They are not. There are ways in which being an asshole ay be good for founders (cf Steve Jobs). Kalanick is just an asshole, and even take-no-prisoner ask-forgiveness-later businesses run much better with a bit of attention to human decency.
I'm sort of baffled by seeing someone say this in a comment that's supportive of Steve Jobs. Are there tons of "the human decency of Steve Jobs" stories I've missed? Because I would have said that I've never heard of Jobs showing even a scrap of that, and it worked out pretty well for him.
The things happening under Jobs were different than the things happening under Kalanick, sure. But I don't see where that's a function of anything like decency - it just looks like a cultural difference in what kind of inhumane hostility was happening. Jobs was a perfectionist, but he was also manipulative, cruel, and dishonest in ways totally distinct from that.
I don't think anyone's suggesting that sexually harassing women is good for business.
https://www.recode.net/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-indi...
I've commented all over this thread (as a sister comment points out) because it appears there is a narrative that his attitude towards his employees misbehaviour is at least closely linked to the personality traits that allowed him to be successful. That can be seen, I believe, by the many comparisons to Steve Jobs, for whom it's accepted more widely that it was often hard to work for him because of his perfectionism, but that this was a necessary trait for his success.
The danger here is that people (mis)understand the situation and start excusing inexcusable behaviour, or even imitate it, because they think it's linked to success. It is not. You have to separate the strip-club-going bravado from the other law-breaking, which could at least in theory explain Uber's success.
Honestly, this feels like a white-wash. Jobs was exceedingly demanding, but that's hardly unique. Jobs was also dishonest, secretive, and simply cruel to the people around him. This comes up over and over, even in his non-business interactions.
I agree that it's an error to lionize Kalanick's behavior. But it's also wrong to say that Jobs' behavior was radically different, or that Kalanick's party-boy bravado is clearly separable from his disregard for the law. Realistically, I think we'd be better off admitting that an urge to ignore boundaries usually applies across many topics.
If Jobs was more capable Kalanick, I don't think that was a function of his nastiness somehow being more noble. He seems to have simply brought a lot more skill to his task.
It also is weird that matt4077 repeatedly contrasts Kalanick with Steve Jobs in this thread, despite Apple having been accused many times of mean culture, sexism, harassment and cover-ups too.
Like any good late-stage US capitalist, he outsourced it.
so he was standing over watching with approval as his employees were accosted? I doubt it. I think what's more likely is he didn't know about the extent of harassment (or didn't care, if you want to be cynical) and the initial HR non-response was likely just a really poor quality HR department designed to manage PR rather than solve employee problems. Organisations are more than just their CEO and while you can lay plenty of blame on him for allowing such a poor quality workplace culture to evolve, that doesn't necessarily mean that he's a big fan of sexual harassment in the workplace.
I bet you do, because nobody in their right mind believes that, and you are obviously attempting to cast the notion that a CEO might know what happens in their company as absurd.
Or do you also think that others believe oversight committees on BoDs literally stand over the managers and nod or grimace?
If he didn't know what HR was up to, he was incompetent.
> that doesn't necessarily mean that he's a big fan of sexual harassment
And... exactly nobody I've read here or anywhere else has asserted that. If you want to argue, do so in good faith.
If he didn't know what HR was up to, perhaps he wasn't the director in charge of HR? You can't expect a CEO to know 100% of what's happening in a larger company.
> And... exactly nobody I've read here or anywhere else has asserted that. If you want to argue, do so in good faith.
> ... managed HR's nonresponse to it.
your quote seems to imply that he went out of his way to make sure HR did nothing about the harassment. I'd be inclined to argue incompetence (or just a lack of ground-level micromanagement) over malice.
Unless the facts on the ground are very different than what we've heard, Uber HR had a policy of protecting some people accused of harassment because they were highly valued. In other words, a decision somewhere was made that policy was to prefer key-player retention over the risk of lawsuits, because, obviously, that sort of policy is pretty much guaranteed to lead to lawsuits[1].
