Some examples:
- What would you do to motivate 14k employees who have been turned upside down?
- How do you slow the burn without mortgaging the future of the company?
- How do you balance driver and rider demands?
- Throw away self driving cars for now. The tech will become commoditised. Almost everyone at YC in November was doing self driving motorcycles (I have no idea why either).
- I'd closely align Uber with consumers and environmental groups rather than falling in with taxi industry corruption. lobbying etc. Make cities change laws to benefit their citizens: let ride sharing exist so they can get picked up in rough neighborhoods (PS, abandon tipping, it breaks this), allow Uber cars in public transport lanes (because they are public transport), make sure ride sharing has dedicated space at the airport. Be tough to local governments when you need to be tough, but better yet, have consumers be tough for you. Expose the risks that cities like Austin have put consumers in by replacing Uber with Facebook groups of strangers. Expose cities like London where the normal black cabs frequently illegally refuse to pick up passengers and the mayor wants to 'protect' them because they're 'historical'. Ride sharing is for everyone.
But yes, pursuing changing laws rather than trying to fall in with them is probably the right solution, but not a 180 day solution.
Or, give up on the model of turning drivers into serfs for the benefit of privileged hipsters and focus on more mass-transit solutions.
2. If I survived the previous activity, then having already once been assigned the position of CEO in a company destroyed by the previous management, I'd be as transparent as I could to all interested parties (that would include more than the investors) about the challenges and opportunities.
3. If I was still kicking after that, I'd implement (many) of the two dozen pages of notes I took from being an Uber driver for a year to see what it was about. I like talking with (a variety of) people, and a "taxi driver" is like a bartender in the natural sharing of thoughts for many passengers (who are poor to rich, small to large business people, ranging from unknown to runway-model-famous people).
4. Passengers would not be feeling like they were guessing about a) the fare, or b) the quality of the car, or c) the quality of the driver.
5. Drivers would not be treated as third-class citizens.
Get every single employee involved. Have a very big summit with the single goal: creating the culture that Uber should aspire to be, and coming up with a distinct plan for how they're going to get there. Engineers like to solve problems, and it's clear there's a big one here that has been identified.
Once we have our goal of who we want to be as a company, there will need to be continual work to make sure we're still aligned on that goal, aligned on that culture. There will be people who need to leave, by their own choice or not, based on whether they want to and can be part of that change.
Probably worth hiring Fowler to be part of it, if she's willing.
Step 2: Cut some losses.
This Uber/Waymo thing? It's time to settle. It's clear that even if somehow Uber is innocent in all this, we're not going to win the case in court. Come to Google and say "We're sorry we let this happen. We want to be better than that. Waymo and Uber have the same goals in mind, so let's work together." It'll be expensive, but it'll be cheaper than never having self-driving cars.
Step 3: Plan.
Come up with 1, 3, 5, and 10 year plans. Where does Uber intend to be at each of those milestones? How do they relate to each other? On what day is Uber profitable? How does Uber stop the bleeding? And are these milestones achievable while still meeting the cultural goals from step 1? If not, come up with better goals. If I can't find a way to profitability without meeting the cultural goals, I step down and let a better leader step up.
Uber board, let me know when you're ready for my bold and inspiring leadership.
So naive. You have 12k employees and loads of business problems and you want to get 12k employees involved in some culture bullshit. Most of them will probably not even care about such event.
Company culture isn't bullshit, it's what makes or breaks a company. Uber has neglected this very important nutrient, and I think will die if it doesn't fix it.
How to build loyalty? Create a rewards/milage program similar to airlines. Most business travelers commit to one airline because of the status and perks they receive. Some Uber perk ideas include:
1. priority response during high demand
2. free "upgrades" from UberX to higher class vehicles when demand/wait time allows
3. partnership with airline lounges to get access when traveling
2) Refocus on the core product. Drop the tipping, convert more drivers through incentives or slightly bumping fare payouts on the backend. They can pull some of the cash they'll save from dumping self-driving tech on this. People won't use competitors if they don't have drivers and the fares are higher
3) They should really consider having a few real employees in hot markets that screen first time drivers and their cars. I've had a few drivers show up in vehicles that technically met Uber's standards, but were really shitbuckets. Thats not the image Uber wants to present.
