[bhupy]

> Despite the unethical and immoral behavior of Uber executive leadership, from the outside

Interestingly, literally every C-level exec at Uber from the Travis Kalanick era has been replaced. Uber is the "Ship of Theseus" of companies.

[mvzvm]

This is actually a good thing. Companies that can execute while rotating leadership are companies of rules, principles, etc, not companies of people. This is a very good thing.

[elliekelly]

What if the company’s rules, principles, etc. are immoral, unethical, or otherwise bad for the company’s long-term viability?

[imgabe]

Then it stops existing at some point in the short to medium term.

[rhizome]

So then it sounds like within this, part of what we think of as the prevailing morality can actually be defined as the behavior of companies who have been around for long enough. This is probably why a lot of companies seem to get away with "bad" behavior: people who think of the behavior as bad simply don't know the rules. Just be sure to throw in a token fine or fire a middle manager in order to preserve the illusion.

[NaturalPhallacy]

1 principle: Make as much money as possible.

[mikepurvis]

And yet— still the same ship, right? It would be fascinating to have some insider stories about whether overhauling the upper management has actually changed the culture of the company, or if it's largely the same attitudes and behaviours at play.

[lhorie]

I joined Uber a few months before Travis left. I can share a few things that come to mind:

- shortly after Dara joined, he sent a company-wide email to the effect of "all corporate espionage projects must be halted effectively now"

- he introduced a new guiding motto: "We do the right thing. Period." and repeatedly refers back to it

- he found out about a previously undisclosed data leak and went ahead and made a proper public disclosure. The CSO had to leave the company and eventually got charged as a result[0]

- on an all-hands meeting centrally themed on making things better after the Fowler scandal fallout, a board member made a cringey sexist joke. He had to resign from the board that afternoon. This incident spoke volumes about how discrimination culture was no longer going to be tolerated.

- around the same time, as part of the HR revamp, a number of policies were introduced (training courses, anon hotline)

- there was a huge internal project called 180 days of change in response to the wave of scandals. This encompasses the safety features, along with improvements to the driver UX to make it easier to understand their income, among other things (which I hear were very well received by users).

[0] https://slate.com/technology/2020/08/uber-joseph-sullivan-ch...

[joering2]

Apparently he is CSO at Cloudflare now [0]

Speaking that crime doesn't pay...

https://twitter.com/joesu11ivan

edit: this and some other questionable hires and moves by Cloudflare made me do everything I can to avoid using CF services. I have many of CF hosts in my blacklist now.

[mikepurvis]

That is helpful to hear, thanks for sharing— dismissing the board member especially feels like a very tangible, real thing.

[bhupy]

> And yet— still the same ship, right?

Not necessarily. That's the whole debate!