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"disqusTitle": "The Investor Who Took on Uber and Silicon Valley",
"title": "The Investor Who Took on Uber and Silicon Valley",
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"content": "\u003cp>Uber is a mess — the \"bad boy\" ethos shattered, a nervous breakdown in its place. This week, the CEO announced he is taking a sudden leave of absence. A former U.S. attorney general released a brutal audit of the startup's culture. It's a terrifying moment for many investors who want that $70 billion unicorn to make them rich or richer — not implode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there is one Uber investor who stands out for how she decided to speak up. It was not very Silicon Valley-like of her, but Freada Kapor Klein wanted to turn the crisis into a teachable moment. And while \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/13/532751641/ubers-travis-kalanick-announces-leave-of-absence-company-adopts-harassment-polic\">this week's events\u003c/a> could lead her to say \"I told you so,\" she has a different takeaway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let's rewind a few months. Kapor Klein decided to write an \u003ca href=\"https://shift.newco.co/an-open-letter-to-the-uber-board-and-investors-2dc0c48c3a7\">open letter\u003c/a> to Uber — which she published with her husband — after a young woman shared an \u003ca href=\"https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber\">explosive account\u003c/a> of sexual harassment at Uber headquarters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe src=\"https://www.npr.org/player/embed/532973451/533102658\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" title=\"NPR embedded audio player\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein is a venture capitalist, or a VC. That means she makes money by betting on technology startups. Uber is one of those startups. She has committed to \"impact investment\" — businesses that can turn a profit while also making the world a better place. For too many years, she says, critics would question her on Uber, and she stayed silent. She tried to influence the company from the inside, though she didn't see a real will among leadership to change. While \"Silicon Valley prides itself on pattern recognition,\" the letter said, Uber had \"toxic patterns\" that needed to stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein thought she was just saying what insiders knew: This is not a one-off. Turns out, her peers didn't like that and wanted her to pay for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I could imagine that they wouldn't love the Uber letter,\" Kapor Klein said in an interview with NPR in mid-March. \"But then that they would decide the next step they ought to do is go after our high growth, hot startups and try to get them away from us!\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11513101\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11513101\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5168-edit_slide-50509cc390e992a3208786f2193a75d5b1a65bc5-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anthony Heckman, an associate at Kapor Capital, speaks with Kapor Klein. She wrote an open letter to Uber after an engineer shared an instance of sexual harassment at the ride-hailing startup. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She's just learned that other VCs are trying to poach one of her hottest investments, and they're citing the Uber letter to do it, basically saying: this investor throws her own people under the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I mean, it's one thing to go pitch them. It's another to say, 'Get away from Kapor. See, they're going to do this to you,' \" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It may be counterintuitive, but in Silicon Valley, the land that created tweeting, there is a code of silence among the rich. People are here to make money, not to agitate. She violated that code.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But she won't back down. She tells me I should call a shortlist of her most powerful peers and demand they respond on the record. \"Go to Sequoia, go to Benchmark, go to Kleiner, go to Accel, go to Andreessen, go to Khosla,\" she says, naming the kings of much-storied Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She's sitting inside the Kapor Center for Social Impact — a name that spells out the intent of the place. Kapor Klein and her husband bought this four-story building in central Oakland — what's become the edge of Silicon Valley as tech expands beyond Cupertino, Mountain View and San Francisco — and it houses an investment arm, research and philanthropic projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein is 64 years old, petite with jet black eyes and curly hair to match. She is tense as she recounts the blowback, her folded hands resting on a conference table made of reclaimed wood. Meanwhile, her dog is napping by her feet, sprawled on a gray carpet made of recycled fishing nets. (She designed the building to be green.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dudley's snoring breaks her concentration, and she lets out a laugh. He's a rescue dog, but sometimes she claims he's a therapy dog. \"You can see why. Doesn't he make you feel better?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She wakes him up and the two go in search of her husband and business partner, \u003ca href=\"Mitch%20Kapor\">Mitch Kapor\u003c/a>. When they find him, he happens to be meeting with the president of Silicon Valley Bank — who is trying to not get in the middle of the couple's conversation. But Kapor Klein reels him in, telling him about the letter and the response. Greg Becker politely offers his take: \"Yeah, people compete ... any way they can, right? That's — unfortunately it's human nature ... .\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein points to her dog, who is now rubbing his enormous cream coat against the banker's leg, and she teases: \"I thought it was just dogs that did that. Dogs, not humans.\" Her husband ends the conversation by saying: \"It's a dog-eat-dog world.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is his way of acting as her buffer — she, the one who pushes; he, the one who moderates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11513102\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-11513102 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-960x639.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-240x160.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-375x250.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-520x346.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kapor Klein talks with her husband, Mitch Kapor, in their shared office space. He founded Lotus, the database company, and is a legend in Silicon Valley. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mitch Kapor is a bit of a legend, by the way. In the 1980s he founded Lotus, the famous spreadsheet maker. Some compare him to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He pulled Kapor Klein into the tech world when he hired her to fix Lotus' culture in 1984, to make it the most progressive employer in the U.S. Quite the job description. She would lecture her boss about how he carried himself at work, how he should be \"more sensitive\" about his power, how he could make or break an employee's day just with eye contact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The couple didn't get together until years later, when she sought him out for career advice, and his first marriage fell apart. He asked her out on a date. He had a son. She was 43 and didn't have kids. She assumed it was a summer fling and warned him, date two, that she's not \"stepmom material.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Turns out, it wasn't a fling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her life's work is to change the culture of Silicon Valley — a place she feels has gone backward in time. There are \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding\">far fewer women in computer science\u003c/a> today than in the 1980s. Blacks and Latinos are missing, too. Kapor Klein faults the investor class, which holds on to the myth of meritocracy, that they are the hyper-rational conduits of capital and it so just happens that white men are the most worthy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She shares a hokey saying she's heard one too many times: \"We don't care if you're orange or blue; the only color we care about is green.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11513103\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11513103\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5383-edit_custom-4ce66b07a564a299f156d21191f74ceb83bb9da3-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kapor Klein talks with communications manager Ashleigh Richelle (left) and the summer associates at the Kapor Center for Social Impact. Kapor Klein's life work is to change the culture of Silicon Valley. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If all Kapor Klein did was critique, she'd be irrelevant here. This place values people who build things. And that is what she is doing. The building feels like an alternate universe — one where tech somehow looks like the rest of America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On one floor, there's the investment team. Their portfolio includes Genius Plaza — the hot startup that others now want to poach. It's an online education platform founded by Ana Roca-Castro, a woman from the Dominican Republic (which is exotic in these parts). She's landed major contracts with national agencies throughout Latin America, and is working to get into more U.S. schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Castro, who is based in Albany, New York, describes Kapor Klein as \"protective,\" an early investor who tries to shoo away others who don't share their values. Asked if that could mean \u003cem>possessive, \u003c/em>the tech founder disagrees. \"When someone is territorial they want nobody around,\" but in multiple instances, Kapor Klein has opened doors she didn't know to knock. \"She'll be the first to push me, saying, 'Don't be afraid.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein keeps an eclectic inner circle. It includes a former head of the NAACP; the woman who filed (and lost) a high-profile sexual harassment lawsuit against a leading venture capital fund; and Ulili Onovakpuri. The 32-year-old advises the health care portfolio, deciding which startups get money. But their relationship started when Onovakpuri was a teenager. Her now longtime mentor gave her a scholarship to UC Berkeley. (Kapor Klein launched the IDEAL Scholars Fund, for high-achieving minority students, after California ended affirmative action in schools.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11513099\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11513099\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5123-edit_custom-fa5b02a52b3feb72944deb6965ef280ca63c27bd-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pictures of Kapor Klein's SMASH scholars and which college they will attend are on display in the office. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Around the corner, social scientists are running data on why people leave tech, looking for holes in the leaky pipeline, so to speak. (They later published \u003ca href=\"http://www.kaporcenter.org/tech-leavers/\">this study\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Downstairs, Gabriel Chaparro — who ran the center's SMASH \u003ca href=\"http://www.lpfi.org/programs/smash/\">math and science program\u003c/a> for students of color at Stanford — shares the lesson he wants to drill into young minds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You're going to step into places where there's a line of people and none of them look like you. But you've earned your space. So get in that line, push them aside,\" he says. \"You can't just look at that line and say I don't fit in there. \u003cem>Make\u003c/em> your fit.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's a very Silicon Valley way of being. It's how Uber CEO Travis Kalanick broke the yellow cab industry in city after city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some ways, Kapor Klein wants young people who grew up poor to channel Silicon Valley's sense of entitlement — the idea that it's OK to fail; that failure is necessary; and that one deserves support anyway. She herself doesn't come from money. She grew up on a U.S. Air Force base in Biloxi, Mississippi, and one of her earliest memories was seeing, at age 3, her 7-year-old brother bloodied, beaten for being a Jew. She knew then that the world isn't fair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Uber row isn't her first in Silicon Valley. To some extent, she's used to it. She is rich (she won't disclose how rich) and travels in wealthy circles, where people have strong feelings about money. She remembers a billionaire who suggested she's spending too much on her do-gooder education programs. She recollects telling him, \"Well, you probably write a check that's somewhere between five and 10 times that amount of money for private kindergarten for your child.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She's quick to point out, though, that she jabbed because she was asking him to donate. If there wasn't a specific ask, a concrete step she was advocating, she said she would hold back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11513104\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11513104\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5656-edit_custom-d39a56a9b50ad6ef4870823c4bf22e6be11b1006-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kapor Klein sits with her rescue dog, Dudley. He acts as the office's therapy dog and follows her throughout the day. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>NPR did approach leading investors (as Kapor Klein suggested) to get their take on Uber, her letter, and what's the real problem. One was willing to go on the record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If you are a shareholder in a company and a stakeholder in a company, you would want to speak with one voice and you would want to work on the problem primarily,\" says Jason Calacanis. \"To kind of blindside a company with a post like that means now the company not only has to solve the problem, they have to react to that position publicly.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Calacanis is an influential angel investor, and author of \u003ca href=\"https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062560711/angel\">a new book\u003c/a> on how to invest. While he respects Kapor Klein's work with the underprivileged (he's invited her to speak about it to his startups), he says that the way she spoke out created a \"negative atmosphere\" — a media circus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, Calacanis adds, it takes a hard-charging CEO to build the Uber empire. Soft questions around culture, an inclusive culture — those come later. \"After you've won, or won a decent amount of market share or won the early fights, I think you have to shift gears a bit. And I think that's what Uber's going through.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein disagrees — and Uber's monumental meltdown is arguably proof she was right. But when I sit down with her in April, as the drama continues to unfold, she's become hesitant. Uber reached out to her for help, after her letter. Now, as I ask questions about it, she's being tight-lipped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked if she is uncomfortable, she says she is, \"because my goal now is to help Uber and any other company that really genuinely wants to change. I don't know what snippets you might use, how they might hear that, and whether that's going to hamper the efforts.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein wants the world to understand: Yes, she spoke out when others would not. But no, Uber isn't the only problem child in Silicon Valley. They just happened to get caught. This week she and her husband issued \u003ca href=\"http://www.kaporcenter.org/press-release-posts/statement-from-mitch-kapor-and-freada-kapor-klein-re-eric-holders-uber-investigation-report/\">a statement\u003c/a> to that effect, saying \"the company deserves some room\" to work on itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=The+Investor+Who+Took+On+Uber%2C+And+Silicon+Valley&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Uber is a mess — the \"bad boy\" ethos shattered, a nervous breakdown in its place. This week, the CEO announced he is taking a sudden leave of absence. A former U.S. attorney general released a brutal audit of the startup's culture. It's a terrifying moment for many investors who want that $70 billion unicorn to make them rich or richer — not implode.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there is one Uber investor who stands out for how she decided to speak up. It was not very Silicon Valley-like of her, but Freada Kapor Klein wanted to turn the crisis into a teachable moment. And while \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/13/532751641/ubers-travis-kalanick-announces-leave-of-absence-company-adopts-harassment-polic\">this week's events\u003c/a> could lead her to say \"I told you so,\" she has a different takeaway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let's rewind a few months. Kapor Klein decided to write an \u003ca href=\"https://shift.newco.co/an-open-letter-to-the-uber-board-and-investors-2dc0c48c3a7\">open letter\u003c/a> to Uber — which she published with her husband — after a young woman shared an \u003ca href=\"https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber\">explosive account\u003c/a> of sexual harassment at Uber headquarters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe src=\"https://www.npr.org/player/embed/532973451/533102658\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" title=\"NPR embedded audio player\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein is a venture capitalist, or a VC. That means she makes money by betting on technology startups. Uber is one of those startups. She has committed to \"impact investment\" — businesses that can turn a profit while also making the world a better place. For too many years, she says, critics would question her on Uber, and she stayed silent. She tried to influence the company from the inside, though she didn't see a real will among leadership to change. While \"Silicon Valley prides itself on pattern recognition,\" the letter said, Uber had \"toxic patterns\" that needed to stop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein thought she was just saying what insiders knew: This is not a one-off. Turns out, her peers didn't like that and wanted her to pay for it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I could imagine that they wouldn't love the Uber letter,\" Kapor Klein said in an interview with NPR in mid-March. \"But then that they would decide the next step they ought to do is go after our high growth, hot startups and try to get them away from us!\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11513101\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11513101\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5168-edit_slide-50509cc390e992a3208786f2193a75d5b1a65bc5-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anthony Heckman, an associate at Kapor Capital, speaks with Kapor Klein. She wrote an open letter to Uber after an engineer shared an instance of sexual harassment at the ride-hailing startup. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She's just learned that other VCs are trying to poach one of her hottest investments, and they're citing the Uber letter to do it, basically saying: this investor throws her own people under the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I mean, it's one thing to go pitch them. It's another to say, 'Get away from Kapor. See, they're going to do this to you,' \" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It may be counterintuitive, but in Silicon Valley, the land that created tweeting, there is a code of silence among the rich. People are here to make money, not to agitate. She violated that code.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But she won't back down. She tells me I should call a shortlist of her most powerful peers and demand they respond on the record. \"Go to Sequoia, go to Benchmark, go to Kleiner, go to Accel, go to Andreessen, go to Khosla,\" she says, naming the kings of much-storied Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She's sitting inside the Kapor Center for Social Impact — a name that spells out the intent of the place. Kapor Klein and her husband bought this four-story building in central Oakland — what's become the edge of Silicon Valley as tech expands beyond Cupertino, Mountain View and San Francisco — and it houses an investment arm, research and philanthropic projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein is 64 years old, petite with jet black eyes and curly hair to match. She is tense as she recounts the blowback, her folded hands resting on a conference table made of reclaimed wood. Meanwhile, her dog is napping by her feet, sprawled on a gray carpet made of recycled fishing nets. (She designed the building to be green.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dudley's snoring breaks her concentration, and she lets out a laugh. He's a rescue dog, but sometimes she claims he's a therapy dog. \"You can see why. Doesn't he make you feel better?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She wakes him up and the two go in search of her husband and business partner, \u003ca href=\"Mitch%20Kapor\">Mitch Kapor\u003c/a>. When they find him, he happens to be meeting with the president of Silicon Valley Bank — who is trying to not get in the middle of the couple's conversation. But Kapor Klein reels him in, telling him about the letter and the response. Greg Becker politely offers his take: \"Yeah, people compete ... any way they can, right? That's — unfortunately it's human nature ... .\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein points to her dog, who is now rubbing his enormous cream coat against the banker's leg, and she teases: \"I thought it was just dogs that did that. Dogs, not humans.\" Her husband ends the conversation by saying: \"It's a dog-eat-dog world.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is his way of acting as her buffer — she, the one who pushes; he, the one who moderates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11513102\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-11513102 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-1920x1279.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-960x639.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-240x160.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-375x250.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5709-edit_custom-c10baff1931470d9f2f3c51cc3ee444654b0d2f2-520x346.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kapor Klein talks with her husband, Mitch Kapor, in their shared office space. He founded Lotus, the database company, and is a legend in Silicon Valley. