[moxious]

The media has reported on some fairly outrageous cultural excesses. Question -- did you experience these when Kalanick was there? Since Dara showed up, anything specific you can say about what was done and whether it "feels different" and how?

In some places the CEO is a distant figurehead, and whatever his or her values, the day-to-day experience is more dominated by your local crew of < 20 people. In other places, culture is truly pervasive. I feel like the reporting is saying that culture is pervasive at Uber, but it would be interesting to hear an inside perspective.

[misun78]

Both? I experienced nothing anywhere close to the egregiousness mentioned in the media. But TKs ruthlessness, long work hours ethics was always omnipresent. It wasn’t so much top down mandated to work hard but the culture was there. Paradoxically managers at times would have to push the employees to take breaks, vacations etc. I personally relished that environment but understandable how those would other commitments would find it hard. Our compensation structure also encouraged working hard (and all the stress, burnouts and disappointments that stemmed from it) so even if an employee had all the freedom to leave work at 5 pm and do other things, unless you were ultra-efficient in the 8-9 hours at work (which some of the best engineers I worked with were), there was always a risk of missed incentives. In short, it felt like a great company for those who could manage these trade offs. For all others, it was stressful.

[uberemployee]

What do you mean by cultural excesses?