GoKawiilEmil Michael, who serves as a senior technology official at the Department of Defense, is back in the spotlight over the government’s ongoing battle with Anthropic, and a newly released podcast interview offers one of the most detailed looks yet into his thinking on that dispute — as well as an unguarded settling of old scores from his Uber days.
The interview, released Monday and conducted last month by Joubin Mirzadegan, a partner at Kleiner Perkins who leads the venture firm’s portfolio operating team, covered a range of topics including policy and personal history — and was recorded before the DoD’s feud with Anthropic had fully come to a head. But it is Michael’s remarks about his departure from Uber — and his barely concealed bitterness about it — that grabbed our attention first.
When Mirzadegan asked him point-blank whether he had been shown the door alongside Travis Kalanick, Michael answered with a single word: “Effectively.”
Michael resigned eight days before Kalanick did, as part of the fallout from a workplace investigation triggered by allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination at the company. He was not named in those allegations, but the inquiry — led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder — concluded he should be removed. Kalanick followed, pushed out in what the New York Times described as a shareholder revolt by some of the company’s most prominent investors, including Benchmark.
When Mirzadegan asked whether he was still “salty” about it, Michael didn’t equivocate. “I’ll never forget that, nor forgive,” he said.
The ouster grates on both Michael and Kalanick not only because of the personal damage to their reputations but because they believed — and still believe — that autonomous driving was Uber’s future, and that the investors who forced them out killed it.
During the interview, Michael argued the decision was driven by a desire to protect near-term returns rather than build something lasting.
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