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mitch Kapor is a bit of a legend, by the way. In the 1980s he founded Lotus, the famous spreadsheet maker. Some compare him to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He pulled Kapor Klein into the tech world when he hired her to fix Lotus' culture in 1984, to make it the most progressive employer in the U.S. Quite the job description. She would lecture her boss about how he carried himself at work, how he should be \"more sensitive\" about his power, how he could make or break an employee's day just with eye contact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The couple didn't get together until years later, when she sought him out for career advice, and his first marriage fell apart. He asked her out on a date. He had a son. She was 43 and didn't have kids. She assumed it was a summer fling and warned him, date two, that she's not \"stepmom material.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Turns out, it wasn't a fling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her life's work is to change the culture of Silicon Valley — a place she feels has gone backward in time. There are \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding\">far fewer women in computer science\u003c/a> today than in the 1980s. Blacks and Latinos are missing, too. Kapor Klein faults the investor class, which holds on to the myth of meritocracy, that they are the hyper-rational conduits of capital and it so just happens that white men are the most worthy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She shares a hokey saying she's heard one too many times: \"We don't care if you're orange or blue; the only color we care about is green.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11513103\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11513103\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5383-edit_custom-4ce66b07a564a299f156d21191f74ceb83bb9da3-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kapor Klein talks with communications manager Ashleigh Richelle (left) and the summer associates at the Kapor Center for Social Impact. Kapor Klein's life work is to change the culture of Silicon Valley. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If all Kapor Klein did was critique, she'd be irrelevant here. This place values people who build things. And that is what she is doing. The building feels like an alternate universe — one where tech somehow looks like the rest of America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On one floor, there's the investment team. Their portfolio includes Genius Plaza — the hot startup that others now want to poach. It's an online education platform founded by Ana Roca-Castro, a woman from the Dominican Republic (which is exotic in these parts). She's landed major contracts with national agencies throughout Latin America, and is working to get into more U.S. schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Castro, who is based in Albany, New York, describes Kapor Klein as \"protective,\" an early investor who tries to shoo away others who don't share their values. Asked if that could mean \u003cem>possessive, \u003c/em>the tech founder disagrees. \"When someone is territorial they want nobody around,\" but in multiple instances, Kapor Klein has opened doors she didn't know to knock. \"She'll be the first to push me, saying, 'Don't be afraid.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein keeps an eclectic inner circle. It includes a former head of the NAACP; the woman who filed (and lost) a high-profile sexual harassment lawsuit against a leading venture capital fund; and Ulili Onovakpuri. The 32-year-old advises the health care portfolio, deciding which startups get money. But their relationship started when Onovakpuri was a teenager. Her now longtime mentor gave her a scholarship to UC Berkeley. (Kapor Klein launched the IDEAL Scholars Fund, for high-achieving minority students, after California ended affirmative action in schools.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11513099\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11513099\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5123-edit_custom-fa5b02a52b3feb72944deb6965ef280ca63c27bd-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pictures of Kapor Klein's SMASH scholars and which college they will attend are on display in the office. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Around the corner, social scientists are running data on why people leave tech, looking for holes in the leaky pipeline, so to speak. (They later published \u003ca href=\"http://www.kaporcenter.org/tech-leavers/\">this study\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Downstairs, Gabriel Chaparro — who ran the center's SMASH \u003ca href=\"http://www.lpfi.org/programs/smash/\">math and science program\u003c/a> for students of color at Stanford — shares the lesson he wants to drill into young minds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You're going to step into places where there's a line of people and none of them look like you. But you've earned your space. So get in that line, push them aside,\" he says. \"You can't just look at that line and say I don't fit in there. \u003cem>Make\u003c/em> your fit.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's a very Silicon Valley way of being. It's how Uber CEO Travis Kalanick broke the yellow cab industry in city after city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In some ways, Kapor Klein wants young people who grew up poor to channel Silicon Valley's sense of entitlement — the idea that it's OK to fail; that failure is necessary; and that one deserves support anyway. She herself doesn't come from money. She grew up on a U.S. Air Force base in Biloxi, Mississippi, and one of her earliest memories was seeing, at age 3, her 7-year-old brother bloodied, beaten for being a Jew. She knew then that the world isn't fair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Uber row isn't her first in Silicon Valley. To some extent, she's used to it. She is rich (she won't disclose how rich) and travels in wealthy circles, where people have strong feelings about money. She remembers a billionaire who suggested she's spending too much on her do-gooder education programs. She recollects telling him, \"Well, you probably write a check that's somewhere between five and 10 times that amount of money for private kindergarten for your child.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She's quick to point out, though, that she jabbed because she was asking him to donate. If there wasn't a specific ask, a concrete step she was advocating, she said she would hold back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11513104\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11513104\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/n0a5656-edit_custom-d39a56a9b50ad6ef4870823c4bf22e6be11b1006-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kapor Klein sits with her rescue dog, Dudley. He acts as the office's therapy dog and follows her throughout the day. \u003ccite>(Talia Herman for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>NPR did approach leading investors (as Kapor Klein suggested) to get their take on Uber, her letter, and what's the real problem. One was willing to go on the record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If you are a shareholder in a company and a stakeholder in a company, you would want to speak with one voice and you would want to work on the problem primarily,\" says Jason Calacanis. \"To kind of blindside a company with a post like that means now the company not only has to solve the problem, they have to react to that position publicly.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Calacanis is an influential angel investor, and author of \u003ca href=\"https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062560711/angel\">a new book\u003c/a> on how to invest. While he respects Kapor Klein's work with the underprivileged (he's invited her to speak about it to his startups), he says that the way she spoke out created a \"negative atmosphere\" — a media circus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, Calacanis adds, it takes a hard-charging CEO to build the Uber empire. Soft questions around culture, an inclusive culture — those come later. \"After you've won, or won a decent amount of market share or won the early fights, I think you have to shift gears a bit. And I think that's what Uber's going through.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein disagrees — and Uber's monumental meltdown is arguably proof she was right. But when I sit down with her in April, as the drama continues to unfold, she's become hesitant. Uber reached out to her for help, after her letter. Now, as I ask questions about it, she's being tight-lipped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Asked if she is uncomfortable, she says she is, \"because my goal now is to help Uber and any other company that really genuinely wants to change. I don't know what snippets you might use, how they might hear that, and whether that's going to hamper the efforts.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kapor Klein wants the world to understand: Yes, she spoke out when others would not. But no, Uber isn't the only problem child in Silicon Valley. They just happened to get caught. This week she and her husband issued \u003ca href=\"http://www.kaporcenter.org/press-release-posts/statement-from-mitch-kapor-and-freada-kapor-klein-re-eric-holders-uber-investigation-report/\">a statement\u003c/a> to that effect, saying \"the company deserves some room\" to work on itself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=The+Investor+Who+Took+On+Uber%2C+And+Silicon+Valley&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "The Faceless Boss: A Look Into the Uber Driver Workplace",
"title": "The Faceless Boss: A Look Into the Uber Driver Workplace",
"headTitle": "The California Report | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cp>You probably never want to hear you've been fired. If you've heard those words, you know they feel like a punch in the gut. Now, imagine that instead of your boss telling you face to face, you get the news from a pop-up alert on your smartphone. That's how it works at Uber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eric Huestis didn't realize that, until it happened to him. At first, there was nothing unusual about that day in April. He took his Chrysler 300 to a Burlington, Vermont, car wash. He bought the used car specifically to drive for Uber. After the car wash, he slid into the front seat and tried to open his Uber app. Nothing. He'd been \"deactivated,\" as Uber calls it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber has created one of the fastest-growing workforces in American history. And to recruit drivers, company leaders are fond of saying you can \"Be Your Own Boss.\" But through dozens of interviews and an informal survey, NPR found that hundreds of drivers feel the company is not living up to that promise. They say the San Francisco-based startup sets strict rules and punishments, just as other bosses do, but it's eerily distant. Even in dire situations — like when you've been axed — it's impossible to reach a human in charge. This facelessness is decidedly unlike other workplaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In interviews with NPR, Uber officials acknowledge that the company has to improve its communication with drivers and that in the initial years of growth, it was not a top priority. Now, they say, that's going to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe src=\"https://www.npr.org/player/embed/531642304/532100148\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" title=\"NPR embedded audio player\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Huestis found himself locked out, he wasn't sure if it was just a software glitch. He recalls the app alert told him to \"please contact customer support.\" It's counterintuitive, but again in Uber-speak, the driver is the \"customer.\" Drivers rely on the company's service — the now iconic black app — to match them with riders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huestis hit the button on the Uber app, which directed him to a form (not a person). Moments after hitting \"submit,\" he got a message from a company Uber uses to do criminal background checks. Checkr, another Silicon Valley startup, told him he had a marijuana record that needed to be reviewed before he could drive again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The timing threw Huestis off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 42-year-old, who lives with his girlfriend and her child, indeed \u003cem>had\u003c/em> a record for three marijuana possessions — spanning from 1993 to 2010. He says when he started driving for Uber in early 2016, he passed the background check. The only thing that has changed since is that on New Year's Day, Jan. 1, 2017, Huestis \u003ca href=\"https://www.sec.state.vt.us/media/821533/shumlin_pardons.pdf\">was pardoned\u003c/a> by the governor of Vermont, clearing his record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It wasn't a DWI. It wasn't a felony. It wasn't a rape charge. It wasn't a kidnapping,\" Huestis says. \"It was nothing violent or anything that would stop me from being a Uber driver. So I was like, 'Why is this happening?'\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11508376\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11508376\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-800x800.jpe\" alt=\"Eric Huestis was blocked from driving for Uber in Burlington, Vt., after he received a governor's pardon for past marijuana possession convictions. Uber later restored Huestis.\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2.jpe 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-160x160.jpe 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-240x240.jpe 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-375x375.jpe 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-520x520.jpe 520w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-32x32.jpe 32w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-50x50.jpe 50w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-64x64.jpe 64w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-96x96.jpe 96w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-128x128.jpe 128w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-150x150.jpe 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eric Huestis was blocked from driving for Uber in Burlington, Vermont, after he received a governor's pardon for past marijuana possession convictions. Uber later restored Huestis. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Eric Huestis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Huestis felt like he was invested in Uber — he even runs a Facebook page for local Uber drivers to bond — but the company isn't invested in him. Uber is among the largest private companies on earth and is currently valued at about $70 billion. But it didn't even have a number for him to call. Uber doesn't offer that kind of customer support. Huestis did manage to contact state officials, he says, but they didn't have a way to call Uber either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Huestis found himself trapped in a maze of online forms and generic emails. At first, the notifications told him it would take 15 days to review his case; then, 30 days. If that doesn't sound like a big deal, he puts it in perspective: \"What if you got booted off your cellphone provider? That [would] change everything. I mean, I got booted off my income provider, for no reason.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experience of this Uber driver may be a window into the future of work. For years, workers have enjoyed the way technology creates distance from the boss. You can join meetings from home, or from Hawaii. But with Uber, we are coming to a strange inflection point. The company has designed an app that is so efficient, cheap and scalable that it manages 600,000 drivers in the U.S. Yet there's an underside to distance. It can create a system that lacks the most basic sympathy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR conducted \u003ca href=\"#methodology\">an informal survey\u003c/a> of Uber drivers, using email lists and social media. It's not a scientific poll. Respondents are self-selected, and possibly more negative toward Uber than the average driver. Still, it's a window into how hundreds of drivers feel; and an Uber spokesman says many of NPR's survey results track the company's own findings about its driver workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huestis' experience is clearly not unique. Of the respondents, 193 said they were able to speak with a person at Uber to get the help they needed. But 688 said they were not — no human was available. In phone interviews with NPR, drivers shared examples of how they couldn't reach Uber after an accident on the job (one man contacted Uber's insurance company, which then became the conduit to Uber), or after being kicked off the platform (drivers typically don't get a hearing).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe src=\"https://www.npr.org/player/embed/532120218/532120219\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" title=\"NPR embedded audio player\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huestis lives week to week. After his deactivation, he managed to make a bit of money by picking up scrap metal from nearby farms and recycling it. Only he can't do that work alone. He needs a friend to help because he's an amputee. He lost his left leg in a motorcycle accident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huestis contacted NPR the same day he was axed and, over the weeks, we followed his ups and downs. On May 1 he texted, \"i'm in tears today, rents due, no income from uber in over 20 days.\" He spent day and night checking his Uber app, waiting to learn the fate of his career the way some people check Facebook to see if a selfie got liked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber says the proper appeals procedures were followed with the third-party background check company in Huestis' case. After nearly a month, he was allowed to drive for Uber again. He says he would like to sue Uber for about $3,000 in lost wages. That's a lot of money for him, but not enough for a lawyer to bother with his case.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>'Be Your Own Boss' or 'Do What I Say'?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Uber's tagline — \"Be Your Own Boss\" — is an invitation as empowering as Nike's \"Just Do it\" and Apple's \"Think Different.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Uber's case, though, it's more than just savvy marketing. Being one's own boss is the legal argument that underlies Uber's entire business. The company says drivers are independent contractors — not employees entitled to expensive benefits. An Uber-commissioned \u003ca href=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/uber-static/comms/PDF/Uber_Driver-Partners_Hall_Kreuger_2015.pdf\">study says\u003c/a> 87 percent of drivers joined because that's what they want: to be their own boss and set their own schedule. Uber lawyers cite that statistic in court as evidence when drivers sue the company for employee benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Uber leaders have not publicly asked an obvious follow-up question: At Uber, do you feel like your own boss? So NPR asked drivers, in the informal survey. A little more than half of respondents — 491 total — said they did; and, perhaps unexpectedly, nearly half — 436 — said they did not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You don't feel like your own boss at all,\" says driver David McKee from Vista, California. \"The only thing you control is the time when you sign on and sign off. Other than that, Uber controls everything. It's 'Be Your Own Boss' and 'do what I say.'\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"9aG9dyMgkpsf2wBJ47tLcYLs9BmJY9xx\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few workers can drop their kids off at school every morning and then run errands as needed before clocking in. The power to set one's own hours is rare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While McKee and other Uber drivers appreciate that flexibility, they say it is important to not overestimate it. A total of 779 survey respondents — more than 80 percent — say that to make enough money as an Uber driver, they have to work peak hours, like morning rush or weekend nights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's not unparalleled freedom, which is hardly surprising. After all, Uber is a transportation service that relies on customer demand, not a coding job where you can flip open your laptop and work anytime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But drivers go a step further and say they are not just subject to market forces. At Uber, they are also bound by the company's determination to protect the brand by tightly controlling driver performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber uses the sensors in drivers' own smartphones to monitor their turns and lane changes and rolling stops. Of the survey respondents, 116 (more than 10 percent), say they didn't realize Uber was doing that (they may have missed that line in the very long contract) and 433 (nearly half) would like Uber to stop it. Uber's competitor. Lyft, does not do such tracking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McKee says it is the job of the government to license you, penalize you and take away your license if warranted. He says Uber is making a power grab and \"becoming the police.\" He and other drivers also don't trust the company's intentions with their private data. Many Uber drivers work for more than one ride-hailing service, and they fear the tracking is a way for Uber to collect intelligence on smaller competitors like Lyft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber says smartphone tracking is good for safety and protects drivers against unfair complaints from passengers. If you want to drive, opting out is not an option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"dQ5lL0oOaXahUFQ949zsUdQXDUtUIcTA\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drivers also don't have a choice when it comes to UberPool — the service where you can share a car with others. Drivers say they feel Uber is coercing them into offering it. They say while passengers get to pay much less, drivers also make much less — it is a money loser. In the NPR survey, 7 out of every 10 respondents who offer UberPool say they do not like it and wish they didn't have to provide it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But they do. Uber has bundled its products, so if you want to drive for Uber's standard service (UberX), you have to offer Pool, too. For many, that doesn't feel very being-your-own-boss-like.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Dynamic pricing: Keep 'em guessing, and driving\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The way pricing works at Uber also subjects drivers to a kind of control that's novel. While people who are independent contractors typically set their own price for services, at Uber the company sets the price. And it's dynamic, able to change second by second according to a calculation that is secret.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While economists marvel at dynamic pricing — it's a superpower that the smartphone and algorithms make possible — drivers scratch their heads. It leaves Uber all-knowing, and drivers clueless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike in other jobs, they're not sure what they'll make per hour, and so they can end up on the road far longer than expected. Seventy-nine drivers tell NPR they have driven shifts 14 hours or longer. That means being in the car, Uber app on, either driving a passenger or waiting for work. Three people showed NPR documentation for driving 20 hours in a single day. Uber does not limit how many hours a driver can work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is clearly a public safety hazard. But at Uber, drivers talk about it as though it is normal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11510928\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/ReningerCar-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11510928\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/ReningerCar.