‘I must fundamentally change and grow up’: Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s apology

Yeah, the driver was the one yelling and jabbing his finger at Kalanick. He obviously did not want to have a constructive dialogue, so Kalanick left. Seems reasonable enough to me.

I mean, blaming your purchase of an expensive car on Uber? Really? You're bankrupt because you put all your eggs in one basket buddy, not because Kalanick is an asshole.

That being said, Kalanick has acted like an asshole in the past, but this is not one of those times.

He made a PR mistake. You don't drink and have fun like that in a crisis (or at least don't get caught doing it.)

Note: I'm not saying Uber's only mistake is PR. But it's a large part of what precipitates the unique reaction against them versus, say, Lyft. #DeleteUber? Came up because Uber cancelled surge at 7:36PM around a protest at JFK that was scheduled at 4:55 to last from 6 to 7PM. Lyft, meanwhile, earned more money and got a better reaction.

Similarly, in reaction to Fowler's account, instead of doing something substantive they hired an Uber Director, the head of the department implicated and an Uber lobbyist to conduct an "independent" investigation.

Same. The conspiracy side of me wants to think that it was staged so he can apologize without having to touch the deeper issues surrounding uber now and thereby improving his image

If he was really a good professional CEO and leader, he would have asked for the guys number or given his, and had his EA follow up the next day to chat in the office. This just shows how lacking in experience and measure he is, you just shouldn't act like this, especially if you're the CEO of a company that employees many people who rely on you to make sure they can put their kids through school/food on table. Arguing your supply chain costs with a component of your supply chain in the back of a car isn't constructive.

I think you need to look at the video as the last straw, not the primary cause for this apology. Kalanick has always acted remarkably immaturely for the CEO of a major company [1], and now Uber has dragged themselves into a total shitstorm with the recent sexual discrimination/abuse stories, and the Waymo/Otto IP theft debacle.

He's just trying to save some face for him and the company in the midst of a glut of PR disasters.

[1] https://pando.com/2014/02/27/we-call-that-boob-er-the-four-m...

The driver took a risk, and went is possibly going into bankruptcy because of it. He did this based off of the pay structure which Uber offered him.

They changed that pay structure, and he got screwed, with little recourse. He had an opportunity to complain to the head of the organization which made that change and took it.

The CEO in this situation could have been more supportive, understanding and offered some recourse... even if it was just to email some HR or driver support person at Uber, that would have been a better response.

Instead the CEO felt attacked, kicked in his defensive mode, was flippant and dismissive of this persons struggles. Zero compassion or empathy, that's the problem here.

I don't want to 'stick up' for the CEO, as there's lot about uber I fundamentally dislike - especially the way they typify this 'race to the bottom' business model which seems to be becoming prevalent.

However, I really think for this incident he has nothing to apologise for.

I also don't get it. It can happen to anyone to lose their cool and it's not like he's insulted the driver or anything (in fact the driver is more aggressive). Also I'm not sure the driver should be video tapping his customers without their authorisation.

Maybe it's a way for Uber to divert attention from the recent scandals and allow the CEO to apologise for something that's actually quite minor compared to the rest.

I think your perspective is valid/reasonable for most of us. ...but as a CEO of any company I believe that it's necessary you to hold yourself to a MUCH higher standard. In that role you represent the interests of a lot of other people, you're entrusted with investor's money, your employee's livelihood and the welfare of their families/kids and in this situation your drivers/contractors and their livelihood and families. With so much at stake I think part of what you give up as CEO is the right to just speak your mind and have an argument like a normal person might. Right or wrong I think he needs to make sure if there is news about him or Uber that it's good news... that's a big part of the job of CEO and it's 24/7/365.

As much issues I may have with actions of Uber as a company, and to an extent actions of Travis as its CEO, this video isn't really saying anything bad about him. He is running a business and doing what he thinks is right for it. He was trying to engage in a reasonable conversation. When the conversation became more emotional and blind blaming, he walked out in anger. Aren't people allowed be angered by what they believe are unreasonable accusations?

Poor guy, just added this to the list of negative things Uber is being called out on, and apologized.

The Uber driver(s) are all self-employed businessmen, with Uber and Lyft being apps that help them get business, taking care of things like payments etc. As a businessman, you take a risk, especially if making big investments like a $100K car. The 3rd party, in this case Uber, has no obligations to the businessman; if the driver wants more money, then stop relying on Uber or go to a better-paying competitor.

That's business. That's the American dream. That's the risk you take when starting your own business. Uber couldn't exist if it hired their drivers, so for Uber too it's a conscious decision.

That's a very generous interpretation of his actions.

Can't blame him. I worked at companies with such a structure and found it to be a drag.

On the other hand I'm a white, able, CIS male academic, so I never experience the problems that can arise from the lack of such structures.

> He's probably more ignorant than mean-intended. And too many entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley are in the same position.

