Daily Tech Snippet: Monday, March 20

• Uber president Jeff Jones quits, deepening turmoil: Ride services company Uber Technologies has been thrust deeper into turmoil with the departure of company president Jeff Jones, a marketing expert hired to help soften its often abrasive image. Jones quit less than seven months after joining the San Francisco company, an Uber spokesman said on Sunday. The reason for his departure was not immediately clear, but Jones' role was put into question after Uber earlier this month launched a search for a chief operating officer to help run the company alongside Chief Executive Travis Kalanick. Jones is the latest in a string of high-level executives to leave the company. Last month, engineering executive Amit Singhal was asked to resign due to a sexual harassment allegation stemming from his previous job at Alphabet Inc's Google. Earlier this month, Ed Baker, Uber's vice president of product and growth, and Charlie Miller, Uber's famed security researcher, departed. Uber, while it has long had a reputation as an aggressive and unapologetic startup, has been battered with multiple controversies over the last several weeks that have put Kalanick's leadership capabilities and the company's future into question. A former Uber employee last month published a blog post describing a workplace where sexual harassment was common and went unpunished. The blog post prompted an internal investigation that is being led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Then, Bloomberg released a video that showed Kalanick berating an Uber driver who had complained about cuts to rates paid to drivers, resulting in Kalanick making a public apology. And earlier this month Uber confirmed it had used a secret technology program dubbed "Greyball," which effectively changes the app view for specific riders, to evade authorities in cities where the service has been banned. Uber has since prohibited the use of Greyball to target local regulators.

• At Peter Thiel’s Palantir, Allegations of Theft and Deception: Marc Abramowitz thought he’d found kindred spirits in the founders of Palantir Technologies Inc. Like Chief Executive Officer Alex Karp and billionaire Chairman Peter Thiel, Abramowitz was a Stanford University alumnus looking to build a business empire. In 2006, Abramowitz made an investment in their then unknown startup and became a regular around the office. In recent years, Palantir has risen to be a global data mining giant with a $20 billion valuation. Abramowitz’s shares are estimated to be worth $60 million. But his relationship with the founders has turned toxic, and they now have competing lawsuits in two states. Abramowitz’s suit was filed last week in Delaware’s Chancery Court, saying Palantir thwarted his efforts to sell shares and that the company must disclose its books and records. Bloomberg has obtained an unredacted copy of the suit, which hasn’t been previously reported. It alleges that Palantir blocked a planned sale of Abramowitz’s shares to Chinese private equity firm CDH Investments Fund Management Co. and that Palantir violated an agreement with Abramowitz to provide him with quarterly financial statements and access to shareholder meetings. Palantir, which sued Abramowitz in September for attempting to claim patent ownership for the company’s work, said the new suit is without merit. It said it shouldn’t have to disclose information about its inner-workings or finances because Abramowitz’s interests are at odds with the company’s. “This lawsuit is nothing more than a blatant attempt to distract from Mr. Abramowitz’s unlawful and egregious theft of our intellectual property,” Palantir wrote in an emailed statement.

• How Google and Levi’s smart jacket shows what’s coming next for wearables: Google and Levi's showed off this week a new joint project: a $350 smart jean jacket. While this jacket literally puts tech on your sleeve, it does it in a subtle way that doesn't require putting another screen on your body. In doing so, it offers a glimpse of what smart fabrics can do and of the evolution of the wearables market -- one in which consumers won't have to wear a clunky accessory that screams high tech. The smart Commuter jacket, which was introduced over the weekend at SXSW in Austin, is aimed at those who bike to work. It has technology woven into its fibers, and allows users to take phone calls, get directions and check the time, by tapping and swiping their sleeves. That delivers information to them through their headphones so that they can keep their eyes on the road without having to fiddle with a screen. The jacket the should hit stores this fall. Its smart fibers are washable; they're powered by a sort of smart cufflink that you'll have to remove when you wash the jacket. The cufflink has a two-day battery life. Wearables are expected to be a $19 billion industry by 2018, according to Juniper Research. Products including Fitbit fitness trackers, Android Wear watches and the Apple Watch have helped fuel a rise in mainstream awareness of wearables for the past several years, even leading Fitbit to go public in 2015. But the market for wearables has taken a bit of a tumble in the past few quarters. Fitbit in January announced it had missed earnings expectations and starting cutting jobs because sales were lower than expected. It's hard to say exactly what has caused the cool-down in wearables, but one possibility is that the market for uber-techy wearables that try to put a smartwatch on your wrist is pretty saturated. Analysts have pointed to a shift in the market away from the super-functional smartwatch toward gadgets that are a little more focused and better looking to boot.