Uber’s problem: a culture of dishonesty

UBER'S voluntary disclosure of a year-old hack that exposed the personal data of 57 million drivers and customers could be taken as a sign that under new Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi, the company is changing its ways. But no, Uber's biggest problem is still its culture of dishonesty — something the leadership change hasn't fundamentally altered.

The October cyber attack was not the only one Uber tried to cover up under CEO Travis Kalanick. Last year, the company was fined for failing to disclose a 2014 hack. Recently, the company merely paid hackers $100,000 — ostensibly for not using the stolen data, but really for their silence.

There are numerous examples of a deceitful culture at Uber, from the use of the Greyball software, which made it difficult for law enforcement officials to book rides, to the surreptitious tracking of iPhones, flouting Apple's terms of service. 

On Monday, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission fined Uber $8.9m for not running proper background checks and letting dozens of people with felony convictions and driver's license issues ferry passengers around. The background check issue is chronic: It's at the heart of the London transportation authority's decision to lift Uber's license. Uber has pretended to go along with requirements but often neglected to do it in practice.

All this, Khosrowshahi would have us believe, is now a thing of the past. "While I can't erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes," he wrote in a press statement after the hack disclosure.  But how much of it has changed?

The hack admission was the result of an investigation by a law firm hired by Uber's board, which is trying to minimise the company's legal problems. 

Instead of complying with the requirements of London regulator Transport For London, Uber is still pursuing an appeal against its license ruling in the courts. The process, according to London Mayor Sadiq Khan, could take "years", allowing Uber to keep operating without a license — not the kind of responsible behaviour that's covered by the new cultural norm that says Uber seeks to "harness the power and scale of our global operations to deeply connect with the cities, communities, drivers and riders that we serve, every day."

It was clearly wrong for Uber to hire engineer Anthony Levandowski from Google affiliate Waymo and pay $680m for his just-created self-driving truck start-up: Both decisions made sense only if Levandowski could bring over his Waymo work. Uber actually fired the engineer in May. Uber is still fighting Waymo in court rather than admit that it had tried to cheat in order to jump ahead technologically. 

Then Khosrowshahi won't admit that Uber is a transportation company rather than a tech "platform" — the key issue in a European Court of Justice case brought by a Spanish taxi lobbying group that didn't take kindly to Uber's attempts at regulatory arbitrage. But Khosrowshahi's biggest business move — the plan to buy 24,000 self-driving Volvos, more than $1 billion's worth — shows the company's insistence that it's an app-based marketplace is no more than a ruse. Complete honesty and openness  about the business model, the relationship with "partners," technology used, cover-ups  would be costly but potentially life-saving. Uber runs the risk of ending up like Enron, a company brought low by the same kind of dishonesty.

By arrangement with the Dawn