I'd probably try to rebrand as the new, legal Uber and start spending money on lobbying local politicians. The "taxi-app" market has almost no switching costs and so Uber has almost no pricing power. They'll need to fix this to ever run a profit. Effectively Uber exists because it broke the laws that created barriers to entry. If it wants to continue to exist it needs to erect new barriers that protect it and keep out competition.
If making it illegal for competition to exist is the only way to keep Uber running then it shouldn't keep running.
You're right, frgtpsswrdlame totally skipped over that Uber currently seems like a rampant shit-show from the outside - I can't imagine any women applying to work there - but he did address two concrete issues Uber has that aren't just "brand damage": focusing too much on self-driving tech, and their flagrant disregard for local laws.
It's been my experience that the people on the ground know what's wrong with the company, they just don't have the authority or vision to do anything about it.
Then look for the most common threads and how to tackle those.
Naive, I know. But it's what I would do.
I'd certainly say I wouldn't be surprised to get in there and discover that, yes, corporate culture is the biggest problem, but it must also be remembered that that could just be the availability heuristic at play [1]. It could also easily be a second-order effect of some more fundamental problem. Or it could end up hardly even rating in the top 3 problems. I don't know. Neither does anybody else here, really. Not because people here are particularly bad people or anything, it's just that quite likely nobody really knows; a culture tends to be blind to its own pathologies (or it would fix them; there's a selection effect in play) so there may be literally nobody currently on Earth who has a good grasp on the true problem, let alone a solution.
2. Ask Chris Sacca to come out of retirement and to get more involved in Uber's strategy.
3. Find a COO like yesterday.
4. Shut down Uber eats and Uber rush and double down on self-driving initiative.
5. Make the team leaner, more agile and eliminate 1s layer of management (engineering managers, etc.). Dev teams should be %100 autonomous driven (not managed) by product managers.
6. Eliminate Tips.
7. Pay Uber drivers way more and have them sign a special contract (can't sign-up with other competitors).
8. Increase passenger engagement during a ride by providing location-based deals, events, etc. A twitter-like app to use while riding an Uber.
etc... this is just a short list.
IANAL but it seems like this would kill the case that drivers are "independent contractors" and that would have a huge impact on their cost structure.
I would have run a management buyout (this is why the smear campaign started, right? 70 billion is way too expensive, and valuation needed to be put down fast, while making plausible reasons for that — congratulations, it worked).
Then, I'd have fired half of those 14k employees (really? for a startup?), and finally pivoted by rolling out their geo-matching API for everybody to run their own businesses and services on it (they should have it for like 2 years already). The first one who will provide something like AWS for shared economy wins!
Acknowledge the reality that Uber will not conquer the world and is not worth seventy billion dollars by taking a down round (assuming they need to raise money).
2. Cut costs. Reduce headcount, relocate (out of SF/SV) or offshore dev work. Spin off or sell off expensive ventures, like self-driving research -- there are too many companies working on self-driving, it's not smart to compete with them in-house. Partner with one instead.
3. Increase revenue and maximize rider capture.
- Reduce fare subsidies in metros with lower competition, but offer a loyalty program for riders.
- Institute Expand high-margin LoS like UberRUSH, the courier service. Forge contracts with surburban/exurban governments to provide transportation services; try to absorb government subsidides.
- Monetize data collected during normal operations: partner with market research firms, expand incidental mapping operations to reduce reliance on external maps.
- Deepen partnerships with automakers, and make preferred partnerships with sites that are frequent origins and destinations.
- Think about usecases: not just cab-hailing in one's hometown, but offering safe passage to high-profile sites in foreign metros while one is travelling. Make people choose Uber for the same reasons they discretionarily choose another brand: consistency of experience, trust, and perks; i.e. don't compete solely on price. Make partnerships that support these use-cases.
Companies to be wary of: Google, Amazon, and automakers with whom they have no pre-existing relationship.
