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You come to Uber, you're going to work your ass off. And if you're not performing, we're going to let you know.
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>> But do you ever worry that they might not be able to deal with the truth?
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>> Then they can leave because the most important skill in life is the skill of
00:00:11
working hard. And when you see the top athletes, Ronaldo, Michael Jordan, of course they're talented. But the thing
00:00:17
that's different about them is they work their asses off. And that's a learned
00:00:22
skill. That's not something you're born with. You may be smarter, more talented,
00:00:26
etc. But I'm not going to let anyone out me. with that mentality. When you joined
00:00:30
Uber, it was losing 3 billion per year. Now it generates 8.5 billion in free cash flow every year. But it seems that
00:00:36
you were forged in such a way that you were going to be relentless. >> Yeah. And it really started with being
00:00:41
born in Iran with the Islamic Revolution in 1978. We were not safe there. And I remember at one point we had these
00:00:48
revolutionary guards come into the backyard and bullets went through our living room. So my family came to the US
00:00:54
to rebuild their lives. >> You were 8 9 years old. >> Yeah. And it really destroyed my dad.
00:01:00
Sorry me. It's tough for me to talk about it. It's okay. All right, let me try again. Seeing that
00:01:13
has put me on a road where I just wanted to make my family proud. So I studied bioelect electrical engineering and then
00:01:19
my first job was investment banking and I got to see the process of big companies being built and then I had the
00:01:25
opportunity to take over Expedia >> and in your 12 years as CEO Expedia sales increased from 2.1 billion to 8.8
00:01:31
8 billion and you were the highest paid CEO of a US tech company >> and I left it all behind to get over
00:01:36
>> and I want to get into practical company building how you would get that company
00:01:39
to work hard and create a culture of continuous improvement and all that stuff but there's alien that's arrived
00:01:44
amongst us which is AI now driving I think is one of the biggest employees in the world like as a profession
00:01:50
>> I mean we've got 9 and a half million drivers and couriers on our platform
00:01:53
>> those drivers careers that you have will be out of work being honest about the
00:01:57
situation what do the 9 million people Guys, I've got a quick favor to ask you.
00:02:05
We're approaching a significant subscriber milestone on this show, and roughly 69% of you that listen and love
00:02:11
this show haven't yet subscribed for whatever reason. If there was ever a time for you to do us a favor, if we've
00:02:16
ever done anything for you, given you value in any way, it is simply hitting that subscribe button. And it means so
00:02:22
much to myself, but also to my team, cuz when we hit these milestones, we go away
00:02:25
as a team and celebrate. And it's the thing, the simple, free, easy thing you
00:02:28
can do to help make this show a little bit better every single week. So, that's
00:02:32
a favor I would ask you. And um if you do hit the subscribe button, I won't let
00:02:36
you down. And we'll continue to find small ways to make this whole production
00:02:40
better. Thank you so much for being part of this journey. Means the world. And uh
00:02:44
yeah, let's do this. Darren, you lead one of the most consequential, interesting, talked about
00:02:55
companies of my generation. It's worth hundreds of billions of dollars last time I checked and it's a it's a company
00:03:03
that I use every single day. >> Thank you. >> I've looked through your story. You were
00:03:07
the CEO of Expedia. >> Mhm. at one point. >> You're currently the CEO of Uber and
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you've turned that company from a a lossmaking company to a highly profitable company and one that has
00:03:18
continued to be successful through such a great time of transition. I your story starts in a very interesting
00:03:26
way >> and I was you know when I start doing the research for guests sometimes I I I
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think I come in with some kind of presumption that I grew up in California, you went to Stanford etc.
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>> But that is not the case. Can you take me to that earliest context so I can
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understand how and why you are the way that you are? >> Uh quite the quite the starting
00:03:47
questions but but but I'll try. I I think that for me the events that shaped
00:03:54
my life and maybe a part of who I am really started with my being born in Iran and Iran at the time was
00:04:02
modernizing becoming a modern society and my family built a pretty big industrial company that that everyone
00:04:12
was quite proud of in Iran. We lost all of that with the revolution in 1978 and my family had to come to the US to
00:04:25
rebuild their lives. >> You had to come to the US. >> We were not safe there. One of my uncles
00:04:32
actually was um a cabinet member of the Shaw who had just been toppled. And at one point, we had uh uh these
00:04:41
revolutionary guards come into the backyard. They were actually going after our neighbor's house. Uh and one of
00:04:48
their guns went off and bullets went through our living room. Uh shattered the glass in the living room. And at
00:04:54
that point, my mom's like, "We're not safe being here." So, we had to come to
00:04:59
the US. And I do think that event to some extent has shaped not just me but my family in that the rebuilding of our
00:05:08
lives um of our uh economic lives to some extent where we're all trying to rebuild what we lost in Iran. Do
00:05:17
>> you look back on that and and can you identify any sort of fingerprints that
00:05:21
were left on you from that time that have defined you in a business capacity? I think at my core I never feel safe,
00:05:28
you know, when the the experience of losing everything and and for the kids I I tell you it was fine for the kids, but
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seeing my parents lose everything and and it really destroyed my dad. You know, it really
00:05:41
his losing his value to the world as he saw it um really hurt his inner being. And I do think to some extent seeing
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that has put me on a road where I want to rebuild. I want to make my family proud. But at the same time I never that
00:06:04
feeling of having the floor, you know, the rug pulled out of you of building everything. That's a feeling that never
00:06:12
leaves you. I think I think Americans underestimate what this place represents in its
00:06:20
ideals, right? which is if you build something it's yours. There's a rule of
00:06:23
law can't be taken away from you. That is not true for the majority of the population of the world. And so I think
00:06:30
for me there's a drive to build and at the same time never ever ever taking anything for granted, never being
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satisfied because the minute you take things for granted then that rug can be pulled out from under you. on your
00:06:45
father. There was a moment where he a couple of years, I think six years, where he got trapped in Iran and wasn't
00:06:50
granted an exit visa. >> Yes. >> And I imagine at that time your mother
00:06:54
was raising you alone here in New York City. >> Yeah. In Terry Town, New York, 45
00:06:58
minutes north of New York City, but she she went from a life of never having to work to she had to become a salesperson
00:07:07
to make some money and she did it all herself and she really stepped up. So I think it shaped us. It was difficult in
00:07:14
some ways. I I miss my dad. I remember when he left, he was like a giant compared to me. And then when he came
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back, it was my sophomore year at college and he still saw me as a kid. And so he wanted to drive me to uh to
00:07:29
college and and he did. And then he's like he wanted to hang out. I'm like,
00:07:33
"Dad, can you get out of here? I want to hang out with my kids." I was with my
00:07:36
friends. I was excited to go back to school. And it was just it it was sad seeing the change, you know, of a man
00:07:44
who had gotten older. Uh his time in Iran was really tough on him. He had a heart attack on the plane coming back.
00:07:50
So he was a diminished person to some extent. Um but it was great that I had many many years
00:07:56
with him, you know, since then. >> When he was away, when he was trapped around and wasn't able to exit,
00:08:03
>> your mother Lily >> Yes. referenced how you didn't mention him
00:08:07
much, but when he returned, you broke down in tears. >> Leah, no, don't be.
00:08:27
He was a very stoic man. It's okay. Sorry. He passed away a couple years ago, so it's
00:08:43
tough for me to talk about it. It's okay. All right, let me try again. He was a
00:08:58
very stoked man. Um, so he kept it all inside and we were taught to do the same thing.
00:09:09
Uh, but we wrote letters together and they're beautiful letters. He wrote poetry. So I communicated with him in
00:09:14
Iran. But there's um expression of feelings and kind of uh frustration uh were not something that my family did.
00:09:28
you know, you just dealt with a situation. And so, yeah, I I think I suffer from uh over stoism and then
00:09:34
breaking down every once in a while, as you just saw. >> It's a a familiar story of the the men
00:09:42
that I've interviewed that grew up with that kind of sort of emotional composure
00:09:47
enforced and um modeled to them. >> Yeah. I don't know if it was enforced
00:09:51
like it wasn't actually. Yeah. like we were very loving family but my father
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was very humble. Um he did not believe that just because you're in a position
00:10:01
of power you should kind of project that power you should communicate that to everyone and there was a stoicism inside
00:10:07
my family which is don't complain you know um so they it was it was a weird combination of stoicism and love at the
00:10:15
same time. >> How does um cuz I'm not a father yet. >> Yes. >> But I I'm approaching that.
00:10:22
Congratulations. Almost. >> Yeah. Almost. Yeah. I've just proposed to my fiance and we're, you know, we're
00:10:26
in the process now of, you know, bringing children into the world hopefully. And it's one of the things I
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think a lot about, which is how do I stop my own stoicism, passing on to my children.
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>> First of all, fatherhood, parenthood is is so humbling. You have such a picture
00:10:47
in your mind as to how you're going to raise your family, what your kids are
00:10:50
going to be like. And they just become their own people and it's such a beautiful process to see. And at first
00:10:58
there's this alarm. Oh my god, I'm losing control. You know, I've I've done
00:11:03
everything. You've planned everything. This is how I'm going to raise kids. But
00:11:06
then real life gets in the way. It is absolutely exhausting. So, you probably execute on 80% of your plan and you're
00:11:14
20% imperfect because you are exhausted and you're working and you got a career.
00:11:18
Uh, or often some people do. And at some point, you see these kids kind of move off into this completely unexpected
00:11:28
territory. And there's a point for me it was like I I'm a bit of a control freak.
