Workplace

An Uber driver was shot in his car. His family wants Uber to pay.

The family of Ahmad Fawad Yusufi, a 31-year-old Afghan refugee, is asking Uber to pay $4 million for the family he left behind.

​An Uber sign on a building

The family of Ahmad Fawad Yusuf is asking Uber to pay.

Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Early on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, a 31-year old Afghan refugee was shot and killed inside the car he drove for Uber.

Ahmad Fawad Yusufi, who worked as a translator for the U.S. Army before coming to the United States around three years ago, was in San Francisco to drive for Uber when he was shot and killed, Mohammad Dawood Mommand, his brother, told Protocol. He left behind his wife, his brother and three children, including a child under one year old. Mommand will now be the sole provider for his brother’s family as well as his own three children.

While Uber told journalists in early December that Yusufi was not driving for the company at the time of his death, his family said that Uber was lying to the press in a letter sent via email to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and other executives this morning.

“On November 28th, my brother Ahmad was killed while driving for your company. You lied when you told the press that he wasn’t working for Uber at the time he was killed. He was in San Francisco to work for Uber.” Mommand wrote in the letter.

Uber told Protocol that Yusufi was not driving for Uber at the time of his death and that his last trip was the previous night. “We’re saddened by this senseless act of violence that took Mr. Yusufi’s life. Our hearts go out to his family during this difficult time," an Uber spokesperson wrote in an email.

Yusufi and his brother both lived in Sacramento and regularly drove to San Francisco to drive for Uber and Lyft, often spending nights sleeping in their cars in order to save the cost of a hotel room. Sleeping overnight in their cars is a common practice for the drivers who work full-time hours, especially immigrant drivers, according to Mommand. Some Uber and Lyft drivers have reported getting caught in the crossfire of rising violent crime seen in some cities over the last year, and organizing groups like the Independent Drivers Guild have been pushing the gig-work companies to provide more protection for their drivers.

“Hundreds of Afghan drivers drive from Sacramento to San Francisco each week and sleep in their cars in unsafe environments – just to earn enough each week to provide for their families. My brother and I did the same,” Mommand wrote.

The letter also demands $4 million in immediate financial aid from the company, as well as access to Yusufi’s Uber account. Mommand told Protocol that Yusufi’s account was locked after his death and that the family has been unable to access his information to confirm any of the circumstances surrounding his death. The family is asking for financial aid not just as recompense for his death, but also because Yusufi was the sole breadwinner before his death, and his wife does not speak English. “Right now, really, I cannot give two rents for my brother’s house and me also. I have three kids, too. I moved them already in my house,” he said. Mommand has started a GoFundMe to help shoulder the financial burden.

According to Uber, the company has been in touch with his family and is working to restore access to Yusufi's account.

Mommand also had a message for other gig drivers and for refugees specifically: “Please look for another job, don’t work anymore with Uber. Since his death, no one has called the family, no one has said anything,” he told Protocol. “They know we are refugees and know nothing really.”

The person who shot Yusufi has not been identified or arrested.

Fintech

Judge Zia Faruqui is trying to teach you crypto, one ‘SNL’ reference at a time

His decisions on major cryptocurrency cases have quoted "The Big Lebowski," "SNL," and "Dr. Strangelove." That’s because he wants you — yes, you — to read them.

The ways Zia Faruqui (right) has weighed on cases that have come before him can give lawyers clues as to what legal frameworks will pass muster.

Photo: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

“Cryptocurrency and related software analytics tools are ‘The wave of the future, Dude. One hundred percent electronic.’”

That’s not a quote from "The Big Lebowski" — at least, not directly. It’s a quote from a Washington, D.C., district court memorandum opinion on the role cryptocurrency analytics tools can play in government investigations. The author is Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui.

Keep ReadingShow less
Veronica Irwin

Veronica Irwin (@vronirwin) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol covering fintech. Previously she was at the San Francisco Examiner, covering tech from a hyper-local angle. Before that, her byline was featured in SF Weekly, The Nation, Techworker, Ms. Magazine and The Frisc.

