Travis: So we are reducing the number of black cars in the next few months.
Fawzi: It’s good.
Travis: You probably saw some email.
Fawzi: I saw the email [that says] it starts in May. But you’re raising the standards and dropping the prices.
Travis: We’re not dropping the prices on Black.
Fawzi: But in general.
Travis: In general, but we have competitors. Otherwise we’d be out of business.
Fawzi: Competitors? You had the business model in your hands, you could have the prices you want but you choose to buy everybody a ride.
Travis: No, no no. You misunderstand me. We started high-end. We didn’t go low-end because we wanted to. We went low-end because we had to because we’d be out of business.
Fawzi: But people are not trusting you anymore. Do you think people will buy cars anymore? ... I lost $97,000 because of you. I'm bankrupt because of you. You keep changing every day. You keep changing every day.
Travis: Hold on a second. What have I changed about Black?
Fawzi: You changed the whole business! You dropped the prices.
Travis: On Black? Bullshit.
Fawzi: We started with $20.
Travis: You know what, some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit. They blame everything in their life on somebody else. Good luck!
Fawzi: Good luck to you too, I know that you aren’t going to go far.
Personally, I didn't find this disproportionately disrespectful. The driver makes a couple unsubstantiated claims (perfectly ok--it's a car discussion). Travis does the same. The driver starts making accusations ("you keep changing every day"). Travis asks for clarification. The driver keeps up his attack ("You changed the whole business! You dropped the prices.")
If someone accused me in such a fashion, and persisted despite me asking for clarification and trying to actually explain my view to them, I'd probably be a lot more vitriolic than Travis was. (It's a character flaw of mine.) And saying that some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit is, well, true?
I don't like that billionaires are held to a different standard. People say, "they don't need protection; they're rich." Ok, but if you discount something a billionaire says for no reason other than that they're rich and have easy lives, you're not a dispassionate truthseeker.
From the Bloomberg article -
> In 2012, Uber Black cost riders $4.90 per mile or $1.25 per minute in San Francisco, according to an old version of Uber's website. Today, Uber charges $3.75 per mile and $0.65 per minute.
The least a CEO could have said is to thank the driver for his feedback and promise to look into it.
Just because you're disrespectful doesn't mean the CEO of a consumer facing company can treat its partners like that.
I spent the last half hour thinking about this on and off, trying to shift my perspective. I feel sort of guilty. Advocating for objectivity and dispassionate truthseeking is the second easiest way to curry favor on HN, and it feels cheap. (The easiest is still outrage, never to be topped anywhere :))
If anything, I find it sort of funny that Travis got mad. He handled it pretty well at first; they were just having an honest disagreement. Then it was like he just decided, "fuck it, I've had a bad day, and I don't need to take this guy's shit." He might meditate on the fact that this guy spends his evenings being the reason that Uber's business model works.
The whole thing reminds me of when Tommy Carcetti becoming mayor scene from the Wire. The old outgoing mayor is giving him some advice and he basically explains that when you're mayor you have to smile and eat shit from everybody- the unions, the lobbyists, the press, the teachers, the churches... and smile and act gracious while you're doing it.
Travis should have just smiled and eaten this guys shit, because that's just part of being CEO. "Thank you for your feedback, we'll look into it. Keep up the good work and thanks for the ride!"
Even then, at some point, you're off stage so to speak when it comes to managing that "impression" for others. You can't always be fake all the time, it gets draining.
Eh, I think that just means the role of the CEO is not one you're cut out for. I know people who spend their entire workday and their entire work-related interactions outside of the workday being fake, because that's what they need to do to succeed at their job. They come out of it completely exhausted, and they have friends they can recharge with, privately. But if they get an urgent email or IM on the weekend, it's back to being fake. And they're not even CEO-level.
It's a job skill. The job of CEO requires a lot of skills, almost none of which are the ability to come up with and execute on a great initial idea.
I think it's great that you can both feel a bit of guilt about your position (it's totally understandable; I wouldn't get carried away with guilt...) and also find humor in it.
> And saying that some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit is, well, true?
It's true, but also I think it's also a massive amount of impromptu projection on the part of Travis!
>Advocating for objectivity and dispassionate truthseeking is the second easiest way to curry favor on HN, and it feels cheap. (The easiest is still outrage, never to be topped anywhere :))
What is there to "actually look into"? The driver added exactly 0 new information to Travis' view on the business. His entire job is basically a constant process of "looking into" this question. Acting as if the driver's complaint was some revelation that exposes some previously-unconsidered drawback of Uber's strategy would have been pure political ass-kissing of the type that HN usually detests.
Direct feedback is a data point. "Thanks for your feedback, I'll think on that" would be better than "I'll look into it". As you say, there's nothing to look into, but considering the impact policies have on staff is useful.
Is there any evidence provided that the per-mile amount paid to drivers of Uber Black cars has gone down? I saw the article mention that the price to customers has gone down from $4.90 to $3.75, but is there any evidence of this actually flowing through to the drivers?
Just a thought.
There's also the move where Uber Black drivers are forced to take Uber X fares. Refusing pickups has consequences after a certain number. In that case, the driver is certainly being paid less.
I think it's a valid complaint. He invested in the car based on a business model that changed underneath him. Uber may not be legally liable for that, and may have had valid reasons, but it still sucks. I would want to vent as well.
Oh for sure - I don't doubt the guy is upset, and clearly something caused that, there just seemed to be some kind of consensus that the actual driver receipts per mile/per minute on Uber Black had gone down given the numbers in the Bloomberg article which seemed to be drawing conclusions.
If the guy had yelled "You are making me accept Uber X fares which is making me make less money" then it would be easy to see where he's coming from if TK pushed back on that - anyways, it's just a technicality but it seems that TK may have actually been correct if all the guy was upset about was the reduction in Uber Black time/distance fees to drivers.
It appears that the Uber fare cuts do directly affect what drivers are paid.
"Lower fares mean that drivers make less per ride. Uber said lower fares will attract more riders, which should increase the number of trips per hour. 'We care deeply about driver earnings,' Macdonald said. 'We actually find that a lot of drivers understand why we do this. They’ve been through price cuts before.'"[1]
So, they try to explain it away by saying the drivers will get more rides, but pretty clear that Uber concedes it's less money per ride.
And even then, there's 0 indication or evidence that there's any link between the price paid to drivers and the price paid by riders. For all we know Black car drivers could be receiving more right now than they were when Uber came out, but from what I've seen there's no evidence anywhere in any of these articles about what the historical and current driver rates are?
Not taking sides (and I'm more of a Lyft guy than an Uber fanboy), but there's really no way to work out whether this whole argument is valid without more information.
It's not because he's a billionaire, it's because he's the CEO of Uber talking to an Uber driver about Uber. Even if the guy isn't making particularly solid points or is being accusatory, it shouldn't be that hard to hold it together, be conciliatory, and avoid saying something nasty. This should be child's play for a CEO discussing/defending their company.
(That said, on the whole, I agree that it's being blown pretty out of proportion.)
The Fowler post is grounds for questioning Kalanick's leadership; this just shows that he's not in PR mode 24/7. Being kind-of-a-dick is tolerable, as long as you're good at your job. The bigger leadership issue is that he can't seem to maintain happy drivers (or employees.)
> Being kind-of-a-dick is tolerable, as long as you're good at your job
It's hard to believe someone would say this today. It seems you missed the whole point of the "but he's a high performer" excuse that Uber has (allegedly) been making when not addressing harassment and worse.
Obviously the general statement "some people don't take responsibility" is in this context not a neutral general observation, but rather a personal implication of the driver.
Why should he have to apologise for this? This is normal 'robust' conversation between an employer and an employee who have a disagreement.
The driver is apparently bankrupt (well done), so I would not be at all surprised if he deliberately tried to bait Travis into this conversation so he'd have a story to sell. At the end of the Bloomberg article where this surfaced, they noted that the driver got 1 Star for that ride - I find it hard to believe that anyone other than Uber and the driver would have been able to know that.
You one of those who never ever talks to their Uber drivers? Talk to them sometime. Here in NYC, it's their full time gig, requires TLC license and expensive commercial insurance paid upfront. Not to mention the car which is financed. People take a big risk investing in Uber driving and they get lured with deceptive ads promising "guaranteed income" they can't actually attain. The money the drivers are making is an absolute joke now, especially since you're required to drive UberPool. People relied on Uber, not thinking they would try to screw their own so called "partners."
Exactly! Thank you! Some people are in a situation where they literally have no choice but to rely on their employer for almost everything in their lives. This can be especially true for people of color because of the endless social injustices they are forced to endure.
I don't even have the benefit of a high school education and came from a very poor background (think a step above Appalachia) and yet after a decade of working I have never been beholden to a single employer. Perhaps the problem is we still teach kids like it's the 40's but you should be constantly building skills in your own time and keeping a toe in the job market. I got laid off on Friday during the finical crisis and walked into a new job that next Monday.
Actually the driver rated Kalanick 1 star:
> Later, the Uber driver app prompts him to rate Kalanick, as he does all his riders. Kamel gives him one star.
