
Uber employees lose faith and explore exit - mjohn
https://www.ft.com/content/c6bc4b2c-0012-11e7-8d8e-a5e3738f9ae4
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carlmcqueen
This article seems to have a single recruiter, who used to work for Uber, as
their source. It says an uptick of 10% but doesn't give any idea on what kind
of volume that is or was before the 10% uptick. Did he get 10 people? did he
get 5? did he get 50?

This is similar 'reporting' that the actual recruiters themselves give me when
they call-- that they have great jobs with great pay if I'll give them all my
information and some of the information on peers of mine. When there are no
jobs, just talk.

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AJ007
Agreed, this is not the quality of journalism a paid periodical like FT should
be publishing. If there is evidence, print it, but this sounds like someone
was fed an article title from a trending meme machine.

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AndrewKemendo
There is a wide gulf between the experience backgrounds of senior leadership
at the largest tech startups [1] and those of largest companies worldwide [2].
I think this is obvious, but worth noting the differences.

While there may be similar undergraduate or even graduate pedigree, there is a
massive difference in experience at the CEO level.

For the top 5 startups worldwide: AirBnB, Uber, Hootsuite, Medium, and 500px,
NONE of the CEOs had much experience in leading large or critical
organizations before they came into the job.

For the top 5 companies worldwide: Walmart, State-Grid, China Petro, Sinopec
and Shell, ALL of the CEOs had decades of leadership experience managing
larger and more diverse workforces in more critical capacities.

It could be argued that you can't start a successful startup with traditional
leadership background, perhaps that is true. However over a certain size, it's
a whole different ballgame in terms of how you run and manage a company. "What
got you here, won't get you there."

MSFT, GOOG, APPL all seem to be outliers in many respects, including the fact
that at a certain size they brought in someone with a more traditional
background to "run" the company (Ballmer from P&G, Schmidt from Sun/Novell,
Sculley from Pepsi).

[1] [http://www.startupranking.com/top](http://www.startupranking.com/top)

[2] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/07/20/revealed-
the-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/07/20/revealed-the-biggest-
companies-in-the-world-in-2016/)

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n00b101
"... S&P 500 companies where the founder is still CEO are more innovative,
generate 31% more patents, create patents that are more valuable, and are more
likely to make bold investments to renew and adapt the business model ..." [1]

[1] [https://hbr.org/2016/03/founder-led-companies-outperform-
the...](https://hbr.org/2016/03/founder-led-companies-outperform-the-rest-
heres-why)

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Note, that I don't point to them being founders as the key differentiation,
it's that they are founders with no large scale management experience.

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ldmosquera
Does anyone else feel like there might be a media attack on Uber lately,
possibly funded by competitors or opposing municipalities/taxi companies?

It seems like a lot of different kind of bad news have surfaced lately about
the company (sexism, expense > income, CEO asshattery, screwing over drivers).
All of these seem legit, but seeing them all blow up over the space of a few
months makes me think there might be a concerted effort to hurt the company.

Not saying the company does not deserve it though.

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jnsaff2
"Recruiters in the Bay Area and executives at rival companies say they have
seen an uptick in job applications from Uber employees, as its workers lose
faith in the company’s leadership and start to doubt the value of their stock
options."

Self fulfilling prophecy?

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Kinnard
Non-linear complex system . . . ?

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ckastner
_For employees at Uber, quitting the company often means walking away from
restricted stock units or stock options worth hundreds of thousands, if not
millions, of dollars in Silicon Valley’s most highly valued private company.
With Uber currently worth about $70bn [...]_

FT makes it sound like this is hard cash that employees are walking away from.
The options are paper money, and $70bn is not was Uber is "worth", but merely
a valuation projected from the most recent investment round.

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kubatyszko
Especially when it goes down under - the paper money value essentially becomes
zero. The only semi-positive outcome would be acquisition, but with Lyft doing
"okay" I'm not even sure there are other options...

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CiaranR
\--Full Text--

 __Uber employees lose faith and explore exit ___Competitors and recruiters
find more job applications from car-hailing app workers_

9 HOURS AGO by: Leslie Hook in San Francisco

Recruiters in the Bay Area and executives at rival companies say they have
seen an uptick in job applications from Uber employees, as its workers lose
faith in the company’s leadership and start to doubt the value of their stock
options.