The financial technology transformation is driving competition, creating consumer choice, and shaping the future of finance. Hear from seven fintech leaders who are reshaping the future of finance, and join the inaugural Financial Technology Association Fintech Summit to learn more.

Keep ReadingShow less
FTA
The Financial Technology Association (FTA) represents industry leaders shaping the future of finance. We champion the power of technology-centered financial services and advocate for the modernization of financial regulation to support inclusion and responsible innovation.
Enterprise

AWS CEO: The cloud isn’t just about technology

As AWS preps for its annual re:Invent conference, Adam Selipsky talks product strategy, support for hybrid environments, and the value of the cloud in uncertain economic times.

Photo: Noah Berger/Getty Images for Amazon Web Services

AWS is gearing up for re:Invent, its annual cloud computing conference where announcements this year are expected to focus on its end-to-end data strategy and delivering new industry-specific services.

It will be the second re:Invent with CEO Adam Selipsky as leader of the industry’s largest cloud provider after his return last year to AWS from data visualization company Tableau Software.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donna Goodison

Donna Goodison (@dgoodison) is Protocol's senior reporter focusing on enterprise infrastructure technology, from the 'Big 3' cloud computing providers to data centers. She previously covered the public cloud at CRN after 15 years as a business reporter for the Boston Herald. Based in Massachusetts, she also has worked as a Boston Globe freelancer, business reporter at the Boston Business Journal and real estate reporter at Banker & Tradesman after toiling at weekly newspapers.

Image: Protocol

We launched Protocol in February 2020 to cover the evolving power center of tech. It is with deep sadness that just under three years later, we are winding down the publication.

As of today, we will not publish any more stories. All of our newsletters, apart from our flagship, Source Code, will no longer be sent. Source Code will be published and sent for the next few weeks, but it will also close down in December.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bennett Richardson

Bennett Richardson ( @bennettrich) is the president of Protocol. Prior to joining Protocol in 2019, Bennett was executive director of global strategic partnerships at POLITICO, where he led strategic growth efforts including POLITICO's European expansion in Brussels and POLITICO's creative agency POLITICO Focus during his six years with the company. Prior to POLITICO, Bennett was co-founder and CMO of Hinge, the mobile dating company recently acquired by Match Group. Bennett began his career in digital and social brand marketing working with major brands across tech, energy, and health care at leading marketing and communications agencies including Edelman and GMMB. Bennett is originally from Portland, Maine, and received his bachelor's degree from Colgate University.

Enterprise

Why large enterprises struggle to find suitable platforms for MLops

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, and as larger enterprises go from deploying hundreds of models to thousands and even millions of models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

Photo: artpartner-images via Getty Images

On any given day, Lily AI runs hundreds of machine learning models using computer vision and natural language processing that are customized for its retail and ecommerce clients to make website product recommendations, forecast demand, and plan merchandising. But this spring when the company was in the market for a machine learning operations platform to manage its expanding model roster, it wasn’t easy to find a suitable off-the-shelf system that could handle such a large number of models in deployment while also meeting other criteria.

Some MLops platforms are not well-suited for maintaining even more than 10 machine learning models when it comes to keeping track of data, navigating their user interfaces, or reporting capabilities, Matthew Nokleby, machine learning manager for Lily AI’s product intelligence team, told Protocol earlier this year. “The duct tape starts to show,” he said.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kate Kaye

Kate Kaye is an award-winning multimedia reporter digging deep and telling print, digital and audio stories. She covers AI and data for Protocol. Her reporting on AI and tech ethics issues has been published in OneZero, Fast Company, MIT Technology Review, CityLab, Ad Age and Digiday and heard on NPR. Kate is the creator of RedTailMedia.org and is the author of "Campaign '08: A Turning Point for Digital Media," a book about how the 2008 presidential campaigns used digital media and data.

Latest Stories
Bulletins