It's a good tactic -- blow off all the worse things you do, then apologize for the one time you weren't at fault, people notice and give you sympathy, and start to forget those worse things.
He wasn't apologizing to say he was sorry, he was apologizing to try to regain public favor after a very bad public relations disaster.
You see these public statements with fake apologies after PR meltdowns all of the time (BP Oil Spill, ENRON, etc.). It's glorified damage control. I doubt the people whose behalf they are for really feel sorry in any of them.
Sorry to bother you with this meta stuff but could you please remove the four space indent? :/ this makes it impossible to read on mobile. I tried to copy paste it, but safari :(
Travis: So we are reducing the number of black cars in the next few months.
Fawzi: It’s good.
Travis: You probably saw some email.
Fawzi: I saw the email [that says] it starts in May. But you’re raising the standards and dropping the prices.
Travis: We’re not dropping the prices on Black.
Fawzi: But in general.
Travis: In general, but we have competitors. Otherwise we’d be out of business.
Fawzi: Competitors? You had the business model in your hands, you could have the prices you want but you choose to buy everybody a ride.
Travis: No, no no. You misunderstand me. We started high-end. We didn’t go low-end because we wanted to. We went low-end because we had to because we’d be out of business.
Fawzi: But people are not trusting you anymore. Do you think people will buy cars anymore? ... I lost $97,000 because of you. I'm bankrupt because of you. You keep changing every day. You keep changing every day.
Travis: Hold on a second. What have I changed about Black?
Fawzi: You changed the whole business! You dropped the prices.
Travis: On Black? Bullshit.
Fawzi: We started with $20.
Travis: You know what, some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit. They blame everything in their life on somebody else. Good luck!
Fawzi: Good luck to you too, I know that you aren’t going to go far.
It's a totally subjective debate, but IMHO, while the highest quality Reddit comments might be just as good as the highest quality HN comments, I think both the floor and median comment quality levels are much lower on Reddit.
Also HN comments are 95% serious in tone. While joking isn't disallowed, and the occasional high concept satirical comment might get mass upvoted, most jokes are ignored or downvoted. Not the case on Reddit.
That second point doesn't really make sense to me. You're reading links submitted on hacker news by other readers, isn't this basically the same thing?
An HN user is telling you that he read something that was particularly useful to the conversation at hand and wanted to share it, what's wrong with that?
"It's their xchangleasing leasing program. It's basically a sub prime car loan like from the housing bubble days.
You use Uber as your income verification and they'll let anyone lease a car provided they do X amount rides each week regardless of credit. They require a three year lease, you a have month to back out but after that you're on the hook for the car 100%. So if Uber cuts it's rates they still have same payment but less fare money each month. They did this to a lot of people and it's well known within the company that a lot of Uber black drivers were screwed when this happened.
<q>He leased a 2016 Toyota Corolla from Xchange in November, paying $155 a week. Two months later, Uber slashed fares nationally. Soon Hofstede had trouble keeping up with his payments. He went from making $200 in a weekend to $140 in a weekend, he said. "It got to the point that I would drive just to meet my payment," he said. "If you were short on your payment for a week it would roll onto the payment for next week. It starts adding up." </q>
In this guys case they did a similar program for uber black years ago. Then they changed which cars were considered black cars. If I remember right a year after they started the program they changed which cars were considered "black" cars and this guys Lexus?? Was no longer a black car. They said it couldn't exclusively be used for black and had to pick up Uber X riders as well. Uber x pays a lot less. The people this happened to were basically bait and switched when Travis changed the terms on them. He can refuse uber x rides and only pick up uber black riders but if he refuses more than 45 rides in a month he's fired and forever banned from Uber but still on the hook for the car lease. The old Uber black leases started around 4k or 5k a month(I forget which cars but this was for a base "black car") but they made 6k to 8k, 10k a month back then depending on market. They cut rates and required you to pick up cheaper fairs and you're underwater. That's the 97k he's talking about. A lot of Uber black leases were repo'd because after this change their leases were more than their entire monthly wage. That's the personal responsibility Travis wants him to have. It's "Sorry the market change, too bad".
Also the market changed or I mean people did. They just stopped using Uber black. I mean if you're taking at 10 or 20 minute ride across town are you really so vain to need a uber black. Turns out actually rich people are cheap and flocked to Uber x. That's why Travis mentioned their reducing the amount of drivers beacuse the number or riders also drop double screwing guys like this.
Now let me say YES Travis is correct the guy is responsible for his desisions and things don't always work out like you'd expect. That said I see the guys side he made a 3 year commitment to Uber he couldn't walk away from and everything he was promised changed."
Agreed. I don't know why people post it as monotype or why HN still renders it so you have to side-scroll. If "that's how you got it", it takes five seconds to fix. Here you go:
Travis: So we are reducing the number of black cars in the next few months.
Fawzi: It’s good.
Travis: You probably saw some email.
Fawzi: I saw the email [that says] it starts in May. But you’re raising the standards and dropping the prices.
Travis: We’re not dropping the prices on Black.
Fawzi: But in general.
Travis: In general, but we have competitors. Otherwise we’d be out of business.
Fawzi: Competitors? You had the business model in your hands, you could have the prices you want but you choose to buy everybody a ride.
Travis: No, no no. You misunderstand me. We started high-end. We didn’t go low-end because we wanted to. We went low-end because we had to because we’d be out of business.
Fawzi: But people are not trusting you anymore. Do you think people will buy cars anymore? ... I lost $97,000 because of you. I'm bankrupt because of you. You keep changing every day. You keep changing every day.
Travis: Hold on a second. What have I changed about Black?
Fawzi: You changed the whole business! You dropped the prices.
Travis: On Black? Bullshit.
Fawzi: We started with $20.
Travis: You know what, some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit. They blame everything in their life on somebody else. Good luck!
Fawzi: Good luck to you too, I know that you aren’t going to go far.
I'm a bit unclear what is so negative about this. While there is an argument that a leader should be able to handle criticism without losing his/her temper, he appears to respond to the driver as an equal with whom he profoundly disagrees. He didn't write the man off or act as though he wasn't worth his time, he simply responded in a frustrated manner to an interaction that he clearly was not in the mood for.
Something that struck me is: almost half of the country would disagree with you (the more conservative half). A lot of the American public believes what Kalanick said to be very true when it comes to low-ish income people complaining about what wealthier people do to them.
In my experience, it isn't the wealthy who think the poor are lazy/irresponsible-- it's the working poor and the lower middle class. The "more conservative half" of the country isn't particularly the wealthier half of the country. Speculating as to why that is would probably overflow this comments section.
I know a lot of well off programmers who absolutely believe that the only reason anyone isn't a well off programmer is laziness and poor character. Don't know how you're making your class divisions, but I certainly wouldn't call them lower middle class or below.
Many lower-middle-class Americans look down on the poor because they see themselves on equal footing, and believe that "If I can work two jobs and make ends meet, so could s/he if s/he had the work ethic."
The most arrogant programmers I know seem to think the exact opposite: that they are among the elite few graced with the gift of true programming intuition. (Not true.) They don't think the poor are lazy, they think the poor are helpless and un-talented.
It's absolutely a true statement, and it is absolutely and completely an inappropriate tone for the CEO of a company to take toward someone that just got fucked over by his company's changing policies, after his company pushed people into taking out loans they can't realistically afford.
It's like Taleb's stuff about skin in the game--Kalanick pushed the risk of his business model onto drivers like this one while keeping the upside for himself. When the driver got screwed by Kalanick's pricing changes, he comes back with technicalities and finally blames the guy for not taking responsibility. Talk about projection!
That's the reason why this is disrespectful to the driver. Kalanick minimizes his loss and refuses to take any responsibility for it himself, despite the fact that the only real mistake the driver made was trusting Uber.
So many (seemingly) intractable issues in contemporary life regress back to the question of personal responsibility.
It's a difficult thing to push back on, because even those of us most sympathetic a complex-systems based understanding of inequality don't want to completely give up on the value of personal responsibility, as to do so would be to tacitly give up the belief in free will. But if we grant that each individual does have some degree of agency and responsibility, then the libertarian side immediately points to any number of self made/rags to riches individuals and says "So? Stop complaining and do that!". But why can't they admit that it's an issue of degrees?
Sure, you have some agency in improving your situation, but if you're born less advantaged the systemic factors arrayed against you make it significantly harder to leverage your agency to improve your lot. Just because some lucky few do rise from rags to riches doesn't mean that a winner take most, predatory lottery system will create the best outcome for the most.
Is it a failure of human probabilistic intuition? Or is it a more malicious effort to control and frame the debate, pushed by those who benefit from the unequal system? Probably both.
Dunno if you're being /s or not but there are myriad serious answers, most of them pointing back to the elevation of predatory capitalism to an quasi-religious ideology, often intermixed with judaeo-christian symbolism and messaging.
...and the "other half" (as if there are only two perspectives) scapegoat just as handily: corporations, racist people, sexist people, homophobic people, Russian hackers, Fox News, the bourgeois, disloyal white women, people who "vote against their interests", patriotic people, spiritual people, uneducated people, cherry-picked structural injustice, and pretty much anything that doesn't support their preconceived notions of the world.