I have a great deal of difficulty imagining the HR exec who doesn't realize that - that would be beyond incompetent, well in to senility[2]. I also have difficulty imagining the HR exec who will personally take on the risk of mandating policy about balancing disparate business risks (slowing down by losing productive harassers vs. lawsuits and bad press). That can end careers, and anyone capable of landing a management job at an Uber is exceedingly unlikely to take that risk without taking it up the food chain.
Finally, I find it remarkable that so many people are willing to credit the man with extraordinary genius in business execution while simultaneously arguing his incompetence when it happens to absolve him of shitty behavior.
And with this, I'm done with discussing things I didn't say.
[1] Moving on to speculation, making that choice makes perfect sense in an environment with a value system emphasizing winning at any cost and burning down anything in the way. If they thought first-mover advantage was literally everything and they thought they had enough money to weather any resulting legal problems, that's the rational choice. And especially if you think you're the smartest guy in the room and can get away with it. Not unlike hypothetically deciding to gaslight regulators or steal IP from competitors or invade medical privacy to discredit opponents. For example.
[2] I don't know about other states, but in California, HR for firms over some number of employees are legally required to ensure employees have been trained on sexual harassment law. I'm sure it takes other forms, but generally we get to watch these awful law-firm Flash videos of cartoons being either awkward with or awful to each other, and then have to answer questions about which actions are harassment in order to make sure we paid attention.
Nowhere has he said this. You're conflating two very different issues. No one is disputing that he is an asshole, etc. OP was making a different point.
If you peal back the layers, probably most rapid growth, hard driving large companies have left a wake of upset and screwed over people behind it. Nobody "gives" you a hundred billion dollar company.. Uber's leadership was just particularly inept at pivoting from "scorched earth" to a slightly less savage strategy.
This will be an interesting pivot to watch, I've been kind of betting with myself when will the first week come with no news or good news for uber. I thought they'd have spun up the pr machine months ago, talking about co2 saved by carpooling or something. Giant company, currently fixed runway, all eyes on it and damaged culture. If uber doesn't die, the next CEO is a superstar.
For human rights issues, yes, I tend to agree.
Anecdotally, famous Nordic startups include Spotify, Skype, Mojang (behind Minecraft), King (behind Candy Crush, Farm Heroes), Rovio and Supercell.
1. Nordic countries have more über wealthy per capita.
2. Nordic countries are social democracies.
Then he draws the conclusion, with no corroborating evidence, that these two things are inextricably linked. No data to link these two points at all. Nordic countries in general have a high GDP PPP, and that is probably not solely (or at all) due to being social democracies. Scandinavian systems need to be efficient due the nature of their environment, e.g. they have a lot of land and not a lot of population, and fairly harsh climate (e.g. poor farming conditions). I would almost argue that "being cold" is probably a better indicator of national wealth per capita than "being a social democracy" (though admittedly, I haven't done thorough research either). I mean, look at Canada. Look at the non-farming bits of the US vs. the farming bits. Look at North versus South Italy. etc. Industrialization is more efficient and effective in regions where alternative methods of production weren't great in the first place.
For reference, here is the population density of the nations he was comparing (in people per km^2):
Iceland - 3; Norway - 16; Sweden - 22; US - 33; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territor...
The US has 11x the population density of Iceland. Easier to have shared wealth when each person in your country can have 11x the land they could have in another country (with the caveat, of course, that this only applies if you are an industrialized nation).
I mean, just look at one of his "indicators" - billionaires per million people. By that metric, iceland is at that top. But there is only a single billionaire in iceland. Statistically, then, it's easier to be a billionaire in iceland. In practice, however, that is not the case. Things like population subsets need to be considered. In the US, you have a very large population, which is obviously going to impact per capita stats. However, you need to ask what proportion of those people are actually pursuing wealth in a way that could ever result in becoming a billionaire. e.g. a grocery bagger, probably never to be a billionaire. A plumber? Same. A hippy in a commune? Same. No data has been shown to adjust for lack of competition. At the end of the day, you have to look not at the total population, but at how many people are actually competing to become uber wealthy. Because, while attaining wealth isn't a zero-sum game, it certainly isn't an "everyone wins" game either.
