Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber

by Mike Isaac

A good founder will sleep when he is dead (or after returning from a week at Burning Man).

In the summer of 2017, however, the tech press discovered that Alexander, as a part of the investigation into the India rape case, had been given the victim’s personal, private medical files through a law firm that had obtained them; the records detailed her examination by doctors hours after her sexual assault.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, a theory was floated that the rape possibly may not have taken place at all and was in fact part of a plot against Uber perpetrated by executives at Ola, Uber’s major Indian ride-hailing competitor.

There was another sticking point. According to the medical file, the young woman’s hymen was still intact—a fact that stuck in Kalanick’s head as investigators tried to verify the claims. Kalanick would occasionally raise the fact among colleagues.