I saw this on my Facebook feed, written by Diego Berdakin who I don't know at all, but we have mutual connections. Definitely worth a read as he has innumerable valid points. ----- Watching all of Silicon Valley turn its attention to bashing the team at Uber has been quite a sight to behold. At the risk of sounding insane, why don’t we take a moment and appreciate some of the things this team has accomplished? Job Creation. In an era of structural unemployment, when an increasingly large percentage of the US population finds itself without the necessary skills and background to participate in the transition to a “knowledge economy,” Uber has created employment opportunities for over 1,000,000 people. In fact, only the American and Chinese militaries have generated more jobs—and Uber will eventually surpass them both. The Uber team has accomplished this feat not by soliciting huge government subsidies but instead through maniacal execution. It was no easy task to turn a person with free time and a car sitting in their driveway into commoditized unit of transport that can be married up synchronously to demand. This endeavor required Uber to onboard those million drivers, and tens of millions of customers, and support them all. Uber built mapping, routing, analytics, business intelligence, and world-class software. A team of people with immense passion flew around the world and sold their dream to investors, convincing them to front billions to help Uber achieve these audacious goals. Thanks to Uber’s efforts, almost anyone living in a major metropolitan area with the desire to work and access to a car can now make a living – self-employed, boss-free and with flexibility to set their own schedule. We often hear people on the political right complain about the “welfare state” without offering concrete solutions to the problem of structural unemployment. Travis, Garrett, Ryan, Emil, and the rest of the Uber team have created the most scalable solution to that dilemma to date, affording over a million people around the world a chance to earn an income. Many of those million didn’t quit their jobs to drive for Uber…they were simply left behind by our society. Uber has offered so many of these people a chance to catch back up. When you see the very large revenue numbers reported at Uber you should appreciate that a multiple of that number ends up in the hands of the drivers. Fighting for the Consumer. Taxi companies have been lining the pockets of corrupt politicians for generations. Uber has now done what no policymaker was willing to: take on the taxi monopoly and provide a better solution. The result is an incredible drop in price and improvement in service that has proven amazing for consumers—indeed Uber’s disruption of the marketplace is poised to forever change transportation as much as anything since the invention of the car. In Los Angeles, the cost of an Uber to a restaurant is often as inexpensive as valet. For many people who drive less than 10,000 miles a year using Uber regularly in lieu of owning a car is actually more cost-efficient when you factor in gas, cost of car ownership and maintenance. As a result, the number of people for whom Uber replaces rather than supplements personal car ownership will grow exponentially in the future. For those who rely on trains, subways, or buses for their commute, they now finally have in Uber Pool a highly reliable alternative when public transportation breaks down. In fact, as the number of riders increases to 3+ in a car, it’s likely that Uber will again provide an unsubsidized alternative to public transportation that won’t require 100 Billion + in new infrastructure updates as we have projected it will in Los Angeles. To get a sense for how economically inefficient the markets were as a result of corrupt regulators you need only look at the prices of medallions in markets like New York whose peak prices in 2013 were $1m – the carrying cost alone could double or triple the cost of operating a cab which was obviously being passed along to consumers. All of the recent media coverage has pointed out how Uber’s culture of “fighting” has led to bad corporate culture. I have not read an article in the past two weeks that describes how many battles they fought and won across the country ending taxi-monopoly that structurally disadvantaged consumers and lined the pockets of politicians and taxi owners not employees. In my opinion it wouldn’t have been possible to achieve what Uber has had there not been a culture of “Principled Confrontation” – as was stated in the recently scrapped company cultural values. Access. We lose sight of the fact that in impoverished areas, transportation options are far more limited than in affluent enclaves. New York City, for instance, had been plagued by dangerous and unregulated gypsy cabs that serviced disadvantaged areas where taxi cabs would choose to not visit – often charging unfair premiums and offering little safety. Uber’s guarantee of quality drivers (anyone