Scandinavian countries have a very high proportion of jobs that don't really have a cap on upper income, such as software/game development, banking, music production, etc. because they have exceedingly efficient economies (as he actually touches on).
However, there is not clear reason to believe that they are efficient because they have social democracies. In fact, the converse (they became social democracies because they already had efficient economies) is just as likely, if not more so.
Can you elaborate on this supposed link between population density and shared wealth in developed nations? I don't understand the logical underpinnings of your argument. Developed countries almost by definition are less reliant on local geography.
Moreover, I don't see how space metrics are even relevant here. Iceland may technically have a lot of available "land" - but more than half the country lives in Reykjavik. A similarly lopsided urban / rural population distribution holds true in other Nordic countries.
My point about geography and population density needs to be related to my point about industrialization to make any sense.
It is this: Nordic countries have modern economies weighed very heavily towards industrialization/mechanization, but most importantly, they are efficient. As you say, they also have a "lopsided urban / rural population distribution", which is a much better way of saying (thank you) what I was trying to say: Nordic countries have land, but it's not good for the classic wealth generator - farming. This is why the population is focused in urban areas and is not spread out. However, luckily for places like Iceland, modern cities don't really care how good the land is for farming. An oil refinery doesn't care about the health of the soil. A modern factory doesn't care if the terrain is a bit rocky. Solar panels don't care. Mines don't care. etc., etc. Basically all modern industry is fine in a place like Iceland.
This an unexpected and immense boon to making a modern industrialized nation efficient, because on the one hand, you have major population centres with not much in-between (due to the lack of farming), which is in itself efficient, because areas you need to service with public services are greatly reduced. But on the other hand, you have plenty of space to put modern things like factories or new cities or what have you.
Compare this to the US, the country with more arable farmland than any other country on earth. Sure, the US has big population centres, but they are spread out, and many of them are still driven by rural economies. This greatly reduces efficiency, and is generally why the spread out states seem to be further behind the small / densely populated ones.
I've included the percentage of population that is urban below for comparison, according to The World Bank, from 2015. Also, I think it is slightly different when the rural population is doing something like fishing (Nordic) vs farming, but I won't go into that here.
US - 81%
Sweden - 86%
Iceland - 94%
Comparing anything to the US is a little bit silly though, because the US is comprised of 50 states, all of which are quite a bit different from each other. For instance, I bet the uber wealthy per capita in say California or New York is much, much higher than the Nordic countries. So the obvious answer to this video is probably "move to New York or California if you want to make a lot of money". I will say that would probably require more initial capital than a nordic country, but if you have the initial capital, then your chances are probably better. SO THE ACTUAL ANSWER IS: Get a great education and livelihood in Norseland while you're young, get some seed capital, and move to Cali/NYC/etc to really start making bank.
Obviously if you want to become a billionaire, you're not going to move to Plano, TX. Yet Plano is affecting the per capita stats.
Sweden has a population of 9.8 million yet it has produced Skype, Mojang, Spotify, King, Klarna [0]
Australia has 2.5x the population but only two unicorns. The UK and London market themselves as the capital of unicorns in Europe yet with 6.5x the population they have either the same number of unicorns or just four more (depending how you count them).
That is remarkable for a country like Sweden, especially when considering the strength and size of the Swedish expatriate community in tech around the world (many tend to leave).
In terms of similar results, I think only Singapore is in similar or better unicorn per capita territory.
[0] http://www.technologist.eu/sweden-the-land-of-unicorns/
[1] "unicorn" isn't the best measure since it is a private valuation and you can get different answers depending on who you ask, but most people would recognize those Swedish startups as being successful.