00:11:33
So, I'm like, this is not good. They're kind of doing their own thing. But then
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you you step back and you're like this is it's absolutely gorgeous what's
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happening. So the advice that I would just give in terms of being a parent is just spend the time with the kids. You
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know it is that is the magic is not what you do um or or the particular tactics but it's the investment in them and the
00:11:55
time spent with them and the rest you know you can't control but what you can
00:11:59
control is kind of that connection. H I um speaking of children, I went back and
00:12:05
looked through lots of different photos of where you lived and where you grew up
00:12:08
to try and get a picture of your world in an early context and all these photos look incredibly incredible. I think that
00:12:14
was your fifth birthday. >> Oh wow. I had hair back then. >> You had a lot of hair.
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>> My mom loved to dress us up in like little doll outfits. >> I can tell another one you lord. Look at
00:12:26
that. I'm definitely not going to do that to my kids. age four in London. Another photo of you.
00:12:33
>> You and your cousins there. Another photo. >> Family was everywhere for us.
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>> And again, another one with a a beautiful haircut there. >> It was a great childhood. It was
00:12:43
amazing. >> I spoke to your mom, Lily. >> I hope uh well, how it go.
00:12:49
We'll see. She said, I'll play the audio file just so people can hear it. when he
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was very little, he told me that he wants to do something important in the world and he said becoming wealthy is
00:13:05
not his priority but making a change is >> I can't say I remember that conversation
00:13:14
but the one of my early experiences that really imprinted on me was we went to visit one
00:13:23
of my dad's It's factories, family factories. And my dad was in charge of
00:13:26
designing factories, building them, operating them. And the respect that that population, the factory had
00:13:36
for him and the visit and how excited they were that his family was visiting was just really cool. And and the way
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that he treated he knew everyone's name. He treated them with such respect. It
00:13:47
just it really imprinted on me. There was this care. It wasn't the boss is coming and there's fear. And so for me
00:13:56
like that ability to build a life where you have impact on a lot of people but it's it's positive kind of building
00:14:05
impact. You have the broad respect of of these folks. It really imprinted on me.
00:14:10
So I w I always wanted you know when we came to the states making money was important. I don't want
00:14:17
to kind of BS and say like, oh, I didn't care about it because we lost everything. And so my first job was
00:14:23
like, invest in banking. What's the goal of investment banking? Have fun, but
00:14:28
make money, right? And so that was a priority for me. But then as I matured in life, as I knew I had safety in terms
00:14:36
of, okay, yes, I know I can do that. I can make money. I can provide for my family. I can support my mom and dad.
00:14:43
Then building kind of an enterprise, having that feeling that I saw with my father,
00:14:49
that connection with his team uh was something that became really important to me.
00:14:55
>> When you came to New York, you were 8, 9 years old. >> 9 years old. Yes.
00:14:59
>> If I'd asked you at 9 years old, when you arrived to New York, what you wanted
00:15:01
to do when you're older, what would you have said? >> I have no idea. I want to make my dad
00:15:06
proud. That was it. I wasn't kind of motivated for specific target at all. I just
00:15:13
wanted to make my family proud. >> Why I want to make my dad proud? He's always been an important figure in
00:15:21
uh in my life, you know, that there's this um and and I think part of it is that I never got to know him that well
00:15:30
as an individual, you know, cuz he was obviously when I was younger, he was working all the time. So, he would show
00:15:37
up once in a while for dinner, etc. We always had family dinners together and then he went away and then I worked. So,
00:15:44
I never really got to know the person that he was, but I don't know there there's kind of this sense of duty.
00:15:51
There's there's a hope that, you know, he's he's somewhere or maybe
00:15:57
he's not someplace. But that making my father proud has always been a strong
00:16:01
current undercurrent in my life. >> So, you're 9 years old, you've arrived
00:16:05
in New York City. Um, you do end up going off to college sometime later. >> Yes.
00:16:10
>> I went to Brown University, studied engineering there. How do you think
00:16:13
about that choice at that time and how determinant that was of your trajectory in your life? That decision to go to
00:16:18
that university and study that subject. >> My father always said, "You can do
00:16:23
anything in your life as long as either you're a doctor or an engineer." And I
00:16:27
picked engineering. I just loved the problemolving aspect of engineering and all the layers of equations etc. and
00:16:36
those equations being able to represent something in real life and then magically that something in real life
00:16:42
following what it should theoretically like the problem solving aspect of engineering fascinated me. I absolutely
00:16:48
loved it. Uh and I think it serves me to this day. >> Engineers make good CEOs.
00:16:54
>> Great CEOs. If you step back, companies are just machines, right? They're they're machines that are run by
00:17:01
people and over a period of time you actually try to automate some of the stuff that the people do and then you
00:17:09
send the people off to do new stuff that can't be automated like we are rulesbased like it's it's an organism
00:17:15
and it's a machine at the same time and to some extent the job of the the the
00:17:20
CEO is engineering how do I set up the company to achieve the goals that you know I set for shareholders set for my
00:17:30
board sets sets for it. It's a giant engineering problem and and to me that's
00:17:33
like fascinating the putting together the pieces to get to what you perceive to be the goal and one of the really
00:17:41
important things is you got to pick the right goals. >> Mhm. >> Um that is one giant problem solving
00:17:46
engineering challenge and it's one of the most fascinating parts of my job. >> I want to get into that the the
00:17:51
practical company building how you organize um an organization to be a well functioning machine setting goals and
00:17:57
all that stuff. Um after after college you go into investment banking for a period of time.
00:18:02
>> Yeah I worked there for eight years in risk arbitrage to begin with and then
00:18:08
mergers and acquisition advisory work as well. >> And that experience I I was reading
00:18:13
taught you about betting on people. >> Yes. >> Versus other what do you mean by betting
00:18:16
on people and why is that important? >> It was uh it was actually a lesson that
00:18:20
I learned from Herbert Allen who was running Allen and Company at the time. It it was the the uh the Allen's uh
00:18:27
family started the company. And he always told me and and at the time I didn't really listen to him. He he
00:18:33
always said, "Do always bet on people. Companies go. There are good companies, bad companies,
00:18:39
but great people stay great all the time." And one of the things that made Allan and Company was really special.
00:18:47
You know, investment banking can be a doggy talk sport, but Allan and company really cultivated relationships with
00:18:56
people whom they perceived to be great both in terms of potential and in terms of character. And of all the investment
00:19:04
banks, that loyalty, that making a bet on a person and then staying with them through their whole careers is a pattern
00:19:13
of how that place works. Uh, and it's definitely something that that I learned
00:19:17
there. >> What is it about one's character that makes them qualify as a great person?
00:19:21
>> You look for success, honor, loyalty, people who will tell you what they're
00:19:26
going to do, whether it's good or bad, and then follow through on their promises.
00:19:30
>> Hard work. I'm surprised that wasn't mentioned as >> well. That comes with success. Okay.
00:19:34
Right. Talent and hard work. You put it those two together. >> And why did you leave Allen in company?
00:19:39
>> I left Allen because I met Barry Diller. Uh, he was a client of mine. We got to
00:19:45
meet in a big kind of deal uh unfriendly uh hostile tender offer for Paramount at the time. It's
00:19:55
that there's another one happening I guess for Paramount uh now as we speak.
00:19:59
And he was the one person I thought I was going to be Allen Lifer. I thought I was going to be there forever. My older
00:20:04
brother Cave is an Allen Lifer. He has it's the only job he's had in his life.
00:20:09
But Barry was the one person who I thought, you know, if I get a chance to work for this person, I'm I'm I'm going
00:20:16
to jump at it. And I did. >> Why? Why Barry? >> He He's spectacular. I mean, he was
00:20:21
spectacular. He is spectacular. A doer, you know. He he I I met him in a circumstance where he lost. It was it
00:20:29
was this giant hostile tender offer. Bids going back and forth between uh the the winner Viacom and and Barry.
00:20:37
Ultimately, Barry stepped away and we were planning an announcement, you know, and you can imagine all these like fancy
00:20:46
PR people sitting around a table. How do we present a loss as a win, right? >> So, he bid for a company. He didn't get
00:20:54
it. >> He didn't get it and and he walked away. He didn't get it cuz he walked away,
00:20:57
which in hindsight was a was a mistake. He could have paid more. Uh and then in the release where he walked away, uh I
00:21:04
think the release was they won, we lost. next. And he was a constant motion machine like day one, we lost, next,
00:21:14
what's next? Let's go. And that's the kind of person I wanted to work for.
00:21:18
>> In business, losing is part of the game. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. But then calling
00:21:24
it out, you know, not bullshitting, not like, oh, we tried our best and the circumstances. They won, we lost. Next,
00:21:32
it's okay. >> Does it matter how you lose? >> Absolutely it does. that absolutely it
00:21:37
does it it's and and I find companies guilty of two things like one is ignoring losses like papering over
00:21:45
losses etc right and then sometimes being obsessive about the loss you know inspecting it what happened let's do a
00:21:54
summary let's meet what went wrong etc and and you know for me it's somewhere
00:22:00
in the middle which is recognize why you lost recognize that you lost say it because it's important to say it,
00:22:07
analyze it, but then move on. Like, let's move on. And the next time you hope to
00:22:16
have learned some kind of judgment to avoid that kind of a loss, but it doesn't mean you're going to avoid
00:22:21
losing at all. Like, if you're not taking shots, you're not missing. You're
00:22:24
you're not losing. So, for me, it's constantly moving and taking your shots,
00:22:30
losing, learning next, losing, learning next. That constant motion is what I want to see. Um that constant motion and
00:22:36
learning is what excites me. >> This is business advice but also life advice generally because a lot of people
00:22:43
um who I meet who come up to me and ask me questions about things often ask questions that sound a lot like what you
00:22:47
just said. It's dealing with rejection, dealing with taking an L, and how that L
00:22:52
then stays with them sometimes for a decade, sometimes for 15 years, and and holds them back, hurts their confidence,
00:22:59
means that they don't take it any more shots, and this can cause a sort of a
00:23:03
downward confidence spiral. >> Totally. And and listen, I'm I'm talking
00:23:07
a big game, but I would tell you in my personal life, I can't deal with rejection. I have a really hard time
00:23:13
dealing with rejection. Professional life, no problem whatsoever. So it's like in the end we're all humans after
00:23:19
all. >> You have a a difficulty dealing with rejection in your personal >> very much. Yeah.