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/ReningerCar-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/ReningerCar-240x160.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/ReningerCar-375x250.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/ReningerCar-520x346.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kyle Reninger sits in his car in Muncie. He drives for Uber part time, typically on weekend nights, so he is more likely to pick up surge prices, which earn him more money. He also drives for Lyft, an Uber competitor. \u003ccite>(Lucas Carter/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kyle Reninger is an Uber driver from Muncie, Indiana. The 32-year-old works weekend nights because, he says, that's when he is most likely to pick up surge fares — the higher prices (two, three, five times the regular rate) that passengers hate to pay and that drivers live by. They are the nuggets of the Uber gold rush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the course of several weeks, he kept an audio diary for NPR, sending WhatsApp messages and screenshots between rides. His voice memos become a way to peer into his modern workplace and observe how the nights stretch out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reninger says he feels like his own boss: He chooses when to turn the Uber app on and off. And it's a side gig. He and his wife run a vegan bakery. As that business gets off the ground, Uber is a way to make quick money and also advertise to his passengers. He keeps vegan cookies in the car. (An Uber spokesman says it's OK for drivers to advertise another business in their own cars, so long as it is not an Uber competitor.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11510929\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"Reninger and his wife, Amanda, prepare baked goods for their vegan bakery business. (Right) Reninger stocks homemade cookies in his car and gives them out while he is driving for Uber.\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11510929\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-160x160.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-240x240.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-375x375.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-520x520.jpg 520w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-32x32.jpg 32w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-50x50.jpg 50w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-64x64.jpg 64w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-96x96.jpg 96w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-128x128.jpg 128w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Reninger and his wife, Amanda, prepare baked goods for their vegan bakery business. (Right) Reninger stocks homemade cookies in his car and gives them out while he is driving for Uber. \u003ccite>(Lucas Carter/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One Friday, Reninger sets out to make $200, not counting the cost of gas. He is on Uber and competitor Lyft, though the vast majority of his business comes from Uber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Business is slower than he would like. It takes him 98 minutes on the road to get his first payment of $14.14.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That amount is less than he expected. The Uber app estimated he should bring in $7 more. He says he is used to Uber playing this game — suggesting one fare, then paying another. He sends a message in the app basically saying: I got underpaid; fix that. Then, he keeps waiting for his next passenger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is the hard part, the in between,\" he says in his voice memo. \"Not really sure, you know, if I should drive around, hope to get another ping. Or if I should head back north.\" He had driven down to Indianapolis, a little more than an hour from home, hoping for a busier night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In between the waiting, the passengers he does get make him laugh, think or sometimes cringe. One man is a globe-trotter who talks about his forays in Europe. Another sneaks an open beer can into the car, even though it's against the law and Reninger asked him not to. \"That was kind of a jerk move,\" the driver says. By 1:42 a.m., nearly nine hours into his shift, he is only about halfway to his $200 goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An hour later, he gets another passenger who says over and over, \"I'm so drunk; I'm so drunk, man.\" The passenger wants to go to IHOP, which is typical. A bit less typical, Reninger says in another voice memo, is that the drunk man got out of the car, \"zipped down his pants and started to urinate, right in front of IHOP. Then walked in, like nothing happened.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11510931\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/06062017_reninger_uber_npr_1369-edit_custom-a51ec29fb68147aa4acd4dbe12a5f03e5c52ce54-s800-c85-800x532.jpg\" alt=\"Cars drive through Muncie at dusk.\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11510931\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/06062017_reninger_uber_npr_1369-edit_custom-a51ec29fb68147aa4acd4dbe12a5f03e5c52ce54-s800-c85.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/06062017_reninger_uber_npr_1369-edit_custom-a51ec29fb68147aa4acd4dbe12a5f03e5c52ce54-s800-c85-160x106.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/06062017_reninger_uber_npr_1369-edit_custom-a51ec29fb68147aa4acd4dbe12a5f03e5c52ce54-s800-c85-240x160.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/06062017_reninger_uber_npr_1369-edit_custom-a51ec29fb68147aa4acd4dbe12a5f03e5c52ce54-s800-c85-375x249.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/06062017_reninger_uber_npr_1369-edit_custom-a51ec29fb68147aa4acd4dbe12a5f03e5c52ce54-s800-c85-520x346.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cars drive through Muncie at dusk. \u003ccite>(Lucas Carter/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By 6:11 a.m., you can start to hear Reninger's voice fading. And there is something he doesn't admit in his voice memos while he is on the road: He is having a hard time staying awake. He sips water and rolls down his window to help him. He waits until he gets home to mention this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All told, the Uber driver was in his car 14 hours, 9 minutes, and covered 401.2 miles. He got only one small surge fare. If you put aside the cost of gas, he made $165.30. Including tips, he nearly hit his goal. It just took a couple of more hours than he had hoped (and it was by no means his longest shift).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so it goes. Each night for the Uber driver is a gamble. The hours go by — just like in a casino. Only here, you could get tired and kill someone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a problem that Uber could solve. It designed the app to lock out drivers if they don't accept a certain number of passengers (kind of like being put in the digital corner). It could design a safety feature to lock out drivers after a certain number of hours. (Lyft does that.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Uber lacks the will to do so. A company spokesman says in an email, \"Uber is a flexible work opportunity, so people can drive whenever they want.\" Also, according to Uber data, more than half of U.S. drivers use the app less than 10 hours a week. (Uber declined to disclose data on how long full-time drivers have the app on.) And finally, the spokesman says, Uber is testing out a new app alert in some cities, to remind drivers about the importance of getting enough rest.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Uber's awakening\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The hype around Uber is that the company doesn't need drivers because it is \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/04/03/522099560/pittsburgh-offers-driving-lessons-for-ubers-autonomous-cars\">developing self-driving cars\u003c/a>; and the biggest workplace crisis is \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/06/531806891/uber-fires-20-employees-after-sexual-harassment-claim-investigation\">sexual harassment\u003c/a> — the way women in the corporate office are treated. But according to current and former employees as well as investors, Uber feels far more threatened by its broken relationship with drivers. This is the existential threat to the business, because self-driving fleets won't be ready anytime soon. Uber needs the human workforce now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, Uber hired Janelle Sallenave to improve the way it responds to drivers' and riders' needs, disputes and accidents. \"How could my job not exist? How could there not be somebody whose job it would be to oversee the support of our drivers?\" she says in a phone interview with NPR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sallenave says Uber, which began service in 2010, has grown so fast, it just didn't have the time to \"marinate\" — like older companies — on some of the basics. The focus has been on launching in more cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But now, she says, drivers are a top priority and Uber will be announcing changes. \"I think in the coming months some of the improvements we are making directly address feedback that our drivers have been giving us for the last year plus.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sallenave acknowledges that getting an Uber representative on the phone six months ago was a feat that, she says, \"frankly I don't know I would be able to do.\" She says Uber has a lot of work to do to improve communication with drivers, and the company is doing that. It's staffing more than 200 physical drop-in centers (called \"green light hubs\") and introducing new dedicated phone lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drivers' complaints about poor communication are no surprise to Sallenave. She says Uber needs to revamp the way it \"deactivates\" drivers and that the company faces \"some serious work\" in how it handles those situations. Sallenave says Uber is undertaking significant policy changes, though she declined to provide details.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also maintains that drivers are their own boss; that Uber is a digital platform (like eBay), not an employer; and that drivers are a lot like her own husband, who recently started a consultancy business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"He doesn't get benefits. He doesn't exactly know what he's going to make. I mean, that to me is all of the risks, but also the potential reward, of being an individual small-business owner,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A case study in disruption\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>A former federal regulator strongly disagrees with the Uber official's position.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You know, I can't just declare a pigeon a duck because I think it should be a duck,\" says David Weil. He was head of the Department of Labor's wage-and-hour division under President Barack Obama. It was Weil's job to investigate companies that misclassify workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11510933\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/kyle-driver-app_custom-d35e2f6f448a4b993aa78c730e096ea2bb48a190-s400-c85.jpg\" alt=\"A screenshot of the driver's view of the Uber app measures brakes and accelerations while Reninger drives.\" width=\"400\" height=\"711\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11510933\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/kyle-driver-app_custom-d35e2f6f448a4b993aa78c730e096ea2bb48a190-s400-c85.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/kyle-driver-app_custom-d35e2f6f448a4b993aa78c730e096ea2bb48a190-s400-c85-160x284.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/kyle-driver-app_custom-d35e2f6f448a4b993aa78c730e096ea2bb48a190-s400-c85-240x427.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/kyle-driver-app_custom-d35e2f6f448a4b993aa78c730e096ea2bb48a190-s400-c85-375x667.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A screenshot of the driver's view of the Uber app measures brakes and accelerations while Reninger drives. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Kyle Reninger)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2016, Weil visited Silicon Valley. He came with then-Labor Secretary Tom Perez (who is now head of the Democratic National Committee). And something struck Weil: While people in tech talked like they were all disruptors in the same boat, they weren't. At a startup like TaskRabbit, for example, the people providing a service set their own price and define what work they'll do. The company doesn't control those things. But at Uber, the company sets the price and designs the services (like Uber Black, X and Pool), \u003cem>and \u003c/em>those services are core to the brand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Yeah, it looks a lot like an employment relationship. It looks like a very sophisticated, branded product provider,\" Weil says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weil's opinion, which is not based on inside knowledge, strikes at the heart of a number of legal battles and court cases in which workers are suing Uber, saying they are employees entitled to benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Weil didn't publicly express his opinion about Uber as a regulator; and he didn't put resources into investigations or outreach to Uber drivers. He says that is because although these drivers were a rapidly growing workforce, they were still a tiny sector, compared with janitors or nurses aides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"As the head of the agency, I every day dealt with this reality. We were responsible for 130 million workers in 7.3 million workplaces,\" he says. \"When you face those kinds of numbers you have to think every day very strategically about, where will you put your very limited resources?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this respect, Uber becomes a fascinating case study in how disruption works. While the tech startup pursued aggressive growth — move fast, think later — public officials describe their collective response as cautious. \"You don't want to be seen as stopping progress,\" another former federal labor official told NPR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca name=\"methodology\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>About the survey\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR conducted an informal survey of Uber drivers from May 20-21, 2017, based on questions developed in consultation with a nationally recognized survey company. NPR distributed survey invitations to Uber drivers through an email list and through popular and active general online forums. We avoided recruiting from any forum focused on complaints or negative topics to avoid unduly biasing the responses. The survey respondents are not a scientific sample and not representative of all Uber drivers nationwide. They are self-selected and therefore represent the views of drivers who chose to participate. For example, drivers may be more likely to respond if they are more comfortable filling out an online survey or if they have more negative feelings toward the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To verify that survey takers were indeed Uber drivers, NPR included questions in the survey that require intimate knowledge of how the company pays drivers. Of the 1,158 respondents, NPR determined 943 responses valid. This is just a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of people who drive for Uber. Not all respondents replied to every question. Percentages may not total 100 because of rounding. NPR asked about length of service, to ensure a diversity of driver experiences with Uber. NPR solicited contact information of drivers surveyed and called dozens of drivers for follow-up interviews. The drivers were almost all still active; a handful had stopped driving in the last three months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>NPR Business Desk intern Mollie Simon, Senior Research Director Lori Kaplan and News Apps Developer Brittany Mayes contributed to this story. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=The+Faceless+Boss%3A+A+Look+Into+The+Uber+Driver+Workplace&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "To recruit drivers, Uber leaders are fond of saying you can 'Be Your Own Boss.' But NPR found that many Uber drivers feel controlled by a boss that is both always there, yet faceless.",
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"description": "To recruit drivers, Uber leaders are fond of saying you can 'Be Your Own Boss.' But NPR found that many Uber drivers feel controlled by a boss that is both always there, yet faceless.",
"title": "The Faceless Boss: A Look Into the Uber Driver Workplace | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>You probably never want to hear you've been fired. If you've heard those words, you know they feel like a punch in the gut. Now, imagine that instead of your boss telling you face to face, you get the news from a pop-up alert on your smartphone. That's how it works at Uber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eric Huestis didn't realize that, until it happened to him. At first, there was nothing unusual about that day in April. He took his Chrysler 300 to a Burlington, Vermont, car wash. He bought the used car specifically to drive for Uber. After the car wash, he slid into the front seat and tried to open his Uber app. Nothing. He'd been \"deactivated,\" as Uber calls it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber has created one of the fastest-growing workforces in American history. And to recruit drivers, company leaders are fond of saying you can \"Be Your Own Boss.\" But through dozens of interviews and an informal survey, NPR found that hundreds of drivers feel the company is not living up to that promise. They say the San Francisco-based startup sets strict rules and punishments, just as other bosses do, but it's eerily distant. Even in dire situations — like when you've been axed — it's impossible to reach a human in charge. This facelessness is decidedly unlike other workplaces.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In interviews with NPR, Uber officials acknowledge that the company has to improve its communication with drivers and that in the initial years of growth, it was not a top priority. Now, they say, that's going to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe src=\"https://www.npr.org/player/embed/531642304/532100148\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" title=\"NPR embedded audio player\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Huestis found himself locked out, he wasn't sure if it was just a software glitch. He recalls the app alert told him to \"please contact customer support.\" It's counterintuitive, but again in Uber-speak, the driver is the \"customer.\" Drivers rely on the company's service — the now iconic black app — to match them with riders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huestis hit the button on the Uber app, which directed him to a form (not a person). Moments after hitting \"submit,\" he got a message from a company Uber uses to do criminal background checks. Checkr, another Silicon Valley startup, told him he had a marijuana record that needed to be reviewed before he could drive again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The timing threw Huestis off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 42-year-old, who lives with his girlfriend and her child, indeed \u003cem>had\u003c/em> a record for three marijuana possessions — spanning from 1993 to 2010. He says when he started driving for Uber in early 2016, he passed the background check. The only thing that has changed since is that on New Year's Day, Jan. 1, 2017, Huestis \u003ca href=\"https://www.sec.state.vt.us/media/821533/shumlin_pardons.pdf\">was pardoned\u003c/a> by the governor of Vermont, clearing his record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It wasn't a DWI. It wasn't a felony. It wasn't a rape charge. It wasn't a kidnapping,\" Huestis says. \"It was nothing violent or anything that would stop me from being a Uber driver. So I was like, 'Why is this happening?'\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11508376\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11508376\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-800x800.jpe\" alt=\"Eric Huestis was blocked from driving for Uber in Burlington, Vt., after he received a governor's pardon for past marijuana possession convictions. Uber later restored Huestis.\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2.jpe 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-160x160.jpe 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-240x240.jpe 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-375x375.jpe 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-520x520.jpe 520w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-32x32.jpe 32w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-50x50.jpe 50w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-64x64.jpe 64w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-96x96.jpe 96w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-128x128.jpe 128w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/06/eric_custom-98cf0648b2c68232d42fa5956e58d1577c07b7c2-150x150.jpe 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eric Huestis was blocked from driving for Uber in Burlington, Vermont, after he received a governor's pardon for past marijuana possession convictions. Uber later restored Huestis. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Eric Huestis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Huestis felt like he was invested in Uber — he even runs a Facebook page for local Uber drivers to bond — but the company isn't invested in him. Uber is among the largest private companies on earth and is currently valued at about $70 billion. But it didn't even have a number for him to call. Uber doesn't offer that kind of customer support. Huestis did manage to contact state officials, he says, but they didn't have a way to call Uber either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Huestis found himself trapped in a maze of online forms and generic emails. At first, the notifications told him it would take 15 days to review his case; then, 30 days. If that doesn't sound like a big deal, he puts it in perspective: \"What if you got booted off your cellphone provider? That [would] change everything. I mean, I got booted off my income provider, for no reason.