Inside Uber’s Aggressive, Unrestrained Workplace Culture
I don&#x27;t really understand why one would actually want to work at Uber. If you&#x27;re a good engineer, there are better and far more interesting and impactful companies to work at than an app whose primary purpose is to call a ride. I know Uber has much larger ambitions, and transportation is a large portion of the economy, and thus very lucrative, but really...are you willing to sacrifice your ethics and morals just to create the world&#x27;s best taxi service in the near term? To work in such a high stress, backstabbing and political environment, and for what? The vague promise of some RSU&#x27;s? Because there are interesting engineering challenges in planning a route?<p>Culture is clearly set at the top. The only way for Uber to move forward at this point is to make changes with this in mind. At this point, if I was on the board of directors, the only way to move forward is to get rid of Travis Kalanick. That will be the only message loud enough to signal to the rest of the world that Uber is going to change, and at this point, do they really even need him? It would be better to just fire him and replace him with someone else to just get him out of the picture. He&#x27;s an embarrassment to the company and they can easily find someone just as capable from a business and technical leadership perspective, probably someone a lot better than him in fact who they can trust won&#x27;t be making these rookie mistakes.<p>One of the main roles of a CEO is to set the culture and to prevent PR disasters like what is currently going on. What else of value has he <i>recently</i> contributed that is worth keeping him on despite all these numerous scandals?<p>If Uber does not do what is necessary to change their toxic environment, and to fix the now <i>perception</i> of toxicity, they will be eclipsed by one of their competitors in short order. You can go fast in a cut throat, winner takes all asshole culture, but you can go much farther with a happy team that enjoy working with one another.