Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is focused on cutting the company’s massive losses after a year of damaging revelations about the ride-hailing service’s sometimes heartless treatment of its employees, drivers, regulators and rivals.
“We strive to be and should be a brand that is as beloved as Amazon and Google,” Khosrowshahi said late on Wednesday during an appearance at a Goldman Sachs technology conference.
“We have a long way to go, but we have to re-earn our consumer and driver trust. Just getting the love back is a very important priority for us.”
Khosrowshahi has said that the job is proving to be more diffflcut than he had anticipated five months ago when he joined Uber as its CEO replacing Travis Kalanick .
He discovered that Uber had covered up a computer break-in that stole personal information about millions of riders and drivers.
Uber last week agreed to pay $245 million to settle the trade secrets case brought by Waymo, the company spawned by a self-driving car project started by Google. The settlement came after four days of trial testimony that included a dramatic appearance by Kalanick,
“I thought Travis was terrific,” Khosrowshahi said. “I thought he really held up well, and spoke his mind. I think that helped us get to the settlement.”
Uber didn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing in the settlement that gave Waymo’s corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., more stock in the ride-hailing service. Google, which is also owned by Alphabet, had already accumulated Uber stock as one of the company’s early investors.
Alphabet and other investors stand to reap big gains on their stakes if Uber files for an initial public offering of stock next year, as Khosrowshahi plans. But how well Uber’s stock fares on Wall Street will likely be tied to whether the company proves it can make money something it isn’t close to doing now.
Uber lost $4.5 billion in 2017, widening from a $2.8 billion setback in the previous year. The results released earlier this week showed Uber pared its fourth-quarter loss by 25 % from the third quarter, a modestly encouraging sign
