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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”?

#51

Post by agitator »

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…

Uber is a money machine right now. For many people all over the world, it's the go-to for taxi services and food deliveries. It would be stupid for them not to invest in self-driving cars. It's something that affects the core of their business and revenue. If Tesla comes out with full autonomy much sooner than they can, Uber is out of business. You can't compete with not having to pay drivers. If another player with self-driving tech starts selling the technology to OEM's, then uber is right where it's at. But if it succeeds before the others, then it's profits and future success will be astronomical. If Uber wasn't working on self-driving tech, it would be a huge mistake.

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

#52

Post by romanovcode »

mabbo wrote: post #28

Step 1: Begin with culture. Get every single employee involved. Have a very big summit with the single goal: creating the culture that Uber should aspire to be, and coming up with a distinct plan for how they're going to get there. Engineers like to solve problems, and it's clear there's a big one here that has been identified. Once we have our goal of who we want to be as a company, there will need to be continual w…

> Get every single employee involved.

So naive. You have 12k employees and loads of business problems and you want to get 12k employees involved in some culture bullshit. Most of them will probably not even care about such event.

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

#53

Post by mabbo »

romanovcode wrote: post #52
mabbo wrote: post #28

Step 1: Begin with culture. Get every single employee involved. Have a very big summit with the single goal: creating the culture that Uber should aspire to be, and coming up with a distinct plan for how they're going to get there. Engineers like to solve problems, and it's clear there's a big one here that has been identified. Once we have our goal of who we want to be as a company, there will need to be continual w…

> Get every single employee involved. So naive. You have 12k employees and loads of business problems and you want to get 12k employees involved in some culture bullshit. Most of them will probably not even care about such event.

The people who are incapable of caring about this problem are exactly the ones who have enabled it to happen. They are the root of the problem. And as I said above, some people will need to leave.

Company culture isn't bullshit, it's what makes or breaks a company. Uber has neglected this very important nutrient, and I think will die if it doesn't fix it.

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

#55

Post by palakchokshi »

mabbo wrote: post #53
romanovcode wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get every single employee involved. So naive. You have 12k employees and loads of business problems and you want to get 12k employees involved in some culture bullshit. Most of them will probably not even care about such event.

The people who are incapable of caring about this problem are exactly the ones who have enabled it to happen. They are the root of the problem. And as I said above, some people will need to leave. Company culture isn't bullshit, it's what makes or breaks a company. Uber has neglected this very important nutrient, and I think will die if it doesn't fix it.

Culture is important. Having 12K employees all give an input is counter productive. I believe that's what he was referring to as naive. Companies with great culture didn't have every single employee in a grand summit providing culture input.

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

#56

Post by mabbo »

palakchokshi wrote: post #55
mabbo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who are incapable of caring about this problem are exactly the ones who have enabled it to happen. They are the root of the problem. And as I said above, some people will need to leave. Company culture isn't bullshit, it's what makes or breaks a company. Uber has neglected this very important nutrient, and I think will die if it doesn't fix it.

Culture is important. Having 12K employees all give an input is counter productive. I believe that's what he was referring to as naive. Companies with great culture didn't have every single employee in a grand summit providing culture input.

A very fair point. And I should have been clearer: it's not that there needs to be 12k people in one room all at once for an entire week. But I do think that there needs to be 12k people in the same room for one hour. Renting a stadium for an afternoon is very easily done these days.

This just can't be an email saying "Hey everyone, here's our culture rules now! Now get back to work!". Those get ignored. It has to be something that can't be skipped, can't be ignore, can't be forgotten.

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

#57

Post by palakchokshi »

mabbo wrote: post #56
palakchokshi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culture is important. Having 12K employees all give an input is counter productive. I believe that's what he was referring to as naive. Companies with great culture didn't have every single employee in a grand summit providing culture input.

A very fair point. And I should have been clearer: it's not that there needs to be 12k people in one room all at once for an entire week. But I do think that there needs to be 12k people in the same room for one hour. Renting a stadium for an afternoon is very easily done these days. This just can't be an email saying "Hey everyone, here's our culture rules now! Now get back to work!". Those get ignored. It has to be…

I would point you to Netflix, a large company with a decent culture. They didn't ask every employee for input (AFAIK). They hired one person and gave her the time and resources and access to upper management and tasked her with coming up with the culture document. 12K people in a stadium for an hour or even 4 hours won't be productive like you want it to be. In the end only a few people will speak up because not everyone speaks up in a stadium full of people.
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