The year 2017 was a tough one for Uber Technologies Inc. An Uber engineer posted a blog called “Reflecting on One Very,

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The year 2017 was a tough one for Uber Technologies Inc. An Uber
engineer posted a blog called “Reflecting on One Very, Very Strange
Year in Uber,” in which she detailed, among other things, a culture
of harassment at Uber. Almost at once, Uber values that symbolized
its “win at any cost” way of doing things (values like “builders
build, always be hustlin’,” and “meritocracy and toe stepping”)
were called into question. In the following months, scandals seemed
to haunt both the company and its CEO, Travis Kalanick. Letters
were released to the press which confirmed unpleasant attitudes
came from the top down—including from Kalanick himself. Kalanick
was also caught on video arguing with an Uber driver about lowering
fares, which did not strengthen his image in the public eye. So in
2017, not only was Uber’s core employee turnover too high, but six
top executives stepped down, including the president, finance head,
senior vice president of engineering, and CEO Travis Kalanick.
His resignation comes after a chaotic few months at the firm,
including a series of scandals about harassment, macho culture and
the departure of senior executives. Mr Kalanick's reputation for
ruthlessness and machismo has led to some deeply uncomfortable
reports about the culture inside Uber: with persistent stories
about organizational sexism and disputes with drivers over their
terms and with local authorities and taxi companies
Uber's relationship with drivers takes a hit, and news reports
investigate "dangerously long shifts" to take advantage of fleeting
incentives and bonuses. Dropping fares and profitable incentives
lure the drivers to keep driving past safe limits because Uber does
not set a cap on how many hours its drivers can work at a time.
Uber also admitted it had been underpaying drivers in the NYC area
for two years and promised to pay drivers $900 each in
compensation. It’s a problem compounded by the fact that Uber
offsets its operation costs by making drivers pay for them, which
often makes it hard for Uber’s drivers to make money at all because
the company calculated its commission on the gross fare, resulting
in more money for Uber and less for drivers
Uber's relationship with drivers takes a hit, and news reports
investigate "dangerously long shifts" to take advantage of fleeting
incentives and bonuses. Dropping fares and profitable incentives
lure the drivers to keep driving past safe limits because Uber does
not set a cap on how many hours its drivers can work at a time.
Uber also admitted it had been underpaying drivers in the NYC area
for two years and promised to pay drivers $900 each in
compensation. It’s a problem compounded by the fact that Uber
offsets its operation costs by making drivers pay for them, which
often makes it hard for Uber’s drivers to make money at all because
the company calculated its commission on the gross fare, resulting
in more money for Uber and less for drivers
Even after all those efforts, the company’s image was badly
tarnished in recent years by revelations of an abusive office
culture, active deception of the authorities around the world,
accusations of theft involving a rival’s technology and open
defiance of regulations governing ride-hailing operations. The
scandals have had real financial impact, with Uber losing
significant market share in the United States to Lyft, the No. 2
player there. Uber, which is based in San Francisco, is also facing
the consequences of its past behavior in overseas markets like
London, its most profitable city. In September 2018, regulators
refused to renew Uber’s license to operate in the city, saying the
company was not “fit and proper” to run a passenger transport
service
Uber was much less accommodating in Southeast Asia. The
Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore says Uber and Grab
reneged on a promise to brief it fully on the details of the
transaction before the deal was announced. (Uber says its lawyers
provided an informal briefing a few days earlier.) The commission
forced Uber to keep its app going until May 7, several weeks after
the app was set to shut down, and barred Grab from raising prices
for consumers or cutting payments to drivers while it considered
whether to reverse or modify the transaction
When antitrust regulators in the Philippines ordered the
companies to maintain independent operations while they reviewed
the deal, a top Uber executive in the region, Brooks Entwistle,
responded at a public hearing: “Uber exited eight markets,
including the Philippines, as of Monday. Now, I look after 10
markets, instead of 18. Our funding is gone. Our people are gone.
We don’t intend to come back to these markets.”
Go-Jek, the leading ride-hailing company in Indonesia, said last
week that it would invest $500 million to expand in other Southeast
Asian countries. Upstarts like Ryde and Hype have also announced
plans to enter some of the markets abandoned by Uber. Grab and Uber
both point to that emerging competition as a sign that their
combination does not violate antitrust laws
“While it wasn’t an easy call, ultimately it was the right thing
to do for Uber and our shareholders,” the company said in a
statement. “We are absolutely committed to being true partners to
cities for the long term, and this deal doesn’t indicate
otherwise.”
Mr. Kulkarni, who heads research at SharesPost, a San Francisco
marketplace for trading shares in private companies, said that
although Uber’s culture was changing, the very nature of its
business meant that it would keep upsetting the authorities
QUESTION
Assuming they want to expand their business in a new country,
what do you see as the main challenges HR managers would have to
address? How to solve those challenges?