This is a common excuse that holds no water with me. "Good intentions" are worth absolutely nothing, in fact I'd prefer a CEO who is an asshole on purpose to one who is just naturally a piece of shit and can't see it until his company gets bad press.

It's an issue of maturity and responsibility and ethics with people's livelihoods at stake. There can't be excuses.

I'd say that a significant amount of founders of unicorn companies have not worked at a company that they didn't start themselves, so I don't see how that makes this situation unique/excusable.

A "college frathouse" isn't the default attitude of human beings. You don't create a toxic bro-themed caricature of a company from a lack of skill.

In fact I'd say it takes more effort, and deep-seated character flaws, to create such a culture, considering most of his employees are probably well-adjusted people with prior experiences that had to be unlearned.

That is very possibly accurate. Redswoosh lost the support VC's in ~2001, and it was just him, in a shared office with a single engineer. He stuck with it though where most would have abandoned it, and was able to sell it years later to Akamai, and RedSwoosh was a dog of a product. [1] [2] To say he pushed hard is an understatement. That's his mindset, he's cocky but he believes in what he's doing, and he keeps pushing no matter what. The difference is, Uber is a success by all measures, [3] and it may need a different mentality to move it forward.

[1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-travis-kalanick-bio-2014...

[2]: https://gigaom.com/2008/05/03/whatever-happened-to-red-swoos...

[3]: http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-uber-and-its-rise-...

I wish to hell there was a good alternative where I live. I'd pay more for it.

He didn't apologize for the sexual harassment stuff, even.

Except, his apology wasn't for the dysfunctional culture and harassment. He was apologizing for his treatment of a driver.

Given Travis's experience with Redswoosh [1], and to a lesser extent Scour, I doubt he put himself in a situation to be ousted from his startup by investors. I suspect it's a situation akin to Mark Zuckerburg. [2] It would probably take Garrett Camp [3] push him out.

[1]: http://allthingsd.com/20111108/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-on-h...

[2]: http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/01/zuck-power-play/

[3]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrettcamp/

I'm not so sure. I don't know about Uber's specific corporate structure and bylaws, but in many corporations, the Board of Directors has the power to fire CEOs for cause.

If that's the case there, Kalanick might have been on the other end of a very painful phone call with Uber's board. Yesterday's news might have been the last straw for them.

Even powerful heads of successful companies have even more powerful people to answer to.

Like you mentioned there are fundamental differences b/w a CEO who creates a culture where sexual harassment is OK to where a CEO will bully employees occasionally, steal their ideas as their own and park in the handicapped parking lot. I mean, both sound terrible, but the first one is definitely on a different level of nastiness.

Quote of the day: " Uber isn't much more than a bro-themed ponzi scheme"

Their self driving cars is the end game.

That's precisely it. Uber is dependent on outside investors to stay afloat, and I'm guessing they don't want the bad publicity to be associated with someone like him, which is forcing him to take these actions. On some level, I don't trust this guy one bit but hopefully he is serious about making changes (a lot of people depend on/use Uber).

You're not saying much. Half of running a company is PR.

I don't understand why they cut prices. I've never used Uber because it's cheaper, I use it because it's better. If the drivers are able to make decent money, I feel even better about using it.

Ideally, I wish the price was high enough that drivers didn't ask for tips. However, if tipping becomes the norm, Uber should remove the friction of tipping by adding it into the app.

Uber is not a taxi company. They do not compete with Taxis, but with car ownership.

EDIT: I knew if I won't make my point explicit it will be misread. I was referring to:

> Then, we'll see if they'll really survive as a taxi company.

They are building self-driving cars to create a logistic company. They have a limited interest in being a taxi company(in a classical sense), therefore they don't care much.

The cynic in me believes there will never be an IPO. They've started to hide their balance sheets, even from large investors. Their valuation is already sky-high, and it's basically impossible for them to realistically return 10x for new investors, but the risks are higher than they were two or three years ago.

They're a time bomb financially, a mine field politically, and a toxic swamp morally. The Uber->Under transition is just a matter of months.

Travis is nothing, he never was anything. People got momentarily confused by his alpha ego and the big pile of money, but they're catching up fast.

What you're describing is one of the traits of a psychopath

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/13/1-in-5-ceos-are-p...

Yep. The only sin in the U.S. is being poor. The rest you can buy your way out of.

Put another way, only in the US do businesspeople have to publically apologise for not-being-nice. Towards the end of the video, Kalanick was brusque and even demeaning, but I don't think his position as CEO grants me the right to get high-and-mighty on my keyboard and demand he "grow up." Nor do I expect much insight into anyone's character can be gleaned from a 30-second argument in the backseat of an Uber.

I'm not saying Kalanick is a good (or a bad) CEO. But his job is to build the company, not to serve as its' Mascot-in-Chief.

