Speaking of Uber (Uber), almost everyone knows it.
originated in Silicon Valley in the United States in 2009. It was co-founded by Kalanick, a dropout from the University of California, and his friends. It solves people's travel problems through online ride-hailing. Its taxi-hailing APP of the same name has become even more famous.
In 2013, Uber targeted China for expansion and quickly expanded its presence in China, covering more than 60 cities.
3 years later, in 2016, they reached a strategic cooperation with Didi , a local travel company. Didi acquired its Chinese brand and business, which also means that Uber has officially withdrawn from the mainland market.
But this has not hindered Uber's vigorous development in other countries. We can see Uber's online ride-hailing services in more than 400 cities in 70 countries around the world.
Unfortunately, after Uber’s rapid rise, it gradually ignored the boundaries of the law and frequently made headlines due to negative incidents.
In 2022, more than 500 American women jointly complained that Uber drivers sexually assaulted women, causing quite a stir.
In the same year, a shooting occurred in a Brooklyn subway station in New York City. Uber responded immediately and implemented a dynamic pricing strategy in the vicinity. In other words, it was "making money from disasters."
In addition, Uber has illegally collected and used personal information, been accused of intentionally defrauding drivers and lowering their wages, laid off employees, and has been constantly questioned about safety incidents in various countries around the world, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., constantly pushing itself to the forefront.
Recently, the media broke the news that Uber illegally colluded with political figures from various countries, which has pushed the public's doubts and accusations against it to a climax, and has also invisibly confirmed the dark history of the world's largest online ride-hailing company.
Its intensity can be described as jaw-dropping.
01 Improper "history of superiority"
Recently, " The Guardian " and "Le Monde" obtained 124,000 pieces of Uber's internal information. After it was released to the public, there is still a lot of black material.
These files span from 2013 to 2017, which spans a long time and involves many people. The most important ones are emails, chat records and memos with major high-level officials.
There are many illegal things among them.
For example, in order to operate legally in some countries, Uber lobbied officials to change the laws to facilitate its expansion.
For example, in order to cope with inspections coming at any time, deceiving the police and regulatory agencies, etc.
even used money and connections to bypass the mayor and transportation department and go straight to the center of power.
Among them, dignitaries and powerful figures, such as German Chancellor Scholz, US President Biden, and French President Macron are all on the list.
Uber CEO Kalanick continues to be active among these senior officials and dignitaries, with clear goals and fierce momentum. There were rumors that Biden delayed a meeting with him when he attended the World Economic Forum in Davos. Kalanick directly sent a message to his colleagues: "Have my people tell him that every minute he is late is one minute less time to talk to me."
Many people are respectful to important people. Even if they are unhappy, they will not express it so obviously. At most, they only dare to complain secretly in their hearts. But for Kalanick to say it so blatantly shows his arrogance and the inflated self-confidence behind it.
Kalanick
People can't help but ask: "Why don't you run a company well and insist on using some crooked ways?"
The reason is that Uber's business model does not work in many countries and does not have legal support. If you want to enter the market, you must use extraordinary means.
The so-called online ride-hailing allows people with cars to earn extra money in their free time. It seems to stimulate the economy and promote convenience for the masses, but it squeezes the traditional taxi market. The most important thing is that these people are not subject to industry supervision and do not receive training, which easily breeds risks.
In a country that values workers’ rights, Uber is tantamount to taking away the jobs of ordinary taxi drivers. Uber’s seemingly flexible employment method actually damages the fairness of labor and invisibly damages the interests of workers.
These temporary drivers do not have the protection of labor contracts . Once something happens, there is no corresponding compensation and compensation. In addition, if something happens to other victims, they cannot be held accountable. There are no good constraints on both sides, so many countries are opposed to it.
Anti-Uber protests have broken out many times in France
"We are actually a group of robbers", this is the private comment of an Uber executive under the "Avoid Violation" policy document.
Because of this, in the past few years, companies in India and Thailand had to close down because problems always occurred. But what everyone doesn't know is that it was forced to close because it violated the country's laws.
The laws and regulations of various countries do not welcome them, and Uber executives know this, but for the sake of money and interests, they are unwilling to give up this profitable business.
Therefore, in order to cope with inspections and expand the market, we tried every means to "get ahead".
For example, they have an unwritten internal rule of "emergency stop switch". Whenever the police or traffic officials conduct a surprise inspection, senior executives will issue instructions to IT staff to activate the emergency switch, which will block the system and prevent anyone from finding any evidence.