I'm frankly tired of people seeing problems and immediately outgrouping others, attaching blame, and spewing hate. This will continue to be a disease in our culture until people can learn to understand and disagree and live and let live.
For many progressives I know, those things are blamed indeed, but for society's problems, not their own. There's a real difference there, deriving from the difference in political philosophy. Broadly speaking, the left believes that if you address structural social issues, individuals will eventually have paths to succeed. The right believes that if everyone focuses on the problems they themselves experience, society will eventually improve. Either ethic can be applied in the extreme with disastrous results.
> ...those things are blamed indeed, but for society's problems, not their own.
That's a good point in some cases. But in many cases that doesn't hold. Meryl Streep outgrouped popular, middle American, and "lowbrow" culture(s) when ranting about how they impact on her job. Gay marriage and abortion views are certainly personal complaints as well as social ones. Distaste for spiritual people typically stems from a personal grudge more than a dry academic philosophy about the social impact of disagreements about metaphysical reality or something. How about bikes versus cars disputes in urban areas? Or disagreements about Bay Area rent?
I can come up with more examples. I think there's a "I'm just being the rational one here" type of cognitive dissonance from basically all perspectives. Even that attitude holds the seeds for outgrouping (those irrational people!).
>Most people out there would rather blame someone else for their problems than take personal responsibility.
And why not? There are 8 billion people out there, and one of you. And tons of people who came before the person was even born and shaped the place one was born in, were responsible for their childhood, designed their education programs etc. And of course others are in power and shape policy.
Who is more likely to have created/sustain the situations affecting someone? Themselves or the tons of others?
Out of curiousity, what do you think could have caused the driver to go bankrupt? It sounds like he bought an expensive, UberBlack-eligible car, intending to pay for it with his fares, but the fares were reduced and now he can't make the payments. How common is that scenario amongst Uber drivers?
If Uber drivers are, in fact, independent contractors, then they have some responsibility to determine whether the business they're engaged in is a profitable one, and to judge the risk involved. It seems like it would be very easy to underestimate both the costs and the risk.
it's not just the fare reduction, it's also the loss in business as customers stopped using UberBlack in favor of UberX.
Having driven for Uber and Lyft for a year and a half (even during the "good years") - the rate of new hires was most definitely a major concern and there were definitely rocky times. I was lucky to be able to mitigate this by moving to San Francisco from San Diego. While in San Diego I saw my take go down from ~$1200/wk to something like $800/wk, then back up to $1200-1600/wk when I moved to SF, and then back down to about $800 by the time I finished.
Personally I approached it as an exercise in entrepreneurship, a deep study in the dynamics of real-time economics, and an opportunity to vastly improve my "people skills" in addition to making more money than a PhD postdoc in biochemistry... So a success in all fronts, personally, but also I knew when to quit.
Recognizing that you may not have been the prototypical Uber driver, I'm curious what kind of research/ evaluation (if any) you did before/ while driving for them re: the financial prospect. How much did you "take home" after gas, repairs, taxes, etc...? Did you have an estimate of that beforehand?
My suspicion is that many people who begin driving for Uber overestimate their net earnings and underestimate their deferred expenses e.g. vehicle depreciation and maintenance. If Uber knows this and is taking advantage (with new-driver bonuses, etc...), they're essentially a multi-level marketing company.
I didn't do a formal estimate beforehand. by feeling, I underestimated my net earnings. Take home was probably somewhere in the 50/yr range. Keep in mind that I didn't "buy a new car" - I drove with my own car that I'd had since 2010. The whole thing put on about 100k miles; but the car is still running more or less fine, a year and a half later.
If something's true, does it really matter if it insults someone?
Driver buys a $97k car, goes bankrupt because as it turns out buying a super expensive car that you obviously can't afford is a dumb idea, then decides to blame someone else for his poor decision making.
I don't think it was unreasonable to consider a $97K car as a business expenditure was such a bad idea. Let's say you get a 5-year loan, liberally that's about $30k a year, which is more than covered by the cost and business that Uber (UberBlack) was generating at the time; Until of course the volume of UberBlack got eaten into by the presence of UberX on top of fare cuts.
Making the correct short-term business decision without fully understanding the long-term market forces in that domain, can still be a bad long-term decision.
It is the business owner's (investor's) responsibility to understand and plan for the long-term. Not planning for the long-term is exactly what happened here. I do not believe this man should have been disrespected, however, his decision to buy a car he could not afford, was his own and was objectively a bad decision.
Do you know the story of the grasshopper and the ants[0]? Regardless of who is controlling the weather (in our case, Uber). Its the grasshopper's fault for not storing food for the winter.
So you're saying making sound decisions regarding driving for Uber requires good economic skills, long-term planning capabilities aswell as insider information regarding Uber's policy ?
This sounds like an unrealistic expectation. One would argue Uber was either disloyal or disillusioned if they rely on such people to advance their business.
> Not faulting the driver for making an uneducated investment, that is unreasonable.
The interesting part happens when you understand that it is impossible to make an educated decision to become a Uber driver without having a relation of trust between Uber and drivers (because otherwise you would need insider information about Uber's business innovations, to get fixed pricing agreement for a given duration, which Uber will never do, etc).
Then, you don't fault Uber for being "flexible to market forces", you may fault them for engaging in deceptive business, just like you would blame a multi level marketing scheme. And when you specifically look at Uber's strategy to mislead potential drivers, there's tons of telling stuff.
In that light, you can still blame the drivers for making bad decisions (discussing the reality of Homo œconomicus would drive us out of scope). But you must also fault Uber for maliciously luring their drivers in a scheme that is not sustainable for them.
Uber could have remained a premium cab company with a fancy app, but everything start-up is rated on growth numbers, not profit, and definitely not on profit of drivers.
If not for abusing growth, it would have not raised funding and would have likely failed.
What business incentive would they have to be a black car app, if they can make more money by expanding into UberX? Not to mention, if they had remained a black car app, they might have gone out of business.
Uber is a business, not a charity. They exist to maximize profits. If you understand that point, then you see why your point is irrelevant.
Also, what the heck does it mean to "abuse growth"?
If I had to guess, abusing growth means taking advantage of the fact that a lot of investors use growth as a core metric in their decision-making process. Thus, Uber optimising for growth over any other "more reasonable" option, just to obtain funding.
Even if that's true, the CEO is the right person to make a complaint to. Or do you think the cab driver should get an economics degree and acquire a fine understanding of market forces?
It is a truth; however here it is being misapplied I believe. Failure to accept responsibility for failings is a sign of neuroticism... Trump has it; so does Kalanick it would appear from these reports (and all others).
In reality it is necessary for growth (and for leadership) to accept responsibility for things. In medicine, every layer up the chain is responsible for the actions of those below; i have encountered many situations where a senior accepts and owns responsibility for a failing or mistake even though that mistake was performed by a junior doctor/nurse. Blame culture is toxic; ownership therapeutic as it leads to growth. In the situation you quote above, it is ironic.
And you're talking to someone who works for you (though you bend over backwards to say they don't so you can avoid being responsible for them) and earns a tiny, tiny fraction of what you earn.
For me, the issue is all of what he's done (or not done) leading up to this. The time for a fireside chat has long since passed, and it's only happening now because it's literally the least that can be done.
> By now I’m sure you’ve seen the video where I treated an Uber driver disrespectfully. To say that I am ashamed is an extreme understatement. My job as your leader is to lead…and that starts with behaving in a way that makes us all proud. That is not what I did, and it cannot be explained away.
> It’s clear this video is a reflection of me—and the criticism we’ve received is a stark reminder that I must fundamentally change as a leader and grow up....
I watched the video 3 times, and did not find anything wrong with the CEO's behavior. And don't understand why the CEO should be issuing any apology at all for this video.
He was explaining the situation politely. Its when the driver started placing his $97K bankruptcy charge on the CEO - the CEO lost his cool.
If the CEO is contemplating changing this polite no-nonsense behavior -investors should be very concerned
EDIT: I came across this interesting comment from gpawl, somewhere down this thread
>>> It's a good tactic -- blow off all the worse things you do, then apologize for the one time you weren't at fault, people notice and give you sympathy, and start to forget those worse things.
You copied this comment from another thread, where I responded:
Uber isn't the driver's employer. Uber is a vendor to the driver. The driver is complaining that its vendor made commitments, on which the driver depended, and then reneged. The driver might be right or might be wrong, but in no discussion with a vendor in the history of the Fortune 500 has it ever been OK for the vendor to accuse their customer of "not taking responsibility for their own shit".
What the video shows isn't wrong on the level of the Fowler post. It just shows Kalanick as petty and deeply unserious about his role, which is an alarming look for someone whose company is embroiled in scandals about mismanagement.
At least with this instance, it did not seem like the Kalanick's fault (nor the driver's fault). The driver got a bit aggressive and we know why.
I don't agree with the statement: "Uber is a vendor to the driver".
