What Happened When Uber’s CEO Started Driving for Uber

Author: Editors Desk Source: WSJ:

April 7, 2023 at 06:56

CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in the gray Tesla he uses to drive passengers, in San Francisco on Wednesday.

Dara Khosrowshahi and other executives realized drivers’ complaints were valid. They revamped the app, helping Uber attract workers and extend its lead on Lyft. Driver pay remains a sticking point.

After five years running Uber UBER 0.19%increase; green up pointing triangle Technologies Inc., Dara Khosrowshahi in September got behind the wheel himself.

Using the alias “Dave K” and a gray Tesla Model Y that he purchased secondhand, the chief executive made dozens of trips as a ride-share driver in the following months ferrying people around the hills of San Francisco.

While taking a customer to the airport one evening, he had to ignore frantic phone calls from his chief legal officer who was trying to alert him that a hacker had breached Uber’s network. Another trip took him across the Bay Bridge to Oakland—and he swore never to do it again after getting stuck in rush-hour traffic back to the city.

It was the latest experiment in the CEO’s yearslong journey to reinvent driving on Uber. Along the way, he struggled to sign up as a driver, saw firsthand something called tip baiting and was punished by the app for rejecting trips. Surprisingly hard to take was the rudeness of some Uber riders.

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