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Introduction:
UBER CASE ANALYSIS 2
Camp and Travis Kalanick. They created the company with the intention of
base than the expensive black car services that they had used in the past.
Camp and Kalanick sought to do this through giving riders the option to split
their costs by sharing the driver that they use with other people, thus
making it more affordable for themselves while not affecting the bottom line
of the driver. Both Camp and Kalanick had found success in previous
endeavors, with Camp having been one of the founders of the popular
founder of a file sharing website called Red Swoosh that was sold for $19
The company was able to launch their product in San Francisco in July
2010 with a small fleet of drivers and a smartphone application that gave
users the ability to call the drivers to their location with a simple click of a
button. Within a year of this launch date, the company changed its name to
Uber and was able to expand their services to other major American cities
including New York City. By 2015, leaked financial documents showed that
Uber was increasing their ridership rapidly and had generated $1.5 billion in
application in the world, Kalanick, now the Chief Executive Officer of the
exponential rate. In the past three years, Uber has expanded beyond basic
ride sharing to attempt to build itself into a logistics conglomerate that offers
services that include prepared meal delivery, cargo transportation and GPS
services. In addition to branching out into new services, they have also
successful car service. They are already the highest-valued start-up company
in history, and are pushing to maintain their rapid growth. With this
ambitious outlook, there has to be a great deal of pressure on those who are
tasked with reaching these goals. I wanted to analyze the culture that this
The Issue
only focus on the positives that this rapid pace has brought for the company.
In a pace that can only be matched by its growth, Uber has been attached to
a bevy of scandals in the past few years. Early in the development of the
company, the main concern that people that I spoke to had about Uber was
that the drivers were potential sexual predators who could pose a threat to
UBER CASE ANALYSIS 4
unsuspecting users of the app. While there have been reported cases of
drivers committing crimes while working for Uber, it has not been one of the
focal points of arguments against allowing them to operate where they do.
considered due to the fact that many did not think that Uber would grow into
the $70 billion valued company that a December 2016 Reuters article
described them as. This isnt to say that there havent been cases where
have been other reasons why Uber has had negative headlines written about
it.
be having, it looks like their main issue is that they do not have a positive
organizational culture. There have been many incidents over the past three
years that seem to point towards Uber as a whole breeding a culture that
When Susan Fowler, a former site reliability engineer with Uber, wrote
a blog post about her experience working for the company on the technical
end of their operation, it was filled with anecdotes describing this kind of
performing well. She was also told that this was the first complaint about the
manager, which she later found out was not true. (Fowler, 2017)
UBER CASE ANALYSIS 5
her department went from being about 25% female at her time of
employment to only 3% female when she left after a year. Towards the end of
informed her that she could be fired if she attempted to report another
reason that this was not a legal business practice, she claims to have been
spoken over and told that it was the law of the land. All of these experiences
point to more than just a couple of rogue members of the management team
Something else that Susan Fowler described in her blog post was the
department. At one point, she claims, In the background, there was a game-
of-thrones political war raging within the ranks of upper management in the
that they could have their direct supervisor's job. (Fowler, 2017) Although
she doesnt claim to speak for any section of the organization past the
section that she worked in, her description of this segment shows the
furthest thing from the familial atmosphere that many large companies
attempt to portray. One could argue that competition is positive and spurs
Another example of the win at all costs mentality that permeates the
New York Times, Uber has employed a tactic called gray balling in which
agencies in areas where Uber was not allowed to operate. The tactics used
attempting to stop the service from operating trackable and displaying false
images of available drivers in their vicinity. The article also described how
Uber had made attempts to operate in some areas without permission from
local authorities, but this detailed account shows that there was an
Other evidence of this type of culture can be seen in the actions of the
regarded that he has found more success in his personal life since the
company took off by saying, Yeah, we call that Boob-er. Some may take
this as an innocuous comment made in jest, but Kalanick is the most visible
employee for the massive company. While he may not have made this
the leader, he is the one that sets the tone for the way that business is to be
Outside of this incident, Kalanick has also drawn the ire of the public
when a video leaked that showed him in a heated argument with an Uber
driver after he was questioned about why the amount of money that the
drivers make has been shrinking in recent months. If this had been a first
incident for Kalanick, I do not think that it would have been as impactful of a
story as it has grown into. When looking at this negative encounter in front of
the backdrop of recent events that have befallen the suddenly successful
present throughout Uber. It seems as though there are issues with an over-
aggressive and reckless culture that permeate all of the sections of the
Case Analysis
that there are a few generally accepted pieces that make up the culture of
through the lens of Scheins model, it becomes clear that the issues that
were described in the previous section were directly influenced and likely
UBER CASE ANALYSIS 8
caused by the culture that has been created within this workplace. (Miller,
2015)
The first level of Scheins model looks at the artifacts that exist within
Uber, the oft-mentioned CEO, Travis Kalanick, best fits these criteria. Before
his recent string of negative publicity, the image of Kalanick has been
visible image as the company pushed to new heights helped the company by
has begun to work against both Uber and Kalanick, as the once faultless
leader has not been able to escape the spotlight as his image has tarnished.
