Uber now a self-driving company

The following is an excerpt from an editorial in the Guardian.

The resignation of Uber’s chief executive Travis Kalanick is a victory for everyone who cares about the way businesses are run, about the duty of corporations to obey the law and of employers to respect and treat fairly their employees. It is a triumph for years of brave and determined investigation by a group of journalists who never stopped exposing the ride-hiring platform’s corporate culture. And it is vindication for the Uber software engineer, Susan Fowler, who precipitated the final crisis when she described her experience of sexual harassment. But it is not the end either of a feeble form of corporate governance, nor of the employment model on which Uber and many other tech businesses depend.

Kalanick embodied the extreme autocracy that sometimes appears to be the hallmark of tech businesses. Although the chief executive’s personal behaviour finally energized an investors’ revolt and forced his decision to turn a leave of absence into resignation, it is not axiomatic that the company’s unbridled appetite for the fight has been dulled in any way. It does nothing to change two hard facts: first, that Uber assumes that in the medium term, its huge investment in self-driving cars will make drivers redundant altogether; second, that tech giants in the U.S. are funded by investors so hungry for a piece of the action, they are prepared to take an economic risk without economic control.

One early win for consumer pressure was the success of a #deleteUber campaign in protest at the company’s top-level backing for President Trump. Then, after Susan Fowler’s allegations, the former Attorney General Eric Holder was asked to report on corporate culture. His findings, published earlier this month, made it almost impossible for the chief executive to stay, although he will remain on the board. Uber now lacks an entire top level of management. As one joker had it, it’s a self-driving company.