(2023-04-08) What Happened When Ubers Ceo Started Driving For Uber

What Happened When Uber’s CEO Started Driving for Uber. As the economy reopened after pandemic lockdowns, riders returned at a faster pace than drivers. Uber at first defaulted to an old formula—financial incentives. In April 2021, Dara Khosrowshahi carved out $250 million in bonuses to entice drivers. When the company revealed in August that year that the spending had weighed on its results, its shares tanked. Investors hammered Mr. Khosrowshahi.

Carrol Chang had been leading the effort to get drivers to return to the ride-hailing service. Her father once worked as a taxi driver after immigrating to the U.S., and she knew bonuses were just a short-term fix. Drivers wanted not only better pay but also to be heard about other issues. In June that year, she held a four-hour Zoom meeting with company executives and asked them to ferry passengers

Through a 227-slide presentation, she outlined how the company’s three competing objectives of keeping costs low, avoiding legal risks and attracting drivers had created what she called a “triangle of death,” paralyzing Uber’s ability to do more for workers.

Mr. Khosrowshahi struggled with Uber’s sign-up process, which was different depending on whether workers wanted to drive people or deliver food. “The whole experience was pretty clunky

The CEO also learned navigating bustling restaurants for pick ups was confusing, with little information provided on where to go.

Uber would often match Mr. Khosrowshahi to his next delivery while he was en route to completing an order. One time he clicked on the notification and the app started navigating him to a new address—hiding directions for the current order

On another occasion, Mr. Khosrowshahi showed up to a restaurant to pick up what he thought was one order—only to learn that it involved two separate deliveries. Uber was combining orders along the same route, but the app didn’t make that clear

Mr. Khosrowshahi also ran into a problem delivery drivers had been complaining about: tip baiting. Customers would entice workers to pick up their food quickly by entering big tips on the app—but then reducing them after the food was delivered. Uber is still looking for ways to address the practice

Then, in September last year, Mr. Khosrowshahi tried out ferrying passengers. He bought the used gray Tesla and began picking up San Francisco riders... soon experienced some of Uber drivers’ biggest complaints. One was the inability for drivers to see drop-off locations and estimated pay before they accepted a trip, a restriction that made it impossible to decide if a ride was worth their time

To make some destinations more attractive, the company needed to change the way it calculated driver pay. Uber started measuring real-time demand at drop-off locations, to add to time and distance, in factoring pay. Drivers were paid more if they took passengers to areas that were unlikely to bring new rides, such as secluded neighborhoods.

Uber kept him busier because he could switch between rides and food delivery

Another fix: He forgot a customer’s mango lassi once, leading to a new feature that reminds couriers when drinks are paired with food.

In October, Uber trained its maps to avoid left turns at accident-prone intersections and started testing in-app video recordings of the car’s interior, a safety feature drivers had asked for amid rising crime against gig workers.