Uber

The City of London recently gave Uber the cold shoulder. Why did city authorities decide against renewing Uber's license to operate within London?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
The car service company Uber suffered panic on the streets
of London after the city revoked its license. I'm Jonathan
Strickland and this is tech stuff. Dating. On Friday, September two,
London City officials rejected Uber's application for a new license

(00:24):
to operate as a private car hire company. What's going on?
Travis Kalinnik and Garrett Camp founded Uber in two thousand
nine after they had experienced a frustrating evening of trying
to hail a cab in Paris. Their solution was to
create a business in which customers use an app to
signal the need for a ride. Uber employees would have
their own version of this software that would identify potential passengers.

(00:48):
Everything would be matched up nice and neat. Drivers would
receive a percentage of the fares they earned, and the
rest would go to the company. Even if that were
all there were to the Uber story, we would still
call the company disruptive. There are complicated agreements between governments
and car hire services that exist to regulate the industry
and make sure both customers and companies get a fair shake.

(01:11):
Uber and services like it tend to upset the delicate
bureaucratic balance, but there are further complications when it comes
to Uber. The company's history includes issues that range from
problematic to deeply troubling. In seventeen alone, the company has
experienced several high profile crises. On February nineteen, former Uber

(01:34):
employees Susan Fowler wrote a blog post that alled she
had been sexually harassed while working for Uber, and that
the company had an overall permissive attitude toward that sort
of behavior, going so far as to refuse to hold
one harassing manager accountable because he was quote a high
performer end quote. She also said there was a blatant

(01:54):
gender bias in the company. CEO Travis Kalanick said the
company would immediately investigate the claims, hiring Eric Holder, the
former Attorney General of the United States, to lead the investigation.
Just a few days later, on February twenty seventeen, The
New York Times published a piece that included accounts from
several other Uber employees that detailed instances of harassment. The

(02:18):
piece also said that during a corporate retreat, employees engaged
in recreational drug use. The very next day, Google filed
a lawsuit against Uber, claiming the company had stolen technology
relating to self driving vehicles, and two of Uber's major
investors sent an open letter to fellow investors in the
Board of directors claiming that Uber had been ignoring their

(02:39):
efforts to change company culture for years. February seen would
contain more problems for the company, including an embarrassing dash
cam video of CEO Kalanik arguing with an Uber driver
about the decrease and fair amounts which directly impacts driver's incomes.
In March, the company had to deal with a new

(03:00):
string of controversies. A report revealed that Uber software included
a tool called gray Ball. The purpose of this tool
is to identify people using Uber who are, according to
the company quote, violating our terms of service, whether that's
people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt
our operations, or opponents who colluded with officials on secret

(03:23):
stings meant to entrap drivers end quote. The report alleged
that Uber was using this tool in order to circumvent
authorities in cities where Uber had not received official license
to operate or in ones where the company had been
outright banned. On June one, two thousand seventeen, Travis Kalenik
resigned as CEO, a move prompted by pressure from the

(03:46):
company's worried investors. Kalen Nick had a hand in selecting
his replacement, former Expedis CEO Dara Kasro Shauhi. Meanwhile, the
company Benchmark, a major investor in Uber, brought legal charges
against Kalina, claiming he had committed fraud and that he
was using his remaining power with the company to fill
the board of directors with his own supporters. As for

(04:07):
the recent bruhaha in London, according to city officials, the
decision to deny the license renewal was made because Uber's
approach and conduct demonstrate a lack of corporate responsibility. By that,
the city officials mean that Uber has a long history
of failing to report criminal offenses or perform extensive background
checks on drivers, and if you look into Uber's past

(04:29):
even further, you'll see numerous news reports detailing the various
incidents that seemed to back up this assertion. London officials
also noted that the gray ball tool, which effectively hides
Uber driver activity from city authorities, wasn't cricket in their eyes.
London Mayor City Kahn said all companies in London must

(04:49):
play by the rules and adhere to the high standards
we expect, particularly when it comes to the safety of customers.
Providing an innovative service must not be at the expense
of customers safety and security. This news likely delighted the
Black Cab Company, the historic car hire service in London,
with drivers that must pass an infamously difficult test called

(05:12):
the Knowledge Rather than relying on satellite navigation, a London
cabby must be able to find the shortest, fastest route
from one point to another simply through knowledge alone. In
an area as massive as the Greater London Metropolitan Area,
this is no small task. As for Uber, the company
has the chance to appeal this decision, but even if

(05:34):
London officials reverse their stance, it's clear that Uber has
a lot of house cleaning left to do. The company's
reputation has suffered enormously in with investor and customer confidence dropping.
As a result, Uber employee morale hasn't fared much better.
It could be that Uber will one day be held
up as an example of how an enormously successful company

(05:56):
can come undone without the right people and policies in
place to protect employees and customers alike. To learn more
about companies like uberb and the tech that lets them operate,
be sure to subscribe to the podcast Tech Stuff. In
every episode, I do a deep dive on the tech
that makes our world. Tip or be or whatever. That's

(06:17):
all from me for now, See you next time.