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The experience of this Uber driver may be a window into the future of work. For years, workers have enjoyed the way technology creates distance from the boss. You can join meetings from home, or from Hawaii. But with Uber, we are coming to a strange inflection point. The company has designed an app that is so efficient, cheap and scalable that it manages 600,000 drivers in the U.S. Yet there's an underside to distance. It can create a system that lacks the most basic sympathy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR conducted \u003ca href=\"#methodology\">an informal survey\u003c/a> of Uber drivers, using email lists and social media. It's not a scientific poll. Respondents are self-selected, and possibly more negative toward Uber than the average driver. Still, it's a window into how hundreds of drivers feel; and an Uber spokesman says many of NPR's survey results track the company's own findings about its driver workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huestis' experience is clearly not unique. Of the respondents, 193 said they were able to speak with a person at Uber to get the help they needed. But 688 said they were not — no human was available. In phone interviews with NPR, drivers shared examples of how they couldn't reach Uber after an accident on the job (one man contacted Uber's insurance company, which then became the conduit to Uber), or after being kicked off the platform (drivers typically don't get a hearing).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe src=\"https://www.npr.org/player/embed/532120218/532120219\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" title=\"NPR embedded audio player\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huestis lives week to week. After his deactivation, he managed to make a bit of money by picking up scrap metal from nearby farms and recycling it. Only he can't do that work alone. He needs a friend to help because he's an amputee. He lost his left leg in a motorcycle accident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huestis contacted NPR the same day he was axed and, over the weeks, we followed his ups and downs. On May 1 he texted, \"i'm in tears today, rents due, no income from uber in over 20 days.\" He spent day and night checking his Uber app, waiting to learn the fate of his career the way some people check Facebook to see if a selfie got liked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber says the proper appeals procedures were followed with the third-party background check company in Huestis' case. After nearly a month, he was allowed to drive for Uber again. He says he would like to sue Uber for about $3,000 in lost wages. That's a lot of money for him, but not enough for a lawyer to bother with his case.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>'Be Your Own Boss' or 'Do What I Say'?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Uber's tagline — \"Be Your Own Boss\" — is an invitation as empowering as Nike's \"Just Do it\" and Apple's \"Think Different.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Uber's case, though, it's more than just savvy marketing. Being one's own boss is the legal argument that underlies Uber's entire business. The company says drivers are independent contractors — not employees entitled to expensive benefits. An Uber-commissioned \u003ca href=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/uber-static/comms/PDF/Uber_Driver-Partners_Hall_Kreuger_2015.pdf\">study says\u003c/a> 87 percent of drivers joined because that's what they want: to be their own boss and set their own schedule. Uber lawyers cite that statistic in court as evidence when drivers sue the company for employee benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Uber leaders have not publicly asked an obvious follow-up question: At Uber, do you feel like your own boss? So NPR asked drivers, in the informal survey. A little more than half of respondents — 491 total — said they did; and, perhaps unexpectedly, nearly half — 436 — said they did not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You don't feel like your own boss at all,\" says driver David McKee from Vista, California. \"The only thing you control is the time when you sign on and sign off. Other than that, Uber controls everything. It's 'Be Your Own Boss' and 'do what I say.'\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few workers can drop their kids off at school every morning and then run errands as needed before clocking in. The power to set one's own hours is rare.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While McKee and other Uber drivers appreciate that flexibility, they say it is important to not overestimate it. A total of 779 survey respondents — more than 80 percent — say that to make enough money as an Uber driver, they have to work peak hours, like morning rush or weekend nights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's not unparalleled freedom, which is hardly surprising. After all, Uber is a transportation service that relies on customer demand, not a coding job where you can flip open your laptop and work anytime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But drivers go a step further and say they are not just subject to market forces. At Uber, they are also bound by the company's determination to protect the brand by tightly controlling driver performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber uses the sensors in drivers' own smartphones to monitor their turns and lane changes and rolling stops. Of the survey respondents, 116 (more than 10 percent), say they didn't realize Uber was doing that (they may have missed that line in the very long contract) and 433 (nearly half) would like Uber to stop it. Uber's competitor. Lyft, does not do such tracking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McKee says it is the job of the government to license you, penalize you and take away your license if warranted. He says Uber is making a power grab and \"becoming the police.\" He and other drivers also don't trust the company's intentions with their private data. Many Uber drivers work for more than one ride-hailing service, and they fear the tracking is a way for Uber to collect intelligence on smaller competitors like Lyft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber says smartphone tracking is good for safety and protects drivers against unfair complaints from passengers. If you want to drive, opting out is not an option.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drivers also don't have a choice when it comes to UberPool — the service where you can share a car with others. Drivers say they feel Uber is coercing them into offering it. They say while passengers get to pay much less, drivers also make much less — it is a money loser. In the NPR survey, 7 out of every 10 respondents who offer UberPool say they do not like it and wish they didn't have to provide it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But they do. Uber has bundled its products, so if you want to drive for Uber's standard service (UberX), you have to offer Pool, too. For many, that doesn't feel very being-your-own-boss-like.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Dynamic pricing: Keep 'em guessing, and driving\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The way pricing works at Uber also subjects drivers to a kind of control that's novel. While people who are independent contractors typically set their own price for services, at Uber the company sets the price. And it's dynamic, able to change second by second according to a calculation that is secret.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While economists marvel at dynamic pricing — it's a superpower that the smartphone and algorithms make possible — drivers scratch their heads. It leaves Uber all-knowing, and drivers clueless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike in other jobs, they're not sure what they'll make per hour, and so they can end up on the road far longer than expected. Seventy-nine drivers tell NPR they have driven shifts 14 hours or longer. That means being in the car, Uber app on, either driving a passenger or waiting for work. Three people showed NPR documentation for driving 20 hours in a single day. Uber does not limit how many hours a driver can work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is clearly a public safety hazard. But at Uber, drivers talk about it as though it is normal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11510928\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/ReningerCar-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11510928\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/ReningerCar.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/ReningerCar-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/ReningerCar-240x160.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/ReningerCar-375x250.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/ReningerCar-520x346.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kyle Reninger sits in his car in Muncie. He drives for Uber part time, typically on weekend nights, so he is more likely to pick up surge prices, which earn him more money. He also drives for Lyft, an Uber competitor. \u003ccite>(Lucas Carter/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kyle Reninger is an Uber driver from Muncie, Indiana. The 32-year-old works weekend nights because, he says, that's when he is most likely to pick up surge fares — the higher prices (two, three, five times the regular rate) that passengers hate to pay and that drivers live by. They are the nuggets of the Uber gold rush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the course of several weeks, he kept an audio diary for NPR, sending WhatsApp messages and screenshots between rides. His voice memos become a way to peer into his modern workplace and observe how the nights stretch out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reninger says he feels like his own boss: He chooses when to turn the Uber app on and off. And it's a side gig. He and his wife run a vegan bakery. As that business gets off the ground, Uber is a way to make quick money and also advertise to his passengers. He keeps vegan cookies in the car. (An Uber spokesman says it's OK for drivers to advertise another business in their own cars, so long as it is not an Uber competitor.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11510929\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"Reninger and his wife, Amanda, prepare baked goods for their vegan bakery business. (Right) Reninger stocks homemade cookies in his car and gives them out while he is driving for Uber.\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11510929\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-160x160.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-240x240.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-375x375.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-520x520.jpg 520w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-32x32.jpg 32w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-50x50.jpg 50w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-64x64.jpg 64w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-96x96.jpg 96w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-128x128.jpg 128w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/uber-trio_custom-8f4071e98b70220ebcfd6a5c8062a7fe0cd54663-s800-c85-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Reninger and his wife, Amanda, prepare baked goods for their vegan bakery business. (Right) Reninger stocks homemade cookies in his car and gives them out while he is driving for Uber. \u003ccite>(Lucas Carter/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One Friday, Reninger sets out to make $200, not counting the cost of gas. He is on Uber and competitor Lyft, though the vast majority of his business comes from Uber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Business is slower than he would like. It takes him 98 minutes on the road to get his first payment of $14.14.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That amount is less than he expected. The Uber app estimated he should bring in $7 more. He says he is used to Uber playing this game — suggesting one fare, then paying another. He sends a message in the app basically saying: I got underpaid; fix that. Then, he keeps waiting for his next passenger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is the hard part, the in between,\" he says in his voice memo. \"Not really sure, you know, if I should drive around, hope to get another ping. Or if I should head back north.\" He had driven down to Indianapolis, a little more than an hour from home, hoping for a busier night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In between the waiting, the passengers he does get make him laugh, think or sometimes cringe. One man is a globe-trotter who talks about his forays in Europe. Another sneaks an open beer can into the car, even though it's against the law and Reninger asked him not to. \"That was kind of a jerk move,\" the driver says. By 1:42 a.m., nearly nine hours into his shift, he is only about halfway to his $200 goal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An hour later, he gets another passenger who says over and over, \"I'm so drunk; I'm so drunk, man.\" The passenger wants to go to IHOP, which is typical. A bit less typical, Reninger says in another voice memo, is that the drunk man got out of the car, \"zipped down his pants and started to urinate, right in front of IHOP. Then walked in, like nothing happened.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11510931\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/06062017_reninger_uber_npr_1369-edit_custom-a51ec29fb68147aa4acd4dbe12a5f03e5c52ce54-s800-c85-800x532.jpg\" alt=\"Cars drive through Muncie at dusk.\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11510931\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/06062017_reninger_uber_npr_1369-edit_custom-a51ec29fb68147aa4acd4dbe12a5f03e5c52ce54-s800-c85.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/06062017_reninger_uber_npr_1369-edit_custom-a51ec29fb68147aa4acd4dbe12a5f03e5c52ce54-s800-c85-160x106.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/06062017_reninger_uber_npr_1369-edit_custom-a51ec29fb68147aa4acd4dbe12a5f03e5c52ce54-s800-c85-240x160.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/06062017_reninger_uber_npr_1369-edit_custom-a51ec29fb68147aa4acd4dbe12a5f03e5c52ce54-s800-c85-375x249.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/06062017_reninger_uber_npr_1369-edit_custom-a51ec29fb68147aa4acd4dbe12a5f03e5c52ce54-s800-c85-520x346.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cars drive through Muncie at dusk. \u003ccite>(Lucas Carter/NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>By 6:11 a.m., you can start to hear Reninger's voice fading. And there is something he doesn't admit in his voice memos while he is on the road: He is having a hard time staying awake. He sips water and rolls down his window to help him. He waits until he gets home to mention this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All told, the Uber driver was in his car 14 hours, 9 minutes, and covered 401.2 miles. He got only one small surge fare. If you put aside the cost of gas, he made $165.30. Including tips, he nearly hit his goal. It just took a couple of more hours than he had hoped (and it was by no means his longest shift).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so it goes. Each night for the Uber driver is a gamble. The hours go by — just like in a casino. Only here, you could get tired and kill someone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a problem that Uber could solve. It designed the app to lock out drivers if they don't accept a certain number of passengers (kind of like being put in the digital corner). It could design a safety feature to lock out drivers after a certain number of hours. (Lyft does that.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Uber lacks the will to do so. A company spokesman says in an email, \"Uber is a flexible work opportunity, so people can drive whenever they want.\" Also, according to Uber data, more than half of U.S. drivers use the app less than 10 hours a week. (Uber declined to disclose data on how long full-time drivers have the app on.) And finally, the spokesman says, Uber is testing out a new app alert in some cities, to remind drivers about the importance of getting enough rest.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Uber's awakening\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The hype around Uber is that the company doesn't need drivers because it is \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/04/03/522099560/pittsburgh-offers-driving-lessons-for-ubers-autonomous-cars\">developing self-driving cars\u003c/a>; and the biggest workplace crisis is \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/06/531806891/uber-fires-20-employees-after-sexual-harassment-claim-investigation\">sexual harassment\u003c/a> — the way women in the corporate office are treated. But according to current and former employees as well as investors, Uber feels far more threatened by its broken relationship with drivers. This is the existential threat to the business, because self-driving fleets won't be ready anytime soon. Uber needs the human workforce now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, Uber hired Janelle Sallenave to improve the way it responds to drivers' and riders' needs, disputes and accidents. \"How could my job not exist? How could there not be somebody whose job it would be to oversee the support of our drivers?\" she says in a phone interview with NPR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sallenave says Uber, which began service in 2010, has grown so fast, it just didn't have the time to \"marinate\" — like older companies — on some of the basics. The focus has been on launching in more cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But now, she says, drivers are a top priority and Uber will be announcing changes. \"I think in the coming months some of the improvements we are making directly address feedback that our drivers have been giving us for the last year plus.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sallenave acknowledges that getting an Uber representative on the phone six months ago was a feat that, she says, \"frankly I don't know I would be able to do.\" She says Uber has a lot of work to do to improve communication with drivers, and the company is doing that. It's staffing more than 200 physical drop-in centers (called \"green light hubs\") and introducing new dedicated phone lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drivers' complaints about poor communication are no surprise to Sallenave. She says Uber needs to revamp the way it \"deactivates\" drivers and that the company faces \"some serious work\" in how it handles those situations. Sallenave says Uber is undertaking significant policy changes, though she declined to provide details.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also maintains that drivers are their own boss; that Uber is a digital platform (like eBay), not an employer; and that drivers are a lot like her own husband, who recently started a consultancy business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"He doesn't get benefits. He doesn't exactly know what he's going to make. I mean, that to me is all of the risks, but also the potential reward, of being an individual small-business owner,\" she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A case study in disruption\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>A former federal regulator strongly disagrees with the Uber official's position.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You know, I can't just declare a pigeon a duck because I think it should be a duck,\" says David Weil. He was head of the Department of Labor's wage-and-hour division under President Barack Obama. It was Weil's job to investigate companies that misclassify workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11510933\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/kyle-driver-app_custom-d35e2f6f448a4b993aa78c730e096ea2bb48a190-s400-c85.jpg\" alt=\"A screenshot of the driver's view of the Uber app measures brakes and accelerations while Reninger drives.\" width=\"400\" height=\"711\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11510933\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/kyle-driver-app_custom-d35e2f6f448a4b993aa78c730e096ea2bb48a190-s400-c85.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/kyle-driver-app_custom-d35e2f6f448a4b993aa78c730e096ea2bb48a190-s400-c85-160x284.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/kyle-driver-app_custom-d35e2f6f448a4b993aa78c730e096ea2bb48a190-s400-c85-240x427.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2018/06/kyle-driver-app_custom-d35e2f6f448a4b993aa78c730e096ea2bb48a190-s400-c85-375x667.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A screenshot of the driver's view of the Uber app measures brakes and accelerations while Reninger drives. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Kyle Reninger)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2016, Weil visited Silicon Valley. He came with then-Labor Secretary Tom Perez (who is now head of the Democratic National Committee). And something struck Weil: While people in tech talked like they were all disruptors in the same boat, they weren't. At a startup like TaskRabbit, for example, the people providing a service set their own price and define what work they'll do. The company doesn't control those things. But at Uber, the company sets the price and designs the services (like Uber Black, X and Pool), \u003cem>and \u003c/em>those services are core to the brand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Yeah, it looks a lot like an employment relationship. It looks like a very sophisticated, branded product provider,\" Weil says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weil's opinion, which is not based on inside knowledge, strikes at the heart of a number of legal battles and court cases in which workers are suing Uber, saying they are employees entitled to benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Weil didn't publicly express his opinion about Uber as a regulator; and he didn't put resources into investigations or outreach to Uber drivers. He says that is because although these drivers were a rapidly growing workforce, they were still a tiny sector, compared with janitors or nurses aides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"As the head of the agency, I every day dealt with this reality. We were responsible for 130 million workers in 7.3 million workplaces,\" he says. \"When you face those kinds of numbers you have to think every day very strategically about, where will you put your very limited resources?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this respect, Uber becomes a fascinating case study in how disruption works. While the tech startup pursued aggressive growth — move fast, think later — public officials describe their collective response as cautious. \"You don't want to be seen as stopping progress,\" another former federal labor official told NPR.