This is theoretically true, but doesn't work that way in practice. Uber is like a freelance marketplace for drivers. In practice I have never seen individual or handful of freelancers having any power over monopolistic marketplace authorities. Nobody stopped the driver from working with Uber - but he can't! Uber is a vendor for the riders only.
The $97k, and the reason the driver is bankrupt has a ton to do with Travis' actions as CEO of Uber, and is where Uber becomes, in a non-traditional sense, the vendor to the driver.
Uber behaved as the vendor for a $97k auto loan, in so far as Uber is the one with the big name that worked with car dealers and loan companies to get into the subprime auto loan business because that's what a bunch of stand up guys Uber is, and 2008 was years ago.
It was only with Uber's help, that the loan company came to the table so that driver could sign a contract to finance a $97k car. An expensive car, to be sure, but you're not allowed to drive for Uber Black in a Toyota Corolla from 1990, so you actually need a stupidly expensive car to drive for Uber Black. Unfortunately, financing on that expensive a car leaves the driver in a $5k hole every month for car payment. Not too bad, but if a driver can make $8k/month; $10k with extra work and some luck, that's not a bad deal.
Travis' and Uber then pulled the rug out from under drivers after they'd signed the loan. Drivers could no longer limit themselves to driving Uber Black. Uber, as a platform, forced them to accept UberX rides, or risk being permanently banned. UberX rides aren't as lucrative for the driver which really cuts into amount earned per month. Then Uber also lowered rates for Uber Black rides, making it cheaper for passengers, but, again, cutting into drivers' wage.
Suddenly, the drivers were beholden to a car loan and driving for Uber wasn't making enough money to stay afloat. This is how the driver got into that $97k hole.
In the video, Travis' and thus ultimately Uber's defense is that the driver being in this hole is in no way Uber's fault, which is a crock of shit.
Saying "the driver knew what they were getting into, and they signed a contract" does makes it legal, but when that's what they have to fall back on, Uber might be run by a bunch of assholes, starting from the top.
Holy shit. That explains why I took a S550 the other day despite it being an UberX ride. This would have been avoided if Uber had never got into the auto loan business.
This is gross. I'm glad to have deleted my account and go full Lyft.
The biggest difference is that Lyft didn't create a car lending program and dupe people into thinking that their $5k/month Escalade would ALWAYS yield $10k/mo profits.
Beyond the fact that there's no employer/employee relationship between Kalanick and the driver, I don't think the specifics of the business partnership they have much matters. Nor does the amount of market power the driver has. The driver has a specific grievance. He might be right or he might be wrong, but he clearly has standing to relate it to Kalanick.
Kalanick's insulting response isn't unethical; it's just a breach of norms. As I said, it shows something about Kalanick's character that I'm confident Uber doesn't want to be broadcasting right now.
I haven't watched the video yet, but I suspect that the whole incident was made up out of whole cloth, right down to coaching the driver on the right tenor to set his arguments in.
The reason being to make a statement about the sexual harassment issue, without actually talking about the sexual harassment issue.
Honestly, most of the conversation is a lot more genuine than most interactions as seen on the internet. Most execs would have shut up and avoided any discussion. I am not saying that I agree with everything, but of all the Uber news, this is the least worrying.
>Kamel: “But people are not trusting you anymore. Do you think people will buy cars anymore? ... I lost $97,000 because of you. I'm bankrupt because of you. You keep changing every day. You keep changing every day.”
>Kalanick: “Hold on a second. What have I changed about Black?”
>Kamel: “You changed the whole business! You dropped the prices.”
> In 2012, Uber Black cost riders $4.90 per mile or $1.25 per minute in San Francisco, according to an old version of Uber's website. Today, Uber charges $3.75 per mile and $0.65 per minute.
That's a good data point, but not perfect, since the amount Uber charges customers isn't necessarily directly correlated with the amount they pay drivers...
They do. However I believe compensation to drivers is more complicated because of what are essentially marketing costs in the form of subsidized rides. A year or so ago before Uber left Austin a driver told me one weekend that Uber guaranteed him something like $400 to drive for the weekend so long as he picked up 30 fares (I'm fudging the numbers a bit here because I cant remember). Based on promotions being run for customers and increased rates Uber was definitely going to have to come out of their own pocket to meet that guarantee.
Back when UberX was pushing in my city, I was lured to drive for Uber since I was a Lyft driver: They offered me $1000 signing bonus, $1000 to my referrer; then $40/hr for 50 hours for three weeks. I went to a starbucks in the most distant part of the coverage area and worked on the paperwork for my nonprofit and various coding side projects... Between that and various promotions, Uber spent about $6000 cash on me that year (based on my 1099-G) and based on my 1099, they made about $2500 on me on fares.
The driver noted the mile price change in the video (although he may have been off with the figure). People posting 'transcripts' here seem to have conveniently left that out.
The driver covertly filmed a passenger during a ride he was being paid for and disclosed the footage to a news organisation. This is extremely unethical IMO. Even if this is the CEO of Uber, it is entirely inappropriate, and he IMO is still entitled to an expectation of privacy equally as you or I would when we are paying for the exclusive private hire of a vehicle.
Every taxicab I have been in for the last few years has had internal video cameras. Where are you getting the idea that someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy in someone else's vehicle, for hire or not? In general in America, this expectation extends no further than one's home.
I live in the UK and the place is covered by CCTV including private hire vehicles, but we also have the Data Protection Act, which makes this kind of thing illegal. I know if I am being filmed in a taxi because there must a notice prominently displayed, and I also know that the only way this footage will ever be used, is if I attack the driver and it is used as criminal evidence against me, or if make a complaint about a driver and he uses it to bolster his case with Transport for London.
Being the driver of a passenger car for hire is one of the more dangerous occupations. I would expect that every last one of them would have a forward-facing dash-cam, an inside camera that covered the entire passenger seating area, and possibly also cameras covering the external approaches to the vehicle doors.
The driver or cab company owns the car, and they have the same right to film the customers for the safety of the driver as a convenience store does to promote the safety of its clerks and cashiers.
You are correct that it is unethical to release that footage in most circumstances, without it being evidence of a crime, but the CEO of a company like Uber might be considered a public figure, and if you want other people to be ethical in their dealings with you, you must also be ethical in your dealings with them. I think we never would have seen this video if the driver didn't think that Uber's top-level management pulled a bait-and-switch on him with respect to the recruiting promises versus the actual income. If you act like an ass, you shouldn't expect discretion from anyone.
Were this an ordinary passenger that engaged in a mildly argumentative conversation with the driver, yes, that would be very unethical to post the video without explicit two-party consent. But for the guy that technically signs your paychecks and controls whether you get fares or not and how much you get for them, having a conversation about the business? I'd say that's fair game.
There was a #DeleteUber campaign going on well before this became public, and the reasons for that come from the company's management culture. If he's going to apologize for anything, he still has a lot more to answer for.
What are you talking about? Every uber car has a camera in it in case of disputes or insurance, which are common. There is no expectation of privacy in a car with clear windows and a stranger sitting in front of you.
I'm not defending Kalanick's behavior, although I do think it is regretful he ended the interaction in the way he did. Public figure or not I think it's unreasonable to expect anyone to completely waive their expectation of privacy. There are right and wrong ways to pursue a grievance, IMO this was not the right way and two wrongs do not make a right.
The interaction with the driver, that's fine to film. The long section before their conversation, watching that made me feel uncomfortable, like a voyeur. I suppose that's what makes me cringe when watching "reality TV".
Is it really that? I don't believe I'm indicting his qualities as a person; certainly that's not my intent. But if Teller takes off, he's going to have, to a first approximation, the entire world gunning for him - because whoever suborns him or his company has a reasonable chance of getting rich, or at least a solid payday, out of it. That's not a tremendously safe place to be uncynical.
If social media wants his head, I'm sure they can get it.
I think it's bad for tech and the country when we don't support people who say they made a mistake and are seeking help. If you do that, you only end up with really good liars in charge.
Allow someone, somewhere, to admit a mistake and correct it in a leadership position.
> we don't support people who say they made a mistake and are seeking help.
> you only end up with really good liars in charge.
There's a difference between someone realizing they've made a mistake and openly admitting it without needing external pressure / evidence versus someone just "handling" more evidence of wrong-doing coming up.
In this case, at a cursory glance, it looks more like someone was accused of a negative type of behavior, the person never acknowledged it or resolved it for a long period, then suddenly a series of events followed by video evidence came-up, only then the person acknowledges it and issues an apology and demands/expects to be forgiven. If that's what's happened in this case, then I'm not sure that forgiving them / supporting their subsequent activities is safe since it would be more like enablement, ie: just enabling the person to continue.
If on the other hand, the perpetrator acknowledged not just this specific issue that had video evidence, but also acknowledged other issues/faults and gave a plan of action for how they were changing their behavior (more than I'm getting help now), then it would be something positive.
> There's a difference between someone realizing they've made a mistake and openly admitting it without needing external pressure / evidence versus someone just "handling" more evidence of wrong-doing coming up.
