What began as an official mobile app in 2011 as a luxury car service in San Francisco expanded quickly into 633 cities worldwide with a variety of car pick up services and food delivery.
Uber was always referenced as the ultimate disruptor.
With the quick growth & expansion, the leaders constantly looked outwards, they forgot about their internal culture.
Then in Feb when Susan Fowler wrote a blog that went viral about her experience as an engineer at Uber. Then a video leaked of the CEO Travis Kalanick arguing with a driver was leaked. Ultimately this led to his resignation.
The lessons learnt here is that Talent and HR need to be involved from the beginning to help build the culture and working environment, develop processes while the entrepreneurs look outward towards growth. If the Talent/HR person are aware of all facets of the business from the beginning & build partnerships with the leaders these incidents could be prevented.
As the start up culture continues I hope the leaders have taken onboard the pitfalls of looking externally while growing fast without looking internally to the potential toxic culture that can develop.
What are examples of great company culture you've experienced?