The Uber CEO has been behind the wheel for months as another driver. And they discovered reality

For nearly a decade, it was a reality show called Secret boss. The program delivers exactly what it promises with the title: President of a Corporation Pretending to be a worker To find out how it works, what problems are observed from the inside, the concerns of workers … supposed to telephoto What the average employee lives for.

Without cameras, but with a reporter and a recorder in front of him, Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, told his own experience of The Wall Street Journal. In an interview with the newspaper, he confirmed months ago that he was posing as the driver of another company to learn first-hand about the harassment his workers face on a daily basis.

Boomerang Project

According to Khosrowshahi, the an experience It was put on the table in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Until then, the company had no labor problems, but with the arrival of Covid-19, they seemed to lack hands behind the wheel. To understand why you own the company Difficulties finding new workersThe possibility of experiencing first-hand how a company driver works was studied.

Test called Boomerang Project It was a matter of checking with Dara Khosrowshahi firsthand if everything the employees were complaining about was true and that, apparently, he was complicating the process of hiring new drivers. Khosrowshahi claims he has been traveling around San Francisco for months, in a used Tesla Model Y.

During that time, he says, he investigated the intricacies of signing up on the platform and, above all, to maintain a high level of satisfaction within the company, of the Uber app itself. Punish him for refusing some excursions. To the tension caused by this situation, he had to add complaints receiving complaints from the users themselves on the platform.

“I think the industry as a whole, to some extent, takes it for granted that it has drivers,” Khosrowshahi said. The trial confirmed that they had to “re-examine every assumption we made” after Uber had difficulty finding new workers.

The company isn’t just having trouble in San Francisco. in SpainVTC companies are also desperately looking for employees. Working conditions are once again in the spotlight, prompting Uber or Cabify to improve their offerings and even reward workers for bringing new hires to the company.

in the spotlight

he Boomerang Project This is not the first contact between Dara Khosrowshahi and her low-ranking staff. In 2021 he wanted feel a racer additional Uber Eats operates in San Francisco, but the experiment She didn’t end up with such a self-deprecating look.

In that experience, Khosrowshahi tried to sell a beautiful photo to work as a food delivery man. He confirmed that in total he had earned more than $100 at the end of the day and that this amount had been added in just over three hours connected to the order. He said that a racer He can earn from Uber Eats more than $30 a day, which has sparked a lot of controversy.

The experience, which Khosrowshah himself posted on social networks, was answered by various Uber Eats workers, who claimed Expenses such as maintaining their car, difficulties meeting projected application times or how similar the experience for the CEO of Uber was to those who had to haul a family pizza on a bike during a snowstorm.

But the company did not find only in conditions of its workers problems. last year, guardian A leak revealed emails that showed how some Uber executives continued to expand the company knowing it was illegal in some markets.

in emails Political pressure was suggested to favor their services and drivers were encouraged to continue working when protests by taxi drivers ended in attacks on company drivers or violent actions against vehicles. They pointed out that these images favor the passenger carrier.

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photo | Alexander Boucher