00:23:23
>> What kind of rejection? >> Any kind of rejection conflict like it's
00:23:26
it's something that has been uh that I fought my whole life which is because I
00:23:33
was one of the younger cousins because I was a youngest brother. I just kind of didn't have rights.
00:23:39
So I was I went with the flow. And going with the flow means you're going with
00:23:45
the current etc. I didn't cause trouble and that has followed me in my personal
00:23:52
life. In my professional life, I don't have as much trouble there. I guess my
00:23:55
professional life to some extent is a mask because I get to be aggressive. I get to lose, etc. It's something that
00:24:02
Sid, my wife, has really helped me with, but it is something in my personal life
00:24:08
that generally I'm conflict avoidant. >> You're conflict avoidant in your
00:24:11
personal life. Interesting. >> Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Hm. That's not good in a relationship.
00:24:16
>> No. No. That's why that's why Sid's helping me out. I'm much better now. I'm
00:24:20
much better. But it's >> it's when I take those issues on, I have to fight myself.
00:24:28
>> There's some core, you know, if if you and I were having an issue. Yeah.
00:24:31
>> And I was sitting down with you and saying, "Hey, I'm not I'm not happy
00:24:34
about X or Y." I can feel there's a core of me saying, "Just let it go." But
00:24:40
that's how resentment builds and that's how relationships um over a long period
00:24:46
of time start moving the wrong way. So it is something that is at my core but I actively fight uh and I'm getting better
00:24:53
at it but I'm still on a learning journey there. I'll tell you that >> eventually you go on to becoming the CEO
00:24:58
of Expedia after um there was a couple of CEOs that came before you but you became the third and
00:25:04
>> took that company on. Very different job going from investment banking to being a
00:25:08
CEO. >> Yeah. Yeah. Now there there was a journey there because I went from
00:25:12
banking to running deals and I knew that I knew that I I liked how companies worked. The thing that I liked about
00:25:20
investment banking was that I got to see a lot there. I got to see really smart people, really cool companies build, but
00:25:31
I couldn't go along with that journey. I was jealous of the journey that these
00:25:34
CEOs were were moving on. So then when M&A was a bridge to work at a company
00:25:41
and build uh the company, I moved from M&A to CFO, chief financial officer because that's uh that's that's to some
00:25:49
extent finance, but it's also being the CEO's partner and helping the CEO build.
00:25:54
So I I always knew the direction that I want to go in, which is hey, at some point I want to actually be an operator.
00:26:00
And then I had the opportunity to take over Expedia. the CEO at the time, Eric Blashford, kind of said, "Yeah, big
00:26:06
company thing, not for me." So, he resigned. And honestly, Barry didn't
00:26:12
have an alternative. Who >> was the owner of Barry was the CEO and chairman of IA, which was a parent
00:26:20
company of what became Expedia, I travel. The head of IC Travel resigned. I raised my hand. I said, "Maybe I could
00:26:29
do it." Barry was desperate. He had no one else. So he promoted me to be CEO of
00:26:33
IA travel and IC travel was going through some difficult times. So we spun it off as at at Expedia. So that's when
00:26:41
I became the CEO of Expedia, the public company and I moved to the Netherlands of of uh Seattle.
00:26:48
>> In your job just before you took on that role as CEO, you were buying businesses.
00:26:53
So M&As, mergers and acquisitions, you were buying companies. Yes. >> What are some of the companies that you
00:26:57
bought? >> Oh, we bought a lot of companies. Uh we bought ticket master. Uh we bought
00:27:01
match.com uh bought Expedia Hotels.com and and it was all about the theme that Barry and I
00:27:09
were uh fascinated with was the movement of commerce online. You know, it was it
00:27:15
was during that uh time. It was the late late 90s, early 2000. And and we saw it
00:27:21
happening with our very own eyes really with home shopping, right? It was it's a
00:27:26
flat screen. It was a television and you were offering products and people were calling up buying those products
00:27:32
electronically and just the medium changed. The medium changed from a TV screen to an internet
00:27:38
screen and instead of calling you could use uh HTTP uh and so while the medium changed we
00:27:46
kind of saw this opportunity to take advantage of the of the change of platform. So match.com essentially in
00:27:53
the olden days you know you had online dating but you would call a number and you'd be like my name is Da and I'm 6'2
00:28:01
and this you describe yourself and you hear other kind of uh recordings and you would get matched up based on someone
00:28:08
who seemed nice >> and all of that just moved online. That was what Batch.com was. Same thing with
00:28:14
Ticket Master. You know in the olden days you would go to a Tower of Records. Have you ever been to a Tower of
00:28:19
Records? You're too Yeah. So there were these things called record stores and
00:28:23
they also had a desk where they would sell concert tickets. So you would either call for a concert ticket or you
00:28:29
would physically go and buy one. Amazing. And there were lines, Tower Record lines. What's that?
00:28:34
>> And all of that exactly moved online. And same thing with travel, right? You
00:28:40
would call a travel agent and so all of there was this movement of retail and phone commerce to online commerce. And
00:28:47
we identified the early players to make that shift and personals, ticketing, travel were the ones that we went with
00:28:57
went for because at the time Amazon was doing everything else like physical fulfillment. So what we were going for
00:29:04
were essentially electronic transactions that did not require physical fulfillment and that was travel because
00:29:13
you know it's a virtual good ticketing uh match.com which which was personal.
00:29:17
So there was a pattern around the madness so to speak but we went out and bought all these companies. It was a
00:29:22
really great time. >> I've got two questions that emerge there. One one is again I'm really
00:29:26
interested to understand how you would look for talent or how what how you think about what a great company is. Are
00:29:32
there like we we looking at the company culture? Were we looking at the founders? Was there something else? Was
00:29:36
it the profitability? And the other one is just really intrigued as to what this
00:29:41
period of your life and thereafter taught you about how to spot opportunity and transition cuz that is a
00:29:46
transitional moment of technology. And I think there is a certain pattern recognition one can develop as to like
00:29:54
know what to bet on in these moments of transition where there's huge skepticism. The internet's going to be
00:29:58
anything. It's a so two questions. One is like how do you spot great companies
00:30:01
and then the second is like patterns in transition. >> So they're I'd say that they're related
00:30:05
which is um we would spot great companies just by observing who is taking the lead
00:30:11
in these transitions. You know these transitions are difficult. You can't predict exactly where things are going,
00:30:17
how quickly they're going, how much should you invest, what's a return, what
00:30:21
uh what the what the market how large is the market going to be. But there were companies that were emerging as the
00:30:28
leaders and we would just I just identify the leaders and call call these folks up and say I want to come in and
00:30:34
talk to you. Like that was that was it. And to some extent it's a self-reinforcing cycle which is yes the
00:30:42
great management teams and the great founders were the ones who were able to identify the opportunity and hit that
00:30:49
opportunity faster than anyone else recognize that opportunity and execute on that opportunity faster than anyone
00:30:54
else. So to some extent the companies who were in the lead of course had the best management teams and had the best
00:31:02
founding teams. And when those two things matched, that was when we jumped. And then the the last thing I would tell
00:31:08
you in terms of these pattern uh recognitions is that we never completed a successful deal
00:31:17
because we got the company cheap. We actually overpaid for every single great company that we bought, but we overpaid
00:31:26
based on what the market thought at the time, >> not what the reality turned out to be.
00:31:32
So I do think one of the kind of pieces of pattern recognition with me is just humans
00:31:39
think about success and transitions in a linear way because time is linear. >> Would you someone that doesn't just they
00:31:48
think of it going like this? >> Yeah. You know it's it's the everything
00:31:51
kind of moves this way, right? Your your schedule is relatively linear, right? It's you sleep seven hours a day. Like
00:31:58
your life is a linear life. But company and company success and company momentum, especially with new
00:32:06
technologies where if there's a technology that's truly better than the other technology within the virtual
00:32:12
world, there's absolutely no friction holding it back, the these companies move in an exponential way in terms of
00:32:19
their growth and ultimately in terms of their value. So whereas most people kind
00:32:25
of see things they they when they project out to the to the future they see this what actually happens is this
00:32:31
and that's where the opportunity is. It's the it's the spread between the
00:32:35
hockey stick and kind of the straight line. >> Mhm. >> Uh and it's very difficult for people to
00:32:40
process that. And so that was, you know, those were the companies that we identified that hockey stick. And online
00:32:47
travel was a hockey stick, personals was a hockey stick, ticketing was a hockey stick.
