The media has reported on some fairly outrageous cultural excesses. Question -- did you experience these when Kalanick was there? Since Dara showed up, anything specific you can say about what was done and whether it "feels different" and how?
In some places the CEO is a distant figurehead, and whatever his or her values, the day-to-day experience is more dominated by your local crew of < 20 people. In other places, culture is truly pervasive. I feel like the reporting is saying that culture is pervasive at Uber, but it would be interesting to hear an inside perspective.
Both? I experienced nothing anywhere close to the egregiousness mentioned in the media. But TKs ruthlessness, long work hours ethics was always omnipresent. It wasn’t so much top down mandated to work hard but the culture was there. Paradoxically managers at times would have to push the employees to take breaks, vacations etc. I personally relished that environment but understandable how those would other commitments would find it hard. Our compensation structure also encouraged working hard (and all the stress, burnouts and disappointments that stemmed from it) so even if an employee had all the freedom to leave work at 5 pm and do other things, unless you were ultra-efficient in the 8-9 hours at work (which some of the best engineers I worked with were), there was always a risk of missed incentives. In short, it felt like a great company for those who could manage these trade offs. For all others, it was stressful.
Uber is an unprofitable, non-public company with incredibly fierce competition that is expected to face enormous changes do to technological developments.
Why in the world would you think it needs a peacetime CEO?
Peacetime doesn’t necessarily mean not being competitive. Uber is at a stage where it doesn’t need to bend the rules anymore. Read up on how Dara handled the Brazil legislation for example. Rather than fighting any regulation as TK may have, he effectively worked with the government to legalize and legitimize Uber. I expect him to do the same in London.
Your definition of peacetime/wartime does not conform to industry norms.
Peacetime in business means those times when a company has a large advantage vs. the competition in its core market, and its market is growing. In times of peace, the company can focus on expanding the market and reinforcing the company’s strengths.
In wartime, a company is fending off an imminent existential threat. Such a threat can come from a wide range of sources including competition, dramatic macro economic change, market change, supply chain change, and so forth. The great wartime CEO Andy Grove marvelously describes the forces that can take a company from peacetime to wartime in his book Only The Paranoid Survive.
Actually I agree with them here, it's much more peaceful now than before. When we were trying to break into China and facing against Didi that really seemed like we were at war. Like we would start a growth campaign and merely hours after we launch, Didi would launch the exact same campaign. Even after the merger I'm not sure if this is true but we found 16 employees who were on both Ubers and Didi's payroll.
FF is great. She is leading online courses for all Uber employees about business strategy and culture from real Harvard professors. It’s very educational for everyone.
It’s a very unique opportunity for us because she is an expert on what makes companies great. Not just culturally but business strategy too. Having her as a key member of the team is an advantage that t companies don’t have because whereas other people are figuring things out on their own, she actually studied it and taught it.
I hope she stays a long time to help mold this company into one of the greatest companies.