I agree there's a difference, I just don't see the value in calling for his head. There's nothing else to expect of him. He clearly wants to stay and keep trying. It's the board's job to decide if he's fit to remain as CEO.
> it looks more like someone was accused of a negative type of behavior, the person never acknowledged it or resolved it for a long period, then suddenly a series of events followed by video evidence came-up, only then the person acknowledges it and issues an apology and demands/expects to be forgiven
I don't see him expecting anything more from anyone but himself. You may infer that, but it's not written there.
I think his message is simple. He wants to remain as CEO and is willing to take steps to improve his leadership style to do so. You may feel those are empty words. To me, they're meaningful because I've read stories of companies that have been transformed by CEOs who become aware how their faults effect the company. It's possible he is not being sincere, but, I don't see much value in wishing for his demise. An in-company replacement would likely keep the same culture going, and an outside replacement isn't reliable in the tech world. As John Sculley showed, that's risky.
> If on the other hand, the perpetrator acknowledged not just this specific issue that had video evidence, but also acknowledged other issues/faults and gave a plan of action for how they were changing their behavior (more than I'm getting help now), then it would be something positive.
Given the shortness of this apology, I'd guess he isn't quite sure what his other faults are, and is seeking help to identify them.
We're saying this because of the hearsay but increasingly well-documented track record since the beginning of the company of a racist and sexist work environment, directly attributable to and encouraged by Travis Kalanick.
I'm not one to hop on the politically correct train at the first opportunity, but there's "Coworkers making borderline comments to each other" and then there's "My manager propositions me for sex, and HR lies to me, threatens my reviews, and encourages me to be silent about it because they've been told to do so by management."
So yes, he would have gotten the benefit of the doubt for the video.
But no, he in-no-fucking-way deserves leniency for fucking up people's lives by abrogating his responsibilities as CEO previous to that. And then the video.
We need clear and concrete proof that the myriad issues at Uber will be addressed, and a vague, handwavey "I'll do better" is not that.
He could have announced an advisory team being brought on board to help steer the company back on track, or a cleaning house of managers with abusive track records, or drastic new internal guidelines with harsh penalties for bullshit sexist/racist/intolerant behaviour.
Uber has just such an awful track record and is just so untrustworthy, why should we start trusting them when they've given us no actual reason to?
> He could have announced an advisory team being brought on board to help steer the company back on track, or a cleaning house of managers with abusive track records, or drastic new internal guidelines with harsh penalties for bullshit sexist/racist/intolerant behaviour.
It's been like 12 hours since the video came out, and only a couple since the CEO publicly admitted he needs leadership help... I'm not sure he's had time to seek an advisory team
I'd give them a week. I bet there will be more news from Uber.
You think Uber's sexual harassment problems are unique? (If only!) I can't think of a time in recent memory that a founder was removed for something like this. He'll certainly need "leadership help" to reign-in the madness that's been described, but it seems more likely that will take a Sheryl Sandberg-esque form. (An awesome new 2nd-in-command with real leadership experience and chops.)
> That's bold. I can't remember hearing any recent CEO saying this.
It sounds more like the kind of apology one would make after getting caught diddling children and blaming it on an addiction to snorting horse tranquilizer.
If anything, I'm impressed he handled it that well - I for one probably wouldn't have, and I suspect a lot of the angry mob wouldn't either. He's a billionaire, for what it's worth, and he actually sat down to try to explain things to a Uber drive, on his night out.
So what, he yells "b*llshit at the end? Or tells the guy to take responsibility? The driver obviously had a bone to pick, and he's ranting.
As lovely as it must be to be the target of the tech world's ire, I wouldn't like to be in his shoes. I imagine he's feeling some pressure. He may be alpha, but he is still just one human.
If I could somehow wake up in his shoes tomorrow, I think I would.
The gullible public will be all over this one by next month.
Even then, I wouldn't be the first rich person to have the masses standing outside my estate carrying pitchforks, it's a real first world (0.001%) problem.
In that scenario, he could still deflect. He could have refused, denying to himself and others that he ever made any mistake. He could've retired rich.
I think it's likely someone recommended he get help, either today or sometime earlier. That he agrees to do so now is notable.
No. The profound in "please accept my sorrow" is a comment on the depth of your sorrow, something that you are uniquely equipped to describe. "A profound apology follows:" is a comment on how I expect my reader to interpret this message, something I am not at all equipped to describe.
And the "profound" in "please accept my profound apology" can't likewise be a comment on the depth and sincerity of the apology, a trait the issuer is similarly uniquely equipped to describe?
Come on. I get all the backlash against Uber — the outrage they're experiencing is rightly deserved — but this is truly asinine.
It's an expression. When I write something like, "My deepest condolences". I'm using a fairly standard expression. Same with, "My most heartfelt apology". Yes, the veracity of those statements will be judged in time, but it's still a common, and idiomatic, way to say things in English.
That was my take on it, too. There was nothing profound about this apology at all. On the contrary, it seems the very smallest and least controversial response he could have made.
That was the first thing that caught my attention. Travis' statement reeks of narcissism and grandiosity. The understatement is "extreme." "My job as your leader," -- it's an episode of Lost? The remedy is to behave in a way ..."that makes us all proud."
Of course, we elected a narcissistic and grandiose president, so there's nothing new here.
True, and he might have also responded with a safe on-brand reply that would have been criticized as "corporate disingenuous".
Give me the genuine emotional reply any day, that's where you find truth, strengths, weaknesses out in the open.
Whether the business model is unfair on drivers is a separate issue to the conduct of this encounter. At the end of the day, the driver went too far saying "I'm bankrupt because of you", I have no sympathy for people who exaggerate to score points.
It strikes me as a mistake to apologise for something that you shouldn't apologise for.
I thought the video was humanising, and if anything, he remained cool in the face of threatening behaviour. Apologising just legitimses the critics, who'll remain critical regardless.
For me the video humanizes Uber drivers - the people who have the most to lose when Uber brass damage the company through scandal and mismanagement. The fact that Kalanick dismisses the driver's opinions on what might be good for the company reveals the fragility of his ego. If he'd listen to the opinions of the people who actual make Uber work, he might learn a lot.
I would like to hear an argument for why Travis should remain as CEO.
In my mind there's simply been too many colossal failures as a leader, and while I don't consider this video in particular to be resignation worthy, I feel like it's just another datapoint in a growing dataset showing that he's not mature enough (at 40 no less) to handle his role. A straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. This letter seems sincere, but I was fairly disappointed that there have been no high-level firings or resignations (that I'm aware of) since the Fowler story broke. There's a deep credibility issue here, and the only way I can think of to fix it is if he leaves.
So why should he stay?
Edit: I'm wrong, Amit Singhal was asked to resign due to not disclosing an alleged sexual harassment offense at Google.
FTA: A little more than a week after Uber faced stinging accusations that it had ignored female employees’ complaints of sexual harassment, the company dismissed the head of its engineering efforts for failing to disclose a sexual harassment claim from his previous job.
Anecdotally, I never considered working for Apple, because I made a rule for myself that I'd never work for an asshole [unless I was literally starving].
The closest I ever came was Dwight from my first job, but he was not directly in my chain of command, and Pat, who was above him, was a really cool guy, except for that one time when he completely ignored me in the elevator on the way up to me finding out that a bunch of people were getting laid off that day. I figured it out after I heard about the first one, and started packing.
Steve jobs success is attributed to MANY things, part of his success is attributed to his personality for which he is known to be an asshole. If you read two biographies, you'd know.
> Being an ass hole is sometimes an effective form of leadership. This event may be a datapoint FOR keeping him as a leader.
"Being an asshole doesn't make you Steve Jobs." - Steve Jobs
Anyway, I'd suggest you consider what kind of leader you'd be willing to follow and then work backwards to define your concept of what good leadership may or may not be.
Steve Jobs may have existed in a very special circumstance that allowed him certain, um, behavioral privileges. That does not necessarily make every aspect of his character worth modeling.
Never said every aspect was worth modeling. I specifically used the term "effective leader." An effective leader is one who delivers results, not necessarily one that is admired.
An effective leader knows when to sacrifice pawns.
I saw th video and it wasn't that disrepectful if you were a normal person, but since he is the CEO of some mega corp, any slight temperament in a bad way will get you this PR
> It’s clear this video is a reflection of me—and
> the criticism we’ve received is a stark reminder that
> I must fundamentally change as a leader and grow up.
> This is the first time I’ve been willing to admit that
> I need leadership help and I intend to get it.
I'm no fan of Uber, these past few months lowered my opinion of them, and words are just words, but even still: this is a very unequivocal statement, and very difficult for someone to make so publicly, in the lime light. A good step, I think.
And, for what it's worth, the video conversation doesn't seem to bad. I think Travis has more on his mind than just the recent video, but it's safer to pin it on that one thing.
How difficult is it, really, when billions of your own dollars are on the line? We sure do have a tendency to infantilize the infinitely privileged.
Showing up to excel at a job where you have to navigate a minefield of sexual misconduct, hostile management and complicit HR is difficult.
For Travis, stepping aside to let a new leader build the culture of respect and accountability that he has abysmally failed to foster would actually be difficult.