00:32:52
>> I heard about the is it Jeans paradox? >> Yes. >> Which I think kind of sort of overlaps
00:32:58
with what you're saying there. When things become easier, faster, cheaper, people do them not incrementally more,
00:33:03
but ex like exceptionally more often. I mean that that's the definition of Uber
00:33:07
and we can get to that at some point was uh originally it was built as a black cab service so to speak a black car
00:33:15
service. >> Can you tell me that's that where it came from? Because a lot of people
00:33:18
history has now moved forward that people have forgotten the story of how it came to be.
00:33:22
>> Now to some extent it was it well to a large extent it was that the founding
00:33:25
was was before me but it was um uh Garrett Camp who was one of the founders had this idea uh and I think it was born
00:33:33
in Paris. It was like a snowy day in Paris and they couldn't find a black car
00:33:37
and it was a bunch of young young tech guys and like how cool would it be to like pick up my phone and call a black
00:33:43
car and that was the the core idea which is hey you can use your phone to call a
00:33:48
black car he brought on uh Travis Kalanick Travis was the operator and and the founder and to to your point and
00:33:58
Jeban's paradox to some extent people thought well what's the size of the
00:34:01
black car market place and it was a couple billion dollars or what's the size of the taxi industry and it was uh
00:34:08
more than a couple of billion dollars. But what they didn't see at the time was
00:34:12
that as you improve the con if you radically make something either more convenient or cheaper, the market
00:34:22
expands beyond how you calculate it. So the Uber size and scale now is way beyond the original marketplace of black
00:34:30
cars and or taxis. It it's the company the company today is a result of Jeban's
00:34:36
paradox >> timing. We often um we often don't think much about the luck of timing. Luck is an
00:34:43
interesting word to use, but how important timing is and other sort of foundational factors are in enabling a
00:34:48
company like Uber to exist. When you think about the timing of Uber, what are the sort of the foundations that made it
00:34:55
possible? >> Well, it was it was a mobile revolution. It was um mobile data technology, the
00:35:01
iPhone coming together. In the early days, one of the geniuses of Tra of Travis was he would hire these market
00:35:08
managers who would be GMs of new cities that they would expand into. and they would literally go to the city with a
00:35:15
bag full of iPhones and give away iPhones to black car drivers to get them to come on Uber because at the time a
00:35:23
lot of them didn't have you know they they didn't have smartphones so to
00:35:27
speak. So the onset of the of the smartphone was that kind of that beautiful magic of timing coming
00:35:35
together and then aggressiveness of that founding team to understand that there's
00:35:40
a pattern here and I'm going to replicate that pattern all the world and raise as much capital as I have to to
00:35:47
get there faster than anyone else. That was the magic. But it was, you know, again, it's, yes, there's luck in there,
00:35:53
but if that founding team hadn't been as aggressive in, you know, blit scaling,
00:35:59
which is a term that folks used, uh, all around the world, company wouldn't be
00:36:04
what it is today. >> Your transition out of investment banking into Expedia, CFO, then CEO. You
00:36:10
know, listen, there's a stereotype in business that um investment bankers and
00:36:14
CFOs don't necessarily make the best CEOs because of >> they might stereotypically
00:36:20
>> over financialize >> over financial maybe be less riskaverse, maybe be less, you know, those kinds of
00:36:25
things. And when I spoke to Barry, he did say the following. I'll just play it
00:36:30
for you because it's uh better coming from him. H >> he was not an actual leader uh because
00:36:36
he had uh his career up until then has had been on the financial side of things. So he really had not yet had the
00:36:47
experience or opportunity to manage people. That came in a difficult way to him and he mastered it. It didn't take
00:36:55
him all that long. He mastered how to become a leader and he mastered how to take ultimate responsibility for a
00:37:01
company. >> Yeah, it was um growing up under Barry was was and and by the way I I wouldn't
00:37:07
be where I am today without not him as a mentor because he's not like a mentoring
00:37:11
kind of guy but him as my leader learning from him. But I say that the experience that really really shaped me
00:37:19
uh as it relates to Expedia was I did come in as more of a financial leader. our
00:37:26
leadership at Expedia.com failed. I hired a I had to fire the first uh person. I hired a second person.
00:37:35
Complete disaster. And so I was 0 for two in terms of hiring for our largest business. This business was 50% of our
00:37:42
profits and I was 0 for two in uh in hiring. And so I went to Barry and the board and I said, 'Well,
00:37:49
if I miss hiring the third person to run the biggest parts of our business, then
00:37:53
you should fire me. Barry quickly agreed, yes, of course we will. So I said, obviously, I don't understand
00:37:59
enough about the job to find the right person. So I think I've got to take the
00:38:05
job myself for 6 months to a year to understand what what is it that the job entails for me to then go and and find
00:38:13
that person. And so for what turned out to be I think it was five or six years I
00:38:21
ran both the holding company Expedia Inc. which is a public company and I ran Expedia.com. I was president of the
00:38:27
largest part of the company. That experience taught me my operating troughs. That experience actually taught
00:38:33
me how is it that you operate a company? How is it that you run something? And that's a very different skill set from
00:38:40
capital allocation and you know all the financial uh wizardry that people embark
00:38:45
on. That's important. But the what I discovered was operating a company, leading a company, organizing it,
00:38:53
operating it, setting up the goals, getting the right team together. That's the part of the job that I loved. So it
00:39:01
it it took me a while to get there. Like my whole life, my whole early career was
00:39:06
in this financial sector. which I enjoyed, but I didn't find my true love, which is operations and running
00:39:15
companies and running a technology company until way, way later in my career. Uh, and I think to some extent
00:39:22
now I've got both. I've got that financial part cuz it has to work. But the operations and the leadership part
00:39:29
of the business is something that that I love. And watching Barry take responsibility,
00:39:36
take shots, go against the grain, um, as aggressively as he consistently did, I think has made me a much better operator
00:39:44
than what the counterfactual would be if I had another boss. >> Three months into that role, the head of
00:39:49
HR told you that you were scaring people. >> I've forgotten about that.
00:39:56
>> I think that was my job. Yeah. What's the context there? >> You know the context was that
00:40:04
I first of all turnarounds in technology are really hard. Uh we were talking about the momentum thing where momentum
00:40:11
is positive. In the technology sector if momentum turns negative it is remarkably
00:40:19
difficult to turn it around. You know Yahoo is hanging on but it was the great company and you see where it is now.
00:40:28
It's brutal when you get it wrong. And it always takes longer than you think.
00:40:34
And it goes to, you know, what I was talking about linear versus exponential. Just like the curves up are exponential,
00:40:41
curves down are exponential as well. The first couple of years look bad, but they're not that bad.
00:40:47
>> But you know in your mind that 10 years from now, it's going to be a [ __ ]
00:40:52
disaster. Mhm. >> So what I saw with Expedia was a technology company whose technology engine was broken.
00:41:02
Codebase was old, had not been reinvested in. Technology leadership was coasting.
00:41:09
And that really alarmed me. And one of the things that I learned from Barry in terms of leadership is
00:41:18
that when you know a bell is rung, when when you when you see something, when you see a pattern, you have to act. You
00:41:25
can't wait for a second. So in my mind, once I figured out, oh my god, this really is a turnaround. This isn't like
00:41:32
a company that I've got to tune. this company if I don't move and move hard
00:41:38
and fast is is going to start on that exponential decay curve. I had to move quickly and at that point and and I am
00:41:47
one of the skills that I learned from Barry is transparency. It's like whenever he wanted to understand an
00:41:53
issue he wanted to go to the source. He didn't want a summary and it didn't
00:41:58
matter where that source was. Is it a junior analyst or a president? He wanted to hear from the source because what he
00:42:05
didn't want to lose is lose the fidelity of the issue. You know, when there's an
00:42:10
issue here and then it goes through the analyst and the associate and the vice president and an SVP and whatever, by
00:42:16
the time it's summarized for you as the CEO, it's just it's lost everything. And
00:42:22
usually their levels are like, "Hey, do we really want to tell them that? Why
00:42:26
don't we phrase it this way, etc." So your whole life as a CEO is kind of a
00:42:33
it's a version of the world that your team wants you to see. And if you got a
00:42:38
good team, usually it has more to do with reality than not, but you are subject to your team and the information
00:42:46
flow that that gets to you. And so Barry always wanted to go to the source. He would just cut through levels, cut
00:42:52
through levels, get to the core of the idea, and then once he did, he would move and he would move
00:42:59
fast. And for me, I've kind of I have held on to that, but I've also turned it
00:43:07
the other way, which is one of the ways in which I can depend on getting the real [ __ ] from you is my
00:43:15
being honest with you, right? and and human beings are good [ __ ] you know, kind kind of meter so so to speak.
00:43:23
And and when you're the CEO and you're talking to your staff and you're giving
00:43:28
all the, you know, the business talk and we're doing this, but the last quarter
00:43:33
we had some certain challenges and this and that, they see you bullshitting them
00:43:38
and so why the hell should they tell you the truth, right? if their if their boss
00:43:42
isn't telling them the good stuff, why should they give the good stuff back to
00:43:46
the boss? So, for me, it it was almost like a self-defense mechanism that as a boss, I'm going to tell you what's going
00:43:53
on because that's the only way I can drag the hard truths back from you. Cuz
00:43:59
otherwise, you're going to filter yourself. You're gonna be like, I don't
00:44:01
want Dart to know this happened. >> But do you ever worry that they might not be able to deal with the truth?
