00:00 CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick, took an Uber Black and was caught on video
00:03 yelling at his driver. The driver, Fozzie Camel, realized that he was driving the
00:08 CEO of the company he was working for and decided to have a conversation about
00:12 the fact that he was working more but being paid less.
00:16 Travis basically started to get defensive and what could have been a
00:22 peaceful conversation turned into something a bit more that had a lot of
00:28 tension, a lot of awkwardness for all of us watching, and a one-star rating from
00:32 the driver. And then in the end the driver gave the tape recording the
00:38 conversation to Bloomberg News, which is crazy. Like I think this is one of those
00:45 situations that you would never expect in the past, but now because people just
00:48 drive with cameras and people are documenting pretty much everything in
00:52 their lives, you have to realize that whatever you say might be recorded and
00:55 released to the public. And it was. And now people are outraged at the CEO's
01:00 behavior saying, "Uber is such a toxic company I refuse to support businesses
01:04 that team with it. A local cafe just joined Uber Eats so it's goodbye to them."
01:08 Another person tweeted, "The Uber CEO needs to work on listening skills. Relax,
01:11 you don't have to have a quick answer all the time. #ListenAndThink."
01:15 Travis was quick to release an apology and at least he doesn't make excuses for
01:18 his actions. He said quote, "It's clear this video is a reflection of me and the
01:23 criticism we've received is a stark reminder that I must fundamentally
01:27 change as a leader and grow up. This is the first time I've been willing to
01:30 admit that I need leadership help and I intend to get it." Though to be honest,
01:34 there isn't really a way for him to defend this at all because it's all
01:37 there on tape for everyone to see. Twitter user Michael makes a pretty good
01:41 point though tweeting, "The real question about Uber's CEO is if he is ashamed for
01:45 his behavior or if he is ashamed because his behavior went public." That is true and
01:49 the bad press for Uber just seems to be increasing. It's literally one thing
01:54 after another. Every week there seems to be bad press. In December of last year,
01:58 Uber illegally put self-driving cars on the road in San Francisco and had to
02:01 remove them. Then during the New York taxi union strike protesting Trump's
02:04 refugee ban, Uber didn't skip a beat and decided to keep running and just snag
02:08 their customers from them. That in addition to the fact that Travis had
02:11 been appointed to a tech committee that Trump had built and got a ton of
02:15 criticism around that before he decided to decline the offer. And that all led to
02:20 the trending hashtag #DeleteUber. Yeah, that's probably not good for business.
02:24 And the bad press isn't just about politics and Uber treating its drivers
02:27 badly. Recently, the company has been under investigation after a female
02:31 engineer claims to have experienced horrible sexual harassment and sexism.
02:36 Travis quickly responded to those claims too and also set up a meeting with
02:39 everyone at his company. He also tweeted this, "What's described here is abhorrent
02:44 and against everything we believe in. Anyone who behaves this way or thinks
02:47 this is okay will be fired. And I've instructed our CHRO Leanne to conduct an
02:51 urgent investigation. There can be absolutely no place for this kind of
02:55 behavior at Uber. As someone who has personally known the founders and
02:58 investors of Uber for a while, I've always loved the app. It sucks to see
03:02 something like this happening. I do believe when you are the underdog, which
03:06 Uber was when they started, people wanted to see them succeed. However, when you're
03:11 then at the top, a lot of people do want to see you crumble. And you are under the
03:16 microscope, and that is what is happening right now. So they need to watch
03:20 themselves, they need to take responsibility for these things, they
03:22 need to listen to the community and create change as quickly as possible if
03:27 they want to survive. And when I say change, I mean positive change and impact.
03:30 So do you think that Travis's behavior and all the allegations around Uber are
03:34 enough to make you want to delete the app? Let us know in the comments below.
03:37 below. For more trends like these just go to whatstrending.com