under 4.5 stars is removed from platform), ride quality (cars are regularly inspected), and safe driving (reviewed every trip by passengers) and mandatory insurance now provide a better choice for New Yorkers regardless of what neighborhood they can afford to live in. When tragedy strikes and uber’s algorithms automatically kick in “surge pricing” to incentivize drivers to an area. While this is effective in getting drivers when they are needed the most to move people to safety, it is usually viewed by the media as being “predatory.” In response Uber has stopped collecting any revenue personally from these events but still the negative press continues. Not focusing on the alternative, which is a person in distress without reliable transport options, we have chosen again to villainize this company and its executives. Are we starting to see a theme here?? Benefits to Society. In an era when climate change poses a very real threat to our planet, Uber is effecting huge environmental gains. Research tells us that people are more likely to take public transportation when leaving home if they know that they can use Uber for a ride back. Uber also incentivizes its drivers to use newer and hybrid cars, which tend to be more fuel-efficient than older vehicles. What’s more, Uber has made carpooling on a mass scale possible and popular for the first time in the history of the automobile. The resulting decline in personal car ownership means that many parking lots can be converted to green spaces. Currently, there are three parking spaces for every one car in America. Imagine if two-thirds of parking lots were turned into public parks? An increase in carpooling also means far fewer traffic jams, making transportation not only more environmentally friendly but time efficient. And every time someone who has been drinking takes Uber instead of getting behind the wheel, the risk of an accident substantially decreases. Uber teamed with Mothers Against Drunk Driving to study the impact of its service. In Seattle, the introduction of Uber into the marketplace corresponded to a significant drop in DUIs. The evidence suggests that this “Uber effect” is taking place in cities across the country. Did we mention last year Uber teamed with the US Military to become the largest employer of veterans who couldn’t otherwise get jobs coming back from serving their country? But who wants to talk about the good this company is doing? Misplaced Media Firestorm. I would have hoped that the media would balance its coverage of Uber with commentary on its strengths as a business and its manifold contributions to society. Instead, the media sensationalizes every negative in an egregious exercise in one-dimensional groupthink. A perfect example of the media bias was its reportage of Travis’ tape recording in the back of an Uber car – where he had an expectation of privacy (the legality of releasing those tapes escapes me). Yet the story wasn’t about the illegal filming. Nor did the coverage discuss how Travis (in defending Uber) was 100% correct that it had not decreased the price of Uber Black in the area. The media instead fixated on how Travis decided to tell the driver that he should be accountable for his actions instead of blaming the company –after the driver accused Travis personally of ruining his life. In this one story we can find so much that is telling about the media today. I didn’t find one reporter investigating if the facts as alleged by the driver were true or not (they were not). I didn’t read one news article discussing if the release of these tapes (and the taping itself) lay outside the boundaries of the law, yet such a violation of privacy is no different than hacking someone’s phone or email. The media rendered a summary judgment that Travis is a piñata that they can whack indiscriminately – whether he deserves it or not. Hypocrisy in the Valley. The most unconscionable aspect of this firestorm is that Silicon Valley singles out Uber as a unique offender when nearly every company in the Valley faces issues around gender. That Travis made a far bolder attempt than other CEOs to reform Uber makes the media’s demonization of him that much more deplorable. Uber went open kimono. The Uber team recognized that there was an issue, and they resolved to quickly and dramatically reform the company culture. They didn’t just wait out the media cycle. Instead, Travis tapped none other than the former Attorney General, Eric Holder, to lead an investigation. In short, Travis did the right thing despite the fact that it would bring these issues only further into the spotlight. What other company in the Valley has footed the bill for an independent third party reporting directly to someone of Ariana Huffington’s reputation to probe claims of this nature? So much criticism of Uber comes from the investor class within Silicon Valley, a hotbed of the very gender inequities that it so stridently critiques. How many Uber VCs who can count their female partners on one hand were rushing