This was published 6 years ago
'Made our share of mistakes': What Uber's CEO is doing to change the startup's toxic culture for women
By Cara Waters
Uber's chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi says the tech giant has "made our share of mistakes" and needs to get better.
Speaking at Salesforce's Dreamforce conference in San Francisco on Friday Mr Khosrowshahi was questioned by Salesforce's founder and chief executive Marc Benioff on his role as a "saviour CEO".
Uber's chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi. Credit: Anthony Johnson
Mr Khosrowshahi was chief executive at travel business Expedia when he was recruited for Uber's top job after Uber's founder Travis Kalanick was asked to step down by investors.
"You are a saviour CEO you have come in to save this company and you are," Benioff said.
Uber's 'toxic' culture
In his first year in the job Khosrowshahi has had to address a workplace culture at Uber rife with sexual harassment and discrimination along with broader gender issues at the startup.
Uber's chief executive says its driver partners are "have nots".
"One of the major issues that appeared was that the company had a toxic culture for women and equality was not a priority and it was clear that gender equality was not a priority," Benioff said. "Is equality important and is gender equality and all aspects of equality?"
Khosrowshahi said he is trying to build Uber culturally into a company to truly be proud of.
"Not only in our external view of the world but internally, that is going to be number one job for me internally," he said. "I think we have done a really good job externally saying we are doing a great thing. The work on culture internally is really, really hard."
Khosrowshahi said Uber still had work to do.
"I don't think I've done quite enough internally looking at culture and diversity at all aspects of the company, at all levels of the company," he said. "It's one thing to say them and it's another thing to make sure it is infused in every single thing you do as a company."
Drivers are 'have nots'
Uber's insistence in Australia that its drivers are contractors rather than casual employees continues to be challenged and Khosrowshahi said the status of Uber's drivers is "a delicate issue".
"They are entrepreneurs, they are really micro entrepreneurs running a business that is using the platform," he said. "I think we haven't treated them as driver partners in the past."
Khosrowshahi said Uber has introduced features requested by drivers including tipping (in the United States) and paid wait times.
Dara Khosrowshahi (left) is interviewed by Salesforce founder Marc Benioff (right) at Dreamforce in San Francisco. Credit: Jakub Mosur
"This is not necessarily a full time job but you can make it one if you want to," he said. "In most societies in the world there are haves, which are full time employees, and there are have nots which are not," he said.
"The laws of our land make it so the more you are offering our driver partners in terms of healthcare etc they start looking more like full time workers which then creates a bunch of overhead, a much more expensive product which then reduces demand for the product."
However Khosrowshahi said Uber "really has to think" about benefits for "temporary workers".
Uber offers some European drivers parental leave benefits and some medical and sick leave compensation.
"I would like to come up with a system where we can provide benefits for driver partners if it is something that can work in the ecosystem," he said. "Right now it is delicate going."
Electric cars, scooters and ebikes
While there are growing numbers of electric cars on the roads Khosrowshahi said Uber would only "encourage" the use of the technology.
"We are absolutely looking at programs to help driver partners, for example London is an area we are looking at, maybe finance hybrid or electric vehicles to move in that direction," he said. "Just as importantly the other areas we are looking at and acting on is we want people to share cars."
Khosrowshahi said Uber was investing heavily in its Uber Pool program where Uber passengers share cars and is also moving into ebikes and scooters with Uber partnering with Jump Bikes in San Francisco.
"We are right at beginning of a revolution as it results in individual transportation," he said "As a company we have to compete with ourselves."
New values
Khosrowshahi told the Dreamforce audience he had a new vision for Uber and a new set of values.
"For us the ability to bring opportunity to millions of people and mobility is the opportunity to go beyond cars but really think of mobility as a service," he said. "There is a magic about this company we need to try to bring back.
Khosrowshahi said safety is Uber's number one priority this year, introducing technology such as telematics to let Uber drivers know that they are driving too fast and remind them that driving too fast hurts their ratings or to "reach out" to Uber drivers who were taking too long to complete a route.
Tech lash
As Silicon Valley faces a growing "tech lash" Khosrowshahi said if he was to give founder Kalanick a message it would be "listen to what you don't want to hear."
"When you succeed and Travis [Kalanick] was succeeding and succeeding, and I’m not saying this is the case, the trap is stopping to listen."
"We have made our share of mistakes but that’s ok as long as you face those mistakes and you don't try to hide and you learn and you get better."
Since Khosrowshahi joined Uber the startup reported a $US891 million loss for the second quarter in late August, an improvement on the $US1 billion loss it made for the same period a year earlier.
Despite the turmoil Uber's business continues to grow with gross bookings, the total value of the fares drivers bring in, growing by 55 per cent to $US11.3 billion.
The reporter attended Dreamforce in San Francisco as a guest of Salesforce.