Uber CEO says changing employee benefits ‘is a risk we decided to take’
Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi speaks during the “Intentional Equity in Sustainability” conversation at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Week in San Francisco, California, on November 15, 2023.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi last week told employees “it is what it is” at a heated all-hands meeting after the company announced it would increase its in-office requirements and change benefits.
The ride-sharing company informed employees on April 28 that they will be required to come into the office three days a week, up from two, starting in June, CNBC reported. Uber also changed the eligibility for its month-long paid sabbatical benefit, raising the requirement from five years at the company to eight years. The company also informed some employees who had been previously approved for remote work that they would be required to start coming in.
Khosrowshahi defended the policy changes against feisty employees who peppered him with questions and criticism at the company meeting and on Uber’s internal forum, according to audio and correspondence obtained by CNBC.
“If you’re here for a sabbatical and this change causes you to change your mind, it is what it is,” Khosrowshahi told employees at the April 29 all-hands meeting. “I’m sorry about that. The reason we want you to be here is the impact on the company. The learning here. We recognize some of these changes are going to be unpopular with folks. This is a risk we decided to take.”
The clash inside Uber highlights the growing tension between tech workers and tech management. Workers for years were drawn to Silicon Valley for its idealistic values, perks and job security, but since 2022, tech companies have cut back on benefits and conducted on-going rounds of layoffs.
Google, for example, informed some employees who were previously approved for remote work that they needed to return to the office if they want to avoid getting caught in layoffs, CNBC reported last month.
Being in person more frequently is better for collaboration, innovation and company culture, Uber told CNBC in a statement.
“It’s hardly a surprise that not everyone was thrilled about changes to remote work and sabbatical policies,” the company said. “But the job of leadership is to do what’s in the best interest of our customers and shareholders.”
After Uber announced the changes in a memo last week, employees flooded the company’s internal Slido forum with questions and comments.
“The Slido essentially has been invaded by questions about the changes we’ve made,” Khosrowshahi said at the beginning of meeting, adding that the questions had been consolidated.
“How is five years of service not a tenured employee? Especially when burnout is rampant in the org,” a highly-rated comment from one employee said, adding that they had already paid for a trip for their upcoming sabbatical.
Khosrowshahi said Uber is a “Gen-AI powered company” that needs to be on its A game. He said employees should be more interested in learning and their impact on the company than on its benefits, which spurred more employee pushback.
Some questions asked if Uber made policy changes in hopes that it would force some people to quit.
“It has nothing to do in terms of a need to drive attrition or layoffs,” said Khosrowshahi, adding that the changes had nothing to do with cost cutting. “None of that is planned. The business is operating really, really well. But listen, good isn’t good enough for us. We have to be great as a company.”
Uber will report its first quarter financial results Wednesday.
Nikki Krishnamurthy, Senior Vice President, Chief People Officer of Uber.
Courtesy: Uber
After the all-hands meeting, Uber Chief People Officer Nikki Krishnamurthy sent out a memo saying some employee comments on the meeting broadcast “crossed the line into unprofessional and disrespectful.”
“That’s not O.K., and we will be speaking with the employees who made them,” Krishnamurthy wrote, according to the memo which CNBC viewed. “Through good times and bad, we are open with each other. Yet when we see behavior like this, it makes it harder to continue being open in the same way.”
Uber in 2022 established Tuesdays and Thursdays as “anchor days” where most employees must spend at least half of their work time in the company’s office and the rest of the week could be spent working remotely for “individual productivity,” according to a now-removed blog post.
“Our business also exists in the real world, on the streets of thousands of cities, and it’s important we stay connected to the places we serve,” Krishnamurthy wrote at the time.
On the company forum, several employees questioned the change to three days in-office, citing insufficient meeting rooms and work space, according to comments viewed by CNBC.
“It’s a challenge every anchor day to even find a place to sit with your team,” one employee comment said.
The goal of anchor days is “to get as many people in the office as possible,” Khosrowshahi said, adding that Uber will be keeping track of employee attendance.
Krishnamurthy addressed the concerns about office space at the company meeting, announcing that Uber is adding 700,000 square feet of office space between its San Francisco Mission Bay and Seattle offices. The additional space will go toward more meeting rooms and cafeterias, said Krishnamurthy, adding the retrofitting will be in construction through 2026.
