Marissa Mayer, the former CEO of Yahoo, took the stage at the yearly Stanford Directors' College at Stanford Law School yesterday and defended embattled Uber founder Travis Kalanick, whom she calls a friend.

In case you've forgotten why Kalanick is embattled, read our previous coverage of Uber's many many scandals here. Under pressure from several investors, Kalanick stepped down as the company's CEO last week, but he will remain on its Board of Directors.

Also, his mom was recently killed in a boating accident. Kalanick appears to be at the center of a ton of unacceptable behavior, but his mom died right in the middle of it all. The universe has really piled it on Travis Kalanick recently.

Perhaps that's part of the reason Mayer came to his defense. According to the Chronicle, Mayer said "Scale is incredibly tricky. I count Travis as one of my friends. I think he's a phenomenal leader. Uber is ridiculously interesting."

"I just don't think he knew. When your company scales that quickly, it's hard," Mayer continued, paraphrasing the age-old adage, "more money, more problems."

The Chron reports, "Mayer then compared Uber's situation to the early days of Google when it first brought in Eric Schmidt as CEO to help co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page manage the company."

A quick search doesn't reveal any articles about either Brin or Page issuing employees frat-style directives about drinking and sex — as Kalanick did — but we might have missed that (because we used Google to search.)

Intriguingly, the Chron article also mentions that Mayer's name has popped up as a possible contender for the now open role of Uber CEO.

Quartz minces no words when it comes to that rumor/possibility:

Every great leader knows that his or her own actions and words resonate loudly with the troops below. If the CEO is a jerk, chances are his company will be full of jerks. If the top person cuts corners, his minions will think that’s OK as well. That’s pretty much what happened at Uber. That Mayer isn’t able to see this is an indictment of her own poor leadership qualities... Please, Uber, don’t hire her.

Meanwhile, the embattled rideshare company is apparently implementing dozens of recommendations made by former attorney general Eric Holder and law partner Tammy Albarrán following a four-month investigation into Uber's practices.

Related: Marissa Mayer Is Super Psyched To Finally Get To Use Gmail Again