to blame Travis for a lack of gender parity at Uber? What do the conversations in these boys clubs look like? Why does the one company that takes such pains to directly take on its gender issues get maligned? At what point will this barrage of criticism buckle under the weight of its own hypocrisy? I would love to see Google let Eric Holder into their company and give him a similar level of access. Anyone who knows the inside baseball of this and many other Silicon Valley companies knows this is a Silicon Valley problem not an Uber problem. And as far as I can tell the only person who took real action to get to “ground truth” on the issue was just let go from their job. The Vision and Focus Uber’s meteoric rise was no accident. Travis’ maniacal fixation on transforming the transportation industry is what made Uber’s dominance possible. Another entrepreneur would have the found the taxi monopoly too much of a behemoth, the municipal regulations too onerous, the sheer scale of the endeavor too vast. But Travis’ resilience and resourcefulness allowed him to power through these obstacles. He reshaped not just his industry but our entire society in ways that will outlive us all. Travis had trained that same intense focus on rectifying whatever problems existed at the company (and, let us not forget, all companies of Uber’s size have their own set of problems). Tossing Travis aside as an all-too-convenient scapegoat deprives Uber of the very person whose inexhaustible energy and vision made Uber one of the iconic companies of the twenty-first century. Anyways it’s been a long weekend and I decided to go on a bit of a rant. I just watched the second SpaceX launch of the weekend and in marveling at how much they have accomplished I couldn’t help but wonder how much Uber and the progress they are making to improving society has been set back this week. F*CK. -diego
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tl;dr version?
Very interesting. As I understand it Travis is no longer CEO but is still a major player on the board, so that may mean he can focus more on what he's good at (pushing ideas forward) rather than what he's clearly not good at (running everything at a big Company). All the changes may ultimately make Uber stronger.
The level of media attention on Uber was out of proportion. I honestly wonder if taxi companies help feed this in some way. Some stuff was screwed up. But I'd love a holder report on amazon, Facebook, google 8 years after they were founded. It would be ugly as well.
Lyft has some powerful investors that are no doubt stirring the pot.
I doubt it is as ugly as Uber. Media will love to find any dirty culture going on in those big companies. Uber was a gold mine because it has far far more gold per area than these companies. Amazon is famous for similarly reasons as Uber. Employee jump off the building and PIP are already wide spread story. All the attention given to Amazon was wiped out by Uber since it has much more news despite 1/10th of size of Amazon. Amazon is famous for being a nasty work place. Uber cannot have these many spotlights without having serious issues. Every company has dirty side but degree of that is much much smaller than Uber. Otherwise, they would have imploded far before.
Here's a thing: everyone hates Uber, ESPECIALLY the media. Which means people will purposely ignore the good things and focus on the bad things. It's human nature. Once you already form opinions about something, it's really really hard to change them. Why? Because it requires ALOT of effort.
You know what else is a lot of effort mature leadership to fix the culture. Get to work. We'll see you on the TIME cover with the headline "The comeback of Uber" in due time. So... We're waiting... stop whining and go fix it.
Ok, name one thing that is currently wrong about Uber's culture. Name one person in management that needs to be replaced.
Reminds me on Microsoft early 2000s too.
We're defensive bc the media makes sweeping judgements that just aren't true and easily persuade people that work in places like Seattle at companies like Microsoft that everything they say is true. But really you have zero idea what it's like on the inside.
LOL "creating jobs for 1M ppl" is even more euphemistic than "gig economy"
What kind of shit is he smoking. Nothing about uber implies it's a better business model.
Travis deserves all the credit helping build what Uber has done for society, but this doesn't mean he should take all the blame for what went wrong. Seems like Diego is not someone I would want to work for either.
That's interesting. Can you say why you wouldn't want to work for him from one informative post? Just curious what you took from that that is negative.
He makes it out that TK doesn't deserve what came to him and blames the media for TK's down fall. He is correct, that it's hypocritical since sexual harassment is rampant in tech. TK just made too many mistakes that is also jeopardizing the livelihood of the company he once built.