It's Uber against the world. Or is it?
Since Monday, Uber has been the subject of a public maelstrom following the publication of a BuzzFeed story, which reported an executive's plan to dig into the life of PandoDaily journalist who criticized the company. In the days that have followed, there have been public apologies, follow-ups on the car-hailing service's dubious practices and plenty of questions as to whether Uber can be a successful business in spite of its amoral behavior.
There have also been some who have suggested that the backlash against the company is the result of competition, and the publications that have initiated the conversation--namely BuzzFeed and PandoDaily--are funded by the same investors who back Uber-competitor Lyft. That point was raised by USA Today columnist Michael Wolff, whose decision to invite BuzzFeed reporter Ben Smith to a supposed off-the-record dinner with Uber executives and CEO Travis Kalanick caused the current debacle.
"BuzzFeed itself — a financial play as much as Uber is — has key investors who are investors in Uber's main competitor, Lyft," he wrote in a column yesterday. "Those investors are, too, investors in PandoDaily. Does this have any bearing at all on the cost of tea in China? I don't know. But I know that little in this world is what it seems."
While BuzzFeed, PandoDaily and Lyft share common investors, Wolff's insinuation is shallow and misleading. While it'd be easy to paint the situation as Uber versus everyone else, the $18.2 billion company shares big name backers with the news outlets that are reporting on its serious missteps, demonstrating the interconnected nature of Silicon Valley and the world of venture capital.
An analysis by FORBES found that Uber shares at least one common backer with Buzzfeed and at least four connections with PandoDaily, a technology news site founded by Sarah Lacy. A long-time business journalist, Lacy was the focus of Uber vice president Emil Michael's comments on targeting journalists and has since received numerous apologies from Michael and Kalanick.
"The company culture that thinks it can throw money to destroy people's lives and families in the name of a greater valuation," said Lacy to Bloomberg TV. "It's about every single board member and private investor stepping back and being OK with it."
Among those private investors are some the same folks that backed Lacy's news startup, most notably former TechCrunch writer Michael Arrington's CrunchFund. Despite Arrington's public departure from PandoDaily's board, his CrunchFund still maintains its position in the company, which it initially backed around late 2011. That came around the same time the fund was announced as an investor in Uber's Dec. 2011 Series B round.
PandoDaily and Uber also share a connection through Shervin Pishevar, an influential Silicon Valley venture capitalist who led Menlo Ventures investments in both companies. Pishevar, who left Menlo in Feb. 2013 to found Sherpa Ventures, also invested in PandoDaily with his new fund, Lacy told FORBES in an email. Two other venture capitalists, Benchmark Capital's Matt Cohler and First Round Capital's Josh Kopelman also personally backed PandoDaily, while their firms were among the earliest investors in Uber.
That hasn't stopped Lacy from calling out the investors her company shares with Uber, specifically name-dropping some in a Monday post following the BuzzFeed revelations. "Let me also remind you: This is a company you trust with your personal safety every single time you use it," she wrote, before listing investors like Benchmark, CrunchFund, First Round Capital and Pishevar himself.
BuzzFeed, who has since followed up its original story with pieces on Uber's use of a "God View" to track the whereabouts of one of its own reporters, shares one common investor, Founder Collective, with the technology company. The New York-based seed stage fund backed the news site in a May 2010 round, followed a few months later by a small investment in Uber.
Regarding Wolff's comments on the connections between Lyft, BuzzFeed and PandoDaily, FORBES could only find one notable connection. Menlo Park, Calif.-based firm Andreessen Horowitz is a large investor in Lyft and BuzzFeed, most recently leading a $50 million round in the latter in August. The firm is not an investor in PandoDaily, though its founding partner Marc Andreessen personally put money behind the news startup.
Additional reporting from Ellen Huet in San Francisco.