The problem for Travis is now everyone will still believe this is just a reaction to getting bad press, because historically, they have just done that :)
Care to venture a guess that he wouldn't have apologized if the video wasn't made public? Much like the recent sexually abusive culture revelations. Travis continues to do the least he can actually do without doing anything that would actually hurt himself, as resigning and putting a true and tried professional
CEO in charge would - and let's be clear, he just made it clear that he never intends on stepping down.
Kalanick is also a leader in many communities: in Silicon Valley, in the business community, in the U.S., and worldwide.
Many respond to such issues with more bluster, with defensiveness, with pressure on the weaker party (who then retracts their claims, blames themselves, forgives the powerful person, etc.), with claims that such behavior is appropriate. Unfortunately this behavior is now seen in world leaders.
I think his note is responsible and appropriate. It's good to see.
(I'm no Uber fan; I don't use them due to their treatment of their drivers, and their disrespect for and undermining of local legal authority.)
I did not find this video problematic at all. If anything, I am impressed that Kalanick went for a conversation with the driver and on the same level. This could be a cultural difference, but I perceived the driver tone as aggressive and bullying, when Kalanick was eager but civil. I think Kalanick handled the confrontation (which is what this was) pretty well. This fits his style and my perception of him and while he may not be a person I would want to hang out with, this is why Uber is successful with Kalanick as a CEO.
Strange! I was perplexed that the apology is followed by a multi-racial image of gym rats, but then saw it was part of a "featured article" on Uber delivered influenza vaccine from last year.
Wow, from the title I thought this would be in regards to the multiple claims of sexual harassment and a hostile workplace. Have they acknowledged those situations yet?
With this video, he got triggered and left. I'm sure he's sorry but I don't see this as anywhere remotely close to the experiences several female engineers have shared. Hopefully his response to them is magnitudes more heartfelt, apologetic and transformative.
It's almost as if many of Uber's problems stem from mistreatment of lower-level employees.. not only on the corporate side, but also by customers against drivers.
If anything, he handled himself quite well - especially considering he probably just wanted to go home.
Can any of you say you would have handled a tense situation, with somebody abusing you any better?
It's all well and good to sit in your chair at home, comfortable - but how many of you had to deal with
The fact that he took the time to actually talk with the driver says something. At worst, he said b*llshit at the end, when he's clearly frustrated at what's becoming a rant. The driver obviously just needed to vent.
Reading the conversation they had in the thread here it seemed 50/50 to me. Watching the video completely changed my mind so if you're ITT and making a judgement based on a transcript take a look at the video. The driver is pretty calm and then seems to touch a nerve with Kalanick who gets loud and rude. Also as they're talking over each the transcripts here aren't accurate. The driver is actually quoting figures, not just complaining without evidence.
I wish Lyft would expand out of the US. If they did, they'd have my business immediately. As for Uber, with everything over the last few weeks they've lost it.
Seems to have gotten flagged off the front page fairly quickly.
(Actually a lot of stuff seems to do that lately - I find myself doing a daily check of the second page, just to see which big stories got flagged down before I saw them.)
> A senior executive at U.S. ride-sharing company Uber suggested that the company should spend a million dollars to hire a team of opposition researchers to "dig up dirt" on its critics in the media, BuzzFeed reported.
I suspect Uber's board was threatening to fire him. A person like Kalanick makes no apologies unless forced to do so by people even more powerful than him.
Nothing like a mea culpa dragged from you by the threat of impending lawsuits and a truly vicious turn of public opinion. I'm sure that he's utterly sincere, and this is in no way just an empty reaction to external and internal pressures.
I certainly do not intend to take Travis' side on anything, but sometimes genuine internal realizations are set off by external events (e.g. Spiderman and his Uncle getting shot, or in more seriousness, any number of reformed ex-cons). The problem is that it is largely impossible for an external observer to differentiate genuine internal realization and competency at public relations.
> ...it is largely impossible for an external observer to differentiate...
Not impossible at all. You do it by observing behavior before and after the supposed epiphany; time will reveal whether this particular leopard has truly managed to change his shorts.
It'll be interesting, in particular, to observe how he reacts when people directly challenge his fitness to discharge his role in ways he can't or won't ignore. I gather that in the past he's tended to react to such challenges precipitously and, where possible, punitively. If he's genuinely gained a new perspective on his behavior and its consequences, I would not expect that to continue.
Very fair. I meant to say that it is hard to tell in this moment, and agree with your assessment that behavior change over a future time interval (presumably with longer intervals resulting in better confidence) is a good test.
Unfortunately, I don't think any sort of epiphany will undo the damage that has been done.
Looking beyond the employees at Uber who have had to suffer through a toxic culture, I am troubled by the fact that the largest private company in the world has done some shady shit[1], and has largely been allowed to get away with it. I shudder to think of the founders out there who are thinking "Maybe it isn't so bad to be a dick. It seems to be a key component of Travis' success!".
The good news is that determining the truth of "internal realizations" is entirely irrelevant. Look at what people do, what they have done, not what they say.
On that account, Uber and Kalanick's track record is quite clear. We've gone through this apology ruse any number of times, and yet here we are again.
> We've gone through this apology ruse any number of times, and yet here we are again.
Not to this degree. He said he intends to get help. Companies don't change their culture without the CEO being involved in the process. A CEO saying this is a big deal.
I'm sorry, but its not. A "big deal" would have been not engaging in subprime lending that most likely put the driver in this desperate position, where he's recording the CEO in some last ditch effort to get the broader community to acknowledge his humanity. Or any of the other myriad atrocious things they've done to their customers and employees.
This is up against the wall PR BS. But the fact that people believe it explains a lot about how we got where we are with Uber.
> This is up against the wall PR BS. But the fact that people believe it explains a lot about how we got where we are with Uber.
Interesting. I'd say your unwillingness to accept someone who says they want help is what led us to having liars as CEOs. You want someone perfect, but, nobody is perfect.
This false binary you're pushing between Kalanick and perfect just doesn't hold water. There are plenty of CEOs whose values and track record I strongly disagree with, but don't hold in the same disregard(e.g. Zuckerberg).
When you're willing to send thugs to intimidate women who leak details about the prevalence of sexual assault at your company, it takes more than a blog post to climb back to credibility.
New companies don't develop a culture without the founder being a major influencer.
The idea that he has just now realized what was going on at "Boober" and is shocked, shocked! to learn about it and that it was bad, strains credulity well past the point of breaking.
This is him trying to say whatever he thinks will take the heat off for a while. Prediction: a year from now no substantive change whatsoever within Uber.
He doesn't sound shocked to me. The brevity of this post makes him sound pensive, like, oh my god, this is what I am, what have I done and how do I fix it?
You can't write much about that beyond what he did.
I'll make a counter prediction, that something does change. Nothing good comes from wishing for their failure.
Do you think that's because he has experienced a genuine change of heart and intends on doing all in his power to repair at least some of his myriad grievous failures in the exercise of his responsibilities?
Or do you think it's because, this time, he's actually in the video, and really has no options beyond a) try to seem sincerely humbled and intent on improving, or b) do literally anything else, and look like such an unbelievably transparent asshole that no one will ever again take even slightly seriously anything he or his company tries to say or do to defuse the ongoing PR shitstorm, to say nothing of actively worsening said shitstorm?
I mean, don't get me wrong, I love that you're trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. I just don't see where there's any meaningful doubt left. Either he knows what's been happening on his watch, and he's so negligent in the discharge of his responsibilities that he's failed to avert a catastrophe - or he doesn't know what's been happening on his watch, and he's so arrantly incompetent that he's failed to recognize the possibility that, left unchecked, behavior like that apparently endemic within Uber would guarantee a catastrophe sooner or later. You seem to see some kind of tertium quid here, and I'd be delighted to hear you expand on that.
> Do you think that's because he has experienced a genuine change of heart and intends on doing all in his power to repair at least some of his myriad grievous failures in the exercise of his responsibilities?
I think that's impossible for anyone to judge but himself.
He said he's going to seek help. That's (a) admission he did something wrong and (b) a proactive attempt to do something about it. That is precisely the style of leader who has been missing in the tech world, and politics, in my opinion.
If you don't see that then I can't change your mind. I just wonder what kind of perfect person you're dreaming of. Nobody is perfect. CEOs and politicians make mistakes. If you don't accept when people admit their mistakes, you'll only end up surrounding yourself with liars.
At this point, I can only support his statement, because there's no better reaction I could imagine than the one he decided.
BTW in case anybody thinks I'm some kind of shill, I've been pretty critical of Uber in the past. I think what they did in Austin and in the airport taxi strikes were awful. This statement is different and an action I support.
> Or do you think it's because, this time, he's actually in the video, and really has no options beyond a) try to seem sincerely humbled and intent on improving, or b) do literally anything else, and look like such an unbelievably transparent asshole that no one will ever again take even slightly seriously anything he or his company tries to say or do to defuse the ongoing PR shitstorm, to say nothing of actively worsening said shitstorm?