00:44:07
>> Then they can leave. And and I think that that's so I think that's what my
00:44:12
head of HR was saying. I was scaring the [ __ ] out of people cuz I'm like we have
00:44:15
a real problem here and we've got to come together and and I think that that
00:44:21
you know there's a I was a good decision-m framework for me is um if I make a mistake where do I want to make
00:44:28
the mistake on? Right? And so if I want to if I'm going to heir with my company,
00:44:35
I'm going to heir in telling the truth and potentially scaring someone away.
00:44:40
I'll take that because if that person doesn't want to face the truth, if he or
00:44:44
she's not up for the fight, then they should go someplace else. They can have
00:44:48
a good time. I'm sure they can have a good career, etc. So for me as a leader,
00:44:53
I've always always believed in transparency partially because then I think you attract the right people.
00:44:59
>> Mhm. and uh partially because then I'm gonna get the good information so to act
00:45:04
on. Usually the failures I see with CEOs aren't because they made the wrong decisions. It's because they were
00:45:12
getting the wrong data that led to the wrong decisions. So it's incredibly important as a leader of any
00:45:17
organization for you to build the channels and build the kind of culture that surfaces problems to you quickly.
00:45:25
And then for me too, you always have to have your random direct channels. You know, the the again, if you think about
00:45:33
organizations as organisms, they have their own incentives. And so my staff's incentive is to control the
00:45:42
the the information that gets to me, not because they're bad people. It's just
00:45:46
their job because I can get overwhelmed. Who do I meet with? What's my schedule?
00:45:50
You know, is this person worthy of meeting the CEO? And for me, my fight is I just set up a bunch of random [ __ ]
00:45:57
I'll meet with, you know, engineers four levels down consistently because usually
00:46:03
they've got the kind of personality where they don't give a [ __ ] They'll
00:46:05
tell me anything and everything and they like putting the CEO down. That's great.
00:46:10
>> They like putting the CEO down. >> It's, you know, engineers often, you
00:46:14
know, don't like authority and code is like the biggest authority buster. It's
00:46:18
like the truth truth. Uh, so I find a lot of engineers have a personality which is, yeah, I'm gonna tell you what
00:46:24
it's like. Like I'm, you know, they they they their value is in something else,
00:46:29
but often they don't. There's a kind of a disrespect for authority that I love.
00:46:32
>> I found in my companies that there's sometimes like a 24year-old young girl
00:46:37
who will just tell me the truth. >> Yeah. >> And she's the one you want to hang out
00:46:41
with. >> She's the one I always go and ask for an opinion. >> Absolutely. And so that that's you've
00:46:46
got to have your your own channels, but the way to the way to get transparency from your team is first first you've got
00:46:53
to give it to them. >> Was the culture hardworking when you arrived? Could you use the word coasting
00:46:57
to describe some of the team when you arrived at Expedia? >> Medium. I think the company had been
00:47:02
successful for a long time and uh had coasted on that success to some extent. So I needed to turn over the team turn
00:47:10
over like the entire team very very quickly and get some hungry people in there. the entire team.
00:47:14
>> Almost the entire team. Yeah. Yeah. It was uh it was rough going for a while,
00:47:18
but then you have kind of missionoriented people who are trying to prove themselves. Um and it's part of
00:47:24
the renewal that every company has to go through and we turned it around. It was
00:47:28
it was tough going, but we really turned around and that was when I kind of I learned, hey, my my love is running
00:47:34
[ __ ] It's great. It's the best part of my job. >> How did you get that company to work
00:47:38
hard? Because there's so many people listening right now that are in a company that might have been successful,
00:47:43
might be two decades in >> and this is an ultimate question in like executive management. How do you turn
00:47:48
around the culture of a big or even even 200 people? >> It's very difficult. Um and sometimes
00:47:55
the shortcut is just change of people like it's very easy to say oh you have
00:47:59
values this and that. So it's it's finding the people who you believe will
00:48:05
line up with your cultural mechanisms or how you work or your values and then embodying those values and
00:48:15
those mechanisms as examples and then making sure that your team embodies those values and imbuss down the down
00:48:22
the organization. So part of working hard is like, you know, sending emails to the team on a Saturday and if I don't
00:48:28
get a response on Saturday, sending them an email on Sunday with a question mark.
00:48:32
What's going on? You know, I think at Expedia in hindsight, we we worked intensely and and and we
00:48:39
went hard, but but not as hard as I like because Expedia was we were selling vacations, right? It was it was the the
00:48:48
product that we were selling was about turning yourself off. And so we did talk about work life balance. Uh and in
00:48:57
hindsight at Uber, I don't, you know, you come to Uber, you're going to work your ass off.
00:49:04
We're going to be really demanding. If you're not performing, we're going to let you know, and if you
00:49:12
don't fix it, we're going to push you out. But while it will be incredibly
00:49:16
hard, you will have real agency at the company. We're a big company, but individuals can make a big difference.
00:49:24
And it's a company that's making a difference in the world. You're going to
00:49:27
learn so much. And while you will have worked hard, you're going to have a great time. But this is don't come here
00:49:35
if you want to coast. And I'm very clear about that. And I should have been more
00:49:39
clear at Expedia, but we were selling vacations, so I couldn't be quite that
00:49:42
clear. >> New year always has a strange energy to it because people start talking about
00:49:48
their goals, fresh starts, and new habits. But the reality is that most people carry the same ideas they had
00:49:53
last year into the new year. I'm guilty of that, too. And they still don't end
00:49:56
up doing anything with them. And I get why. Starting something new, especially if it's a business or a project, is
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00:50:46
In your 12 years as CEO, Expedia stock rose 550%. And sales increased 400% from 2.1
00:50:55
billion to 8.8 billion. And you were the highest paid CEO of a US tech company with a pay of 94.1 million.
00:51:03
>> I left it all behind to go to Uber. >> You left it all behind. There was a big
00:51:06
options packet that I never vested, but it's all good. >> It was a great run.
00:51:11
>> I'm so I'm so intrigued about this point of hard work because I think 10 years
00:51:14
ago saying what you just said was very taboo. >> Yes. >> It feels to be more invoked.
00:51:20
>> We're freed now. YES. >> YOU'RE FREED NOW. >> YES. YES, INDEED. It's it I've I've
00:51:25
gotten um you know, sometimes people ask you the question, uh what advice would you give to young people? And to me, the
00:51:33
most important skill in life is a skill of working hard. And it's not a skill
00:51:38
you can't just like decide you're going to do it. And I think way too many many
00:51:43
people, you know, focus on should be should should you be a computer programmer or a doctor or study the
00:51:50
liberal arts now that anyone can vibe code? Just learn to work hard. And it is, you know, the the when you see the
00:51:57
top athletes, of course, they're talented and, you know, their talent level is world
00:52:04
levels, but the thing that changes that that's different about the elite athletes than the non- elite athletes,
00:52:10
and I'm talking elite, is they work their asses off. They're disciplined.
00:52:15
They're structured. They're relentless. You know, look at Ronaldo, look at
00:52:20
Michael Jordan, etc. That's the same thing is true in all of life. It's true
00:52:25
in business. It's true in personal life. And so for me with my kids, I just want to teach them
00:52:32
how to work hard. And and for me, like growing up, I as a banker, as an executive, I'm not going to let anyone
00:52:40
out me. And if that's true, then they may be smarter, more talented, etc. But
00:52:46
I'm not going to let anyone outwork me. And I think that that's a huge advantage
00:52:50
that you have. over a period of time that advantage compounds and I want them our company like I want Uber to be an
00:52:55
incredibly hardworking company >> comes at a cost though working hard >> yes it it comes at a trade-off and and
00:53:01
we we believe in flexibility so people confuse kind of lack of flexibility to working hard you can work hard and at
00:53:10
the same time you can have flexibility so if you want to have dinner with your family and I'm I'm religious about
00:53:15
having dinners with my family when I'm in town you know 6:00 to 8 uh absolutely
00:53:19
spend that I'm with my family, but at, you know, 9:30 p.m. I'm checking emails.
00:53:24
>> Mhm. >> Right. When I wake up at 5:30 and a.m. I'm checking emails. So, of course,
00:53:28
there are trade-offs. And, you know, life is about trade-offs. >> I think one of the most important things
00:53:33
I've learned from interviewing CEOs and generally we've gone through a transition of COVID and remote work and
00:53:37
then come back into like everyone's in the office again is actually the most
00:53:41
important thing is what you just said, which is being honest with people so that they can make decisions for
00:53:45
themselves in their lives. I think the the thing that one might describe as toxic is when you say something
00:53:51
publicly, but then when they arrive, it's a completely different deal. But what you're doing is you're being honest
00:53:56
and you're therefore allowing people to make decisions for themselves in their
00:53:58
own lives. >> And I'm allowing them to be honest back to me. >> Yeah. And you're a that's a that's a
00:54:03
company culture that someone like me would be attracted to. >> Absolutely.
00:54:05
>> But there's lots of people listening that couldn't think of anything worse.
