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Ask HN: You are named CEO of Uber, what do you do in “180 days of change”?

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Re: Ask HN: You are named CEO of Uber, what do you do in “180 days of change”?

#31

Post by thrill »

1. I'd have a Come To Jesus meeting with my Board and ask them why they were so accepting of the poisonous environment. Not everyone would survive that Saving Private Ryan opening scene.

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.

Re: Ask HN: You are named CEO of Uber, what do you do in “180 days of change”?

#32

Post by bsvalley »

CydeWeys wrote: post #27
bsvalley wrote: post #15

1. Hire Chris Lattner who just left Tesla to take over self-driving initiative. 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…

The thing about tipping is that it actually helps to solve one of Uber's biggest problem: Their cash burn rate. Tipping allows them to move a good chunk of their driver costs onto their customers, same as how it works for servers in restaurants. I understand the ideological opposition to it, but they might not be able to afford to not have tipping.

It's a trade off, company versus customer experience. For a private company like Uber it's a no brainer. They should take the loss to make the user experience better and to acquire more users. Low cost and frictionless payment, that's what they should be aiming for the long run. Asking for your users to pay more while lowering your drivers paychecks is a recipe for failure at that stage of the game.

Re: Ask HN: You are named CEO of Uber, what do you do in “180 days of change”?

#34

Post by mindcrime »

emilsedgh wrote: post #22

I don't know why is everybody so much against the driverless cars project. I think its a nice R&D project that could pay off really really big. I don't think it costs a lot of money comparing what they are burning nowadays. 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 o…

I don't know why is everybody so much against the driverless cars project.

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.

Re: Ask HN: You are named CEO of Uber, what do you do in “180 days of change”?

#35

Post by Finnucane »

Since I have no interest in seeing them survive, I'd take a the Bob Nardelli/Melissa Meyer approach of guaranteeing a nice golden parachute for myself, then drive the company over the cliff, and collect the payout on the way out the door.

Or, give up on the model of turning drivers into serfs for the benefit of privileged hipsters and focus on more mass-transit solutions.

Re: Ask HN: You are named CEO of Uber, what do you do in “180 days of change”?

#36

Post by pavel_lishin »

twobyfour wrote: post #13
pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how I read it. 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.

But he's not suggesting that they change their ethics and stop abusing local laws. Rather, he's suggesting engaging in unethical anticompetitive practices that abuse regulation to create barriers to entry. That's just a change of tactic, not a change of mindset.

Is lobbying politicians unethical and anti-competitive?

Re: Ask HN: You are named CEO of Uber, what do you do in “180 days of change”?

#37

Post by CydeWeys »

bsvalley wrote: post #32
CydeWeys wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about tipping is that it actually helps to solve one of Uber's biggest problem: Their cash burn rate. Tipping allows them to move a good chunk of their driver costs onto their customers, same as how it works for servers in restaurants. I understand the ideological opposition to it, but they might not be able to afford to not have tipping.

It's a trade off, company versus customer experience. For a private company like Uber it's a no brainer. They should take the loss to make the user experience better and to acquire more users. Low cost and frictionless payment, that's what they should be aiming for the long run. Asking for your users to pay more while lowering your drivers paychecks is a recipe for failure at that stage of the game.

They can't afford to take the loss, though. They are running out of runway and have less than a year less. They are already huge; at some point they have to make the shift to being profitable.

Re: Ask HN: You are named CEO of Uber, what do you do in “180 days of change”?

#39

Post by johnpython »

Finnucane wrote: post #35

Since I have no interest in seeing them survive, I'd take a the Bob Nardelli/Melissa Meyer approach of guaranteeing a nice golden parachute for myself, then drive the company over the cliff, and collect the payout on the way out the door. Or, give up on the model of turning drivers into serfs for the benefit of privileged hipsters and focus on more mass-transit solutions.

This is the correct answer. Dismantle the company, exit with a good payout, and give back some of it in philanthropy.

Re: Ask HN: You are named CEO of Uber, what do you do in “180 days of change”?

#40

Post by stinkytaco »

nailer wrote: post #18

- I'd purge: disclose everything that needs to come out fully and immediately - 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 t…

I honestly don't think the terms "ride sharing" have fooled anyone long term. It's clever marketing, but everyone thinks Uber is a taxi service and they use them as such. This isn't necessarily the right thing to think, but I don't think you convince any city council by couching it in those terms.

But yes, pursuing changing laws rather than trying to fall in with them is probably the right solution, but not a 180 day solution.

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