He could have deflected. We've seen plenty of people deflect worse. "locker room talk", etc. He could've said this was a private conversation, feels his privacy was invaded, etc. He didn't deflect. He accepted responsibility. I don't know what to say if you can't see that he had that option.
> or he doesn't know what's been happening on his watch, and he's so arrantly incompetent that he's failed to recognize the possibility that, left unchecked, behavior like that apparently endemic within Uber would guarantee a catastrophe sooner or later
His statement is an admission of incompetence. I don't see how you read it any other way unless you intend to just believe he lies about everything. If you insist on calling him a liar then he may just fall back on that. I don't think that would be good for Uber or the health of tech.
Support people when they seek help, whoever they are.
I pretty much covered that when I said that option A was what he did, and option B was anything else. Deflecting would be "anything else". It would have had the result I described.
Instead, by tossing off a couple short paragraphs of apparent and frankly rather self-congratulatory contrition, Kalanick's PR staff has managed to actually pick up a little credibility with, among others, you. That's an impressive accomplishment on their part, and it says a lot about your own lack of cynicism. I hope that doesn't end up screwing you over, because Silicon Valley, as anywhere else in the US that's rife with any kind of politics, can be cruel as hell to people who believe a lot of what they read.
> Support people when they seek help, whoever they are.
Woman beats her husband regularly for years. Eventually, he gets up the gumption to ditch her. When he tells her he's done, she bursts into tears and promises between sobs that she'll get help and do better. You buy that, too?
I don't live in SV because I didn't want to be in a bubble. I made that choice 15 years ago.
You seem to have it all figured out, including how Uber has brainwashed me and how the only imaginable scenarios are the ones you've written.
> Woman beats her husband regularly for years. Eventually, he gets up the gumption to ditch her. When he tells her he's done, she bursts into tears and promises between sobs that she'll get help and do better. You buy that, too?
Would I stay if I were the guy? Probably not. As a 3rd party, I'd certainly support the woman's admission of guilt and her effort to get help.
What kind of society would we be if we did not have services to support people who sought help?
Again, if you only seek perfection in CEOs, you're going to end up with better liars.
Well, again, I did define option A as this and option B as everything else. That wasn't by accident.
You're doing the same thing, too, but on the sly. Don't think I didn't see you palm the card:
> Again, if you only seek perfection in CEOs
Don't you think it's a bit of a stretch to characterize Kalanick as merely less than perfect? Not that you're wrong in so doing, exactly, but it does seem to take the principle of charity to a pathological extreme. You might have a point here, if we weren't discussing someone who has such a long record, both personally and on the collective part of the company for which he is ultimately responsible, of bad behavior. But we are.
> Don't you think it's a bit of a stretch to characterize Kalanick as merely less than perfect?
Not really, no. I doubt he is the worst CEO. The scandals you're referring to are all one-sided and haven't yet come before an arbiter. I think Uber is unpopular among their drivers and customers, and that's a pretty big problem, but, the CEO hasn't been convicted of anything.
In 2005, a video of this nature would have had to show a CEO striking the driver in order to get a public outcry. In 2017, one says "bullshit" to an employee and everyone freaks out. The pitchfork party is a bit over the top, in my opinion, and not productive.
If the local school bus driver turns out to be hooked on meth, and tearfully apologizes, says they're going to get help and get their life together, and means it... but won't stop driving the bus...
...would you feel the same way?
Support them getting help, respect that we're all human and frail and subject to fall, but don't let them keep their fucking job.
> Support them getting help, respect that we're all human and frail and subject to fall, but don't let them keep their fucking job.
Yup I agree. It'd be up to the board whether he remains as CEO or not.
I find his statement interesting and worthy of support because I've never had a boss who would admit when he made a major mistake, much less say he's seeking help for it.
I think the chances of Uber improving with a new CEO are small. It'll just be someone from the same culture. If Travis really intends to seek outside help then that may do something to change the culture there. I don't see any benefit from calling for Travis' head. It's not something you or I have much influence over.
Jim Collins' Good to Great convinced me that leadership consultants actually work.
The level of help he needs is beyond what he can get while serving as the CEO of Uber, and won't happen fast enough to matter to Uber's practices and culture. I support his desire to get help, after he's stepped down as CEO.
You don't have to be all that suspicious a person to think that a 40 year old man, who has demonstrated a repeated pattern of behavior over his life, in a situation where his job is on the line and a crisis manager is writing letters like this, should probably be assigned a prior greater than 0.95 of, well, lying.
> has no options beyond a) try to seem sincerely humbled and intent on improving, or b) do literally anything else
You know, a year ago I would have nodded along to your reply. But after seeing Trump choose B every time and repeatedly get away with it, I have to give Travis at least a modicum of credit for not going full Trump on this one. Not a lot of credit, but the decision was his.
Speaking of Trump, Jon Stewart pointed out something interesting recently - it's clear he's always lying, because no-one says 'believe me' when they're not lying. And Trump says it all the time.
I'm Australian, and after hearing Stewart say that, I thought back on my own experiences. The only time I can recall it being used in a somewhat truthful manner is in an angry parental warning "Believe me, you're going to suffer if you continue that way" - some sort of threat that the person in question can carry out. Every other time, it's been bluster with no substance.
I mean seriously, if you throw out the question "Okay, who dropped the production database?" and one of the staff said "It wasn't me. Believe me!", that's kind of instant suspicion right there. It's a really weird thing to say in the contexts that Trump says it in.
It's not really "taking responsibility" when it's virtually at gunpoint. Getting caught and subsequent flailing is not the same as "taking responsibility".
Even if there's a gun to your head you can still deny guilt.
Taking responsibility is simple. You just say you did something wrong and intend to seek help. Yet, so few people do this, because it is so hard to get those words out. That's exactly what this CEO did.
If you don't accept when people admit their mistakes, I'd argue you will only end up surrounding yourself with liars. Everyone makes mistakes.
I'm pretty cynical but the language here seems more genuine than what you see in most crisis management firm written non-apology apologies. It's an actual apology for one.
Who cares? He's not a naughty boy who "done wrong", he's a negligent CEO who didn't give a fuck until someone lit his entire world ablaze. Now he's "genuine".
Uber is a dumpster fire. Whenever I see a black Prius with the Uber sticker on the car cutting through traffic, tailgating cars, rolling right turns, and general assery... it reminds me that moral bankruptcy pervades the whole company culture.
Uber needs to stop playing this game. They need to be quite and let the courts/legal system deal with any issues. 99.99% of people don't give a shit about any of this and people have really really short memory.
Was there any word on whether Travis banned the driver after that encounter? I heard from employees that, in the early days, he had to be pried away from Twitter due to a propensity for perma-banning those who harshly criticized the company.
The true character of Kalanick is what you see in that video.
The apology doesn't mean much.
He is giving an impression of accountability when in reality that driver does not need an apology, he needs a viable business model that allows him to make a decent living.
You don't get to call something you said "profound." Others can find it profound, but you can't. It's like a comedian finding themselves funny. It's normally the audience that finds the comedian funny.
This looks to me as if Uber wants to say we are so sensitive to be fair and honest that even for such a minor thing CEO publicly apologizes. Imagine what we do with real problems like sexual harassment in the office.
Putting Travis to the side, nobody cares about the privacy of the two ladies in the video who have been involuntarily dragged into national news? (i assume nobody asked their consent to publish the video)
We've seen Uber discussed here and not just in context of this incident, but much worse stuff. It would be interesting to see what comes of that...
But taken it on its own, this is what apologies should be like and not the "I am so very sorry you all feel this way" type apologies which then usually also proceed to shift blame (circumstances, others, acts of God, bad mood, etc).
Now whether he actually feels this way or not or this is just good PR I am not sure. It remains to be seen.
No. "Uber Black" requires a luxury car and uber offers a 3 year lease program to help drivers purchase a vehicle. People signed up and then uber changed the rules so that they now have to accept "Uber x" fares too. Uber changed the rules and drivers are, correctly, pissed.
I ride with Uber drivers who complain to me about their earnings all the time and I just nod graciously and agree with them. (Even though I couldn't care less.) Maybe Uber should hire me as CEO, I'll even give them a discount.
The key question is how many people will stop using Uber based on this video. I for one will still continue using their services. I know Travis is an asshole and I hate Uber, but I hate cabs even more. And I can't depend just on Lyft every time
My understanding is that this was in an Uber Black. He's using the nicest version of his product and the one that pays out the most to the drivers. Sounds about like what I would expect him to do.
You can't attack another human being like this here, regardless of who they are or how you hate them. It degrades the community. Also, I'm sure you wouldn't want anyone to place this kind of judgment on you.
Because this type of comment is not welcome here, I'm going to kill this one now, as well as the other ones in which you've been venting. Please don't vent on HN.
It's not exactly like Travis is abusing the driver - if anything, it's the other way around. The driver had a bone to pick, and needed to vent - Travis obviously just wanted to go home, on what was obviously a night off.
The fact he actually took the time to try to listen to the driver, and explain things - that says something for him as a CEO. Sure, he gets frustrated at the end, but he certainly handled that level of abuse better than I would, and I suspect, better than many of the armchair commentators here.