00:54:07
>> And that's okay. >> Yes. Yeah. >> There are plenty of companies that they
00:54:10
could find or plenty of causes that they can find. It's fine. You said learn to
00:54:14
work hard. Learn >> it's a it's a skill. >> Really? >> Yes. Of course it is because you you've
00:54:22
got to the idea of just staying focused on something, not being discouraged by failing, trying over and over again and
00:54:30
just working harder than others. It's not something you can turn on and off. I
00:54:34
see it in people all the time. There's just like this grim determination. like
00:54:39
we uh at Uber that there's actually saying it's it's it's inside one of our
00:54:43
values. Embrace the grind, you know, embrace it. That's that's a learned skill. That's not
00:54:50
something you're born with. Maybe maybe there's an element that you're born
00:54:53
with. >> Have you ever seen someone who isn't a hard worker become a really hard worker,
00:54:58
an exceptionally hard worker? >> Ah, that's a good question. No, no one
00:55:02
doesn't occur to me. Have you? >> No. I I heard I think it might have been
00:55:08
maybe Brian Chesky Airbnb or Elon say that he's never seen someone who wasn't
00:55:13
a hard worker become a really hard worker. >> That's interesting. >> And this is why
00:55:17
>> I'm trying to come up with someone failing so far. >> And maybe I might posit that it's
00:55:23
somewhat to do with you know these photos that you have in front of you, your childhood, your early context which
00:55:30
you didn't choose. I also working hard here. But yeah, >> but that you were forged in such a way
00:55:35
that you were going to be >> ruthless. So relentless is the word I meant. >> Yeah. I I mean ruthless to myself.
00:55:41
>> Mhm. >> Relentless. Relentless is right. You know, I think I think at one point Jeff
00:55:45
Bezos was going to call Amazon relentless. That was uh he was thinking about that being the name of the
00:55:50
company, >> right? It's it's just and and that is when I see successful technology
00:55:56
companies and especially technology companies there is this relentlessness about them like at Uber we have lots of
00:56:02
different groups that are trying to do different things but each and every team is built and targeted on optimizing and
00:56:12
improving their own particular function. There isn't a piece of the company that
00:56:17
is not improving every single day. And if they're not improving fast enough,
00:56:21
someone else is going to take their place and going to improve it. So as a as an organism, every part of the
00:56:27
company, whether it's a payments team in terms of new payments types or uh payment success or the fraud team or the
00:56:36
mobile app team in terms of conversions, etc. Every team is set up in and organized for and gold on improving
00:56:44
everything that they do. So the whole company in small ways is constantly improving never ever stopping and it is
00:56:52
that relentless nature of business and and the minute and it's not good enough
00:56:56
to get better. We have to get better faster than our competitors because our competitors are all getting better as
00:57:02
well. So it's it's basically like who can adapt faster to either the reality
00:57:08
of the market as it is today or the prediction of the market as you see it tomorrow. And it's the speed of change
00:57:15
and it's identification of the opportunity. Those are the two factors I think that are most important. Um, and
00:57:22
the speed of change, you know, if you can work fast, you're kind of accelerating time. You know, every one
00:57:29
shot that you take, I can take two shots. I've got more time than you do. And then, of course, there's identifying
00:57:34
the opportunity, going after it. Those are the two things you really have to get right. If you're taking two shots,
00:57:39
not only you going to get two data points of information, but you're also increasing your probability of having a
00:57:44
successful shot by like 100%. >> Shots on goal. Just shots on goal. >> How do you create a culture of
00:57:49
continuous improvement? Because successful companies, as you kind of highlighted earlier, they become
00:57:53
complacent with their victories and they like to take some time off and celebrate
00:57:57
and >> you know, we high five and then and then we chill and then actually the studies
00:58:00
show they did this big meta analysis where they looked at successful companies and they showed that they
00:58:04
become risk adverse. >> Totally. because they lost a version. They have something to lose now. So just
00:58:10
protect. >> I think the good news to some extent with Uber is that we've always been a
00:58:15
company that has had a chip on its shoulder. You know, the company had a chip on it shoulder when it was founded
00:58:21
and had to like fight taxi unions for its very existence. Uh and then the disaster happened with Travis leaving
00:58:29
and then a new CEO coming in at the time. That was a really really difficult time. Then we went through a period of
00:58:35
COVID which was again a disaster for the company but ultimately prepared us to to
00:58:39
do better. Then people saying you know it was a tough IPO. Uh Uber is never going to get profitable and today we're
00:58:46
incredibly successful but we've got the challenge and the opportunity of AI and
00:58:51
autonomous. So we've always been a company that has been I would say underestimated
00:58:58
and that feeds into our culture that this is a we are a hungry company and I do think we're sometimes
00:59:07
guilty of getting complacent in little ways and I have a leadership team that when they see complacency more often
00:59:15
than not than not they identify it and they get it the hell out. It's it's a
00:59:20
team that is not satisfied, that's always driving and I love that about us. >> How does one balance enjoying the
00:59:28
success and the accomplishments? I mean, you've turned this company around, highly profitable company. Everyone that
00:59:33
I've spoken to, many of our mutual friends have talked lovingly about the impact you've had on the business. I
00:59:38
mean, the numbers speak for themselves. When you joined Uber, Uber was losing 2.5 to 3 billion per year. Now, it
00:59:44
generates 8.5 billion in free cash flow every year. How do you get people to >> 9.8 in the last year, but
00:59:52
>> you you're counting 9.8. Okay. Incredible. >> Celebrate. Chill.
00:59:58
>> Sure. Well, you you can you can celebrate or not chill. >> Okay. How
01:00:02
>> you can do we we take those moments. We do c it's cool to run a company. That's
01:00:07
so important. It's cool to run a company that's hitting record after record after
01:00:10
record. And we do celebrate those records and we do celebrate those teams. Maybe not enough. And again, it goes to
01:00:16
like what what what mistake would you rather make? I'd I'd rather make the
01:00:21
mistake of celebrating a little bit too little and kind of being a little pissed
01:00:25
off about life in general and pushing. But um we we take our moments, but the the the success itself, I don't know,
01:00:33
succeeding is almost a celebration in and of itself. And and when you're succeeding in such a competitive field,
01:00:40
I just find a deep sense of satisfaction there. Uh and I think my team does, too.
01:00:45
How do you get the team to take take those risks that they need to take? Is there something you do you like
01:00:50
incentivize them on the amount of shots they take? How do you do that? One is they're always moving fast. That's what
01:00:56
we do. We push we're constantly pushing the pace of the company in terms of execution. So I think that helps. But
01:01:03
but I do think that there's there's a mechanism that we talk now about that
01:01:07
I've talked to a team about taking smart risks. I think you're absolutely right
01:01:10
which is as companies get bigger and more successful they tend to become more riskaverse
01:01:16
and it should be the exact opposite because you can take more risks you can make more mistakes because you've got
01:01:21
kind of this 9.8 8 billion of cash flow to protect yourself against some of those mistakes. So I have definitely in
01:01:28
the past I would say two years pushed the team actively to push the envelope in terms of risk. Don't be defensive, be
01:01:36
offensive, etc. And it comes from my challenging the teams, my talking about it, setting examples of sometimes
01:01:43
failing and then saying it's okay, moving on. Uh and then sometimes my taking decisions that are seen as more
01:01:51
risky than not. that setting the example then allows the company to follow. >> So if I was in one of your teams, what
01:01:58
how do you think about goal setting for me? >> Um all the teams have different goals,
01:02:02
business goals. The ads team has to drive at technologydriven incremental ad uh dollars per year andor customer
01:02:13
satisfaction uh customer NPS etc. So every team has its own goals uh and they organize against those goals and they
01:02:22
execute those goals and they're religiously tracked. It's the best mechanism that we have. I just wish that
01:02:28
there was a better one because the art of the goal setting becomes the issue which is are you setting the right
01:02:33
goals? Are they too ambitious? Are they not ambitious enough? And sometimes people can game the system. So we use it
01:02:42
but I can't tell you that it's perfect. What about you talked earlier about
01:02:45
values. A lot of companies go and do an offsite and they write some words on a words on a white on a wall and they say
01:02:50
ambition, enthusiasm, courage, whatever. What do you think of that sort of corporate habit of go values and stuff?
01:02:58
>> We went through the exercise, failed the first time, succeeded the second time.
01:03:04
We and and when it and we failed when it first came to Uber, obviously there was
01:03:09
a view that there we needed a cultural reset of the company and so it was very important for me to go and inspect the
01:03:17
culture of the company and change it. It was a statement and the culture had I think some cool stuff in
01:03:26
there, some cool ideas in there. Like for example, there was one value that was um to stepping and the idea of toe
01:03:32
stepping is is what you and I talked about earlier, which is we want to challenge each other within the
01:03:38
organization. And so if I have to step on your toes and tell you something that you don't want to hear, I'm allowed to
01:03:45
even though it hurts you uh because the truth is more important. So sometimes the truth hurts and that's okay. That
01:03:52
was the idea of toestepping. And what happened was sometimes those values became weaponized where to stepping
01:03:59
whose spirit came from a place of we want to speak the truth became an excuse to be a jerk.
01:04:07
>> Right? So the values in and of themselves can be great or terrible based on how you execute on on
01:04:17
those values. When I first came in, we had to redo the values. And I was there there's a saying by um Jeff Bezos that
01:04:24
that I love, which is like the the values of the company almost they they they appear the value system of the
01:04:30
company appears to some extent. You don't if you say thou shalt, you're going to fail because the company shall,
01:04:36
>> right? And the approach that we first took was that we will actually get the
01:04:42
value system. We had we had a vote for all the employees in the company. What values do you think should be part of
01:04:48
the new Uber, etc. We took all the signal and then we edited it and came up with a new list of of values. And there
01:04:55
was one value that I wrote myself. It was mine and it was do the right thing. Period. It wasn't crowdsourced. It was
01:05:06
just that. And and usually with these values, you're like there's a whole
01:05:09
explanation and people are like, "Well, what does do the right thing period
01:05:13
mean?" like you have to figure it out. And for me, it it was a message to the
01:05:20
whole company, which was if you work at Uber, you have a responsibility and I'm
01:05:26
not going to tell you exactly what to do. So, use your judgment. And it's our
01:05:29
expectation that you use your judgment to do the right thing. And sometimes doing the right thing, it's not clear.
