What Went Wrong at Uber
Super Pumped author Mike Isaac and Gigged author Sarah Kessler discuss the cautionary tale of Uber
Uber is the most successful startup Silicon Valley has ever produced — at least, according to the $76 billion that it was at one point valued by private investors.
But as the ride-sharing company prepared to go public, that success started to seem flimsy. Uber’s reputation began nose-diving in early 2017 after Susan Fowler, a former employee, wrote a viral blog post detailing how the company had ignored her sexual harassment complaint. It fell further after reporters uncovered programs that allowed Uber to spy on competitors and dupe government officials. This reputation drop had major consequences: A Twitter campaign successfully encouraged more than 500,000 people to #deleteuber, threatening to flatten the company’s growth. And following an investigation into Uber’s win-at-all-costs workplace culture, investors pushed out founder and then-CEO Travis Kalanick.
Uber’s new public market investors, meanwhile, have been less tolerant than venture capitalists of the company’s massive losses — more than $5 billion last quarter alone. Since the May IPO, shares have lost more than 20% of their value.