Skype is Estonian.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/stories/skype/skype-chapter-...
We are technically a UK incorporated company, headquartered and half our staff in Sydney and many of our staff and customers in the USA.
I still consider us Australian though.
I see many clever companies where I live in Melbourne - however I am saddened by what I perceive as the neglect the government is showing for the tech sector, especially startups; I'm looking e.g. at how share options are taxed. I believe there's a lot of lost opportunity here.
I'd rather have a real work life balance (it's not so called, it's very real) than any amount of abuse working for a US style startup would throw at me.
Most of my colleague would as well.
To have the disdain for life you seem to display you must live in a very distant place from a sane version of reality.
"Mr. Smith: I move my finger one inch to use my turn signal. Why are these assholes so lazy they can't move their finger one fucking measly inch to drive more safely? You wanna know why?
DQ: Not particularly.
Mr. Smith: Because these rich bastards have to be callous and inconsiderate in the first place to make all that money, so when they get on the road, they can't help themselves. They've gotta be callous and inconsiderate drivers too. It's in their nature."
Edit: you did say 'almost'.
The company is what is pertinent to the discussion :)
Morals are relative.
I don't know how old you are, but public morality towards sexual harassment just in the U.S. has changed in my lifetime. (For the better, although it is currently ugly and messy, as these changes always are.)
Even attitudes about what constitute harassment vary by culture between similar cultures. Compare Italy and Germany.
Look at Google; they're firmly business-minded and have often butted heads with regulators and so forth, but most people like google, not least because of that 'don't be evil' branding and and their habit of giving people Nice Things.
If your margins are razor thin. You have to be ruthless. That permeates to your culture.
Do you things are any better at Amazon, Foxconn or other warehouse places?
That has nothing to do with sexual harassment. And to imply that the two must be linked is false.
Does 'highly demanding environment' == 'Harassment' to you? If yes then you have far bigger problems. Any demanding mission ever might be out of reach to you per your value system.
Work conditions, overall demands of productivity et al will be brutal. And that ultimately gets to cause all sorts of other problems. People who just can't catch up with all the rush ultimately feel discriminated.
Non sequitur. You're also generally espousing some pretty reprehensible ideas. We as a society do not take the view that business success overrides all soft concerns, especially with regard to their employees. If ruthlessness and discrimination is the grist that your mill requires, find another mill.
Also please avoid working in management.
This is obviously wrong. Have you ever bought a iPhone? Or any other Apple product. Have you ever ordered anything from Amazon.
How do you think Walmarts and Targets of the world can sell you things for so cheap? Behind all this there is some guy being sent through some real hard ships.
As a consumer you have already made that choice.
The reader will note that this is a classic example of the 'tu quoque' fallacy[0].
My answer to that is then there is something fundamentally wrong with your business model. Basically, what is the point in running a business under which such conditions are the norm?
Any demanding mission ever might be out of reach to you per your value system.
This is fallacious. Of course there are times when struggle is necessary. A rewarding life (however you define reward) certainly requires an investment of effort, and at time that effort will be very difficult. Sometimes we are faced with very trying circumstances such as natural disaster or war or serious economic insecurity, and we have to work very ahrd to survive.
But a key word here is sometimes. If you deliberately construct such an environment where survival and advancement are only possible through 'brutal' work conditions and demands of productivity, then you are actively making the world a worse place, because you are establishing such brutal conditions as a norm and implicitly telling people that their life choices boil down to slavery or death. Why would any sane person want to create the conditions of slavery? Slavery is a condition of life that people rationally wish to escape.
There seems to be this attitude that if people are not constantly driven by necessity then they'll get too comfortable and lazy and never do anything. This is not borne out by the evidence. Some people would, not least because they're constantly bombarded with messages to consume, consume, consume whenever they can as a relief from their economic anxiety. But few people are fundamentally motivated by gluttony. Given the opportunity most people opt to develop their capabilities and contribute or create rather than merely consume.
