Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has made it clear he’s not afraid to say when his company sucks at something.
That habit was on full display this week at an event hosted by GE in Manhattan, where the rideshare leader delved into a stint as an undercover Uber driver and what it taught him about the company’s less-than-stellar driver app, as well as his ongoing attempts at transforming the company from its hard-charging past.
Khosrowshahi’s comments came after Uber turned its first profit in its 14-year history last month. That milestone was thanks in part to a retrenchment in which the company jettisoned nonessential businesses like its autonomous-vehicle unit and e-bike manufacturing amid a pandemic-era cratering of its business.
“We lost 85% of our volume [during the first months of the pandemic]. And in hindsight, it shouldn’t have been Covid that caused us as a company to really focus on what we are great at,” Khosrowshahi said at the event. “Pre-Covid, we were engaged in tons of activities—building autonomous technology, manufacturing bikes and scooters, building flying cars, etc., that just weren’t core to what Uber does, and frankly, we sucked at.”
Undercover boss: That wasn’t the only thing that Khosrowshahi said Uber sucked at during the talk. The exec also delved into the times he spent moonlighting as an e-bike food deliverer and as a driver in an effort to get to better know each experience.
Khosrowshahi said the experience of ferrying people around San Francisco under an alias taught him that the company had focused too much on the consumer-side products for its ride-hailing and UberEats apps and not enough on the products used by drivers and delivery people. He then held a company all-hands meeting and gave a presentation titled “Why We Suck,” Khosrowshahi said.
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“It wasn’t a pleasant all-hands with the company, but it set a tone,” Khosrowshahi said. “And we set that expectation. We started celebrating employees going out there delivering, employees driving, it is a point of pride for employees now. When they drive, they get a little badge on their corporate profile.”
Reception to the stunt and subsequent attention in the press hasn’t been entirely favorable. Some Uber investors and analysts criticized the reveal as a publicity stunt in an article that appeared in Slate.
Still growing up: Khosrowshahi also touched on his efforts to rehabilitate the company’s reputation, since he was brought on at a low point for the company in 2017. He talked about revamping the driver onboarding program with a focus on safety as one example of how he’s changed the culture.
The CEO said the company is still in the process of realigning certain processes to help make sure that Uber’s sprawling business units are on the same page about how they should operate.
“We do have a process now where we go out and audit how we have built in the past,” Khosrowshahi said. “Because usually, you’re always trying to build new things…We audit those processes and we make them consistent.”