I think many people don't realize this, but the majority of the leadership team from like a year or two ago is now gone, including Travis.
Also, Uber has been hiring a lot of new people - the ratio of new people vs old timers is really high. I'm obviously just one anecdata point, but I believe new hires (and a lot of old timers) want Uber to be an ethical company, and many have joined the company specifically to tackle that challenge. One great example that comes to mind was when one board member made a sexist remark on an all-hands meeting a few months ago and by the end of that same day, Liane Hornsey (who had just joined as the new head of HR) had him give up his seat.
There's a big push towards trying to make things right, with the holden report, the 180 days of change campaign, the implementation of new training courses, anonymous complaint hotline for employees, etc. And the unspoken message right now is pretty clear: inappropriate conduct _will_ get you fired, even if you are the head of your org.
Obviously there's still a lot of work to be done, but I think we're at least in the right track now.
I really like how your description gets at these policies creating a tipping point in the culture. Hearing about any one individually always sounded like a bandaid, but hearing about them together and then how you and other employees react to them is very encouraging. Good luck to you and the rest of the company.
This is good for Uber and their employees in the short term, but I can't help but think it's bad for their ideals in the long run. There are a lot of scenarios that look very bad for Uber economically and it would be a shame for a culture shift to coincide with the realization of one of them.
Honestly, I find that a lot of economic discussions on the media are highly speculative (and dissonant to what I've seen circulated internally), and things get just downright sensationalist on some topics, so I've been taking news about Uber with a large grain of salt.
> it would be a shame for a culture shift to coincide with the realization of one of them
I think everyone at Uber has at least some idea about the P&L situation, but there's no doubt in people's minds that we need to drop the go-fast-and-dubiously culture and embrace a do-things-properly culture. If anything, I think it's more likely that a major crisis would continue to drive home that idea.
Also, Uber has been hiring a lot of new people - the ratio of new people vs old timers is really high. I'm obviously just one anecdata point, but I believe new hires (and a lot of old timers) want Uber to be an ethical company, and many have joined the company specifically to tackle that challenge. One great example that comes to mind was when one board member made a sexist remark on an all-hands meeting a few months ago and by the end of that same day, Liane Hornsey (who had just joined as the new head of HR) had him give up his seat.
There's a big push towards trying to make things right, with the holden report, the 180 days of change campaign, the implementation of new training courses, anonymous complaint hotline for employees, etc. And the unspoken message right now is pretty clear: inappropriate conduct _will_ get you fired, even if you are the head of your org.
Obviously there's still a lot of work to be done, but I think we're at least in the right track now.