Activity

In June 2017, five major Uber investors demanded Kalanick's resignation following cascading scandals: the Susan Fowler harassment revelations, the Greyball regulatory evasion tool, the Waymo trade secret theft lawsuit, a leaked video of Kalanick arguing with an Uber driver, and the Eric Holder investigation findings. Kalanick resigned as CEO on June 20, 2017.

The Intercept shared unredacted NSA documents with the government for verification, inadvertently revealing machine-readable printer codes and metadata that led to Reality Winner's arrest on June 3, 2017. Winner received the longest prison sentence ever (63 months) for an unauthorized release to media. First Look Media pledged legal support but Winner alleges they stopped payments after her August 2018 sentencing, leaving '30% of agreed cost' unpaid, with lawyers continuing pro bono after First Look 'fell behind.'

Palantir's software was used by ICE to identify and arrest 443 relatives of unaccompanied migrant children who had come forward as potential sponsors. The software enabled family targeting that critics called a betrayal of families who trusted the government's sponsor program.

Throughout 2017, Persson tweeted 'It's okay to be white' (a far-right slogan associated with 4chan), called feminism a 'social disease', said those opposing a heterosexual pride day 'deserve to be shot' (later deleted), called developer Zoë Quinn a slur, and endorsed the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. He later rescinded the heterosexual pride day comments.

After leaving Baidu, Ng founded DeepLearning.AI to provide accessible deep learning courses and resources. The platform offers specialized technical training including the Deep Learning Specialization and AI for Everyone course, reaching an estimated 8 million learners globally and helping bridge the AI skills gap.

After leaving Meta in 2017, Palmer Luckey founded Anduril Industries in 2017, a defense technology company building autonomous drones, AI-powered surveillance towers (Lattice), and counter-drone systems for the US military and border patrol. Anduril has won billions in defense contracts including a $1B+ USSOCOM contract and was valued at $14B+ by 2024.

In 2017, Brave launched the Basic Attention Token (BAT), an opt-in advertising system where users choose to view privacy-preserving ads and earn up to 70% of ad revenue as BAT tokens. Ad matching happens locally on the device so neither Brave nor advertisers learn user browsing habits. The browser is free and open-source (Chromium-based), aiming to realign incentives between users, publishers, and advertisers without requiring data collection.

As early as May 2017, McKinsey partners discussed keeping documents from being discovered in Purdue lawsuits, including using neutral templates without Purdue logos and showing only hard copies that could be deleted. A senior partner described the benefit: documents would live only on laptops and then could be deleted. A former senior partner was charged with felony obstruction of justice for deleting opioid-related documents. McKinsey terminated two senior partners over the conduct.

LinkedIn filed suit against hiQ Labs for scraping publicly available LinkedIn profile data. The landmark case reached the Supreme Court in 2021, which remanded it. The Ninth Circuit ruled scraping public data doesn't violate the CFAA. Ultimately LinkedIn won a $500,000 judgment in December 2022 on breach of contract and CFAA claims related to hiQ's use of fake accounts. The case established key precedents about platform control over publicly accessible data versus open internet principles.

In 2017, Google became the first major company to match 100% of its global electricity consumption with renewable energy purchases. Google has been carbon neutral for operations since 2007 and in 2020 announced its goal to run on 24/7 carbon-free energy at all data centers and campuses by 2030. By 2023, Google's global average was 64% carbon-free energy on an hourly basis. Google also committed to achieving net-zero emissions across all operations and value chain by 2030, though data center energy usage has surged due to AI workloads.

Berners-Lee was a leading voice against the FCC's 2017 net neutrality repeal. He testified before the US House Subcommittee on Telecommunications, signed open letters to Congress with Vint Cerf and Steve Wozniak, and met with FCC leadership. He argued net neutrality enabled him to invent the web without permission and that its repeal would force innovators to ask ISPs for permission.

In September 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs filed a lawsuit alleging Palantir discriminated against Asian job applicants. The lawsuit found the company 'routinely eliminated' Asian applicants during the hiring process even when they were as qualified as white applicants. Palantir settled in April 2017 for $1.7 million without admitting wrongdoing.

Palmer Luckey was terminated from Facebook/Meta in March 2017 with no official explanation. Internal emails obtained by WSJ showed executives including Zuckerberg pressured Luckey to publicly claim he supported Gary Johnson rather than Trump. Luckey hired an employment lawyer and negotiated a $100M+ payout citing California employment law violations. In 2024, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth publicly apologized for his ousting.

In March 2017, LGBTQ+ creators discovered YouTube's Restricted Mode was systematically hiding their content—including wedding videos, coming-out stories, and queer-themed pop culture commentary—while allowing Mortal Kombat fatality compilations and marijuana growing tutorials. YouTube acknowledged the system 'sometimes make[s] mistakes' and claimed to fix it in April 2017 by unfiltering 12 million videos, but creators reported the problems persisted. By 2019, LGBTQ+ creators filed a class-action lawsuit alleging discriminatory censorship, with plaintiffs reporting 75% revenue drops.

In March 2017, the Times of London revealed that ads from major brands and the UK government were running alongside extremist and terrorist content on YouTube. Over 250 brands including AT&T, Walmart, PepsiCo, and Starbucks pulled their ads. YouTube's response—implementing broad demonetization categories and raising monetization thresholds—disproportionately harmed legitimate creators covering sensitive topics including news, women's issues, and LGBTQ+ content, while the underlying brand safety problem persisted. Creators reported 30-85% revenue drops.