In my experience the most effective agent for change is gratitude. Learning to be really thankful for the things that you value in your life, leads to giving them respect and leadership in your actions. I know that sounds waaaaay over the top but in my experience it has been the only way to get past emotional blocks and to change effectively.
But I've found that I don't have the mental fortitude to wait for them and see abuse meted out in the meantime. Deliberate assholery once, I'm going to be suspicious for a long, long time. Asshole twice, we're done.
Why don't you try pointing out where one of the numerous listed accomplishments[1] are incorrect, or only helpful to Bill Gates and his friends, rather than making unsubstantiated claims?
Then it should be easy to disprove, should it not?
If you bothered to actually read cited sources, you might find that there's criticism there as well. There is criticism at Wikipedia, backup up in some of the 153 cited sources.
Congratulations, by dismissing it out of hand without justification all you've done is remove any doubts as to whether you should be listened to on the topic at all. Hand-waving away massive amounts of information as propaganda because it's inconvenient to your view is not the action of a credible person.
> He's not though. He's turning worse, owning the media makes it easier to pretend being mr Nice Guy. Bill has his head so far stuck up the elite ass by now that he's helping killing off less fortunate parts of the global population for profit to invest in oil and weapons. http://www.wakingtimes.com/2017/02/23/bill-gates-admitted-eu...
Stop trolling.
The only reasons you would post that link is if you either didn't read it, didn't care how truthful it was, or are truly incapable of seeing how irrational the statements in it are. That article is employing a classic "I'll prolifically link to sources which don't back my claims at all or have no credibility" tactic, and you, by linking to it are using the fake news tactic of hiding bad sources by burying then a few layers deep. You didn't do a very good job at it though, as the source article you linked to is far too irrational and willing to use unrelated appeals to emotion in lieu of actual reasoning.
I've followed Bill around, bad trees don't give good fruit; just because the information comes from a non-bought source and contradicts what you imagined to be true; that doesn't make it fake or turn the comment into trolling.
I didn't call out the source because it contradicted me, I called it out for poorly backed sources, wild exaggerations, and unfounded assumptions.
The article starts with "It isn’t clear if Bill Gates was veiling a threat[1] to help depopulate[2] the planet by 30 million people, if he was simply scare-mongering...". The links go to articles about how Bill Gates dad was the head of eugenics group planned parenthood. That one needs to be backed up, or perhaps they just don't know what eugenics means? Nope, apparently the second link going into the history and details, they know exactly what eugenics is, they just have a hard time between disassociating the (somewhat fictionalized!) history of the group from the current actions. An organization's founding and past actions don't necessarily factor in to their current goals and actions. Tying Margaret Sanger to Nazi policies (which she was against) without backing it up when there's evidence to the contrary[3] is yet one more reason to discount this source.
"[Bill Gates] who has been kicked out of India[4]". The linked article is about how India is funding a key component of an immunization program that used to by funded by the Gates foundation, because there was growing public sentiment that the local government should be handling certain needs itself to protect from outside influence. It goes on to say "[Senior health ministry official] Swaminathan, however, stressed there were no instances of influence found and the decision was only in part prompted by a wider perception about foreign funding of the program."
And that's just the first paragraph.
The trolling accusation is actually the least damning possibility I could come up with as to why you posted that, because the alternative is that you believed everything in the article at face value, and seriously, what the fuck? Do you really think that an interlocking web so self-referencing propaganda blogs, which either never link to a reputable source or when they do wildly misinterpret (or misrepresent) that source are a substitute for critical thinking and actual news? You've linked to the blogosphere version of the Weekly World News, and have done the equivalent of trying explain to everyone the wonders of Bat Boy[5]. Hopefully you were as self aware about it as the Weekly World News was.
Poster probably won't change even in ten years, see research by Dweck. Fixed mindsets are a powerful negative thing. I salute you for believing in the right thing, a growth, malleable mindset supported by modern neuroscience and neuroplasticity!
I don't doubt I will change, but his or her comment was implying people can radically change and do a complete 180. In my experience in life so far, that almost never happens and I was asking for famous examples.
A rude person that becomes conscious of the way it comes across to act disrespectfully may still be an rude inside, but if he/she is in control of the disrespectful behavior then I count that as real change.
This kind of relativism is what it's all about. The ends don't justify the means because the ends are part of the means. But here we don't have that problem because to us only the end is visible. Or, the issue here is that you think the change is pretend where another considers it part of completion of a full change.
It's hard to quantify how "different of a person" you are. But if there's one thing reading psych literature taught me it's that traits like aggression and compassion (or lack thereof) are measurable and shockingly persistent in people over decades.
Circumstances, triggers, and incentives change wildly. The world is in flux. But people's attitudes generally are not.
Steve Jobs wasn't just an asshole, he was a phenomenally effective CEO. The problem with Kalanick isn't that he's brusque-- it's that his company isn't making money.
When Steve Jobs was 40, which Travis Kalanick is now, he had been kicked out of the first company he founded (Apple), and his second company (NeXT) was failing miserably. Pretty much everything that Steve is remembered fondly for -- his success at Apple and Pixar -- came after 1995.
You're changing the subject. You imply Travis isn't a good CEO because his company is losing money, whereas Steve Jobs was "was a phenomenally effective CEO." At the age of 40, he most certainly was not.
The core presumption of my argument is that Uber isn't really succeeding as a company in the way that Apple (or even NeXt) did at the same "age." There are a lot of articles out there making the case that Uber's current business is not sustainable, and I tend to agree.
If NeXt wasn't profitable, it was because their sales hadn't yet caught up with their fixed engineering costs. Uber's unprofitability isn't because they're waiting for sales to grow large enough to cover the cost of their engineering operation, it's because they're heavily subsidizing the unit costs of their business.
So its OK to act crappy now as long as you do something philanthropic later with the money you made while treating people badly? What is that called humanity arbitrage?
I don't think that basic human decency is something you should keep in a ledger to run credit and debits against.
I'm not sure. Unlike other millionaires and billionaires (lot of them donate money), Bill is actually working directly on the fields and giving almost all his time to improving Health and Education in the world. That's something big and I really appreciate him for that. Had he been 'only' giving money, I wouldn't be moved much.
I hate to digress from this topic, so I won't in depth, but this whole "good tree, bad tree" philosophy is central to protestant theology and has had an impact on Western culture, while it is often not true, in my opinion.
Another variant is the "bitter water, sweet water" parable from Jude.
tl;dr: Using the "good fruit" passage to condemn people as "bad people" is bad reading comprehension.
Those words were said by Jesus, so it's impossible to ignore, but it's also commonly misinterpreted.
In the place you cited, it's clearly talking about "false prophets", or people who incorrectly claim to speak God's truth. They look like spiritual people (Christians, even), but you can tell they're rotten by the "fruit" of their lives. And (continuing on to verse 20) some "Christian leaders" do not follow Christ and will absolutely be rejected by Jesus on their judgement day. That passage Jude is also about determining if someone follows Christ earnestly more than deciding they're hell-bound or something.
Also, if we back up in that chapter in Matthew a bit (1), we'll see Jesus clearly say you'll be judged by the yardstick we apply to others. If we condemn assholes, we'll be condemned as assholes. Which of us isn't an asshole sometimes?
That's not giving assholery a pass, though. It's just if we're really concerned about improving the world and fixing the behavior of others, we should address ourselves first so that we won't be ineffective in the task.
Anyway, I agree that the "know them by their fruit" passage is misapplied to judge someone as a rotten person. A rotten spiritual leader? Sure. But not deciding that someone hopeless case. You'll have to find another source of authority if you want to claim that.
I don't know enough about Kalanick to say whether he can change or not. My opinion is actually similar yours, a lot has to will with will. Some people find it very difficult to change even if they want to, but if someone doesn't want to, the chances of them changes drops dramatically.
The problem with SV's propensity for turning twenty-somethings into CXOs is that they are fundamentally NOT mature. Studies have shown that our brains aren't fully mature until we're 25 but it seems to take a long time for the feeling of entitlement you garner before that age to wear off after you've reached the quarter-century mark.
I actually do hope he's sincere - I hope he's really going to get help - and I specifically hope that counseling leads him to eliminate the misogyny that we've all read about the last couple days. I'm not holding my breath that any of this will happen. After all, how would it move the valuation forward? Unfortunately I think that the most likely scenario is that he'll become more of a detriment to the company and the investors will "ease him out".
Perhaps the experience of having one of his contractor-chumps call him out on his worker-hostile corporate policy changes while working will mature him a bit more.
The rest of us have to make do with mundane stuff like the births of our children, not making rent/mortgage on the first of the month, having our water/power/gas shut off, getting laid off, drinking too much tequila, catching a flat tire at 1 AM during a downpour, losing the championship match, putting our favorite dog or cat down, burying our parents, getting married, experiencing a perfect day miles from any stranger out in the wilderness, finishing the marathon run, getting stopped by the cops for a BS pretext reason, or writing a horrendously long run-on sentence.
