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Uber CEO Email

Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, announced that the company would be laying off around 3,000 employees, about 14% of its workforce, due to the economic challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic severely reducing ride-sharing demand. Khosrowshahi acknowledged this was an incredibly difficult decision but necessary to resize the company and focus resources on its core missions of transportation and delivery. Affected employees would receive severance packages and support, while the company shifts priorities to profitability in rides and food delivery and winding down non-core projects.

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Khristopher J. Brooks
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651 views

Uber CEO Email

Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, announced that the company would be laying off around 3,000 employees, about 14% of its workforce, due to the economic challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic severely reducing ride-sharing demand. Khosrowshahi acknowledged this was an incredibly difficult decision but necessary to resize the company and focus resources on its core missions of transportation and delivery. Affected employees would receive severance packages and support, while the company shifts priorities to profitability in rides and food delivery and winding down non-core projects.

Uploaded by

Khristopher J. Brooks
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Team Uber:

These have been unprecedented and challenging times for everyone—our


societies, our governments, our families, our economies, all around the world.
They’ve also been challenging for Uber, and many of you, as you’ve waited for
us to define the road ahead. I’ve said clearly that we had to take tough action
to resize our company to the new reality of our business, and that I would
come back to you this week with the specifics.

Today I have the specifics: we have made the incredibly difficult decision to
reduce our workforce by around 3,000 people, and to reduce investments in
several non-core projects. As a leadership team we had to take the time to
make the right decisions, to ensure that we are treating our people well, and
to make certain that we could walk you through our decision making in the
sort of detailed and transparent manner you deserve.

Where we started and hard choices

We began 2020 on an accelerated path to total company profitability. Then the


coronavirus hit us with a once-in-a-generation public health and economic
crisis. People are rightfully staying home, and our Rides business, our main
profit generator, is down around 80%. We’re seeing some signs of a recovery,
but it comes off of a deep hole, with limited visibility as to its speed and shape.

You’ve heard me say it before: hope is not a strategy. While that’s easy to say,
the truth is that this is a decision I struggled with. Our balance sheet is strong,
Eats is doing great, Rides looks a little better, maybe we can wait this damn
virus out...I wanted there to be a different answer. Let me talk to a few more
CEOs...maybe one of them will tell me some good news, but there simply was
no good news to hear. Ultimately, I realized that hoping the world would return
to normal within any predictable timeframe, so we could pick up where we left
off on our path to profitability, was not a viable option.

I knew that I had to make a hard decision, not because we are a public
company, or to protect our stock price, or to please our Board or investors. I
had to make this decision because our very future as an essential service for
the cities of the world—our being there for millions of people and businesses
who rely on us—demands it. We must establish ourselves as a self-sustaining
enterprise that no longer relies on new capital or investors to keep growing,
expanding, and innovating.

We have to take these hard actions to stand strong on our own two feet, to
secure our future, and to continue on our mission.

I know that none of this will make it any easier for our friends and colleagues
affected by the actions we are taking today. To those of you personally
impacted, I am truly sorry. I know this will cause pain for you and your families,
especially now. Many of you will be affected not because of the quality of your
work, but because of strategic decisions we made to discontinue certain areas
of activity, or projects that are no longer necessary, or simply because of the
stark reality we face. You have been a huge part of this company and every
day forward we will build on the foundations that you established, brick by
brick.

Our decisions and the road forward

We have decided to re-focus our efforts on our core. If there is one silver lining
regarding this crisis, it’s that Eats has become an even more important
resource for people at home and for restaurants; and delivery, whether of
groceries or other local goods, is not only an increasing part of everyday life, it
is here to stay. We no longer need to look far for the next enormous growth
opportunity: we are sitting right on top of one. I will caution that while Eats
growth is accelerating, the business today doesn’t come close to covering our
expenses. I have every belief that the moves we are making will get Eats to
profitability, just as we did with Rides, but it’s not going to happen overnight.

So we need to fundamentally change the way we operate. We need to make


some really hard decisions about what we will and won’t do going forward,
based on a few principles:
We are organizing around our core: helping people move, and delivering
things.

We are building a cost-efficient structure that avoids layers and duplication


and can scale, at speed.

We are being intentional with our location strategy focused on key


markets/hubs.

Mac will now lead a unified Mobility team, which will include Rides and, as of
today, Transit. Mac will continue to manage our cross-cutting functions like
Safety & Insurance, CommOps, U4B, and Business Development, the latter of
which will be centralized across Rides, Eats, and Freight under Jen. Pierre will
lead what we will call “Delivery” internally, encompassing Eats, Grocery and
Direct.

Given the necessary cost cuts and the increased focus on core, we have
decided to wind down the Incubator and AI Labs and pursue strategic
alternatives for Uber Works. Due to these decisions, Zhenya has decided it
makes sense to move on from Uber. Zhenya is customer-centric to her core,
and I am deeply grateful for all of her hard work.

We are also looking at our geographic footprint. While it served us well for
many years to cast a wide physical net, it’s time to be more intentional about
where we have employees on the ground. We are closing or consolidating
around 45 office locations globally, including winding down Pier 70 in San
Francisco and moving some of those colleagues to our new HQ in SF. And
over the next 12 months we will begin the process of winding down our
Singapore office and moving to a new APAC hub in a market where we
operate our services.

Having learned my own personal lesson about the unpredictability of the world
from the punch-in-the-gut called COVID-19, I will not make any claims with
absolute certainty regarding our future. I will tell you, however, that we are
making really, really hard choices now, so that we can say our goodbyes, have
as much clarity as we can, move forward, and start to build again with
confidence.

How we are helping departing employees

As we previewed last week, we have taken a lot of feedback and worked to


provide strong severance benefits and other support for those leaving Uber,
like healthcare coverage and an alumni talent directory. We’re also taking care
to support people in special situations a bit differently, like those on US visas
or parental leaves. While the details will differ slightly by country, you can see
a summary here [link removed]. Every departing employee will have a 1:1 to
receive the details of their individual package.

If you are one of the many affected Uber teammates, I’ll acknowledge right
here that any package we offer, regardless of how thoughtful or generous, will
never replace the opportunity to belong, to make a difference, to establish the
kinds of bonds you establish with any important company or cause. We
wouldn’t be here without you. We will finish what you started, and we will be
excited to see the great things that you will build next.

I am incredibly thankful to *everyone* reading this email, because the


resilience and grit you’ve shown has made Uber the company it is and will
continue to be. I’ve never had a harder day professionally than today, but Uber
has consistently surprised me with the challenges it has thrown my way. But
it’s the toughest challenges that are worthwhile, and I know even more
strongly in my heart than I ever have that Uber is worth it, and more.

Dara

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