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca name=\"methodology\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>About the survey\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR conducted an informal survey of Uber drivers from May 20-21, 2017, based on questions developed in consultation with a nationally recognized survey company. NPR distributed survey invitations to Uber drivers through an email list and through popular and active general online forums. We avoided recruiting from any forum focused on complaints or negative topics to avoid unduly biasing the responses. The survey respondents are not a scientific sample and not representative of all Uber drivers nationwide. They are self-selected and therefore represent the views of drivers who chose to participate. For example, drivers may be more likely to respond if they are more comfortable filling out an online survey or if they have more negative feelings toward the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To verify that survey takers were indeed Uber drivers, NPR included questions in the survey that require intimate knowledge of how the company pays drivers. Of the 1,158 respondents, NPR determined 943 responses valid. This is just a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of people who drive for Uber. Not all respondents replied to every question. Percentages may not total 100 because of rounding. NPR asked about length of service, to ensure a diversity of driver experiences with Uber. NPR solicited contact information of drivers surveyed and called dozens of drivers for follow-up interviews. The drivers were almost all still active; a handful had stopped driving in the last three months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>NPR Business Desk intern Mollie Simon, Senior Research Director Lori Kaplan and News Apps Developer Brittany Mayes contributed to this story. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=The+Faceless+Boss%3A+A+Look+Into+The+Uber+Driver+Workplace&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.buzzfeed.com/blakemontgomery/14-executives-who-have-left-uber-this-year?utm_term=.ah6R1NoVm#.lrlyMnx49\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">list \u003c/a>of high-profile departures at Uber — both forced and voluntary — is growing longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest is \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-bonderman-idUSKBN195053\">David Bonderman\u003c/a>, who stepped down from Uber’s board of directors yesterday. Earlier in the day, Bonderman stirred controversy by interrupting fellow board member Arianna Huffington at a meeting to make a comment disparaging women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yahoo Finance, \u003ca href=\"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-ubers-hands-meeting-travis-194232221.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">which first obtained a recording of the meeting\u003c/a>, reports that the comment took place at an all-staff meeting. Huffington was presenting the\u003ca href=\"https://www.scribd.com/document/351186221/Covington-Recommendations-for-Uber#from_embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> findings of an investigation\u003c/a> conducted by former \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/06/12/uber-board-adopts-new-policies-kalanick-leave-of-absence/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Attorney General Eric Holder\u003c/a> into Uber’s workplace culture. The report was triggered by a \u003ca href=\"https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber\">blog post\u003c/a> that alleged rampant, unchecked sexual harassment at Uber. (If you check out the recording, the tape starts at 6:35 minutes.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>While speaking, Huffington pointed out that Uber was adding a woman to its board, Wan Ling Martello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of data that shows when there’s one woman on the board, it’s much more likely that there will be a second woman on the board,” she said around six minutes into the recording.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Actually what it shows is it’s much likely to be more talking,” Uber board member David Bonderman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh. Come on, David,” Huffington responded.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Never mind that \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/technology/uber-sexual-harassment-huffington-bonderman.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">various studies have shown Bonderman to be wrong\u003c/a>. His comment also drew the ire of the tech workers Uber needs to appease to win in the war for talent in Silicon Valley. Keenly aware of the optics, Bonderman issued a swift apology and resigned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The departure came on the same day that \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/06/13/uber-ceo-to-take-leave-of-absence/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CEO Travis Kalanick announced he is taking a leave of absence\u003c/a>, to work on his leadership. The move represents a stunning rebuke of the founder/CEO and could have some rethinking one of the central tenets of this tech boom: that great tech companies are led by their founders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This thinking is a departure from past practice, said Kirk Hanson, the executive director of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.scu.edu/ethics/\">Markkula Center for Applied Ethics\u003c/a> at Santa Clara University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Silicon Valley has always recognized that founders are not the individuals to grow the firm,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Founders are visionaries who see a business model nobody else can, said Hanson. But transforming a startup into a multinational corporation takes different skills. In the past, Hanson said a more experienced manager would take the helm as the company grew. Or a seasoned executive would be brought in to work alongside the founder. Think Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no doubt that Kalanick fueled growth at Uber. But the \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.uber.com/covington-recommendations/\">report \u003c/a>shows that Kalanick failed to put basic systems in place. Complaints of sexual harassment were reportedly ignored, leaving the company open to lawsuits. And Uber is also under \u003ca href=\"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-tech-crime-exclusive-idUSKBN1802U1\">federal investigation\u003c/a> for allegedly evading regulators. All this could be scaring off the investors and business partners Uber will need if it wants to go public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I expect that Uber will be a classic case study in five years, in which we look at how a startup can go wrong if the CEO visionary is not controlled and given adult supervision,” said Hanson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said he hopes it will also be a case study of how Uber’s board recognized the problem and figured out how to turn the ship around.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.buzzfeed.com/blakemontgomery/14-executives-who-have-left-uber-this-year?utm_term=.ah6R1NoVm#.lrlyMnx49\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">list \u003c/a>of high-profile departures at Uber — both forced and voluntary — is growing longer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest is \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-bonderman-idUSKBN195053\">David Bonderman\u003c/a>, who stepped down from Uber’s board of directors yesterday. Earlier in the day, Bonderman stirred controversy by interrupting fellow board member Arianna Huffington at a meeting to make a comment disparaging women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yahoo Finance, \u003ca href=\"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/inside-ubers-hands-meeting-travis-194232221.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">which first obtained a recording of the meeting\u003c/a>, reports that the comment took place at an all-staff meeting. Huffington was presenting the\u003ca href=\"https://www.scribd.com/document/351186221/Covington-Recommendations-for-Uber#from_embed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> findings of an investigation\u003c/a> conducted by former \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/06/12/uber-board-adopts-new-policies-kalanick-leave-of-absence/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Attorney General Eric Holder\u003c/a> into Uber’s workplace culture. The report was triggered by a \u003ca href=\"https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber\">blog post\u003c/a> that alleged rampant, unchecked sexual harassment at Uber. (If you check out the recording, the tape starts at 6:35 minutes.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>While speaking, Huffington pointed out that Uber was adding a woman to its board, Wan Ling Martello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a lot of data that shows when there’s one woman on the board, it’s much more likely that there will be a second woman on the board,” she said around six minutes into the recording.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Actually what it shows is it’s much likely to be more talking,” Uber board member David Bonderman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oh. Come on, David,” Huffington responded.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Never mind that \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/technology/uber-sexual-harassment-huffington-bonderman.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">various studies have shown Bonderman to be wrong\u003c/a>. His comment also drew the ire of the tech workers Uber needs to appease to win in the war for talent in Silicon Valley. Keenly aware of the optics, Bonderman issued a swift apology and resigned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The departure came on the same day that \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/06/13/uber-ceo-to-take-leave-of-absence/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CEO Travis Kalanick announced he is taking a leave of absence\u003c/a>, to work on his leadership. The move represents a stunning rebuke of the founder/CEO and could have some rethinking one of the central tenets of this tech boom: that great tech companies are led by their founders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This thinking is a departure from past practice, said Kirk Hanson, the executive director of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.scu.edu/ethics/\">Markkula Center for Applied Ethics\u003c/a> at Santa Clara University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Silicon Valley has always recognized that founders are not the individuals to grow the firm,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Founders are visionaries who see a business model nobody else can, said Hanson. But transforming a startup into a multinational corporation takes different skills. In the past, Hanson said a more experienced manager would take the helm as the company grew. Or a seasoned executive would be brought in to work alongside the founder. Think Sheryl Sandberg and Mark Zuckerberg.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s no doubt that Kalanick fueled growth at Uber. But the \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.uber.com/covington-recommendations/\">report \u003c/a>shows that Kalanick failed to put basic systems in place. Complaints of sexual harassment were reportedly ignored, leaving the company open to lawsuits. And Uber is also under \u003ca href=\"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-tech-crime-exclusive-idUSKBN1802U1\">federal investigation\u003c/a> for allegedly evading regulators. All this could be scaring off the investors and business partners Uber will need if it wants to go public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I expect that Uber will be a classic case study in five years, in which we look at how a startup can go wrong if the CEO visionary is not controlled and given adult supervision,” said Hanson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said he hopes it will also be a case study of how Uber’s board recognized the problem and figured out how to turn the ship around.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Uber CEO to Take Leave of Absence",
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"content": "\u003cp>Uber made two big announcements Tuesday, adopting new policies to improve its workplace environment and saying CEO Travis Kalanick is going on a leave of absence for personal reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalanick said he needs time to grieve the recent death of his mother. He also said he's responsible for \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/06/12/uber-board-adopts-new-policies-kalanick-leave-of-absence/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the company's current issues \u003c/a>and that he needs to become a better leader.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The ultimate responsibility, for where we've gotten and how we've gotten here rests on my shoulders,\" said Kalanick. \"There is of course much to be proud of but there is much to improve.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalanick said he would be working on a team that could lead \"Uber 2.0.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"But if we are going to work on Uber 2.0, I also need to work on Travis 2.0 to become the leader that this company needs and that you deserve,\" he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The statement was included in Uber's note announcing new policies that are meant to help it fight sexual harassment and change a corporate culture that has been blamed for allowing workplace misconduct to flourish. Uber's board unanimously accepted former Attorney General Eric Holder's recommendations for improving the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Holder's firm was hired to investigate Uber's workplace after a former engineer exposed \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/02/21/under-fire-for-gender-discrimination-uber-hires-eric-holder/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rampant sexual harassment\u003c/a> within Uber's ranks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former Uber engineer Susan Fowler \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/20/516260638/uber-will-investigate-sexual-harassment-claims-by-engineer\">published a blog post\u003c/a> in February in which she said that she was sexually harassed at the company and that both managers and the human resources unit ignored her complaints.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to that and similar accusations, Uber fired \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/06/06/uber-fires-20-employees-after-investigation-of-harassment-and-bias-claims/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">20 employees\u003c/a>, including senior executives, and reprimanded 40 more employees. Those moves came last week, after the outside firm was hired to investigate more than 200 misconduct claims against the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first recommendation in the report, according to \u003ca href=\"https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=3863793-Uber-Covington-Recommendations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a 13-page summary\u003c/a>, is titled \"Changes to Senior Leadership.\" It calls for some of Kalanick's duties to be reallocated and emphasizes the importance of the company's plan to hire a chief operating officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other recommendations ranged from improving accountability and training at the company to bolstering both Uber's human resources department and its employee complaint process. The plan also calls for increasing diversity and establishing a version of the NFL's \"Rooney Rule\" that would require Uber to include at least one female and one minority candidate in hiring for jobs and to include a woman and/or a minority on hiring panels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Uber released details of the plan to its roughly 12,000 employees Tuesday, Chief Human Resources Officer Liane Hornsey said:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"edTag\">\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cp>\"Implementing these recommendations will improve our culture, promote fairness and accountability, and establish processes and systems to ensure the mistakes of the past will not be repeated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"While change does not happen overnight, we're committed to rebuilding trust with our employees, riders and drivers.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Another recommendation in the new plan calls for Uber to forbid \"any type of romantic or intimate relationship between individuals in a reporting relationship.\" It also calls on the company to prohibit the consumption of alcohol during core work hours and to ban the use of controlled substances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final item in the summary that Uber released Tuesday calls for a review of the company's pay practices to make sure it complies with state and federal equal pay laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new plan is emerging at a time of turmoil for Uber's top executives. Its president, \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/03/20/after-short-lived-tenure-uber-president-quits-amid-company-turmoil/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jeff Jones\u003c/a>, quit in March after less than six months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks to an aggressive growth strategy, Uber now operates in cities on six continents. Valued at around $70 billion, it's one of the largest private companies in the world. But its reputation has suffered over the harassment reports, and the company has also faced challenges to its labor and competition practices, as well as a lawsuit from Google's parent company over its self-driving vehicle program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here is how \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2017/06/12/532645968/uber-considers-leave-of-absence-for-ceo-travis-kalanack\">NPR's Aarti Shahani\u003c/a> described perceptions about Kalanick, after news of his leave of absence began to circulate Monday:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"edTag\">\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cp>\"We really don't know too much about this yet, but a couple weeks ago, his mom died in a boating accident, and his dad landed in the hospital — so I mean really horrible personal loss. And it could be he just needs a break. It could also be that leadership is losing faith in his ability to pivot the company.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The board first announced it had adopted the proposals in Holder's report on Sunday; hours afterward, the company saw another high-profile departure, as senior vice president for business Emil Michael announced his resignation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Additional reporting from the Associated Press\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Uber made two big announcements Tuesday, adopting new policies to improve its workplace environment and saying CEO Travis Kalanick is going on a leave of absence for personal reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalanick said he needs time to grieve the recent death of his mother. He also said he's responsible for \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/06/12/uber-board-adopts-new-policies-kalanick-leave-of-absence/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the company's current issues \u003c/a>and that he needs to become a better leader.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The ultimate responsibility, for where we've gotten and how we've gotten here rests on my shoulders,\" said Kalanick. \"There is of course much to be proud of but there is much to improve.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalanick said he would be working on a team that could lead \"Uber 2.0.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"But if we are going to work on Uber 2.0, I also need to work on Travis 2.0 to become the leader that this company needs and that you deserve,\" he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The statement was included in Uber's note announcing new policies that are meant to help it fight sexual harassment and change a corporate culture that has been blamed for allowing workplace misconduct to flourish. Uber's board unanimously accepted former Attorney General Eric Holder's recommendations for improving the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Holder's firm was hired to investigate Uber's workplace after a former engineer exposed \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/02/21/under-fire-for-gender-discrimination-uber-hires-eric-holder/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rampant sexual harassment\u003c/a> within Uber's ranks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Former Uber engineer Susan Fowler \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/20/516260638/uber-will-investigate-sexual-harassment-claims-by-engineer\">published a blog post\u003c/a> in February in which she said that she was sexually harassed at the company and that both managers and the human resources unit ignored her complaints.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to that and similar accusations, Uber fired \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/06/06/uber-fires-20-employees-after-investigation-of-harassment-and-bias-claims/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">20 employees\u003c/a>, including senior executives, and reprimanded 40 more employees. Those moves came last week, after the outside firm was hired to investigate more than 200 misconduct claims against the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first recommendation in the report, according to \u003ca href=\"https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=3863793-Uber-Covington-Recommendations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a 13-page summary\u003c/a>, is titled \"Changes to Senior Leadership.\" It calls for some of Kalanick's duties to be reallocated and emphasizes the importance of the company's plan to hire a chief operating officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other recommendations ranged from improving accountability and training at the company to bolstering both Uber's human resources department and its employee complaint process. The plan also calls for increasing diversity and establishing a version of the NFL's \"Rooney Rule\" that would require Uber to include at least one female and one minority candidate in hiring for jobs and to include a woman and/or a minority on hiring panels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Uber released details of the plan to its roughly 12,000 employees Tuesday, Chief Human Resources Officer Liane Hornsey said:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"edTag\">\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cp>\"Implementing these recommendations will improve our culture, promote fairness and accountability, and establish processes and systems to ensure the mistakes of the past will not be repeated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"While change does not happen overnight, we're committed to rebuilding trust with our employees, riders and drivers.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Another recommendation in the new plan calls for Uber to forbid \"any type of romantic or intimate relationship between individuals in a reporting relationship.\" It also calls on the company to prohibit the consumption of alcohol during core work hours and to ban the use of controlled substances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final item in the summary that Uber released Tuesday calls for a review of the company's pay practices to make sure it complies with state and federal equal pay laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new plan is emerging at a time of turmoil for Uber's top executives. Its president, \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/03/20/after-short-lived-tenure-uber-president-quits-amid-company-turmoil/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jeff Jones\u003c/a>, quit in March after less than six months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks to an aggressive growth strategy, Uber now operates in cities on six continents. Valued at around $70 billion, it's one of the largest private companies in the world. But its reputation has suffered over the harassment reports, and the company has also faced challenges to its labor and competition practices, as well as a lawsuit from Google's parent company over its self-driving vehicle program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here is how \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2017/06/12/532645968/uber-considers-leave-of-absence-for-ceo-travis-kalanack\">NPR's Aarti Shahani\u003c/a> described perceptions about Kalanick, after news of his leave of absence began to circulate Monday:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote class=\"edTag\">\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cp>\"We really don't know too much about this yet, but a couple weeks ago, his mom died in a boating accident, and his dad landed in the hospital — so I mean really horrible personal loss. And it could be he just needs a break. It could also be that leadership is losing faith in his ability to pivot the company.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The board first announced it had adopted the proposals in Holder's report on Sunday; hours afterward, the company saw another high-profile departure, as senior vice president for business Emil Michael announced his resignation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Additional reporting from the Associated Press\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Amid Changes at Uber, No Word on Whether Kalanick Will Step Aside",