Uber developed and deployed software tool 'Greyball' from 2014-2017 to identify and deceive law enforcement officers attempting to enforce laws against the service. The tool displayed fake cars that would never arrive when police tried to hail rides. Used in Portland, Las Vegas, Boston, and internationally in China, South Korea, France, Italy, Australia, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Denmark with knowledge of senior management including CEO Travis Kalanick and Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty. US Department of Justice launched criminal investigation in May 2017.

Under Kalanick's leadership, Uber developed and deployed 'Greyball,' a secret software tool that identified and evaded government regulators and law enforcement officials attempting to enforce transportation laws. The tool was used from at least 2014 to 2017 across multiple cities and countries. The DOJ investigated the program.

The Pegasus Project investigation revealed that at least 25 Mexican journalists were selected for targeting with Pegasus spyware over a two-year period. Among them was journalist Cecilio Pineda, whose phone was selected for targeting just weeks before he was killed in March 2017. Mexico was one of the earliest and most prolific users of Pegasus, with documented targeting of journalists, activists, and political opponents by Mexican authorities.

Since 2016, IBM has provided free public access to quantum computers via the cloud through IBM Quantum Experience, and developed Qiskit, an open-source Python framework for quantum computing that became the world's most widely used quantum software stack. IBM open-sourced Qiskit on GitHub, enabling researchers, students, and developers globally to experiment with quantum computing without financial barriers.

On February 19, 2017, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler published a blog post detailing systemic sexual harassment and HR failures at Uber. She described how her manager propositioned her on her first day and HR dismissed complaints. The revelations triggered an internal investigation by former AG Eric Holder, led to CEO Travis Kalanick's resignation in June 2017, and prompted Microsoft, Google, and Facebook to end forced arbitration for sexual harassment claims.

After former engineer Susan Fowler published blog post on February 19, 2017 detailing year of sexual harassment and retaliation (November 2015 - December 2016), external investigation led by former Attorney General Eric Holder uncovered systemic sexual harassment and discrimination. Investigation found 215 allegations of misconduct; 20+ employees fired including senior executives, 31 sent to training/counseling. HR had protected 'high performer' who propositioned Fowler despite multiple previous complaints. CEO Travis Kalanick forced to resign June 21, 2017 under pressure from major investors (Benchmark, First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, Menlo Ventures, Fidelity controlling 40% voting power). Asia-Pacific President Eric Alexander fired for obtaining rape victim's medical records and showing to executives. Uber paid $7 million to 480 employees (August 2018) and $4.4 million EEOC settlement (December 2019) with 3 years outside monitoring.

Former Uber engineer Susan Fowler published a blog post in February 2017 detailing pervasive sexual harassment and HR failures at Uber under Kalanick's leadership. The subsequent Eric Holder investigation interviewed 200+ employees, resulting in 20+ firings. The investigation found systemic issues with HR, management, and company culture.

Kalanick joined President Trump's business advisory council in December 2016, then resigned in February 2017 following a #DeleteUber campaign and employee backlash related to Trump's immigration ban. Over 200,000 users reportedly deleted their Uber accounts.

In February 2017, a jury found Palmer Luckey personally liable for $50 million in damages in ZeniMax Media's lawsuit against Oculus VR. The total verdict was $500 million against Oculus, Facebook, Luckey, and others. While the jury cleared Luckey of trade secret misappropriation and theft, they found him liable for copyright infringement related to the marketing of the Oculus Rift, specifically for violating an NDA he had signed with ZeniMax subsidiary id Software.

In January 2017, Stewart Butterfield pledged $1 million to the ACLU in response to Trump's immigration executive order. He also offered to match additional donations to ACLU, SPLC, MALDEF, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and other civil liberties organizations.

Lyft pledged to donate $1 million to the ACLU over four years in response to President Trump's immigration ban in January 2017. This positioned Lyft as a more progressive alternative to Uber during the #DeleteUber movement.

In January 2017, Patrick Collison pledged $50,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union to fight Trump's travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. He and his brother John helped raise over $220,000 total. A Stripe spokesperson called the policies 'morally wrong' and 'economically damaging.'

A day after Trump issued executive order banning refugees and nationals from Muslim-majority countries in January 2017, Chesky announced Airbnb would provide no-cost housing to refugees and those not allowed into the US. The company's Super Bowl ad that year emphasized message of belonging.

On January 28, 2017, Sergey Brin joined protesters at San Francisco International Airport opposing President Trump's Executive Order 13769 banning travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries. When asked why he was there, Brin said 'I'm here because I'm a refugee' - his family emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1979 to escape Jewish persecution. Two days later, he spoke at a Google employee rally of 2,000+ workers, saying: 'I came here to the US at age six with my family from the Soviet Union... this country was brave and welcoming.'

In December 2016, companies controlled by Mark Zuckerberg filed eight 'quiet title' lawsuits targeting hundreds of Native Hawaiians who held small parcels of ancestral kuleana land within his 700-acre Kauai estate purchased for $100 million. The lawsuits sought forced public auctions of these parcels, some dating to the 1850s. A Change.org petition opposing the suits gathered over 378,000 signatures. Critics called it 'neocolonialism.' Zuckerberg withdrew the lawsuits on January 27, 2017, apologizing and stating 'it's clear we made a mistake.' He subsequently donated millions to local organizations and continued acquiring additional land, expanding his holdings to roughly 1,500 acres.