This clumsy method seems to be quite effective. Judging from the public documents, they have enabled this switch at least 12 times in the past few years.
What’s even more disgusting is that they also deliberately put their own drivers into danger and relied on the drivers to be beaten to win public sympathy. There was also public opinion news before that a 52-year-old Chinese Uber driver in the United States was shot and killed in the street.
Behind the ambitions of the executives is a series of fraud, concealment and bullying.
Even their drivers were persecuted in different countries and their cars were burned and smashed. Kalanick didn't care. He told his subordinates to just drive growth. And to put it euphemistically, this is something Uber does normally, and the more confusing the explanation, the more meaningful it is.
is similar to this, and there are many quotes in the file that show his ambition. For example, "Violence can guarantee success" and "No matter how beaten you are, the entire project must keep moving forward."
They send drivers to the front lines of chaos, use them as guns, and use violence against them to escalate disputes and create public opinion.
They don't care about others, they only care about their own growth.
If you want to do this, you must have the protection of a big boss, which also involves the delicate relationship between Uber and officials from various countries.
02 Colluding with officials, Macron is also listed
In the documents disclosed by Uber, they are best at meeting politicians through private channels. There are a lot of middlemen and benefit recipients in the middle.
The Guardian found that when Uber entered the Italian and Russian markets, it provided company shares to powerful local figures. Cross, a former EU Internet policy official, also served as an adviser to Uber with an annual salary of US$200,000 after resigning. This has violated the EU's 18-month cooling-off period for officials after leaving office.
Cross helped Uber meet with the Dutch Prime Minister and helped them connect with many powerful people.
Kalanick (middle) and Cross (right)
Former aides to Obama also became Uber lobbyists, helping them contact many officials and diplomats.
Among all the officials who colluded, the most powerful one currently is French President Macron.
When Macron was France’s Minister of Economy, he secretly helped them enter the French market. Leaked documents show Macron had at least four secret meetings with Kalanick. They call it a "secret deal" internally.
Just after Kalanick and Macron got acquainted, Uber launched the UberPop service in France, allowing unlicensed drivers to provide low-price services, which triggered strong protests from local taxi drivers, and the conflict continued to expand, triggering violence. A week later, Macron sent a message to Kalanick, clearly expressing his willingness to help change the law.
From then on, Uber seemed to regard Macron as its strongest backer, and whenever something happened, it would go to Macron to settle matters.
When the government raided Uber’s Paris office, Uber executives also sent a message to Macron asking these people to leave.
The Marseille city government banned Uber’s online ride-hailing service, and executives also asked Macron for help.
Even when Uber's business model was rejected by high-level French government officials, Macron was able to ensure that Uber could enter the market smoothly.
Since ancient times, collusion between officials and businessmen has been shameful to the people, and it is illegal no matter which country it is placed in. The disclosure of these information and documents is undoubtedly the biggest scandal for the current French president. Although they all deny it, so far, no inside story of bribery has been revealed, but who knows?
As these dark histories continue to be exposed, Uber’s corporate image has also plummeted. In its latest response, Uber said that after current CEO Khosrowshahi took over, the situation has improved a lot and he has begun to change the company's operating methods. Now Uber has been completely transformed. The
statement also stated that "what happened in the past is inconsistent with current values", but there was no response or denial of the accusations made by the Guardian and Le Monde.
This is equivalent to admitting the mistakes made before, but is it okay to just brush them off?
03 On the road ahead, Uber can only turn around on its own.
After Uber’s confidential documents were made public, some people commented: "Who believes that a multinational company can be so big without doing anything overt or covert?"
Yes, no matter which company is in this big pie in the world, they want to occupy a place.
However, national conditions are different, laws are different, and models are different. In many cases, being ambitious may not necessarily lead to good things.
Wherever there are people, there are politics, politics and transactions.
As a result, many entrepreneurs have forgotten the original intention when the company was founded. In order to chase growth, squeeze peers, increase profits, and expand the market, they began to take shortcuts.
Bribery, infiltration of interests, bundling of money and power, the methods used are even worse...
Like Uber founder Kalanick, they think they are omnipotent and that what they do can be airtight. However, paper cannot contain fire. When everything is exposed to the public, their dreams of growth are shattered.
Kalanick
How will Uber do public relations in the future? How to conduct business normally while respecting human rights? It really tests their ability to run a business.
In order to truly become bigger and stronger, companies still need to have a sense of social responsibility, do the right thing, follow the right path, make legal money, and do legal things. text/box
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