An Open Letter to the Uber Board and Investors
While those actions (and inaction) at Uber are despicable, part of me thinks that this was inevitable. In order to break up an entrenched, crony industry like ride hailing, you end up taking on some of their characteristics. Getting a female cabbie is incredibly rare in big cities[1], and associating with male drivers all the time is bound to produce some chauvinistic behaviors.<p>I'm not excusing the behavior, but I think this definitely rubbed off on them. It's an ends justify the means mentality, and it might not have been necessary under a different power structure. I suppose there's a chance that Lyft could have done it right, but who knows how they would have handled the other PR battles. Hopefully a new crop of managers at Uber, eventually dealing with a much more diverse group of drivers, one that includes machines, will be much less chauvinistic.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/how-uber-helps-women-break-into-the-taxi-industry/376127/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/how-ube...</a>