Companies to court: HERE Maps (owned by Volkswagen, BMW, and Daimler); hyperlocal providers like FourSquare, Snapchat; car-sharing companies like Zipcar; arch-rivals of their competition like Facebook, Walmart (!); AirBnb and hotel chains.
Then I would raise fares and remove tipping. Improve the customer experience.
Finally I would hire more local employees to monitor on-the-ground operations like drivers, cars, and service. Set up a mentoring program to help drivers get started and stay on. No one is fooling anyone by treating them like contractors. For customers, drivers are the face of the company. I'm brought to mind of Disney's "cast member" concept. The lowest employees on the totem pole are the ones your customers see the most, invest in them.
I think they should:
* Make sure HR problems are actually resolved internally. Its not a big problem to solve I think.
* Try to grow in more towns and countries aggressively.
* Use the economics of scale to bring down the costs for drivers so they can keep the cost down without paying from VC money. For example:
Buy insurance in bulk for their drivers,
Contract repair shops for their drivers,
Even buy cars in bulk and lease them out to drivers.
I think it's at least partly because many people think that truly autonomous driver-less cars are much further away than they seem. (Disclaimer: put me in this camp). That is, getting 90% of the way to a truly driver-less car is hard enough... but it's the second 90% that really kills ya.
Also, assuming driver-less cars do become a "thing", there's no particular reason to think that Uber will perfect them to such a degree that gives them any kind of competitive advantage. In the end, (as this theory goes), car companies will still be the people making cars in the future, and if Uber wants driver-less cars, they will just buy them from GM, Tesla, Toyota, Mercedes or whoever.
Since 180 days really isn't enough time to onboard a COO or CFO, I would only focus on damage control. I would need those executives to help curb the burn rate.
Step 1:
Before I accepted the job, I would accept that there is a very high probability that this will end badly and that my reputation will never recover. I would wonder whether the VCs who were instrumental in bringing me in would stand by me when this goes to hell, or would I take the lion's share of the blame?
So, I would make sure that my compensation from Uber was properly invested so that I could survive the rest of my life if I could never get another job. And, I would work with a very competent money manager to optimize every single dollar that I would get from Uber.
Step 2:
If Uber is going to reach a liquidity event, it needs some highly competent executives who can take leadership of their respective areas. At this point, Uber badly needs a CEO/COO/CFO troika that can work together. Therefore, my first real step as CEO would be to help the board recruit solid AAA+ players for the two remaining positions.
Step 3:
While recruitment was ongoing, I would undertake two major initiatives in tandem. First, I would conduct my own investigation into what happened and learn as much about the previous culture that I could. There is a very high probability that this investigation would lead to a new round of firings. Therefore, the second initiative would be to be completely transparent and wholly public about what is going on. I have to assume that every single thing that I would do would be heavily scrutinized by the media, investors and stakeholders. Therefore, I would get in front of it and send weekly emails to employees/investors that were cross posted on a blog. If journalists want to see fire, they can see the same fire that I see. In a news vacuum, it gets more tempting to print dubious sources who may or may not actually be telling the truth.
Step 4:
Once I had a solid grasp on what happened (and once I knew that the bad apples were all promoted to Uber customers, or maybe drivers), I would start fixing the culture. Hopefully, by this point, we would have at least a COO on board. With her help, I would make sure that HR was fully independent and powerful. Simply put, the new Uber would have a strong 'no asshole' rule.
Step 5:
SDC be damned....Uber drivers need to be promoted to first class citizens within the Uber ecosystem. Once I was fairly confident that the culture now marginalized assholes, I would work closely with drivers. I would argue that Uber drivers have an incredible understanding of all the efficiencies and inefficiencies within Uber's market. Therefore, we need to empower drivers and encourage them to come forward with any suggestions to make their jobs better. I argue that Uber is closely tied to their drivers. As drivers succeed and make money, Uber should succeed and make even more.
In 180 days, sadly, I don't think I would have the chance to put a true focus on rider demands. In fact, I'm not even sure that I would have time to engage the drivers. But, these five steps are my perfect case.