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"content": "\u003cp>Uber's board of directors has adopted a series of recommendations about the company's corporate culture from former Attorney General Eric Holder, but it remained silent early Monday on whether it would approve a leave of absence for the ride service's embattled CEO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesman for the San Francisco ride-service firm confirmed that the board met with Holder and Tammy Albarrán, both partners with Covington & Burling, a law firm hired to investigate complaints of widespread sexual harassment and other deep-seated cultural problems at Uber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Board members voted unanimously to adopt all of the firm's recommendations, which were to be released to employees on Tuesday, the spokesman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Details of the recommendations were unknown early Monday. Reuters reported: \"The recommendations in Holder's firm's report are expected to force greater controls on spending, human resources and other areas where executives led by Chief Executive Travis Kalanick have had a surprising amount of autonomy for a company with more than 12,000 employees, a source familiar with the matter said.\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He would not comment on any further actions taken by the board, including whether it discussed the future of CEO Travis Kalanick. Multiple media outlets reported Sunday that the board was considering a leave of absence for Kalanick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber Technologies Inc. has been rocked by accusations that its management has fostered a workplace environment where harassment, discrimination and bullying are left unchecked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber announced last week that it fired 20 employees for harassment problems after a separate investigation by a different law firm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under Kalanick, Uber has shaken up the taxi industry in hundreds of cities and turned the San Francisco-based company into the world's most valuable startup. Uber's valuation has climbed to nearly $70 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Kalanick has acknowledged his management style needs improvement. The 40-year-old CEO said earlier this year that he needed to \"fundamentally change and grow up.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In February, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler wrote on a blog that she had been propositioned by her boss in a series of messages on her first day of work and that superiors ignored her complaints. Uber set up a hotline for complaints after that and hired the law firm of Perkins Coie to investigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That firm checked into 215 complaints, with 57 still under investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber has been plagued by more than sexual harassment complaints in recent months. It has been threatened by boycotts, sued and subject to a federal investigation that it used a fake version of its app to thwart authorities looking into whether it is breaking local laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalanick lost his temper earlier this year in an argument with an Uber driver who was complaining about pay, and Kalanick's profanity-laced comments were \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/03/01/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-argues-with-uber-black-driver/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">caught on video.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a March conference call with reporters after that incident, board member Arianna Huffington expressed confidence that Kalanick would evolve into a better leader. But Huffington, a founder of Huffington Post, suggested time might be running out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He's a \"scrappy entrepreneur,\" she said during the call, but one who needed to bring \"changes in himself and in the way he leads.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The board meeting comes fresh on personal tragedy in Kalanick's life. His mother was killed in late May after the boat she and her husband were piloting on Pine Flat Lake, east of Fresno, hit a rock. Kalanick's father was seriously injured.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Chief Business Officer Emil Michael is planning to resign as soon as Monday.\u003cbr>\nThe company has faced high turnover in its top ranks. Michael may be best known outside the company for \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/11/18/uber-ceo-tries-to-outrace-avalanche-of-criticism-after-execs-remarks-about-reporters/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">suggesting in 2014\u003c/a> that the company could hire researchers and reporters to target journalists who were critical of the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March, Uber's president, Jeff Jones, \u003ca href=\"https://www.recode.net/2017/3/19/14976110/uber-president-jeff-jones-quits\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">resigned\u003c/a> after less than a year on the job. He said his \"beliefs and approach to leadership\" were \"inconsistent\" with those of the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to firing 20 employees, Uber said Tuesday that it was hiring an Apple marketing executive, Bozoma Saint John, to help improve its tarnished brand. Saint John most recently was head of global consumer marketing for Apple Music and iTunes.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Uber's board of directors has adopted a series of recommendations about the company's corporate culture from former Attorney General Eric Holder, but it remained silent early Monday on whether it would approve a leave of absence for the ride service's embattled CEO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesman for the San Francisco ride-service firm confirmed that the board met with Holder and Tammy Albarrán, both partners with Covington & Burling, a law firm hired to investigate complaints of widespread sexual harassment and other deep-seated cultural problems at Uber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Board members voted unanimously to adopt all of the firm's recommendations, which were to be released to employees on Tuesday, the spokesman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[Details of the recommendations were unknown early Monday. Reuters reported: \"The recommendations in Holder's firm's report are expected to force greater controls on spending, human resources and other areas where executives led by Chief Executive Travis Kalanick have had a surprising amount of autonomy for a company with more than 12,000 employees, a source familiar with the matter said.\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He would not comment on any further actions taken by the board, including whether it discussed the future of CEO Travis Kalanick. Multiple media outlets reported Sunday that the board was considering a leave of absence for Kalanick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Uber has dismissed 20 employees after an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment, according to reports from the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Bloomberg and other news outlets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's the latest development in a \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/02/21/under-fire-for-gender-discrimination-uber-hires-eric-holder/\">controversy\u003c/a> centering on allegations that the ride-service company has tolerated harassment of and discrimination against its female employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The L.A. Times, citing an anonymous source, \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tn-uber-sexual-harassment-20170606-story.html\">reported the firings\u003c/a> were disclosed in a companywide announcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>The law firm Perkins Coie, which was hired to assist former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s firm Covington & Burling in its \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-uber-eric-holder-20170221-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">investigation of Uber’s workplace practices\u003c/a>, told Uber’s more than 12,000 employees Tuesday that it looked into 215 complaints and took no action in 100 instances, the person said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Employees were told that those fired were terminated for a range of reasons, including sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination. Uber did not respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>The New York Times, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/technology/uber-fired.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">also citing an anonymous source\u003c/a>, said the announcement was part of an all-hands meeting Tuesday in San Francisco. Uber itself had no immediate comment on the reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber hired Holder in February to investigate allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination after Susan J. Fowler, a former site reliability engineer for the company, wrote a \u003ca href=\"https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber\">blog post\u003c/a> about the company's response to her claims that she'd been propositioned by her manager.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Upper management told me that he was 'a high performer' (i.e. had stellar performance reviews from his superiors) and they wouldn't feel comfortable punishing him for what was probably just an innocent mistake on his part,\" Fowler wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to Fowler's account, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick told employees that the company's move toward an independent review would be a move toward new workplace standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What is driving me through all this is a determination that we take what’s happened as an opportunity to heal wounds of the past and set a new standard for justice in the workplace,” Kalanick wrote in the email.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>DETROIT — A federal judge's order that bars Uber from using technology taken by a star engineer before he left Waymo is bad news for Uber and likely will hurt the ride-hailing company's own self-driving research, according to legal experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ruling by District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco Monday was mainly a victory for Waymo, the autonomous car unit spun off from Google, even though the judge refused to order a halt to Uber's autonomous car research as Waymo had requested, the experts said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waymo showed \"compelling evidence\" that a former Waymo engineer named Anthony Levandowski downloaded thousands of confidential files before leaving the company, the order said. Levandowski set up his own firms, which then were sold to Uber for $680 million. Evidence showed that Levandowski and Uber planned the acquisitions before Levandowski left Waymo, Alsup's order said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"He clearly believes that Levandowski is guilty as sin and that Uber hired him, knowing this full well,\" said John Coffee, a Columbia University law professor who specializes in white-collar crime and corporate governance. \"He is ruling that some of this information is stolen (or \"misappropriated\"), and in the long run that will likely have a devastating impact on Uber.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"yWajGW1N6igWyBiSKpFUSxT3P2ykOew5\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waymo \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/02/24/google-spin-off-sues-uber-saying-leader-of-autonomous-vehicle-unit-stole-key-designs/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sued Uber in February\u003c/a> alleging that the ride-hailing company is using stolen self-driving technology to build its own autonomous cars. Monday's ruling prevents Uber from using the technology on a laser navigational tool called Lidar that robotic cars use to see what's around them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The bottom line is the evidence indicates that Uber hired Levandowski, even though it knew or should have known that he possessed over 14,000 confidential Waymo files,\" Alsup wrote. \"At least some information from those files, if not the files themselves, has seeped into Uber's own Lidar development efforts.\" Uber was ordered to return all downloaded materials to Waymo by noon on May 31.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alsup ordered Uber to remove Levandowski from any role in Lidar, and that it stop him from copying or otherwise using the downloaded materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11459442\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11459442\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-800x508.jpg\" alt=\"The judge's ruling prevents Uber from using technology on a laser navigational tool called Lidar that robotic cars use to see what’s around them.\" width=\"800\" height=\"508\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-800x508.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-160x102.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-1020x648.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-1180x750.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-960x610.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-240x153.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-375x238.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-520x330.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The judge's ruling prevents Uber from using technology on a laser navigational tool called Lidar that robotic cars use to see what’s around them. \u003ccite>(Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Waymo had sought to shut down Uber's autonomous car program until the dispute is settled. But Alsup determined that Waymo's patent infringement theories were too weak to support such an order. The judge ruled that although it's hard to imagine that Levandowski \"plundered Waymo's vault the way he did\" with no intent to use the material, Waymo still fell short of showing that the trade secrets were used.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber said in a statement Monday that it's pleased the court allowed it to continue the research, including its own Lidar innovations. \"We look forward to moving toward trial and continuing to demonstrate that our technology has been built independently from the ground up,\" the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waymo, which is part of Google parent Alphabet Inc., said it welcomed the order stopping Uber from using \"stolen documents containing trade secrets.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ruling, coupled with Alsup's order last week referring the case to federal prosecutors, signals that Alsup is leaning toward Waymo based on evidence thus far, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. \"I think it's pretty clear that he sees it for the plaintiffs as opposed to defendants,\" Tobias said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The high-stakes corporate espionage case now will proceed to evidence exchanges between both sides and will go to trial if not settled, Tobias said. It could take months or more than a year to be resolved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ruling will hamper Uber's ability to develop a self-driving car more quickly than Waymo, Coffee said, but it's too early to say if Uber will be crippled by the ruling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levandowski formed Ottomotto, a self-driving vehicle startup, on Jan. 15, 2016. Twelve days later, he resigned from Waymo without any notice. The following August, Uber bought Ottomotto and hired Levandowski to lead its self-driving car efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week Alsup took the rare step of referring the case to federal prosecutors for an investigation of possible criminal misconduct. The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco hasn't responded to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also Monday, Waymo confirmed that it is teaming up to test autonomous vehicles with Lyft, Uber's main ride-hailing competitor, in a potential challenge to Uber.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "At stake is the direction of Uber's self-driving car program, which its CEO has said is the key to the company's future.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>DETROIT — A federal judge's order that bars Uber from using technology taken by a star engineer before he left Waymo is bad news for Uber and likely will hurt the ride-hailing company's own self-driving research, according to legal experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ruling by District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco Monday was mainly a victory for Waymo, the autonomous car unit spun off from Google, even though the judge refused to order a halt to Uber's autonomous car research as Waymo had requested, the experts said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waymo showed \"compelling evidence\" that a former Waymo engineer named Anthony Levandowski downloaded thousands of confidential files before leaving the company, the order said. Levandowski set up his own firms, which then were sold to Uber for $680 million. Evidence showed that Levandowski and Uber planned the acquisitions before Levandowski left Waymo, Alsup's order said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"He clearly believes that Levandowski is guilty as sin and that Uber hired him, knowing this full well,\" said John Coffee, a Columbia University law professor who specializes in white-collar crime and corporate governance. \"He is ruling that some of this information is stolen (or \"misappropriated\"), and in the long run that will likely have a devastating impact on Uber.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waymo \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/02/24/google-spin-off-sues-uber-saying-leader-of-autonomous-vehicle-unit-stole-key-designs/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sued Uber in February\u003c/a> alleging that the ride-hailing company is using stolen self-driving technology to build its own autonomous cars. Monday's ruling prevents Uber from using the technology on a laser navigational tool called Lidar that robotic cars use to see what's around them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The bottom line is the evidence indicates that Uber hired Levandowski, even though it knew or should have known that he possessed over 14,000 confidential Waymo files,\" Alsup wrote. \"At least some information from those files, if not the files themselves, has seeped into Uber's own Lidar development efforts.\" Uber was ordered to return all downloaded materials to Waymo by noon on May 31.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alsup ordered Uber to remove Levandowski from any role in Lidar, and that it stop him from copying or otherwise using the downloaded materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11459442\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11459442\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-800x508.jpg\" alt=\"The judge's ruling prevents Uber from using technology on a laser navigational tool called Lidar that robotic cars use to see what’s around them.\" width=\"800\" height=\"508\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-800x508.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-160x102.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-1020x648.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-1180x750.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-960x610.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-240x153.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-375x238.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/05/UberSelfDriving2-520x330.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The judge's ruling prevents Uber from using technology on a laser navigational tool called Lidar that robotic cars use to see what’s around them. \u003ccite>(Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Waymo had sought to shut down Uber's autonomous car program until the dispute is settled. But Alsup determined that Waymo's patent infringement theories were too weak to support such an order. The judge ruled that although it's hard to imagine that Levandowski \"plundered Waymo's vault the way he did\" with no intent to use the material, Waymo still fell short of showing that the trade secrets were used.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber said in a statement Monday that it's pleased the court allowed it to continue the research, including its own Lidar innovations. \"We look forward to moving toward trial and continuing to demonstrate that our technology has been built independently from the ground up,\" the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waymo, which is part of Google parent Alphabet Inc., said it welcomed the order stopping Uber from using \"stolen documents containing trade secrets.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ruling, coupled with Alsup's order last week referring the case to federal prosecutors, signals that Alsup is leaning toward Waymo based on evidence thus far, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. \"I think it's pretty clear that he sees it for the plaintiffs as opposed to defendants,\" Tobias said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The high-stakes corporate espionage case now will proceed to evidence exchanges between both sides and will go to trial if not settled, Tobias said. It could take months or more than a year to be resolved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ruling will hamper Uber's ability to develop a self-driving car more quickly than Waymo, Coffee said, but it's too early to say if Uber will be crippled by the ruling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levandowski formed Ottomotto, a self-driving vehicle startup, on Jan. 15, 2016. Twelve days later, he resigned from Waymo without any notice. The following August, Uber bought Ottomotto and hired Levandowski to lead its self-driving car efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week Alsup took the rare step of referring the case to federal prosecutors for an investigation of possible criminal misconduct. The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco hasn't responded to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also Monday, Waymo confirmed that it is teaming up to test autonomous vehicles with Lyft, Uber's main ride-hailing competitor, in a potential challenge to Uber.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Flying Cars Are (Still) Coming: Should We Believe the Hype?",
