Taking It To The Streets – Uber CEO Finds Out What It’s Really Like To Be An Uber Driver
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CEO’s make a lot more money, have a lot more autonomy and enjoy a lot more control, than the people working for them. The danger is that they can develop incredible blind spots, lose the trust of their people and generally look like the A**holes my buddy Bob Sutton talks about. One antidote? Take some time on the front lines of your business.
R i t a M c g r a t h | T h o u g h t S p a r k s
UBER – BEST OF STARTUPS, WORST OF STARTUPS
Over the years, I have had my quibbles with Uber’s business model. Their use of massive amounts of free money to subsidize both riders and drivers, their bullying localities into depriving licensed cab services from income and their notion that network effects will give them a lasting advantage have all led me to question its business model.
PROJECT BOOMERANG
Post-pandemic, attracting and retaining drivers has been one of Uber’s biggest challenges. Riders were back, ready and willing, but drivers? Not so much .
As Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, told the Wall Street Journal, “I think that the industry as a whole, to some extent, has taken drivers for granted,” He hadn’t driven on Uber before because it wasn’t his biggest priority—drivers had always been in abundant supply. The pandemic-fueled labor shortage forced a companywide introspection, he said, to “re-examine every single assumption that we’ve made.”
LOW PAY, CLUNKY SOFTWARE, TIP BAITING, RUDE PASSENGERS AND MORE
For starters, the sign-up process was different, depending on whether you wanted to drive people around or deliver food. It was “clunky” by his own observation. Once you signed up, navigating unfamiliar restaurants (who themselves were often in experimental mode) was a challenge.
LOW PAY, CLUNKY SOFTWARE, TIP BAITING, RUDE PASSENGERS AND MORE pt.2
Sometimes, while a driver was en route to a pickup, the next pickup would take over the software, basically erasing the instructions for the first ride the driver was actually on! And –surprise! – sometimes the app would combine orders from a single restaurant without notifying the driver that he or she would have to make multiple stops.
Once the CEO personally had these experiences, operational improvements followed. He’d spend his weekends delivering food, then outline potential improvements with screen shots and suggestions to his team. His experiences served to convince him that Uber “had to fundamentally change how we built our product and do it faster than our competition.”
NEW FRONT LINES
Khosrowshahi’s experience as an Uber driver gave him a new perspective. As he said, “Historically, we’ve always put a premium on the rider experience.” But being a non-founder CEO has allowed him to challenge old decisions. Uber needs to win the “hearts and minds” of drivers, too. This has made a competitive difference. Lyft, Uber’s most significant direct competitor has been taken by surprise, belatedly copying Uber’s driver-friendly policies and cutting staff in an attempt to catch up. The company has just announced layoffs totaling 30% of its staff.
MEANWHILE, AT VALIZE
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