Choosing to promulgate brutal working conditions is essentially promoting brutality as your preferred model of social organization. That's basically a displacement of sadistic and/or masochistic impulses into the economic sphere. You may very well feel that nothing of value happens except under harsh compulsion, but that seems to both ignore all the evidence to the contrary (an irrational bias) and abdicate responsibility for the consequences (since brutality is well-understood to result in wholly avoidable injuries).
It seems to me that your value system rests on some rather extreme assumptions that are not justified by the available evidence, and insofar as it imposes compulsion on others rather than being used to motivate yourself, it's intolerable. Put another way, if you only feel alive and productive under conditions of harsh necessity, that's your business. But as soon as you insist that this is the way of the world and that others must get with it or be cast aside, you're infringing upon the freedom of others. And at a social level, through regulatory process, experience of litigation and so on, we've agreed that the creation of such conditions is not an acceptable means to pursue arbitrary ends.
As usual : 'Value'. All these affordable iPhones and seamless Amazon deliveries happen because they have a work culture that optimizes for every single $. I agree with your premise that these are not for everyone. But this is precisely why we have freedom. Nobody should sign up for a job they think is too hard for them.
As we talk there are doctors who are training by the clock, sleeplessly working towards becoming surgeons. This is necessary for various reasons. If it were any easy, people would become bad doctors with less training. This is bad for society. The fact that work conditions are harsh- that isn't wrong or discrimination or even harassment. The very demands of the job are such.
The top percentage of any profession are this way. That comes with the job. You just don't go and say why don't they make it easy to me to be the next Zakir Hussain. Mr Hussain has set pretty high practice benchmarks practicing his instrument pretty much his whole life. Was it worth for his to have undergone all that pain and punishment to get there? May be that fits into his value system.
If you want to beat Jeff Bezos you have to at least perform at his level or higher. You just have to chose your mission based on the mileage you think you have.
No, but that's not the point. How quickly we forget that we don't need dude bros to create a hostile environment for women. That GitHub situation was created by a woman, one who wasn't even an employee. We really don't give women enough credit.
Toxic work environment is everywhere. Remember the spreadsheet that Googlers started to compare salaries? I'd argue the Apple-Google-X pact to not poach one another is worse than anything Travis could imagine.
If there was crass behavior at Uber, I'm inclined to be more lenient because I think it is at a more primitive level than a well thought out plan to increase shareholder value by illegal collaboration to push down worker cost. If these people who criticize Uber really care about their employees, they will start publishing all details about how much salary and benefits and whatever money each employee makes.
Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder than words.
Here in India, I go by the office cab to home everyday. I generally chat with the drivers as to why they don't drive for Uber/Ola etc. The answer is they need to make a good 1300 rupees on a round trip to be profitable, at a minimum of 6 trips per day. A trip with Uber/Ola etc costs 300 rupees(With pool). But even then!
So that's like these people need to start charging a minimum of 5x extra to make profits. At that price these people are no longer a viable means of transport.
To be profitable you need to back to the yellow taxi medallion thingy all over again.
EDIT: Fix a mistake.
So if the (now edited) original intent was exponential, "more like 10x than 1x (or 100x)", then calling 5x an oom is fine. If the intent was linear, then yes, rounding 5x to 10x is 100 percent error (difference/actual). :)
I'm headed in the opposite direction and reinstalling the Uber app tonight. This is a very convincing capstone to a 180 degree course correction away from everything I disliked about Uber. I also hope Travis can learn and come back and lead the company again in the future.
Kalanick has serious issues but he's demonstrated unquestionably forceful (and polarizing) leadership that mere "managers" will never be able to replace.
I've been bullish on Uber despite all their mistakes and internal issues because at the end of the day, the guy at the top was irrationally emotionally committed to _winning_. Now I am a bear on Uber.