Uber CEO apologizes for berating driver
Amid rocky patch for firm, he says he needs to ‘ grow up’
Uber Chief Executive Travis Kalanick has apologized, saying he admits he needs “leadership help” after a video showed him berating one of the company’s drivers.
The dashcam video obtained by Bloomberg News and released Tuesday shows Kalanick arguing with driver Fawzi Kamel over Uber’s fares, which Kamel complained were too low.
“I lost $97,000 because of you,” Kamel tells him. “I’m bankrupt because of you.”
Toward the end of their exchange, Kalanick loses his temper. “You know what? Some people don’t like to take responsibility for their own ... ” he says, using a vulgarity. “They blame everything in their life on somebody else. Good luck!”
Kalanick issued an apology to all Uber em- ployees Tuesday evening.
“To say that I am ashamed is an extreme understatement,” he wrote. “It’s clear this video is a reflection of me. ... I must f undamentally 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.”
Kalanick didn’t specify what kind of help he would get or when, but Karl Brauer, executive publisher of auto industry guide Kelley Blue Book, said leadership training generally teaches people to think of others as individuals and to respect their points of view.
Brauer said such training is always valuable but may be particularly so for many Silicon Valley leaders, who are relatively young for the number of employees, amount of revenue and size of the companies they manage.
Kalanick, who is 40, probably sought to do public damage control in announcing that he would seek out such training, Brauer said. But watching his own behavior on camera may have forced him to come to a personal reckoning.
“There’s no getting around or avoiding what you’ve done,” Brauer said.
The video of Kalanick’s encounter with Kamel, which reportedly took place in early February, is the latest in a string of negative publicity for the San Francisco ride-hailing giant.
Uber’s senior vice president of engineering reportedly was asked to resign Monday, just five weeks after Uber announced his hiring.
Kalanick asked Amit Singhal to leave after learning that Singhal had failed to disclose there was a sexual harassment claim against him at his previous job at Google, tech news website Recode reported. Singhal said in a statement that he did not condone nor had he ever committed harassment and that the decision to leave Google was his own.
Waymo — a self-driving car project owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. — sued Uber last week, alleging theft of trade secrets. That’s a big deal, since Uber has pegged its future to selfdriving vehicles.
The Waymo suit alleges that former Waymo employee Anthony Levandowski downloaded more than 14,000 highly confidential and proprietary files shortly before his resignation in January 2016.
He went on to found self-driving truck startup Otto, which was acquired by Uber in August for $680 million. Levandowski now heads Uber’s self-driving car division.
Waymo alleges Otto is using its proprietary technology. In addition to punitive damages, Waymo is expected to soon seek a preliminary injunction against Uber to stop the company from continuing development on self-driving cars.
Uber said it had “reviewed Waymo’s claims and determined them to be a baseless attempt to slow down a competitor, and we look forward to vigorously defending against them in court. In the meantime, we will continue our hard work to bring self-driving benefits to the world.”