I agree. In other places billionaires' minions would go and throw some money at driver/law-enforcement/lawyers or simply threaten the victim and get these kind of issues simply go away.

Probably better for business this way, and costs nothing.

You can be "fired" by virtue of your top people walking out on you, though. Better for him to placate the ones who might have a spine.

As I've said elsewhere, I wouldn't be surprised if Uber's Board of Directors could still fire him.

I would have expected some privacy also. If there is no policy on this in Uber then this may be a greater blow to the their brand than anything else in this affair.

Personally I do not see what Kalanick did wrong here. He did not seek personal interaction with the driver. He was not abusive and IMO responded at the same level at which the driver engaged him.

That is all separate from my opinions about the (from my perspective) problem with replacing a publicly funded transport service with a for-profit effective monopoly.

There should be city-wide public transport running 24/7 driven by trained, unionized workers. Not a race-to-the-bottom, gig-economy semi-monopoly.

> a CEO of a billion dollar company should have been coached about how to politely react to criticism.

yeah, he should have been coached on it by his parents when he was five years old.

> As a passenger in these services, I had an expectation of privacy---I would not expect that the driver could record me. I've certainly had conversations on the phone that I would expect to be private.

My understanding is that California law likely protects Travis in this situation because it was just him and the driver and he could thus expect privacy.

However, it's unlikely that you can prevent someone from publishing your private conversation in a Lyft or Uber, and given that most of these drivers are not high earners you're not likely to get a major payout from them, so while you might legally have the protections of privacy it still probably means very little in practice.

> I had an expectation of privacy

You probably shouldn't, and most certainly don't legally have one.

In this case, the recording device was in clear view.

More broadly, the vehicle is owned by a party that has a vested interest in protecting its value. The driver also has prerogative to be able to record incidents / interactions with users so that he can report damage / throwing up. The driver also has prerogative to protect himself from legal liabilities in instances of rape, kidnap, theft, or violence.

I figured he was referring to the cost of buying an Escalade for Uber Black driving

I'm not sure where the argument took place, but in NYC services like Uber have caused Taxi Medallion prices to drop severely:

http://www.businessinsider.com/nyc-yellow-cab-medallion-pric...

Some operators are losing much more than 97k.

Maybe from one of the subprime loans Uber was pushing, in partnership with banks that destroyed the economy during the 2008 financial crisis:

http://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2016/6/3/11852940/uber-...

I had a conversion with a yellow cab driver in NYC who was an uber driver for 2015, said it bankrupt him. I asked him why, he said "because I'm an idiot" - I asked him to elaborate and he said he didn't know basic finance well, and hadn't taken into account what it would actually cost him to drive cab for uber for the year (guy was in his late 50s, immigrated from Egypt 25 years ago). The uber rep who signed him up told him he should expect to make X dollars, that ended up not being true and his costs for insurance, fule, etc etc ended up putting him behind on the year, couldn't afford his mortgage or his car payments so he just declared bankruptcy. A medallion owner I talked to yesterday who was driving his own yellow cab is declaring bankruptcy because uber made his medallion worthless and the bank no longer considers it an asset. All in all it's a fucking mess for drivers yellow cab or otherwise.

I agree. From my perspective the driver attacked him verbally and didn't like a robust defence.

All that said, I hope Uber and similar gig-economy services die a fiery death in the near future.

It would work if it wasn't "pot calling kettle." Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit? You don't say, Travis, you don't say.

The strategy here is that Kalanick is trying to kill two birds with one stone. Pretend he's apologizing for the sexual harassment issue, when he's really just apologizing for this one incident. From what I can see here on HN it's working.

The cynic in me is telling me that he planned this whole thing, down to paying the driver to tailor his arguing perfectly.

I like that the driver rated him one star. How funny would it be if he was unable to get a ride because of his low rating?

Gimme a break. It's a fauxpology designed to wedge people into a "well, at least he admitted he was wrong" mindset so that it all quiets down and people stop talking about the fundamental problem with Uber: it replaces solid jobs providing public transportation financed from public taxation with a private systems in which the individual peons are powerless, poorly paid and racing to the bottom.

Normally you expect someone in leadership to have gone past a teenager's mindset before they become the CEO of a company with thousands of employees and stakeholders who rely on them to make wise and good decisions on their behalf.

If he needs to grow up and he hasn't yet, then he should step down.

Uber drivers aren't employees. Uber is a vendor for the driver. In fact, Uber's existence depends on that being the case.

It seems to me the Uber driver should find a different job if he's not able to make a go of it. What possible benefit to arguing about pricing with the passenger, regardless whether he's the CEO? I admit, I'd be intrigued if I knew my passenger was the Uber CEO -- I might ask some polite questions about the direction of the company and so forth but probably not directly argue with the man regardless of the CEO's people skills or lack thereof :)