"wall street journal" and npr and usa today, syndicated columnist, a pullitzer price winner and sarah lacy and reporter from "the new york times." >> you may have noticed earlier that sarah and i were fussing about when it's time to go to break. sarah helped invent this television show and was on the very early pilot and on the very first one. you've since gone on to found a tech blog. one of the projects on there that just did not seem like it could be real and yet people poured a lot of money into it. >> in modern day snake oil campaign at the best. at the worst it was out-right fraud. this would be the holy grail, every scientist told us -- >> it's phenomenal. >> -- first of all, we would have seen papers proving this along the way and it would be massive. you put a bracelet on and it would know about everything you eat how many calories you ingested without you manually entering anything. >> which would be great. >> yeah. and people were so captivated by it. they funded it up to $1 million. before the campaign was closed we did all of this research and we found basic lies on their prof

. >> reporter: an executive said at an yuber dinner silicon vally sarah lacy, one of the apparent targetsi've covered powerful tech companies for a long time and powerful moguls for a long time and i've never heard of a plan detailed like that before. >> reporter: tweeted that the executive comments were terrible and do not represent the company. >> can these pr problems bring down the company? >> they could if they continued to get out of control and there are more of them and the company doesn't address them. so this might turn into a dart vadar if they are not careful enough. >> reporter: uber hired a master mind who helped with president obama's election in 2008. part of job, to get uber in the city where the powerful taxi companies have been powerful in keeping them out. the ceo writes, acknowledging mistakes and learning from them is the first step. >> we just want to push a button on our phone and get a ride and that's an aspiration and functionality that millions in cities across the country and the world want. >> finally at this hour, american scientists say they have discovered

silicon valley blogger sarah lacy one of the apparent targets of the scheme. >> i've covered powerful companies for a long time and powerful moguls for a long time. and i've never heard a plan like that detailed before. >> reporter: later tweeted the executive's comments were terrible and do not represent the company. can these pr problems bring down the company? >> they could, if they continue to get out of control, and this f there are more of them and the company doesn't address them. so this robin hood might turn into a darth vader if they're not careful enough about how quickly these things get out of control. >> reporter: uber has likened it's struggles to a political campaign, which is why they i.r.a..ed plouffe. part of plouffe's job to get unabomer in cities where the powerful taxi industry has been successful in keeping them out. in a recent blog post, uber's ceo writes acknowledging mistakes and learning from them are the first steps, trying to save the image of a company born from a simple idea. >> we just wanted to push a button on our phone and get a ride. and that's an