Uber seems to be the logical extreme of 'easier to beg forgiveness' mentality; there are no rules (explicit or implicit) or ethical boundaries that are not subject to be broken in pursuit of their goals.
However, frankly, there are still scams being advertised on Adwords and I would argue that we should separate the scam category from the illegal pharma category.
The truth is that the vast majority of the half billion dollars they were penalized for earning was payments from companies who were advertising and fulfilling generic drugs from cheaper countries such as India (or even New Zealand!). The people running these companies may be 'criminals' -- you could make that case -- but I have an easier time making the case that they are running an ethical business that helps lower and middle class americans get the medicine they need at a fraction of the cost (and sometimes simply without explaining to a third-party that their dick doesn't work).
HN is visited by people in tech who are naturally interested more in what happens with technology companies. Therefore there is more focus on Uber then on Wells Fargo.
How does bragging make a difference? A crime is a crime regardless of bragging or not.
I think your second paragraph makes a lot more sense.
People who think this is bad thing, wants (and have absolute right) to put attention on previously praised crooks so that opposite message (it is bad behavior and you might get punished) gets attention too.
2.) If you brag about your success and break-the-rules-strategy, people like you less and get more angry with you. Once you get caught, they get happy, talk about it and wants to see you punished more then as if you did not bragged. That is how humans work.
Bragging isn't the problem, if what they're doing is illegal, then it should be handled accordingly. They might be thinking that they are thinking out of the box, and you might have to break some laws, but those laws are actually blocking progress. So, not necessarily a bad thing depending on the law being broken.
AIUI there's no evidence that actually happened. It's more like they were marking some transactions as low-risk rather than medium-risk when they should have been following guidelines that allowed the transactions to be considered as low-risk or medium-risk, but under slightly different criteria.
I think it's pretty obvious what happened but there are a lot of folks who want to whistle and look the other way.
There are a lot of ways and they're more obvious than what you imply.
Since everyone basically agrees that Levandowski downloaded these files from google, Occam's Razor suggests that the guy who knowingly stole the files provided them along. Doesn't rule out a different sort of malfeasance, but certainly it's worth exploring that avenue to the fullest.
...and that's what makes all Uber/Lev's avoidance look as damning as it is. If the stuff they're not saying cleared them, they'd present more of it - enough to make their case.
You know those golden parachutes that piss everyone off? They give you those in return for promising not talk about anything shady going on near the top