"title": "Flying Cars Are (Still) Coming: Should We Believe the Hype?",
"headTitle": "The California Report | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cp>In the 1950s, when America was hopeful and reckless conjecture was encouraged, prognosticators had some wild ideas about 21st century technology. A few came true, like \u003ca href=\"https://www.ald.softbankrobotics.com/en/cool-robots/pepper\">robot companions\u003c/a>. Most didn't, like \u003ca href=\"http://signsfromthenearfuture.tumblr.com/image/157825581640\">lunar shuttles\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But one concept in particular has endured without quite being realized -- the flying car. Check those special \"future\" editions of \u003ca href=\"http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/g462/future-that-never-was-next-gen-tech-concepts/\">old magazines\u003c/a> and you'll find plenty of stalwart citizens commuting to work in hovering sedans, with tail fins. So where did the dream go wrong?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, you may have noticed that flying cars have been \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/technology/flying-car-technology.html\">buzzing the headlines\u003c/a> this week, with new \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMma4c2SPdY\">prototype footage\u003c/a> making the rounds and Uber's \u003ca href=\"https://www.uber.com/info/elevate/summit/\">flying car tech summit\u003c/a> in Texas. The timing seems right for a reappraisal of our retro-future dreams. The good news is that flying cars are no longer science fiction -- in fact, several designs are already in the air. The bad news is that you won't be flying one anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, the good news. Depending on how you define your terms, flying cars have been around for several years now. Straightforward hybrids like the \u003ca href=\"http://www.terrafugia.com/the-transition/\">Terrafugia Transition\u003c/a> are basically cars with folding wings -- keep 'em folded up when you're driving around; drop 'em down when you hit the runway. Of course, these vehicles are essentially private planes -- you'll need a pilot's license.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11426672\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11426672\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"The Terrafugia Transition extends its fold-up wings when it hits the runway.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6-520x390.jpg 520w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6.jpg 958w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Terrafugia Transition extends its fold-up wings when it hits the runway. \u003ccite>(Terrfugia)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then there are the rotor-driven aerial vehicles that function like miniaturized helicopters or maximized drones. Click around online and you can find several projects in this area, from high-tech specimens like the newly unveiled \u003ca href=\"https://kittyhawk.aero/about/\">Kitty Hawk\u003c/a> (backed by Google's Larry Page) to old-school da Vinci-style \u003ca href=\"http://www.aerovelo.com/ornithopter-summary\">pedal-powered ornithopters\u003c/a>. Depending on where you're flying, many of these personal aircraft are classified as recreational ultralight vehicles and don't require a pilot's license at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMma4c2SPdY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But they're not strictly flying cars of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjy-fnsmWR4\">\"The Jetsons\"\u003c/a> flavor we've been promised. For the real space-age stuff, you want vehicles with enclosed cabins that can launch and land in crowded urban environments. That means expanding on existing Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) technology, employed by military vehicles like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/2014/06/why-harrier-jets-crash/\">Harrier Jump Jet\u003c/a>. For a good example of this approach, check out the \u003ca href=\"https://lilium.com/\">Lilium\u003c/a> jet from Germany, backed by the European Space Agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, that pesky pilot's license issue remains. If we're already worried about too many drones in the air, do we really want to consider a sky full of personal aerial vehicles?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11426673\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 578px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11426673\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/lilium-c3a1ef27516dfb630216ac9a3bd968fe01205a3a.jpg\" alt=\"Lilium Aviation is already testing its all-electric personal jet, which takes off and lands vertically.\" width=\"578\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/lilium-c3a1ef27516dfb630216ac9a3bd968fe01205a3a.jpg 578w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/lilium-c3a1ef27516dfb630216ac9a3bd968fe01205a3a-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/lilium-c3a1ef27516dfb630216ac9a3bd968fe01205a3a-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/lilium-c3a1ef27516dfb630216ac9a3bd968fe01205a3a-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/lilium-c3a1ef27516dfb630216ac9a3bd968fe01205a3a-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 578px) 100vw, 578px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lilium Aviation is already testing its all-electric personal jet, which takes off and lands vertically. \u003ccite>(Lilium Aviation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To address this concern, the biggest players in the flying car game are banking on one more critical innovation: flying cars that can pilot themselves. That's what Uber is aiming for with its new \u003ca href=\"https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf\">Elevate initiative\u003c/a>, which imagines a future of semi-autonomous flying vehicles that can be hailed from designated rooftops and helipads around the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeff Holden, Uber chief product officer, described a future service, tentatively called Uber Air. \"You literally push a button and you get a flight,\" he said at the company's Elevate Summit in Dallas on Tuesday. A car trip between San Francisco and San Jose can take up to 2½ hours, depending on traffic, and \"this is like a 15-minute flight,\" he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is giving you freedom, radically reducing time from point A to point B,\" Holden said. Uber hopes to launch working prototypes by 2020 and to eventually reduce the cost so that it's comparable to an UberX ride, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11426674\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 447px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11426674\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/uber-650bbf4dbd9ca95f9a6ce4797a13384b8f7f690d.jpg\" alt=\"Uber is planning to expand its transportation services skyward with the Elevate program.\" width=\"447\" height=\"335\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/uber-650bbf4dbd9ca95f9a6ce4797a13384b8f7f690d.jpg 447w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/uber-650bbf4dbd9ca95f9a6ce4797a13384b8f7f690d-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/uber-650bbf4dbd9ca95f9a6ce4797a13384b8f7f690d-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/uber-650bbf4dbd9ca95f9a6ce4797a13384b8f7f690d-375x281.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 447px) 100vw, 447px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Uber is planning to expand its transportation services skyward with the Elevate program. \u003ccite>(Uber)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Uber's \"taxi planes\" would initially use a combination of human pilots and automation, and could eventually move to a fully artificial intelligence-controlled flight network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If that seems crazy, consider that the city of Dubai has already announced it will deploy a fleet of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5Q2W0r5e-s\">air taxis\u003c/a> this summer, using the Chinese \u003ca href=\"http://www.ehang.com/ehang184\">EHang 184\u003c/a> passenger drone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber is not the only heavy hitter moving into this area. European aviation behemoth Airbus has been gradually unveiling elements of its ambitious autonomous vehicle project, which it hopes to start testing as early as next year. Airbus' proposed \u003ca href=\"http://www.airbusgroup.com/int/en/news-media/corporate-magazine/Forum-90/PopUp.html\">Pop.Up system\u003c/a> would employ modular passenger cabins that can be affixed to a set of wheels on the bottom or an array of rotors on the top, depending on whether you're driving or flying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11426675\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11426675\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-800x599.jpg\" alt=\"Airbus envisions a future of hybrid modular vehicles for road and sky.\" width=\"800\" height=\"599\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-800x599.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-960x719.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-520x390.jpg 520w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60.jpg 1061w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Airbus envisions a future of hybrid modular vehicles for road and sky. \u003ccite>(Italdesign)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Both the Uber and Airbus projects also incorporate that other major auto innovation of recent years -- electric vehicles. Both systems envision a future of fully electric flying taxis and buses, to cut down on weight, noise and pollution. In fact, almost all of the recent flying car proposals are banking on batteries, with the exception of those \u003ca href=\"http://www.aerovelo.com/atlas-helicopter\">pedal-powered contraptions\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent issue of Airbus' \u003ca href=\"http://www.airbusgroup.com/int/en/news-media/corporate-magazine/Forum-88/My-Kind-Of-Flyover.html\">corporate magazine\u003c/a>, CEO Tom Enders said he fully expects to have a sky full of flying coaches and cabs over major cities: \"In a not-too-distant future, we'll use our smartphones to book a fully automated flying taxi that will land outside our front door -- without any pilot.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A Different Point of View\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>It all seems very exciting and imminent, but obviously some enormous obstacles remain -- true autonomous vehicle technology and air traffic control, to name two. Adding millions of flying cars and taxis to the existing airspace would require a colossal reboot of air traffic control systems, most likely managed by some kind of future artificial intelligence. The more you think it through, the more daunting it all becomes. If you'd rather keep the 1950s dream alive in your mind, stop reading now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aviation consultant \u003ca href=\"http://www.richardaboulafia.com/\">Richard Aboulafia\u003c/a> is squarely among the skeptics. As a veteran industry analyst, Aboulafia makes his living assessing nuts-and-bolt realities, not concept drawings. When it comes to hybrid vehicles that can drive on roads and fly in the air, there's a core design dilemma, he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11426670\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11426670\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Airbus is one of more than a dozen companies actively developing flying cars.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91-520x390.jpg 520w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91.jpg 915w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Airbus is one of more than a dozen companies actively developing flying cars. \u003ccite>(Airbus)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"You know, I'd like to have a good product that combines shampoo and conditioner in one bottle, but you can't do it,\" he says. \"And it's the same here with flying cars -- you have a perfectly inadequate plane crossed with a perfectly inadequate car. You've got two very different animals here.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for those fleets of ski taxis and autonomous flying vehicles being proposed by Uber, Airbus and others, Aboulafia sees another mountain of practical problems: \"More issues than I can count, really.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aboulafia says the first thing that jumped out at him in Uber's Elevate \u003ca href=\"http://www.uber.com/elevate/whitepaper/\">white paper\u003c/a> is an old industry dilemma: Electric vehicles have a fundamental battery problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The biggest issue with the Elevate manifesto is that it assumes the existence of a truly amazing battery with a phenomenal energy density,\" he says. \"We've been striving for this for the last century. You'd need the kind of reliability that puts you in the air and keeps you there safely. This isn't a Tesla -- you can't just pull over to the side of the road.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5wMFtawn7I\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The self-piloting aspect has him worried as well. With flying cars, after all, we're adding an entire extra dimension to problems we have yet to solve in 2-D.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"When we have a safe self-driving car, we'll be part of the way there,\" Aboulafia says. \"But we'll need some dramatic improvements in sense-and-avoid technology, to be able to track everything in all directions.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there are the maintenance issues. \"Aircraft have a lot of moving parts, you know,\" Aboulafia says. \"And aircraft maintenance is a lot more expensive than car maintenance -- ask any pilot. If nothing else, we'd need a total maintenance revolution.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So is there any hope? Is our cherished 1950s vision of flying cars just an impossible sci-fi dream? Well, Aboulafia doesn't want to be a total bummer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It could be that one day we have this amazing confluence of unlimited and safe battery power, combined with truly autonomous capabilities, where the machine is truly flying itself,\" Aboulafia said. \"All of that may trigger some kind of intra-urban mobility revolution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"But that's many, many decades away -- if ever.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.glenn-mcdonald.com/\">Glenn McDonald\u003c/a> \u003cem>is a freelance writer, editor and game designer based in Chapel Hill, N.C. You can follow him\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/glennmcdonald1\">@glennmcdonald1\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Flying+Cars+Are+%28Still%29+Coming%3A+Should+We+Believe+The+Hype%3F+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Airbus and Uber are planning for a future of flying cars and sky taxis. 'You literally push a button and you get a flight,' an Uber executive says. But will our Tomorrowland ever really arrive?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In the 1950s, when America was hopeful and reckless conjecture was encouraged, prognosticators had some wild ideas about 21st century technology. A few came true, like \u003ca href=\"https://www.ald.softbankrobotics.com/en/cool-robots/pepper\">robot companions\u003c/a>. Most didn't, like \u003ca href=\"http://signsfromthenearfuture.tumblr.com/image/157825581640\">lunar shuttles\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But one concept in particular has endured without quite being realized -- the flying car. Check those special \"future\" editions of \u003ca href=\"http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/g462/future-that-never-was-next-gen-tech-concepts/\">old magazines\u003c/a> and you'll find plenty of stalwart citizens commuting to work in hovering sedans, with tail fins. So where did the dream go wrong?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, you may have noticed that flying cars have been \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/technology/flying-car-technology.html\">buzzing the headlines\u003c/a> this week, with new \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMma4c2SPdY\">prototype footage\u003c/a> making the rounds and Uber's \u003ca href=\"https://www.uber.com/info/elevate/summit/\">flying car tech summit\u003c/a> in Texas. The timing seems right for a reappraisal of our retro-future dreams. The good news is that flying cars are no longer science fiction -- in fact, several designs are already in the air. The bad news is that you won't be flying one anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, the good news. Depending on how you define your terms, flying cars have been around for several years now. Straightforward hybrids like the \u003ca href=\"http://www.terrafugia.com/the-transition/\">Terrafugia Transition\u003c/a> are basically cars with folding wings -- keep 'em folded up when you're driving around; drop 'em down when you hit the runway. Of course, these vehicles are essentially private planes -- you'll need a pilot's license.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11426672\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11426672\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"The Terrafugia Transition extends its fold-up wings when it hits the runway.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6-520x390.jpg 520w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/transition-e8e204780be4b9a1734b739eb413dfbcbd7ec2e6.jpg 958w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Terrafugia Transition extends its fold-up wings when it hits the runway. \u003ccite>(Terrfugia)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then there are the rotor-driven aerial vehicles that function like miniaturized helicopters or maximized drones. Click around online and you can find several projects in this area, from high-tech specimens like the newly unveiled \u003ca href=\"https://kittyhawk.aero/about/\">Kitty Hawk\u003c/a> (backed by Google's Larry Page) to old-school da Vinci-style \u003ca href=\"http://www.aerovelo.com/ornithopter-summary\">pedal-powered ornithopters\u003c/a>. Depending on where you're flying, many of these personal aircraft are classified as recreational ultralight vehicles and don't require a pilot's license at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/lMma4c2SPdY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/lMma4c2SPdY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>But they're not strictly flying cars of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjy-fnsmWR4\">\"The Jetsons\"\u003c/a> flavor we've been promised. For the real space-age stuff, you want vehicles with enclosed cabins that can launch and land in crowded urban environments. That means expanding on existing Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) technology, employed by military vehicles like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/2014/06/why-harrier-jets-crash/\">Harrier Jump Jet\u003c/a>. For a good example of this approach, check out the \u003ca href=\"https://lilium.com/\">Lilium\u003c/a> jet from Germany, backed by the European Space Agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, that pesky pilot's license issue remains. If we're already worried about too many drones in the air, do we really want to consider a sky full of personal aerial vehicles?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11426673\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 578px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11426673\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/lilium-c3a1ef27516dfb630216ac9a3bd968fe01205a3a.jpg\" alt=\"Lilium Aviation is already testing its all-electric personal jet, which takes off and lands vertically.\" width=\"578\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/lilium-c3a1ef27516dfb630216ac9a3bd968fe01205a3a.jpg 578w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/lilium-c3a1ef27516dfb630216ac9a3bd968fe01205a3a-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/lilium-c3a1ef27516dfb630216ac9a3bd968fe01205a3a-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/lilium-c3a1ef27516dfb630216ac9a3bd968fe01205a3a-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/lilium-c3a1ef27516dfb630216ac9a3bd968fe01205a3a-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 578px) 100vw, 578px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lilium Aviation is already testing its all-electric personal jet, which takes off and lands vertically. \u003ccite>(Lilium Aviation)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To address this concern, the biggest players in the flying car game are banking on one more critical innovation: flying cars that can pilot themselves. That's what Uber is aiming for with its new \u003ca href=\"https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf\">Elevate initiative\u003c/a>, which imagines a future of semi-autonomous flying vehicles that can be hailed from designated rooftops and helipads around the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeff Holden, Uber chief product officer, described a future service, tentatively called Uber Air. \"You literally push a button and you get a flight,\" he said at the company's Elevate Summit in Dallas on Tuesday. A car trip between San Francisco and San Jose can take up to 2½ hours, depending on traffic, and \"this is like a 15-minute flight,\" he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is giving you freedom, radically reducing time from point A to point B,\" Holden said. Uber hopes to launch working prototypes by 2020 and to eventually reduce the cost so that it's comparable to an UberX ride, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11426674\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 447px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-11426674\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/uber-650bbf4dbd9ca95f9a6ce4797a13384b8f7f690d.jpg\" alt=\"Uber is planning to expand its transportation services skyward with the Elevate program.