In the same way that this artifact can have a positive impact on the
rest of the organization, it can also have a negative one. Although it was
most likely not the CEOs intention, Scheins model would indicate that
Kalanick and his publicized negative actions have had an impact on the
of workers rights while also providing a low-cost service to users of Uber. His
recent tirade against a driver is a clear public example of his actions not
working in conjunction with his proclaimed beliefs. In shifting the blame away
drivers for not doing well enough to maintain their pay levels, he is
reinforcing the idea that those who are the most competitive are the ones
are the ideals that give form to what those within the organization ought to
are at Uber, it seems as though competing and winning top the list. When
referring back to Susan Fowlers account of her time at Uber, it is clear that
are often able to do so by putting their needs above others, but this seems to
go further. Fowler mentions that when she was in meetings, there was often
a manager who was openly bragging about how they were trying to take
someones job at any cost. Through examples like this, it is clear that being
competitive without regard for anyone else is the most commonly shared
show that they understand that the best way to progress within the
does not have its benefits. When attempting to understand why it is that
Uber has been able to grow from launching in 2010 to being valued at $70
billion less than seven years later, it is undeniable that this competitive
that without the competitive drive that pushed the company to use the
comply with law enforcement in cities that had not approved the service yet,
Uber was able to lay the groundwork that would help it take hold once the
has fallen into the trap of its greatest strength also being its biggest
weakness. While the competitive nature that is fostered within Uber was vital
after scandal. Outside of the controversial remarks and accounts that have
come out of Uber, there have also been issues with some of their recent
property theft over work that they are doing to develop a self-driving car.
UBER CASE ANALYSIS 11
This is not the only issue that the push for automated services has
likely that the leaked documents showing poor progress could have been
When it comes to a solution for the issues that Uber is fighting, it is not
to get a river to change the direction that it flows in. Something that makes
shifting this even more difficult is that by reducing the intensity of the
salvaging the positive image the company once held, there would have to be
and foremost, there would have to be a new person installed as the most
visible figure for the company. Due to his leadership being credited with a
UBER CASE ANALYSIS 12
large amount of the success of the company, I would not recommend Travis
Kalanick be removed from Uber entirely. This being said, I would suggest
bringing in someone from the outside who doesnt have the stain of the
recent negative events on them to serve as the new CEO. In order to commit
to reshaping the image, Uber would do well to change how the everyone
the organization were to change their reward structure so that the success of
the parts contributes to the success of the whole, it would likely change the
values that the employees hold as important. By changing the look and feel
of the company, Uber could begin to change the culture that exists within its
walls.
At the end of the day, I dont think that anyone would try to make the
argument that the competitive culture at Uber did not contribute to its early
success. On the other hand, it does not appear that maintaining these values
causing more negative than positive in recent years, and this current model
References
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UBER CASE ANALYSIS 14
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