Uber’s bad boys’ own goal

The $69bn ride-hailing service is having a tough time of it — much of its own making, it would seem

The only company experiencing more bad press than Eskom or anything related to the Guptas is ride-hailing operation Uber. The world’s most valuable start-up, at Us$69bn, has suffered a slew of disastrous revelations about its executives’ conduct, corporate culture — including sexual harassment allegations — and accusations of intellectual property theft for its autonomous car project. Then there are reports of bad behaviour by CEO Travis Kalanick, who announced last week that he would take an openended leave of absence.

It has evolved into a perfect storm for Uber. In February former engineer Susan Fowler made allegations in a blog post of having experienced sexual harassment and discrimination.

Even attempts to mitigate sexism have devolved into scandal. Last week, as it was announced that another woman would join Arianna Huffington on Uber’s board, a male board member made a sexist comment and himself resigned.

The list of own goals is long and astounding. They include that Uber found a way to keep law enforcement officials from getting an Uber ride, tested self-driving cars in San Francisco without permission and lied about the car jumping a red traffic light — originally blaming human error until it was discovered the only error was that the human driver did not take control of the vehicle when the infraction was clearly going to happen.

Then there was the Uber executive who, it is claimed, illegally acquired the medical report of a woman who was raped by an Uber driver in India, and shared it with executives, including Kalanick, seemingly in an effort to discredit her.

Kalanick stood down after a report into the company’s chauvinistic “tech bro” culture was released last week; it was preempted by 20 people being fired for sexual harassment.

One of the recommendations is to get rid of Uber’s “always be hustlin’ ” motto.

Kalanick has been his own worst enemy, having been caught on camera berating an Uber driver and later for going to a South Korean escort bar.

In a way, Uber is a victim of its own success. Despite revenues of $6.5bn last year, it also had losses of $2.8bn. Uber, which operates in more than 70 countries, has had to grow rapidly and take on stiff competition.

It has revolutionised how we get around as it has commoditised transport and started killing off the metered taxi industry. But, by calling itself a ride-hailing company and its drivers “partners”, it has argued it is not an employer and therefore doesn’t need to provide health care and other benefits. This is an argument it is never going to win, and multiple law suits in the US are beginning to unravel that.

Perhaps the most revealing — and damaging — of the blunders was from Kalanick himself, in that angry encounter with an Uber driver, when he ranted that people “blame everything in their life on someone else”. The irony is outstanding.

Even attempts to mitigate against sexism have devolved into scandal