\" width=\"447\" height=\"335\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/uber-650bbf4dbd9ca95f9a6ce4797a13384b8f7f690d.jpg 447w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/uber-650bbf4dbd9ca95f9a6ce4797a13384b8f7f690d-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/uber-650bbf4dbd9ca95f9a6ce4797a13384b8f7f690d-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/uber-650bbf4dbd9ca95f9a6ce4797a13384b8f7f690d-375x281.jpg 375w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 447px) 100vw, 447px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Uber is planning to expand its transportation services skyward with the Elevate program. \u003ccite>(Uber)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Uber's \"taxi planes\" would initially use a combination of human pilots and automation, and could eventually move to a fully artificial intelligence-controlled flight network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If that seems crazy, consider that the city of Dubai has already announced it will deploy a fleet of \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5Q2W0r5e-s\">air taxis\u003c/a> this summer, using the Chinese \u003ca href=\"http://www.ehang.com/ehang184\">EHang 184\u003c/a> passenger drone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber is not the only heavy hitter moving into this area. European aviation behemoth Airbus has been gradually unveiling elements of its ambitious autonomous vehicle project, which it hopes to start testing as early as next year. Airbus' proposed \u003ca href=\"http://www.airbusgroup.com/int/en/news-media/corporate-magazine/Forum-90/PopUp.html\">Pop.Up system\u003c/a> would employ modular passenger cabins that can be affixed to a set of wheels on the bottom or an array of rotors on the top, depending on whether you're driving or flying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11426675\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11426675\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-800x599.jpg\" alt=\"Airbus envisions a future of hybrid modular vehicles for road and sky.\" width=\"800\" height=\"599\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-800x599.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-960x719.jpg 960w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60-520x390.jpg 520w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-ac91de84242c894abe628882b3fa9d7d473ffb60.jpg 1061w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Airbus envisions a future of hybrid modular vehicles for road and sky. \u003ccite>(Italdesign)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Both the Uber and Airbus projects also incorporate that other major auto innovation of recent years -- electric vehicles. Both systems envision a future of fully electric flying taxis and buses, to cut down on weight, noise and pollution. In fact, almost all of the recent flying car proposals are banking on batteries, with the exception of those \u003ca href=\"http://www.aerovelo.com/atlas-helicopter\">pedal-powered contraptions\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent issue of Airbus' \u003ca href=\"http://www.airbusgroup.com/int/en/news-media/corporate-magazine/Forum-88/My-Kind-Of-Flyover.html\">corporate magazine\u003c/a>, CEO Tom Enders said he fully expects to have a sky full of flying coaches and cabs over major cities: \"In a not-too-distant future, we'll use our smartphones to book a fully automated flying taxi that will land outside our front door -- without any pilot.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>A Different Point of View\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>It all seems very exciting and imminent, but obviously some enormous obstacles remain -- true autonomous vehicle technology and air traffic control, to name two. Adding millions of flying cars and taxis to the existing airspace would require a colossal reboot of air traffic control systems, most likely managed by some kind of future artificial intelligence. The more you think it through, the more daunting it all becomes. If you'd rather keep the 1950s dream alive in your mind, stop reading now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aviation consultant \u003ca href=\"http://www.richardaboulafia.com/\">Richard Aboulafia\u003c/a> is squarely among the skeptics. As a veteran industry analyst, Aboulafia makes his living assessing nuts-and-bolt realities, not concept drawings. When it comes to hybrid vehicles that can drive on roads and fly in the air, there's a core design dilemma, he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11426670\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-11426670\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"Airbus is one of more than a dozen companies actively developing flying cars.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91-240x180.jpg 240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91-375x281.jpg 375w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91-520x390.jpg 520w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2017/04/airbus-flying-car-d781b22144f8ac071029ba51fadefe48e3980d91.jpg 915w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Airbus is one of more than a dozen companies actively developing flying cars. \u003ccite>(Airbus)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"You know, I'd like to have a good product that combines shampoo and conditioner in one bottle, but you can't do it,\" he says. \"And it's the same here with flying cars -- you have a perfectly inadequate plane crossed with a perfectly inadequate car. You've got two very different animals here.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for those fleets of ski taxis and autonomous flying vehicles being proposed by Uber, Airbus and others, Aboulafia sees another mountain of practical problems: \"More issues than I can count, really.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aboulafia says the first thing that jumped out at him in Uber's Elevate \u003ca href=\"http://www.uber.com/elevate/whitepaper/\">white paper\u003c/a> is an old industry dilemma: Electric vehicles have a fundamental battery problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The biggest issue with the Elevate manifesto is that it assumes the existence of a truly amazing battery with a phenomenal energy density,\" he says. \"We've been striving for this for the last century. You'd need the kind of reliability that puts you in the air and keeps you there safely. This isn't a Tesla -- you can't just pull over to the side of the road.\"\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/g5wMFtawn7I'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/g5wMFtawn7I'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The self-piloting aspect has him worried as well. With flying cars, after all, we're adding an entire extra dimension to problems we have yet to solve in 2-D.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"When we have a safe self-driving car, we'll be part of the way there,\" Aboulafia says. \"But we'll need some dramatic improvements in sense-and-avoid technology, to be able to track everything in all directions.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there are the maintenance issues. \"Aircraft have a lot of moving parts, you know,\" Aboulafia says. \"And aircraft maintenance is a lot more expensive than car maintenance -- ask any pilot. If nothing else, we'd need a total maintenance revolution.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So is there any hope? Is our cherished 1950s vision of flying cars just an impossible sci-fi dream? Well, Aboulafia doesn't want to be a total bummer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It could be that one day we have this amazing confluence of unlimited and safe battery power, combined with truly autonomous capabilities, where the machine is truly flying itself,\" Aboulafia said. \"All of that may trigger some kind of intra-urban mobility revolution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"But that's many, many decades away -- if ever.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.glenn-mcdonald.com/\">Glenn McDonald\u003c/a> \u003cem>is a freelance writer, editor and game designer based in Chapel Hill, N.C. You can follow him\u003c/em> \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/glennmcdonald1\">@glennmcdonald1\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Flying+Cars+Are+%28Still%29+Coming%3A+Should+We+Believe+The+Hype%3F+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "After Brief Tenure, Uber President Quits Amid Company Turmoil",
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"content": "\u003cp>After less than a year as president of Uber, Jeff Jones is leaving the embattled ride-hailing company, Uber confirms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We want to thank Jeff for his six months at the company and wish him all the best,\" an Uber spokesperson says in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones, previously Target's chief marketing officer, was brought on by CEO Travis Kalanick last fall to boost Uber's reputation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though Uber has long been known for its aggressiveness in taking on regulators, competitors and critics, the company has recently found itself entangled in a series of ugly controversies, ranging from sexual harassment \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/20/516260638/uber-will-investigate-sexual-harassment-claims-by-engineer\">allegations\u003c/a> to Kalanick's abrasive behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"hmQawdKBiAvdM1w7DsTqAJ5NB5RQcJaF\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/03/01/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-argues-with-uber-black-driver/\">video surfaced\u003c/a> last month showing Kalanick arguing with an Uber driver, the CEO said he needed \"leadership help\" and announced his search for a new chief operating officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While that hunt appeared to threaten Jones' role as second in command to Kalanick, in a statement to \u003ca href=\"http://www.recode.net/2017/3/19/14976110/uber-president-jeff-jones-quits\">Recode\u003c/a>\u003cem>, \u003c/em>Jones simply says his leadership approach is \"inconsistent\" with what he saw happening at Uber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick issued a note to staff: \"After we announced our intention to hire a COO, Jeff came to the tough decision that he doesn't see his future at Uber.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recode first reported Jones' departure on Sunday, initially citing sources that claimed Jones' departure was \"directly related\" to the company's amassing controversies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A number of recent scandals plague Uber, including:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>This month, the\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-program-evade-authorities.html\"> New York Times\u003c/a>\u003c/em> exposed Uber's secret \"Greyball\" program, established in 2014 to evade authorities worldwide in cities where the service has been banned. Uber later announced it will \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.uber.com/an-update-on-greyballing/\">prohibit the use\u003c/a> of the program.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/20/516260638/uber-will-investigate-sexual-harassment-claims-by-engineer\">Last month\u003c/a>, former Uber employee Susan Fowler Rigetti published a blog post describing systemic sexism and sexual harassment in the workplace. The viral post prompted Uber to launch an independent investigation, led by former U.S. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Earlier this year, a social media campaign encouraged consumers to #DeleteUber after CEO Travis \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/02/513133535/uber-ceo-leaves-business-council-after-criticism-from-trump-opponents\">Kalanick joined\u003c/a> President Trump's economic advisory council — he's since quit.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>People accused Uber of trying to profit from Trump's immigration order and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/Uber_NYC/status/825577611816468481?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">\"breaking strike\"\u003c/a> by lifting surcharge pricing for airport protesters in New York.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Jones joins a list of recent top executives to leave the company. Engineering executive \u003ca href=\"http://www.recode.net/2017/2/27/14745360/amit-singhal-google-uber\">Amit Singhal was asked to resign\u003c/a> after failing to disclose a sexual harassment claim from his previous job at Google. This month, Uber's vice president of product and growth, Ed Baker, stepped down, in addition to security researcher Charlie Miller's departure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, Uber employees spoke with \u003ca href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/14/technology/uber-corporate-culture/\">CNNTech\u003c/a> about the company's \"grueling\" work pace and work-life balance — or lack thereof.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If you're going to leave, people do so within the first year because the pace isn't what they expected or what they're used to,\" said Neal Narayani, Uber's head of people analytics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=After+Short-Lived+Tenure%2C+Uber+President+Quits+Amid+Company+Turmoil&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After less than a year as president of Uber, Jeff Jones is leaving the embattled ride-hailing company, Uber confirms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We want to thank Jeff for his six months at the company and wish him all the best,\" an Uber spokesperson says in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones, previously Target's chief marketing officer, was brought on by CEO Travis Kalanick last fall to boost Uber's reputation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though Uber has long been known for its aggressiveness in taking on regulators, competitors and critics, the company has recently found itself entangled in a series of ugly controversies, ranging from sexual harassment \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/20/516260638/uber-will-investigate-sexual-harassment-claims-by-engineer\">allegations\u003c/a> to Kalanick's abrasive behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/03/01/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-argues-with-uber-black-driver/\">video surfaced\u003c/a> last month showing Kalanick arguing with an Uber driver, the CEO said he needed \"leadership help\" and announced his search for a new chief operating officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While that hunt appeared to threaten Jones' role as second in command to Kalanick, in a statement to \u003ca href=\"http://www.recode.net/2017/3/19/14976110/uber-president-jeff-jones-quits\">Recode\u003c/a>\u003cem>, \u003c/em>Jones simply says his leadership approach is \"inconsistent\" with what he saw happening at Uber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick issued a note to staff: \"After we announced our intention to hire a COO, Jeff came to the tough decision that he doesn't see his future at Uber.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recode first reported Jones' departure on Sunday, initially citing sources that claimed Jones' departure was \"directly related\" to the company's amassing controversies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A number of recent scandals plague Uber, including:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>This month, the\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-program-evade-authorities.html\"> New York Times\u003c/a>\u003c/em> exposed Uber's secret \"Greyball\" program, established in 2014 to evade authorities worldwide in cities where the service has been banned. Uber later announced it will \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.uber.com/an-update-on-greyballing/\">prohibit the use\u003c/a> of the program.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/20/516260638/uber-will-investigate-sexual-harassment-claims-by-engineer\">Last month\u003c/a>, former Uber employee Susan Fowler Rigetti published a blog post describing systemic sexism and sexual harassment in the workplace. The viral post prompted Uber to launch an independent investigation, led by former U.S. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Earlier this year, a social media campaign encouraged consumers to #DeleteUber after CEO Travis \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/02/513133535/uber-ceo-leaves-business-council-after-criticism-from-trump-opponents\">Kalanick joined\u003c/a> President Trump's economic advisory council — he's since quit.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>People accused Uber of trying to profit from Trump's immigration order and \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/Uber_NYC/status/825577611816468481?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">\"breaking strike\"\u003c/a> by lifting surcharge pricing for airport protesters in New York.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Jones joins a list of recent top executives to leave the company. Engineering executive \u003ca href=\"http://www.recode.net/2017/2/27/14745360/amit-singhal-google-uber\">Amit Singhal was asked to resign\u003c/a> after failing to disclose a sexual harassment claim from his previous job at Google. This month, Uber's vice president of product and growth, Ed Baker, stepped down, in addition to security researcher Charlie Miller's departure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, Uber employees spoke with \u003ca href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/14/technology/uber-corporate-culture/\">CNNTech\u003c/a> about the company's \"grueling\" work pace and work-life balance — or lack thereof.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If you're going to leave, people do so within the first year because the pace isn't what they expected or what they're used to,\" said Neal Narayani, Uber's head of people analytics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=After+Short-Lived+Tenure%2C+Uber+President+Quits+Amid+Company+Turmoil&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Uber says it's banning the use of a software technique that company employees reportedly used to identify and block regulators in the United States and overseas who were attempting to enforce local taxi laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company's \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.uber.com/an-update-on-greyballing/\" target=\"_blank\">announcement on Wednesday\u003c/a> came six days after \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-program-evade-authorities.html\" target=\"_blank\">the New York Times exposed\u003c/a> the existence of the technique, involving software called Greyball.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The paper detailed how Greyball was used as part of a wide-ranging effort to identify local officials in jurisdictions where the company was not authorized to operate and then thwart their enforcement efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Times, which based its account on information from four former and current Uber employees, said the company went to great lengths to detect accounts that might be associated with regulators. Those measures included monitoring users who frequently opened and closed the Uber app near government buildings, examining users' credit card information and social media profiles, and even trying to identify cellphones that officials had bought in large quantities as part of sting operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once suspected regulators were identified, the Times said, the Greyball software would respond to their ride requests by serving up a fake version of the Uber app that would show that no cars were available or display a fleet of ghost cars that would never arrive. In the event a ride request was answered by a real Uber driver, the company would intervene to cancel the trip.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company said in a statement in response to last week's Times story that greyballing had been used to protect drivers against physical harm, to foil competitors seeking to disrupt its operations, and against \"opponents who collude with officials on secret ‘stings’ meant to entrap drivers.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber's statement Wednesday, issued by Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan, expanded on that explanation but did not explicitly acknowledge that it was Uber's policy to use the technique against regulators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have started a review of the different ways this technology has been used to date,\" Sullivan wrote. \"In addition, we are expressly prohibiting its use to target action by local regulators going forward. Given the way our systems are configured, it will take some time to ensure this prohibition is fully enforced.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Times reported that Uber has targeted regulators in Boston, Paris and Las Vegas, among other cities, as well as a litany of countries that include Australia, China, Italy and South Korea. Officials in two jurisdictions -- Portland, Oregon, and the Netherlands -- have called for an investigation of Uber's greyballing program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Has Uber's use of greyball to beat regulators been legal? Here's what the Times offered on that question last week:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>Outside legal specialists said they were uncertain about the legality of the program. Greyball could be considered a violation of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or possibly intentional obstruction of justice, depending on local laws and jurisdictions, said Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University who also writes for The New York Times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With any type of systematic thwarting of the law, you’re flirting with disaster,” Professor Henning said. “We all take our foot off the gas when we see the police car at the intersection up ahead, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But this goes far beyond avoiding a speed trap.”\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\n",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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},
"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
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"onourwatch": {
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"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"on-the-media": {
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"perspectives": {
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"order": 14
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"planet-money": {
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"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
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"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
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"order": 5
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
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"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
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