Uber's Frances Frei: "Culture can kill a company, full stop"

The Times Tech Podcast

Will Morley

Business, Unknown, Technology

4.9 • 654 Ratings

🗓️ 9 September 2017

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Uber’s new head of leadership and renowned company doctor Frances Frei to talk about what she found when she walked into Uber (2:30), its army of first-time managers (5:30), taking Uber to school (6:30), the company's ‘toxic’ culture (7:40), the problem with startups (9:15), arriving as a woman (11:00), the importance of culture (12:20) overhauling Harvard Business School (13:00), making the right diagnosis (17:40), taking advantage of a crisis (18:15), necessary turnover (20:00), the power of diversity (22:40), having less 'do-overs' (23:30), harnessing Uber’s aggression (25:30), being a college basketball player (27:10), stepping on toes (28:30), Uber’s board upheaval (29:45), leadership by committee (31:55), and office push-ups (36:15).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Yo, technology.
0:02.0	What is it all about?
0:05.0	Uber has a new CEO.
0:08.0	Hazaar.
0:09.0	But for Dara Khosur Shahi, who came over 12 days ago from the travel giant Expedia,
0:15.0	turning around the world's most valuable and most troubled private technology company,
0:19.0	the work is only just beginning.
0:21.8	Helpfully for him, the company already has a running start,
0:24.9	thanks to this week's guest on Danny in the Valley.
0:28.6	Francis Fry, a renowned company doctor and Harvard Business School professor, is here.
0:35.0	Francis is the person you call if your company is in trouble.
0:38.8	And three months ago, she answered that call from Uber.
0:42.3	The company, of course, has had a terrible year, one for the books, really.
0:46.7	It has been rocked by sexual harassment scandals that led to the dramatic ousting of former
0:51.7	CEO, Travis Kalanick.
0:53.9	It's been plagued by a culture that has been called toxic by its investors and employees.
0:59.1	It has strained relations with its drivers and regulators, and despite Khosur Shahi's appointment,
1:04.1	remains largely leaderless, still missing a CFO, COO, president, general counsel, chairman,
1:10.5	head of engineering, amongst other positions,
1:13.7	after an exodus of executives in the recent months.
1:17.7	For a company with 15,000 employees and 1.5 million drivers in 70 countries,
1:22.9	there has never really been a situation quite like it.
	...

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