Copyright: lindaparton / 123RF Stock Photo
In the past few months, unless you've been living under a rock, or a remote portion of the wilderness preparing for the zombie apocalypse, you may have read about the resignation of Uber's CEO, Travis Kalanick. Surprised? I'm not. After all, he was kind of asking for it. Since Uber's inception I've always wondered how they are going to make their business model profitable. Yes they have the leading market share, and yes everyone and anyone uses Uber to get around town, but they simply don't make enough money to substantiate the costs. I know, they have their algorithms all worked out so eventually they'll make a boatload of money. Remember the last time an algorithm didn't work out for a very large company? I think it was the Black-Scholes equation and it was little company called Lehman Brothers which at the time it's market cap was close to $60 billion dollars. Almost as much as Uber is valued at currently. Hmmm....However, the reasons why Uber won't work is not for me to decide, but rather the public and its venture capitalists who are losing their asses. Don't believe me? In the last quarter alone Uber lost $991 million dollars. In addition, as reported by CNN Money's Seth Fiegerman, Uber lost $2.8 billion dollars in 2016 alone.
Yet, it seems the board of Uber has finally decided that it's had enough from Uber's CEO, and not for financial reasons. Yes he has been brilliant at times. He has a wonderful vision and is great at getting people to buy into his idea, but he has also acted like a complete jerk at times. Most notably displayed in the youtube video of his ride with an Uber driver. If you haven't seen the video feel free to click on the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTEDYCkNqns
First of all, in watching the video, I made a quick observation...he's a bit of a dork. He's bumping back and forth between two girls and acting like a boy in grade school. Here's a tip on how to get women interested in you; try talking to them! They might actually have something intriguing to say!
The second thing that I noticed, is he is completely rude to his business partner, the Uber driver. Yes everyone, Uber drivers are business partners, despite the public's misconception of them, especially in other countries. They don't receive healthcare, they don't have 401ks, they are business partners. And yet, Mr. Kalanick chooses to treat this business partner very poorly. He shakes his hand when getting ready to exit the vehicle, but he doesn't let go of the driver's hand, or the situation. When the driver questions his directive with the company, he gets a bit nasty.
He says, "Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit. "
Quite an ironic statement, considering Mr. Kalanick was unable to take responsibility for any of the "shit" that was stirred up at Uber.
Rather than harp on the shortcomings of company leadership, many senior and mid level managers can learn a few things from the Uber saga. I've listed a few of those below:
1.Cultural Identity Starts At The Top - After doing a bit of research on the ordeals of Uber, it seemed apparent that senior leadership chose to ignore a lot of innate problems rather than addressing them head on. Number one, they seemed to revel in the party atmosphere of the company. In a famous or now infamous email to staff in 2013, Kalanick wrote his "Miami letter" which was filled with all sorts of informative directives for a company party. According to a recode article, it contained interesting codes for conduct, like don't throw beer kegs off of tall buildings. And employees would be charged $200 for puking in the hotel.
Moreover, there was one specific word of advice, "do not have sex with another employee UNLESS..." The letter reads more like a memo from the head of a fraternity before a keg party, than the CEO of a billion dollar company. I guess at the time Uber thought HR referred to Hangovers and Responsible Sex, not Human Resources.
Leadership starts at the top, and the message should have been more professional, and a bit less comical. Besides, what CEO writes a memo that starts with "you better read this or I'll kick your ass"?!!!
2."Bros Before Hoes" Is Not A Mission Statement - In reading about the issues at Uber, I have to say it certainly reminded me of the HBO show "Silicon Valley". It seems that the start up economy is a bunch of guys trying to become successful in order to meet women. So naturally the tech sector is a testosterone infused environment. When a female engineer enters the picture, she is immediately judged for her looks, rather than her ability, which puts her at a disadvantage. Yet keep in mind, this is not exclusive to Uber, many other companies have the same issues, but they address them accordingly.
If you want to get a feel for the type of environment created at Uber please read former Uber engineer Susan Fowler's blog post about her strange year with the company.
A Very Stranger Year At Uber
Fowler's blog describes a culture of protecting top performers who consistently cross the line of harassment. Moreover, these top performers are seemingly impervious to complaints and in her case, she is unable to get HR to listen to her complaints. I would encourage you to read the entire blog post and judge for yourself, because it's fascinating.
However in Uber's defense the lack of women in management seems to be an industry wide issue and not just exclusive to Uber. So how do we change that? Maybe hire more women engineers and promote them? No that would be too logical, and it would break up the boys clubs. Would that be so hard? Would that be so difficult?
3. "Super Pumped" Is Not A Company Value Statement - I had to laugh when I read an article in the NY Times claiming this was one of the company's 14 corporate values. Apparently this term could have had two meanings at Uber. One of the meanings could refer to being excited about your job, and the other could refer to the over charged testosterone filled environment in the tech portion of Uber and many other Silicon Valley companies. When investors give a bunch of money to people who have know idea how to create a company culture, you get a bunch of brilliant children running amok. In addition, you end up with value statements like "super pumped" and "always be hustlin". Isn't "always be hustlin" a line from Omar on the HBO show "The Wire"?
4. "Boober" Is Not Another Term For Dongle - I hadn't realized how deep and ingrained the "bro" culture was at Uber, until I started reading about all of the stupid things that were associated with the company. I describe the incidents as "stupid" because if you're the CEO of a major start up and you refer to your company as "Boob-er" in an interview with GQ magazine, thinking people will find it amusing, than you're not thinking clearly. Common sense would tell you to be professional, but when everyone is kissing your butt, then it's easy to believe your own hype. Perhaps Kalanick believed his own hype. Please keep in mind, that Uber is not the only company to have idiots working for them, in fact many companies are full of managers who are morons. However, morons can be redeemed and they can be educated. Actually, the sooner you can identify the idiots and get rid of them, the better off your company will be in the short and long term. Without Kalanick, Uber seems to be heading in a better direction, and perhaps after he has swallowed his pride, he can be educated and reintegrated into the company.
5. "Assholes Finish First" Is Not A Mantra For CEOs - After doing a bit of research, I concluded there were just a lot of unqualified men being promoted at Uber. People who had no clue how to supervise employees. Over a period of time there were 215 complaints ranging from sexual harassment to discrimination and even bullying from management of the company. Allegedly, over 60% of Uber's management team are first time managers, so the company has a serious lack of management experience. However, you can't lay all the blame on the new managers, perhaps they weren't given any instruction on how to conduct themselves. Perhaps they were just following their own manager's lead. It would be the blind leading the blind. When you're a parent and you hand your kid the car keys for the first time, you still have to teach them how to drive. Right? Otherwise they're just go to run over people if they aren't paying attention. Managing people is not about intimidation...it's about inspiration.
Let's hope for all the venture capitalists involved, especially Benchmark, that the Uber board has learned its lesson and can right the ship. Otherwise I see a lot of money going down the drain in the next few years. Another lesson to be learned from this saga is that if you're going to be a major corporation, with a visible profile, you have to have some type of diversity. Why? Because different perspectives in a corporate environment are healthy. In fact, they should be encouraged not discouraged.
As a postscript, that works both ways people. I worked with a company years ago whose corporate staff was 80% women, and that didn't go well either. They didn't respect my opinion because as the CEO once said, "You can't trust men. They're all alike." She said it as a joke with her husband standing right next to her, but I got the message.
Diversity is something that should matter to all, not just a few. Can't we all just get along?...
