Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 171) reports that the same manager who attacked and berated employees also dated a direct report — and subsequently favored her in workplace matters.
Manager attacked and berated employees
Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 171) reports physical and verbal abuse by Uber managers:
One manager in Rio would scream or throw coffee mugs at subordinates when he was upset. Workers were threatened by managers with baseball bats if they didn’t meet targets. Once, this manager berated an employee about his performance so intensely, he made the man cry in front of the entire office. … Yet because Rio de Janeiro was one of Uber’s top performing markets, the numerous HR complaints about that manager went unresolved.
One employee called another “faggot”
Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 171) reports one employee calling another a “fagot.” He says there were no sanctions for the use of that term because the speaker had Kalanick’s protection.
Intense work demands
Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 171) describes “intense pressure” including “work[ing] late into the evenings.” He continues:
Some [employees] never took weekends off to enjoy time with their families. It wasn’t uncommon for bosses to call employees in the middle of the night, or for staff to be asked to join a conference call at two o’clock in the morning from New York if you were trying to talk to offices in Southeast Asia or Australia.
Hostile culture from New York City General Manager Josh Mohrer
Josh Mohrer, Uber’s General Manager for New York City, created a hostile culture. Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 169) explains:
Mohrer leaned hard on his people–browbeating them when he needed to–never accepting excuses. … Mohrer would pit his employees against each other to see who could impress him or deliver better–a tactic espoused by Kalanick himself. Subtle intimidation of his underlings sometimes meant flicking at their flaws, like inspecting the receding hairline of an employee as they tried to discuss a project with their boss. He described the shortcoming of an individual employee in front of the entire office, praising winners and shaming losers. … [A]round the office, according to two employees, he seemed like a shorter version of Biff Tannen, the high school bully antagonist from Back to the Future.
But Isaac reports that Uber ignored any concerns about culture:
Mohrer always hit his numbers, no matter what. And that was what mattered at Uber. His business success kept Mohrer’s position secure at the company for years.
Isaac reports (p. 323) that Mohrer was ultimately fired as part of the Holder report.
“Kill or be killed” motto
Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 169) reports Uber’s “champion’s mindset” of “Kill or be killed.” Isaac explains:
[I]f you weren’t watching your back you might be betrayed by a colleague looking to get ahead. Success, many believed, only came at the expense of others.
Isaac continues (p. 267) that an employee “recalled a director boasting about withholding information from one executive to curry favor with another (and it worked.” His conclusion: “Backstabbing was not only endorsed, but encouraged.”
Weak legal department “by design”
Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 158) describes Uber’s legal department as not “particularly strong” which was “partially design” to increase Kalanick’s control. Isaac remarks that Yoo “would push back on Kalanick occasionally, but her fear of being ‘iced out’ kept her from getting in Kalanick’s face about every legal concern she had.” Isaac continues: “Yoo was often unable–and at times reluctant–to influence her boss. When she did decide to raise an issue with Kalanick, Travis regularly treated her concerns as just another annoyance, especially when they had to do with legal compliance.”
Copied Lyft’s shared ride feature and beat it to market
Uber learned that Lyft was planning a shared ride feature, where multiple independent passengers shared a single vehicle. Uber copied that feature, then announced its launch hours before Lyft’s announcement — making it look like Uber, rather than Lyft, had thought of this concept.
Source: Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 153)
Faked petitions in St. Louis
In a dispute with the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission in St. Louis, Uber’s local general manager staged a media stunt in which Uber employees delivered nine boxes supposedly filled with “1,000 PETITIONS” (according to their labels), purportedly indicating citizen support for Uber. But the boxes were actually filled with water bottles.
Source: Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 151)
High lobbying expenses to sway lawmakers
Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped (p. 149) describes Uber’s high lobbying expenses, including (at peak) tens of millions of dollars spent per year. At peak, Uber had almost 400 paid lobbyists across 44 states, exceeding the paid lobbying staffs of Amazon, Microsoft, and Walmart combined.