Uber has gone from crisis to crisis over the past five weeks, prompting
increasing numbers of employees to explore the idea of leaving a start-up that
was once considered one of Silicon Valley’s most prestigious and lucrative
workplaces.

“I have seen quite a few people who have been looking to leave Uber,” said one
recruiter, who previously worked at the car-hailing company. “One of the main
reasons is lack of faith in senior leadership.”

He said the number of unsolicited résumés from Uber employees coming across
his desk spiked last week, a time when two former employees published personal
accounts alleging harassment and sexism at the company. He received more
résumés from Uber in one week than he had the previous month.

For employees at Uber, quitting the company often means walking away from
restricted stock units or stock options worth hundreds of thousands, if not
millions, of dollars in Silicon Valley’s most highly valued private company.
With Uber currently worth about $70bn, a typical middle manager position comes
with RSUs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that vest over a four-year
period.

“Historically, it has been incredibly difficult to recruit from Uber, which
partly has to do with people being unwilling to leave their stock options on
the table,” says Guillaume Champagne, president at SCGC Executive Search.
“From a purely financial perspective, Uber would need to become an awful place
for them to leave.”

Nevertheless, in the past few weeks, Mr Champagne has seen an increase of
about 5-10 per cent in the number of people interested in leaving,
particularly those who are “a bit less of a culture fit”, he says. “To be
fair, people typically know what they are getting into when they join Uber.
They know it is a very male-dominated, high-octane, investment banking type of
culture,” he adds.

In the past two weeks a series of public embarrassments, including a video in
which chief executive Travis Kalanick berates an Uber driver, have left the
company struggling to recover its image. Mr Kalanick issued an unusual apology
after the video was published, saying: “I must fundamentally change as a
leader and grow up.”

Two senior executives quit the company last week, adding to employees’ sense
of uncertainty. Ed Baker, who was vice-president of product and oversaw Uber’s
rapid expansion over the past three years, resigned on Friday, attributing his
departure to an interest in going into public service. Uber did not comment.
Amit Singhal, vice-president of engineering, left the company on Monday.

A spokesman for Uber said the company had not seen attrition rates above
normal.

Adding to Uber’s woes, the company was sued last week by Alphabet’s self-
driving car unit, Waymo, which alleges that its rival stole trade secrets and
infringed on patents relating to autonomous vehicles. Uber called the
allegations “a baseless attempt to slow down a competitor” and said it would
defend itself in court.

However, the lawsuit, and the extreme shortage of technical talent in the
autonomous vehicle sector, has made the self-driving research unit
particularly susceptible to poaching.

“There are definitely more people thinking about leaving,” says Alex
Rodrigues, who co-founded Embark, a rival driverless trucking start-up, last
year. Several employees in Uber’s advanced technology group, which is based in
Pittsburgh, have left to join rivals in the past month.

More than anything, Uber’s recent stumbles have taken the shine off a company
that many in Silicon Valley once saw as being invincible, and employees who
had planned to stay with Uber through its eventual initial public offering are
reconsidering.

While a public offering typically offers an attractive financial prize to
employees with equity, Mr Kalanick has said publicly that he wants to delay an
IPO as long as possible, meaning that employees’ shares will remain illiquid.

“People were lured in with the promise of equity . . . but now they are
realising that they won’t see a return on that for a long time,” says the
recruiter who previously worked at Uber. “There is a lot of resistance in
upper management to doing an IPO.”

Others say that doubt is starting to sink in. “Previously it was difficult to
get them [Uber employees] because of their stock. Now they don’t seem so
confident about what that’s worth,” says an executive at one of the largest
tech companies in the Valley.

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gbraad
Paywall

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denzil_correa
Two options - (1) Click on "Web" on the submission, then follow the link via
Google or (2) Search for the title on Google and then follow the link.

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minimaxir
Unlike the WSJ, the "web" trick still works for FT. (although this article
doesn't have much new news)

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denzil_correa
Since it does not work, does Google demote their links?

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neolefty
It does work but only if you haven't tried to read it already (that is, they
set a cookie or something when you first try to open the article that sticks
when you open it from Google).

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tickthokk
Pay wall?

