All of the incidents recounted above appear not, however, to have notably dented the company: during the all hands meeting Rachel Holt said “Last week, riders in the USA took more trips with Uber than ever before”.
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Uber is also undergoing a major change in how it’s run, according to Hornsey, a longtime Google employee before joining Uber.
“The board has confidence in Travis”, said Arianna Huffington, co-founder of news site Huffington Post and one of seven voting Uber board members.
Jones explained that he could not continue as president of a business with which he was incompatible. She said there’s an “absolute commitment that the findings will be made public and that they will inform all the actions”. Rachel Holt, head of Uber’s United States and Canada business, said the company is streamlining drivers’ earnings statements, amping up support lines and readjusting the system used to penalize drivers after rider complaints. “Last week riders in the U.S. took more trips with Uber than ever before”. “But this is not a systemic problem”, said Huffington.
Responding to a reported question that implied Uber had intentionally stacked the call with female employees for the sake of optics, Huffington responded that she believed it was actually very “exciting” to have so many women on the call.
“We need to change it to be a continuous rather than a heavy moment in time”, she said.
Huffington is overseeing an investigation into Uber’s workplace culture, sparked by a former engineer’s accusations last month that the company protected a manager who sexually harassed her.
In 2016, the number of Uber employees doubled. She was hired right before the #DeleteUber movement took off. She said the COO, a role that has not previously existed at Uber, will be a “true partner” to Mr Kalanick.
Meanwhile, the cab-hailing company will be releasing its first ever diversity report by the end of march and had already started work upon improving the system.
Uber also updated more than 1,500 job descriptions on its website to make sure they didn’t have unconscious bias that could unknowingly deter individuals from applying.
Uber is additionally looking to smooth its relationship with drivers. A recent video showed Kalanick profanely berating a driver who confronted him about steep cuts in Uber’s rates.
Even as scandals pile up at the beleaguered ride-hailing company, Huffington insists that Kalanick is on solid footing from the board’s perspective.
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Kalanick was notably absent from the call – he apparently was busy interviewing candidates for the chief operating officer position he created two weeks ago.
