if you or someone had posted a full comment like that early in the thread, it could have taken an intellectually interesting direction—they are sensitive to initial conditions.
124 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 196 ms ] threadIt was not negligence or failures that sent killers to an embassy before Mr. Kashoggi was scheduled to arrive, strangled him, cut him up into pieces, sent out a body double as a distraction, disposed of the evidence, and lied about everything.
EDIT: to expound further, the CEO has to have caught wind that the company is facing an amount of criticism for the killing of the pedestrian. To use it to justify another, popularly condemned act requires a good lack of political sense.
The OP is calling out the double standard. Accusing Trump of sexism while taking money from those who literally practice an entire lifestyle based on oppression of women, death to gays, etc.
Uber, WeWork, others are all perfectly happy to accept money from these highly dubious source. Adam Neumann talks about saving the environment while living large on oil money...
My standard is "don't take money from and ask for the forgiveness of murderers", while at the same time whining about Project Maven, or those providing services to ICE, or facial recognition...
It's appalling that this is even up for debate. Saudi money is blood money in the worst case, oil money in the best. Whatever keeps you in your Tesla though, right?
>The OP is just attempting bothsiderism
More made up words to prevent people from being called out on glaring hypocrisy.
Of course you don't see it; you never see it. But the rest of us do, believe it.
SV CEOs and "personalities" refuse to sit on panels or visit the White House because they hate Trump and his administration. But they'll take money from Saudi Arabia. It's very hard to understand.
I think you're right that there is some hypocrisy involved when CEOs publicly denounce unpopular politics only to support deplorable practices as soon as money is involved.
After the interview aired, the Uber head tried to disassociate himself from it, saying he had misspoken. “I said something in the moment that I do not believe,” Khosrowshahi said in a statement Monday. “When it comes to Jamal Khashoggi, his murder was reprehensible and should not be forgotten or excused.”
Sure he didn't. This is like a political version of Schrödinger's Douchebag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMabpBvtXr4
Then again, corporate communication is often a game of being as cynical as you can get away without getting arrested or having your business shut down, so maybe there's some meta-honesty here.
Is this really a surprise? Fuck this company..
But he didn't, and squirmed with a few "well, you're obviously deeper in this than I am" indications that he wasn't well-prepared on this issue.
It's tough for a CEO to go from talking to the press about the tech behind their tech company to talking about everything else in the world – that's what the CEOs of conglomerates and oil companies spend decades of their career being groomed into. In this case, he's learning on the job, the hard way.
We also believe in:
- the tooth fairy
- SantaClaus
And many other such examples besides. All that wriggling in order not to find a reason to resign and show some conscience. Either that or be blunt about it, what he really should have said was:
"Yes, Khashoggi was murdered. My investors unfortunately are lying murderous scum but I still have a company to run."
The "rogue operation" story is "good enough". It's plausible. That doesn't mean it's true of course. It doesn't have to be. Nobody has to actually believe it. It's just good enough so that everyone involved can save the minimum amount of face required to move on.
The reason that the murder can be considered "a mistake" is that the fallout was far greater than estimated. Consider that the Saudis are killing political opponents all the time with very few issues.
It's probably the grandeur of the plot that made the difference here. If Khashoggi had just been shot in the streets by "unknown assailants" (Putin style), it wouldn't have been that big a deal.
You've got to be kidding.
It is plausible in the sense of "plausible deniability". Imagine MBS saying something like "That Khashoggi guy, I wish somebody hacked him to pieces!".
You can interpret that as an order, or you can interpret that as a more casual remark of frustration. If you're ordering a murder, you may well want that kind of ambiguity in the order.
Furthermore, sometimes an unwise underling implements the perceived will of the dear leader in a way that is counter to their interest, e.g the assassination of Pompey "on behalf" of Julius Caesar.
In hindsight, it wouldn't make sense for MBS to order this killing, but it would make sense for a rival to blame the murder on him. That's hindsight of course. Equally plausible is the scenario where MBS is so self-absorbed, he orders the killing without regard to potential consequences.
If the speaker had said “those things can’t be compared” that would mean one was so much worse than the other that they weren’t even in the same category.
It’s the same sense of the word you might use in the saying “you can’t compare apples and oranges.” The conditions that make an apple good are not the same as the conditions that make an orange good.
compare - ”estimate, measure, or note the similarity or dissimilarity between”
To use the word “equate” may go a step too far because he did not actually say that the two are equal, he said that they were both mistakes. Saying that he “compared” rather than “equated” invites less criticism of their reporting.
Sorry you were downvoted for asking for language clarification. An anti-Saudi story will attract those with general anti-foreigner sentiment who like to police the comments to make sure we’re all red-blooded, freedom-loving flag-wavers. This one will also attract anti-capitalists, so it could be quite a rollercoaster.
Sorry for the idioms.
"I didn't read the CIA report" well neither did I but from the coverage alone I would never call this a "mistake". Also they own 1/5th of your company, do some fucking research, if anything you should be more informed about this than the average American.
I'm getting rather sick of this bury-your-head-in-the-sand tatic more and more people are taking when it comes to reprehensible things. "I didn't read the CIA report", "I don't read his tweets", "I didn't read the muller report", "I didn't read the whistleblower report" - IT'S YOUR GOD DAMN JOB, I don't know why we continue to allow ignorance of current events directly related to people's jobs to be a valid excuse.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Also, please don't post the same comment twice: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21505062. Duplication is a sure way to add noise not signal. (Also, when there are duplicate submissions, we'll probably merge them, in which case your comment will appear twice in the same thread or we have to make special effort to exempt it from merging, and also move any replies that it got so that the replying users aren't punished for your duplication.)
Yes, we definitely don't merge all of them but we do get many:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
It would me.
The main thing going on is that we've learned—the hard way—over the years to keep the moderation channel out-of-band where possible. To do otherwise has a crossing-the-streams effect that blows up into a off-topic and low-quality discussion. Since we're trying to value quality over quantity in all things, we try to avoid that. It doesn't follow that we feel unbothered by money laundering, criminals, or thugs.
Good on the journalist for asking tough questions and not letting him weasel out.
I feel that quote describes a lot of the current issues in Silicon Valley.
Just FYI.
>Khosrowshahi’s call for forgiveness of the Saudis, Uber’s fifth largest investor, included a callous comparison to the company’s missteps in the self-driving technology space where, in March 2018, one of its vehicles accidentally struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona.
The Saudis planned and carried out the brutal murder of minor dissident on foreign soil. Forgiveness? This is embarrassing. Where are the SV overlords, calling this out?
I’d downvote it if I could, but I wouldn’t flag it outright even though it’s the kind of “gotcha” story which has no content of its own, and doesn’t tend to elicit particularly interesting commentary.
Rage posts lead to rage threads. Those get many reflexive upvotes but tend not to be intellectually interesting. This thread is a case in point.