I recently interviewed with Uber in Asia, spoke to a half dozen people there right up to the head of the region and many Americans who have been with the company for years, and I did not get the job (so, clearly not biased towards the company).
Here's my one data point: they were all really nice, professional, competent people I'd actually want to work with. When I say nice, I don't mean polite, but trustworthy and well intentioned.
They are working very hard to cope with the massive growth of their app, trying to figure out how to manage 200 offices in parallel with tiny teams whilst keeping the same quality standards and avoiding unsavoury incidents that come when you hire a large number of people in many locations (imagine what would happen if there was a rape or robbery attempt by an Uber driver). They are under extreme press scrutiny and large amounts of negative PR globally, because they are hitting some of the best organised, most entrenched oligopolies.
Psychologically, it felt like there was a strong sense of family and purpose, that I haven't really seen since I left commodities trading (whose companies are family owned businesses where long careers are common). They were proud of what they were building, genuinely appreciating the value added to the community by their work. The place also felt meritocratic, with people getting expanded responsibility rapidly after proving themselves (based on the career path of the long timers I talked to - could be survivorship bias).
Naturally, I poked a bit towards the "unethical" side of things, suggesting a couple of things as feelers for how they would react. The reaction was overwhelmingly negative - it seems that "dirty tricks" are not looked well in Uber in 2015 at least, fair competition is the name of the game.
So, they impressed me enough as people (after impressing me as a service) that here I am putting up a positive word on HN. I suspect much of the negative press is "black" PR from competitors and threatened interest groups.
They were quite open with feedback which is another reason I have good feelings towards the company. The whole process was very quick - responses in days. Compared to what my friends tell me about Google's sometimes multi-year process, it's a dream.
I don't know how much I can say about their internal structure but what I found very cool (especially as a former Rocket Internet employee) was their focus on and methods for detecting and spreading knowledge across the entire organisation, which is sort of decentralised even if many important decisions are made in California.
This is something we never got right at Rocket, where companies and regions are much more independent and have wildly differing methods and standards. It was very rare for things to cross over beyond the "startup code" (the PHP e-commerce codebase that is sent over to be deployed when a venture is opened) and some marketing methodology. The other large companies I've been familiar with are better at sharing information, but tend to have a global hub where most of the thinking is done anyway (i.e. knowledge tends to radiate outwards).
Curious to hear more about what you found cool about their communication methods. I've been thinking about this a lot as I'm surprised how inefficient a lot of Big Corp communication methods can be, especially those with a field/regional organization. Inclined to agree that knowledge radiates outwards, but tinkering with ideas about how to best receive feedback inwards and what are the most effective methods of radiating that knowledge. Easier said than done.
In the hypothetical case where I'd be running a company like that, I'd want a small team of people who are both technically and operationally extremely able, and personally likeable and politically capable; preferably people who have proven themselves and have credit internally (or such achievements as to reach the same reputation even as an external hire).
I'd task them to overview everything that is happening globally, coordinate trials and experiments so that several hundred could run at the same time globally, and share back information and results across the world. They'd be in effect the repository of knowledge of the company, the institutional memory (so much wheel gets reinvented!) and they most crucially wouldn't be based in HQ in the Bay Area, but a distributed global team constantly roaming and meeting all the local teams. They wouldn't have or need authority to "get things done" by steamrolling over the local office (as the IBM Black Team did [1]), instead convincing them that it's a good idea to try.
They would include specialists in every discipline that is important to the company from finance to statistics, to make sure that there is always at least one team member that can be on the same level as a local specialist (both to avoid taking stupid decisions, and to be credible in conversations).
This has already happened: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34578477
They did some really incredible PR on it (adding the "emergency" button, quick dissociation of the driver and the company, etc), and seem to have gotten off basically scot-free in of public opinion.
It's a massive step up from what was available with taxis before. I remember when I worked in Mumbai, getting ripped off systematically until my co-workers helped me find "Meru Cool Cabs" which were always on time, professional and charging my non-Hindi speaking, non-Indian looking self by the meter. That, and trying to haggle on a fare with autorickshaws (resulting in 1 in 20 agreeing - the rest wanted 10x) to go home from the Big Bazaar in Vikhroli, and wondering if the shortest path REALLY has to go through that slum. Wish there had been Uber back then.
They're almost at parity now though, at the normal person level in Chicago at least. I get nearly killed by either on my bike just as easily :)
Glad I'm not the only one who notices these cars randomly driving slowly or parked in the bike lanes waiting for the next ride to come in.
Ride safe..
I've seen drivers parked in lots when they are awaiting a request but in places where parking is charged such as downtown, I think they prefer to keep looping around blocks.
There may be an interesting case study to be made on the environmental impact of these idling cars.
I also had one reckless idiot spend the whole ride texting while driving, too.
This makes me wonder if Lyft can leverage the backlash against Uber and achieve success in areas hostile to Uber but not hostile to ridesharing/Car-as-a-Service services.
It is essentially a land-grab but on a global scale, with the measure of success being on-going local dominance on a per city basis. Personally I find it fascinating, the goings-ons of municipalities are usually quite opaque to outsiders and the insight is new.
Also, if you catch an Uber in SF or Seattle, the driver is likely to be running Lyft and Uber. Sure, Uber can try to give drivers disincentives to use multiple apps. But good luck doing that AND staying out of anti-trust investigations AND convincing everybody that their drivers are still contractors not employees.
The major thing I found different was the driver wanted me to sit in the front and was much more enthusiastic about conversation. It wasn't bad but it was definitely different and somewhat offputting. Not sure if that was just a single event, but I wonder if each company encourages those differences in driver interaction.
The software business tends to like monopolies as the price to build the first one is usually quite expensive but the cost to build each additional one is fairly cheep. That combined with the more people (drivers and riders in this case) use the software the better it gets leads to fewer big companies with more users.
I refuse to carry cash. If I were to take Uber, I'd have drivers one-starring me and giving me a bad reputation for not tipping them. With Lyft, I can tip in the app and avoid all that mess.
For the record, my rating was around 4.5 last time I checked so it doesn't seem like drivers are penalizing me for not tipping.
Not having to do the mental/social gymnastics of tipping is a big feature of the Uber experience for me.
If you were a driver, a rating of 4.5 could get you kicked off the platform. So, yes, drivers are rating you poorly.
Except I'm not a driver. 4.5 is, in any realistic rating system, perfectly fine.
Also, why do I care if you think I'm being rated poorly? It's not like it affects my experience in any way.
It was because the guy let me bring my dog (in her large cage) in his van which was definitely a bit beyond normal.
> So we compiled a list of seven things you might be doing to annoy your Uber driver and destroy your rating. Avoid these behaviors to ensure a smooth ride for both you and your driver.
> 2. You don't tip.
From one of the biggest Uber driver blogs: http://therideshareguy.com/should-uber-passengers-tip-their-...
> I often see drivers referring to passengers that don’t tip as ‘cheap bastards’ or ‘pieces of shit’
> As a driver, if tips really are important to you, then you need to educate your passengers about how Uber used to pay a better wage and drivers were ok with not accepting tips and now that rates are lower, more and more drivers depend on tips to make a live-able wage.
The vast majority of Uber riders do not tip. [1] There's not an expectation that you do (even the driver blog you cited admits that). I don't really know why you're trying to create this perception that it's expected, but it certainly isn't.
[1] http://www.cnet.com/news/to-tip-or-not-to-tip-drivers-that-i...
I don't know that Lyft is better, but I haven't seen the same level of disregard for others.
Maybe it's just because they're the underdog, but I'm really rooting for Lyft.