The fallout from the Susan Fowler case has already started affecting people who may not have had anything to do with this particular instant may have been involved in other, similar mishaps. Senior Vice President of Engineering Amit Singhal, left Uber after CEO Travis Kalanick personally asked him to step down. Apparently, Singhal was asked to leave because he failed to disclose a sexual harassment allegation levied against him while he was working with Google as a key member of its search team.
The news comes from Recode and if true, would bring a nasty conclusion to Uber’s troubling February. The bedlam started when ex-employee Susan Fowler claimed that she faced harassment while working at Uber — and that no strict action was taken despite her complaints. Things started getting out of hand after early stage investors spoke out against the direction the investigations were taking and the #deleteUber campaign resurfaced.
To make things even worse, Waymo filed a lawsuit against the company claiming that it had used technology stolen from the Alphabet subsidiary in its own cars.
Meanwhile, this would put Amit Singhal in a whole new light. A highly respected tech professional, Singhal was part of Google’s search team for 15 years. However, all of a sudden he announced his retirement in February last year and talked about making time for family and giving back to others. However, the retirement lasted for less than a year and he joined Uber last month.
It is now being said that Google was planning to fire Singhal anyways after it had determined that the complaints of sexual harassment filed against him had their basis in fact. However, Recode says that Singhal resigned and couched his resignation as a retirement, with Google playing the silent spectator because the victim did not want to go public with her complaint.
Certainly, his retirement from Google came at a strange time. The company had just reorganized its search team, with Singhal playing a key role. And dropping out of Google just to join Uber less than a year later, was also something that did not quite pan out. However, no one expected things to take this turn considering the respect Singhal commands in the industry after his 20 years+ tenure.
Amit Singhal is also a board member for One97 communications — the parent company behind Paytm. Meanwhile, he has refuted the claims strongly arguing that there were two sides to every story.
Uber has refused to comment on the story besides confirming Singhal’s departure from the company.