01:05:34
Should I go after my business goal? Should I compromise on a business goal? Because safety is in question. Of
01:05:39
course, you should. Safety comes first before business, etc. But we were putting that weight and that
01:05:44
responsibility in uh within the employees. But the rest of the value system that was kind of crowdsourced, it
01:05:52
was forgettable because it was the kind of stuff that you passion, ambition, teamwork, like what company doesn't
01:05:59
believe in teamwork? Give me a break. So we uh Nikki uh Krishna Murphy who runs uh people she pushed me to reset the
01:06:10
values four or five years in by then I felt like I did have a right to have a point of view I'd been there we weren't
01:06:18
quite done with the turnaround etc but I was a part of the company and then we came up with a value set which is
01:06:24
different you know there's uh our one of our values by the way go get it was the
01:06:29
only one that survived No, no, sorry. Uh, do the right thing was the only one that survived. But for
01:06:34
example, go get it is one of our top values. And the idea of go get it is obviously it's literally what we do. We
01:06:40
go we help people go or get it, right? Rise and eats. So it's kind of fun in
01:06:46
terms of what we do, but it's an attitude which is we as a company, we're
01:06:52
go-getters. We're going to be aggressive. We're going to push. We're
01:06:55
going to move fast. We play to win. And so the value sets that we have, go get it or one that I really like, great
01:07:03
minds don't think alike. We came up with a with a set of values which I think is
01:07:08
unusual and describes how we are different as a company and it's really true to who we are.
01:07:13
>> How important is um this sort of this attitude of failure and experimentation
01:07:17
especially in a world that's transitioning as fast as the one we're in. When you listen to people like Ray
01:07:21
Kurswell his predictions of the future he says that if you're 10 now by the age
01:07:24
of 60 you'll experience a year's change in I think it's 11 days and just this
01:07:28
sort of this sort of exponential acceleration >> the law of accelerating returns.
01:07:33
>> Yeah. Like how do you how do you you know how do you create a culture or
01:07:36
build a team in a world where the correct answer is changing this quickly? I I think that it is um setting a
01:07:44
culture that does embrace that change and is constantly challenging itself. And I will give uh Travis and the
01:07:53
founding team credit. You know that there's kind of this idea of everything that they did was
01:07:58
terrible and that's just not true. We have a very high talent bar at the company. We have always kept a high
01:08:05
talent bar at the company and we haven't compromised. And what I found is that
01:08:09
talented people who are also driven are on a constant hunt for the truth. So culture isn't enough. You actually need
01:08:19
the right people at the company. And I think we've got a company that does have
01:08:23
a chip on a shoulder was born out of the creation of a new industry. So we've experienced it. Um,
01:08:32
and we have a group of people who are driven and hungry and are constantly looking for change
01:08:41
and you got a leader and a leadership team that's pushing the company to do so
01:08:45
and doesn't penalize folks for challenging them. I think it's kind of this stew that you have to put
01:08:51
together, but it's a combination of culture and people. Do you have any mental case studies of great bets the
01:08:58
company has taken that most people wouldn't have taken or thought was wrong or wouldn't have taken the risk on that
01:09:03
trans transpired to be critical to your success? >> Well, you know, I don't know about um
01:09:09
well, I think it will be critical to to the success, but there's a funny one
01:09:12
which is taxis are one of the fastest growing parts of Uber's business. So you remember Uber,
01:09:21
we started as the enemy of taxis >> and built out this peer-to-peer ride sharing. And it's probably five or six
01:09:30
years ago, our head of product now, Sachin, he worked on building kind of um a technology that would allow taxi
01:09:38
companies to to have their own little Uber app. And eventually he came to Uber, thank God, and he's like, well,
01:09:44
why don't we build that in Uber? Why don't we actually build taxis on Uber?
01:09:49
And originally within the company and and I I kept in touch with some of the founders just cuz I want their advice
01:09:55
cuz why not? You know, they they built a great company. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants. Uh they said it's
01:10:02
the most idiotic thing on earth that you can't wire up taxis. They hate us. They
01:10:06
set rates will be terrible. Lots of technical reasons. They had tried it earlier. It was a total failure. But I
01:10:12
think Sachin uh having worked in the industry and then my being kind of ignorant saying
01:10:19
why the hell not try it that combination allowed us to build out a taxi product and taxi is the fastest growing segment
01:10:24
of the company and it went completely against the founding of the company. But now we're you know I I hope to have
01:10:31
every single taxi in the world wired up to Uber. Why not? >> For the first 10 years that I was a
01:10:36
founder I didn't prioritize getting a good night's sleep at all. But over
01:10:39
time, I started to realize that it was the key metric that influenced everything in my life. My mood, my
01:10:43
focus, my ability to show up and to think clearly and to lead well. So now with my lifestyle being pretty crazy,
01:10:48
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description below. And there's another um there's an alien that's arrived amongst us um which is
01:13:58
AI. And you've you know Uber's always been somewhat powered from what I understand by very much so degree but um
01:14:04
the world has changed in the last couple years as it relates to AI. There's been
01:14:07
a huge acceleration in investment and improvement of the technology. What do you
01:14:12
aside from Uber? >> You talked earlier about your early childhood and how you know you grew up
01:14:18
with a bit of a paranoia about losing everything because that's what you experienced as a young man.
01:14:23
>> You see this technology arrive which is fundamentally disruptive to all of us
01:14:26
including me as a podcaster. Yeah, >> I've done the tests and the retention
01:14:29
isn't the retention isn't far off when it's me or AI. So, it's slightly
01:14:33
concerning, but like how do you how do you approach such a disruptive technology? Um, how do you think of it
01:14:39
broadly and the impact it's going to have on society? And are you paranoid? >> I'm not paranoid. I'm not I guess I was
01:14:46
going to say I'm not built that way, but maybe I am. I I think my instinct is
01:14:50
always just to go just to move forward. And Uber has been built out of an AI core. all of our pricing, all of our
01:14:57
routing, who you're matched with, uh whether or not a courier batches a trip,
01:15:03
which is do they take two orders or one order. All of our systems, underlying systems are are driven by AI. We do 40
01:15:10
million trips a day. You know, that kind of orchestration can't be done by uh
01:15:16
heristic rules and we've got to work on the streets of New York and the streets
01:15:20
of Logos as well. So the the we we have built the entire company on small AI models that have been trained on local
01:15:30
problems and then get stitched together. That's literally what the company is. So
01:15:34
for us AI is it's kind of a core skill set and and AI can it can mess things
01:15:39
up, right? It it's not because it's not heruristics based. There are emergent
01:15:45
issues that come out of an AI that works 96% of the time and 4% of the time it screws up. So we're comfortable with the
01:15:54
uncertainty layer of AI as a company. So we are I would say moving headlong into
01:16:00
AI. We're not one of the, you know, research shops, but I would say in terms
01:16:04
of applied AI, the team is driving to build AI kind of newer AI experiences across the company.
01:16:14
But, you know, stepping back as a as a person, the impact on society is going to be enormous. And going back to
01:16:22
Kurszswwell's kind of law of accelerating returns, whereas previously society has always
01:16:29
been able to adjust to these kinds of shifts. Um, it's been able to adjust because it had time to adjust. And AI
01:16:39
literally quite literally thinks and AI will be able to replace the work that 70 80% of humans can do over the next 10
01:16:50
years. 10 years is not a lot of time for society to adjust to that kind of an impact. Now are they going to be more
01:16:57
expensive than humans, cheaper than humans, etc. Who knows? But the capability will be there probably in the
01:17:02
next 10 years for intellectual jobs probably call it 15 years for physical 15 20 years for physical jobs because
01:17:10
physical AI >> is harder you know robots cars etc more capital heavy takes longer have to deal
01:17:18
with the physical world so the the changes in society are going to be giant but my view is you can't slow down the
01:17:29
rate of change. And if you're a part of that change, at least you can have some say as to how
01:17:38
that change imprints on society and imprints on the real world. And so for me, I'm leaning in. It's a it's a very
01:17:45
very exciting time. >> 70 to 80% of jobs will be uh disrupted by AI is like broadly what you said
01:17:52
there. And the pace of change is going to mean that a lot of people don't have
01:17:56
new jobs to go to because we haven't >> I think that's the question
01:17:59
>> the retraining challenge and people say well there's going to be jobs in AI but
01:18:02
like listen I got some friends that can't just >> society's always adjusted right farming
01:18:08
was a huge percentage of our labor force now it's less than 1% >> but the speed of
01:18:13
>> yeah that I I think that's a question and you could argue that AIs will be
01:18:16
able to retrain you right the job retraining is going to change so of course societyy's going to adjust
01:18:22
>> but I I do think it raises questions, real questions. >> I've I've not been able to get an answer
01:18:26
on that really, I think, from the experts in AI that I've interviewed, which is like what do those 70 or 80
01:18:31
people% of people do? Because we're seeing in our own business that there's
01:18:34
many jobs which we would have hired for previously. >> Yeah. >> Um across the board that AI is now doing
01:18:39
exceptionally well. And every single day, literally daily, we try to see if the new model, Gemini Pro 3 or whatever,
01:18:45
can do things that we're currently doing manually. And every day we're getting
01:18:48
those little breakthroughs and going, "Oh, okay. Now we no longer need to."
