Uber has had a terrible month. Can it recover?
Uber announced that it is suspending its autonomous vehicle program on the streets of Tempe, Ariz., involving one of the company鈥檚 self-driving Volvos, serving as the latest major setback to the beleaguered ride-hailing startup that has had a difficult several weeks.
From harassment allegations and reports of cocaine use on a company retreat to accusations of intellectual property theft and a string of departures by top-level executives, the period beginning mid-February may represent the beginning of the downward spiral for what was once one of the world鈥檚 most promising startups.
Beginning on February 19 when Susan Fowler, a former engineer for the company 聽calling attention to the gender bias and sexual harassment she faced while working for Uber. In her post, she described in detail how her claims were dismissed and she was subsequently threatened with termination after she reported sexual harassment to Uber's human resources department.
While her allegations were immediately addressed by CEO Travis Kalanick, hiring the former US Attorney General Eric Holder to assist in the internal investigation, a mere days later demonstrated her claims may not have been isolated.
The New York Times article alleged that during a 2015 company meeting in Las Vegas, a manager groped multiple employees (that manager was terminated within 12 hours) while other employees were doing cocaine in the bathrooms at private parties.
On February 23, Google, one of Uber鈥檚 investors, filed a lawsuit against the ride-hailing startup over intellectual property theft, alleging that the team developing Uber鈥檚 autonomous vehicle program had directly taken Waymo鈥檚 (the name of Google鈥檚 self-driving car group) technology to 鈥渁void incurring the risk, time, and expense of independently developing their own technology鈥� filed in court in San Francisco.
For their part, Uber denied any wrongdoing with an Uber spokeswoman telling CNBC that they 鈥渢ake the allegations made against鈥� Uber employees seriously" and ".鈥�
Barely had the dust settled from that Thursday鈥檚 courtroom filings when, the following Monday Amit Singhal, Uber鈥檚 Senior Vice President of Engineering, stepped down alerted the company to the fact that Singhal had left his former position at Google because of sexual harassment allegations.
Once notified, Kalanick immediately requested Singhal鈥檚 resignation, however coming less than ten days after Ms. Fowler鈥檚 allegations against another Uber employee that reporting didn鈥檛 help the company's overall public image.
Further complicating Uber鈥檚 public relations issues came one day later when a getting involved in an angry argument with an Uber driver over recent rate drops. Following the video鈥檚 release, Kalanick for his behavior and admitted his need for leadership help.
That was on February 28th. On March 3rd,聽 of investigative reporting detailing how Uber used a tool called Greyball to effectively avoid authorities in locations where the ride-hailing services were under contest or banned altogether, such as in cities like Boston, Paris, and Las Vegas.
Pulling data collected by the app as well as other methods to identify city officials, Uber would alert drivers and then deliver a 鈥渁 fake version of the app, populated with ghost cars, to evade capture鈥�, according to The New York Times article.
The same day that The New York Times article was released, Uber鈥檚 Vice President of Growth and Development, Ed Baker, suddenly resigned after three years with the company. While his expressed intention was to move to the public sector, Mr. Baker had been peripherally involved in the sexual harassment and sexism allegations at Uber as he had previously been witnessed engaging in a sexual activity with another employee at a work event in Miami, .
March 17th that demonstrated slow progress in Uber鈥檚 autonomous vehicle program. The data showed that the self-driving vehicles travelled independently only聽for about 0.8 miles before a human driver was forced to takeover.
, where the automated system was being disengaged on average once every 5,000 miles.
Two days later Uber鈥檚 president Jeff Jones left abruptly, saying "the beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided [his] career t with what [he] saw and experienced at Uber,鈥� according to Business Insider.
Following Mr. Jones鈥� departure, Uber stated their expressed desire to turn around their image. But on Friday, reports surfaced that Kalanick and other Uber managers visited an "escort bar" in Seoul in which they selected women wearing numbered tags out of a lineup.聽
Now comes the crash in Tempe and the suspension of the company鈥檚 autonomous vehicle program.
Thus, while Uber had previously been accustomed to difficulties and controversy as they sought to launch an innovative ride-hailing system in areas seemingly resistant to change, the events of the past several weeks have derailed their entire corporate image.
Meanwhile, according to The Wall Street Journal, Lyft, Uber鈥檚 primary competitor in the ride-hailing arena is by聽seeking $500 million in investments.
