Uber’s new boss could change your mind
I STOPPED riding Uber long ago and switched to its rival Lyft. Perhaps you did, too. If you’re in Southeast Asia, you’re probably giving your business to Grab instead.
To try to win us back, Uber’s new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi recently met me in his office - and for an Uber ride around San Francisco.
He didn’t sell me on Uber’s market dominance or its costconscious “express pool” option. He didn’t bring up its flying cars (though they have new plans for that, too). He spoke with baited breath about . . . safety.
Uber’s previous leader, cofounder Travis Kalanick, had demonstrated the judgment of a Bond villain. Under his watch, Uber made headlines for creepy drivers, stealing secrets and sexual harassment.
His motto was “always be hustlin’.” Then last year, after # DeleteUber went viral, Uber ousted Kalanick. Eight months ago, it replaced him with Khosrowshahi, the well-liked CEO of Expedia.
Uber is now run by your dad. Climbing into our black SUV Uber, 48-year- old Khosrowshahi - actually a father of four - made a point of buckling up. Interviewing for the CEO job, he recalled, an Uber board member asked him what his passenger rating was. It was 4.73 stars out of five. “The board was not happy with that rating,” he said. “I wasn’t wearing seat belts in the back and I didn’t even know that I was making the driver feel unsafe.”
Khosrowshahi comes across as an uncommonly cautious guy for a start-up CEO, but don’t let that fool you: He’s brought significant, sometimes painful changes to Uber. He’s just going about it like a grownup. The company, he said, has a trust problem - that why it shed roughly 10 points of US market share in 2017 and began having difficulty recruiting. So shortly after he joined, Khosrowshahi made Uber’s motto, “we do the right thing, period.”
“And if we keep doing the right thing, period, by our employees, by our riders, by our driver partners, I think that we will start to turn,” he said.
Silicon Valley could use a lot more discussion of ethics, even if Uber is the last start-up I’d have thought would blaze that path.
But for Uber to get us to redownload an app we’ve already deleted, it’s going to have to offer something we can’t get from Lyft or a taxi.
“It fundamentally comes with a better product and a better service,” Khosrowshahi said, sitting in Kalanick’s old glass- enclosed War Room, now renamed the Peace Room.
Uber, he said, sweats details of the ride- sharing experience that produce grumbles, including when an estimated time of arrival is way off.
His problem is that Uber and Lyft feel interchangeable, at least in large cities. Aside from different reputations, they mimic each other on passenger app features: Lyft pays carbon offsets for its rides. Uber is folding into its app bike shares and local public transit options. ( Your move, Lyft.)
Khosrowshahi’s road to redemption lies in safety. “If you can tell a friend Uber’s the safest mobility platform around, can you beat that as a reason?” Khosrowshahi said.
“And by the way, it’s price competitive and the ETAs are fine and the cars are good. But it’s safer! Short term, it’s costing us and I don’t think our message is quite getting out there.
Long term, if we’re the safety leader I think you’re going to win.”
And if we keep doing the right thing, period, by our employees, by our riders, by our driver partners, I think that we will start to turn. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO