Uber wields a new weapon in its fight with London authorities: diplomacy
LONDON — In past skirmishes with local regulators, Uber’s playbook under co-founder and now-ousted CEO Travis Kalanick was simple: fight.
Now, as new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi deals with a rebuke from London, the playbook gets another page: fight, but offer some diplomatic humility.
On Friday, just hours after Greater London’s transport authorities decided not to renew Uber’s operating license, citing a lack of corporate responsibility, Uber wound up for its first punch. Almost reflexively, it followed the familiar tactic of recruiting its mass rider base for help, starting an online petition drive to pressure regulators that has more than 770,000 signatures. It also promised appeals and defiantly accused regulators of caving in to regular taxi interests.
Then, Khosrowshahi took to Twitter.
“Dear London: We r far from perfect,” he wrote. “Pls work w/us to make things right.”
It remains to be seen which strategy will work best, and Uber runs the risk of antagonizing London by sending the mixed messages. But deviating from Kalanick’s approach is exactly the right tactic for Khosrowshahi, says Jan Dawson, analyst for Jackdaw Research in California. Conciliation, he says, likely will require concessions, but also will bring peace in a market with 40,000 drivers and 3.5 million riders — over 5 percent of Uber’s ridership base of 65 million globally.
“The fact that Uber is so mature and broadly used in London means it’s very unlikely that it will be permanently banned there — the political fallout would just be too great,” Dawson said.