WATCH: Uber raises in-office requirement to 3 days, claws back remote workers
Waymo announced it is now offering teen accounts for its self-driving car service Waymo One, beginning in Phoenix, Arizona.
Courtesy of Waymo
Waymo announced Tuesday that it is offering accounts for teens ages 14 to 17, starting in Phoenix.
The Alphabet-owned company said that, beginning Tuesday, parents in Phoenix can use their Waymo accounts “to invite their teen into the program, pairing them together.” Once their account is activated, teens can hail fully autonomous rides.
Previously, users were required to be at least 18 years old to sign up for a Waymo account, but the age range expansion comes as the company seeks to increase ridership amid a broader expansion of its ride-hailing service across U.S. cities. Alphabet has also been under pressure to monetize AI products amid increased competition and economic headwinds.
Waymo said it will offer “specially-trained Rider Support agents” during rides hailed by teens and loop in parents if needed. Teens can also share their trip status with their parents for real-time updates on their progress, and parents receive all ride receipts.
Teen accounts are initially only being offered to riders in the metro Phoenix area. Teen accounts will expand to more markets outside California where the Waymo app is available in the future, a spokesperson said.
Waymo’s expansion to teens follows a similar move by Uber, which launched teen accounts in 2023. Waymo, which has partnerships with Uber in multiple markets, said it “may consider enabling access for teens through our network partners in the future.”
Already, Waymo provides more than 250,000 paid trips each week across Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Austin, Texas, and the company is preparing to bring autonomous rides to Miami and Washington, D.C., in 2026.
In June, Waymo announced that it plans to manually drive vehicles in New York, marking the first step toward potentially cracking the largest U.S. city. Waymo said it applied for a permit with the New York City Department of Transportation to operate autonomously with a trained specialist behind the wheel in Manhattan.
WATCH: We went to Texas for Tesla’s robotaxi launch. Here’s what we saw
Technology
Elon Musk’s X says Indian government ordered over 2,000 accounts blocked, including Reuters
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev says it’s not “entirely relevant” that the trading platform’s so-called tokenized shares of OpenAI and SpaceX aren’t technically equity in the companies.
It comes after OpenAI raised concerns about the product, which is designed to give users in the European Union exposure to various U.S. stocks — including private companies, which are less liquid than publicly listed firms.
OpenAI last week warned that Robinhood’s stock tokens do not represent equity in the company and said in a post on X that, “any transfer of OpenAI equity requires our approval — we did not approve any transfer.”
Robinhood says its OpenAI stock tokens are “enabled by Robinhood’s ownership stake in a special purpose vehicle.”
“It is true that these are not technically equity,” Tenev, who co-founded Robinhood in 2013 with fellow entrepreneur Baiju Bhatt, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” Tuesday, echoing his initial response to OpenAI’s concerns.
Tenev said that OpenAI’s complex company structure enables institutional investors to gain exposure to the company through “various instruments, like equity upon the event of a conversion to a for-profit at a later date.”
OpenAI was initially founded as a non-profit organization. However, it has since evolved to include a for-profit entity, which is owned by the non-profit.
“In and of itself, I don’t think it’s entirely relevant that it’s not technically an equity instrument,” he said. “What’s important is that retail customers have an opportunity to get exposure to this asset” — even if it’s a private company — due to the disruptive nature of AI, he added.
On Monday, the Bank of Lithuania, which is Robinhood’s lead authority in the European Union, told CNBC it was “awaiting clarifications” regarding the structure of the company’s stock tokens following OpenAI’s statement last week.
“Only after receiving and evaluating this information will we be able to assess the legality and compliance of these specific instruments,” Bank of Lithuania spokesman Giedrius Šniukas told CNBC. “The information for investors must be provided in clear, fair, and non-misleading language.”
Tenev said in response to the Lithuanian regulator’s comments that Robinhood is “happy to continue to answer questions from our regulators.”
“Since this is a new thing, regulators are going to want to look at it, and we’ve built this program in a way that we believe will withstand scrutiny — and we expect to be scrutinized as a large, innovative player in this space,” he told CNBC.
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