Uber’s Undoing Part I: Whipping Boy

"...CEO Travis Kalanick has been plagued with an array of allegations against himself and his reports...illegally obtaining passenger medical records to discredit rape allegations against Uber drivers, anti-competitive action, opportunistic surge-pricing during natural disasters and terrorist attacks...paying hackers off to hide a data breach, surveillance of passengers and journalists, career sabotage and infighting, over 200 claims of sexual harassment against employees, corporate karaoke escort bar visits in Korea, law enforcement evasion, annually cheating drivers of $500 million, profiting off of lazy background checks resulting in the rape and murder of multiple passengers...industrial espionage, fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and worst of all, Kalanick just not being a nice guy."

Worst of all!?!? Seems like him not being a nice guy is the least offensive thing he has done.

Looking at the incredibly long and in-depth process Uber went through on their past branding, and how quickly they jettisoned it with their new branding after they changed CEOs, it just makes me realize how insane it must be to work at a company that would be so bipolar in their design and branding efforts.

As a designer the most interesting thing about Schiff is he heavily engages with a huge part of the designers job that most working today would rather pretend doesn’t exist.

Instagram rebrand for example “we asked everyone in the company” was an active diffusion of responsibility of the visual design yet lead designers happy to take credit when it pays off but hold excuses like that in their back pocket.

Great read, was looking forward to reading parts 2 and 3; by the time I finished, I didn’t want to wait a few weeks to read the next installments, so I just bought them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