01:18:51
And coding is one of those big areas you talk about a lot where there's been
01:18:54
already sort of big dis disruption positive disruption at Uber and a lot of your coders are now using AI to
01:19:01
>> yeah about 90% of our coders are using AI now that's easy to say but but there
01:19:06
are probably 30% of them that were power users they are showing a clear um differentiation in the number of
01:19:14
diffs for example how much a diff is a code release that's different from the
01:19:19
last code release. So one of the measurements of productivity is just how many diffs are you putting to the
01:19:24
codebase. Uber's just a giant codebase. That's what we are. And so our engineers
01:19:28
are literally the builders of the company. They are manufacturing the bricks that go into the system. Uh and
01:19:34
they're architects who are kind of thinking about what the system should should look like. Uh, and so while 90%
01:19:41
of our engineers are using AI tools of some sort, there's about 30% of them that are using them at a
01:19:49
completely accelerated pace. And it really is changing their productivity in a way that I've never ever seen before.
01:19:57
Ultimately, I do think that the job of a coder is going to change more and more from actually writing the code
01:20:06
from to some extent orchestrating agents who are writing the code or building systems for you. It becomes more of an
01:20:14
orchestration job versus a manual writing job. But the job will still be there. And my attitude is if my average
01:20:23
engineer became 25 25% more efficient, which we haven't gone there yet, but we
01:20:28
will get there. I'm gonna hire more engineers because I want to go faster. That there's still lots of unsolved
01:20:34
problems that we haven't solved. But I can imagine, you know, maybe 5 years from now as the engineers get more and
01:20:40
more productive, I may not decide to add engineering headcount because at that point instead of adding an engineer, I
01:20:46
should add agents and buy some more GPUs from Nvidia. That may be the investment
01:20:50
in the future. We'll see >> because thinking about linear versus exponential as well. If we imagine a
01:20:54
rate of improvement, I don't know, in my head I go, well, won't there come a time
01:20:58
where you as the CEO or you and a team, an executive team can tell an agent what
01:21:03
you want to build? You can show it the strategy and theoretically, I mean, I can't figure out how this isn't going to
01:21:08
be possible. The agents will then build and actually maybe they don't even need
01:21:13
you to set the strategy. Maybe but theoretically, you know, if they if you imagine any rate of improvement in
01:21:19
the intelligence, maybe at some point they're going to go, "Well, listen, we
01:21:21
there's a better strategy here." DAR >> what one of my uh uh one of my team
01:21:26
members told me that some teams have built a DAR AI you know so so that they basically make the presentation to the
01:21:34
DAR AI as a prep for making a presentation to me because you can imagine like you know by the time
01:21:41
something comes to me there's been a prep and a meeting and the and the slide
01:21:45
deck has been beautifully honed so they have DAR AI to tune their prep. Are you concerned they might show DAR AI to the
01:21:51
board? >> I was like I was like can I see the code for DAR AI? I'm curious. She's like no
01:21:57
we're not showing it to you. >> But is there anything like falsifiable
01:22:01
in what I just said about that there coming a time in the not so near future if we imagine exponential improvement
01:22:07
where >> I think I think where AI still is missing a beat that humans and other creatures have is ability to learn
01:22:16
real time. Right? So if if you think about you and I are learning for this conversation and maybe your behavior is
01:22:23
going to change by 0.1% because of actually what you learn here and the construct of most large AI models is
01:22:32
capture enorm enormous amounts of data based on the skill set that you're trying to drive train pre-train that
01:22:39
model put it into the real world and then there's some post-training of the of the model based on feedback from from
01:22:45
the world and then when the model's is released. It's kind of released, right?
01:22:50
And the way the model learns is, you know, 35 becomes 38, but 35 didn't learn. The engineers went out and built,
01:22:59
you know, built a new model that's 38 that might have elements of 35 to it, etc. So, the the AI agents aren't
01:23:08
learning now. Now a lot of what we're doing is we're building around the
01:23:12
foundation models that then bring kind of the signals from the real world and use the skills that the foundation
01:23:18
models have to do good stuff. So you can >> post- training I'm posting
01:23:23
>> Exactly. So well so we are post-training but we're learning real time as human
01:23:30
beings and when the models can learn real time >> that I think is the point at which I'm
01:23:38
going to kind of think yeah we are all replaceable but at this point I haven't
01:23:43
seen a model that can learn real time. One of the real areas of disruption in AI has been autonomous vehicles. And I
01:23:48
was just before we started recording, I was saying that uh I have a Tesla in LA where I live.
01:23:52
>> And it's staggering that I can get in the car, >> press a button, and drive two and a half
01:23:58
hours to Joshua Tree without having to touch the wheel or the the pedals. >> Now driving, I think, is one of the
01:24:03
biggest employees in the world. Like as a profession, >> I mean, we've got nine and a half
01:24:07
million drivers and couriers on our platform. We are the largest organizer of flexible work
01:24:13
around the world. and they I I think the second largest um workforce is a Chinese
01:24:17
army. >> Wow. >> Yeah. It's a big group of folks that we've organized
01:24:22
>> and statistically there's less accidents in an autonomous Tesla than there is if
01:24:27
a human drives it. So it's safer for my car to drive itself statistically than
01:24:31
for me to drive it. That's true, right? That the autonomous driving is currently
01:24:34
safer. >> That's true. So Whimos are safer. And then now you are a backup to the Tesla,
01:24:40
right, as a human being. So I've I've got a Tesla as well. And once in a while
01:24:44
it disengages and I've got to or I've got to disengage. So it it's not necessarily the pure
01:24:52
autonomous agent that's better than humans, but definitely the autonomous agent with a human backup. No question
01:24:58
that's better than the pure human. >> And we can't be far away from it just
01:25:01
being >> I mean Whimo's there already, right? Uh you you live in LA. Uh they've got the
01:25:07
Whimos. We work with them in Austin uh in Atlanta. And by all accounts, Whimo drivers are safer than human beings. And
01:25:14
that's going to be true of AV all over the world. You know, there are million
01:25:19
deaths uh from driving every year in the world. In the US, it's between 35,000
01:25:26
and 40,000 uh auto fatalities. So to the extent that these these autonomous agents and drivers can be better than
01:25:34
humans and they will be better than humans over a period of time uh there's a real return on human life as a result
01:25:41
of this >> those 9 million drivers careers that you have will be out of work conceivably in
01:25:47
the you know talking about being honest about the situation. Yeah, I think again
01:25:51
it goes to physical AI as well, right? So I think 20 years from now, you can imagine that those 9 million will be
01:26:00
20 million uh AVs maybe, but we have time between now and then partially because we don't operate in the virtual
01:26:07
world, right? We operate in the physical world. You have to get the regulations up. You have to build the cars, you have
01:26:12
to build the sensor stacks, the the models have to get there. So there is time between now and then, but you can
01:26:18
imagine the majority of our trips being fulfilled by robots of some kind. Probably not 10 years from now, but you
01:26:28
go 15, 20 years from now, you're going to start getting there. >> What do the 9 million people do?
01:26:35
>> I don't know. Now we are expanding the kind of work that's available on on on
01:26:41
the platform partially as a result of it. Right? We used to be the only work is driving. Now there's delivering. You
01:26:48
can have shoppers as well. I think it'll be a little while at least before you
01:26:51
get AI shoppers. And now actually we have a team called Uber AI solutions that uh allows people to train these
01:27:00
same agents and train uh AI agents and AI models uh and do all kinds of knowledgebased work on their phone as
01:27:09
well to kind of extend the kind of work that we offer uh humans on our platform and different opportunities for for them
01:27:17
to to make money. So we are extending the platform and then the question is how much of the platform gets automated
01:27:23
and what's the velocity at which we can extend our platform into other kinds of
01:27:27
work versus the velocity of automation. I can't tell you which is going to go
01:27:30
faster. >> Hands on heart though it does appear that unemployment is going to be
01:27:35
significantly increased in a world of AI especially we just imagine this sort of
01:27:39
continual rate of improvement. I just can't >> you you you would have to I unless again
01:27:45
historically in societies new kinds of jobs have come up >> knowledge jobs physical jobs and now
01:27:51
we've disrupted both >> that's why there's a question here and I
01:27:56
do think there's a real question as to the ability of societies to retrain the
01:27:59
abilities of human beings to retrain themselves AI is going to be a part of that but the timing there how fast is it
01:28:07
going to go it's a real question mark I I think you're absolutely I don't think
01:28:11
it's going to be a big issue big issue uh in the next 5 years, but when you go 5 plus years, it's going to
01:28:18
become more of a more more of an issue for society at large. >> It's interesting because I was thinking
01:28:23
putting two and two together about your your your father's journey of coming to
01:28:26
the US, losing what he had, losing his job, and the the loss of like meaning and purpose being really central to him.
01:28:31
And I could see that basically from your face that I think what I interpreted from your face was that he struggled
01:28:37
with as any provider would the loss of like meaning that comes with because jobs aren't just about money that it's
01:28:44
especially you know >> they give you a sense of worth. It's funny. I I I read um I read a study many
01:28:50
years ago that said when they looked at suicide letters specifically from men, I
01:28:55
think it was an Australian study in the suicide letters that the the sentiment was about not feeling
01:29:03
worth >> Yes. >> to your family. >> Yeah. >> And the extreme of that was I think my
01:29:07
family would actually now be better off without me. >> Interesting. And um and this kind of you
01:29:12
know I think is probably adjacent to this conversation around job displacement which is where are we going
01:29:18
to find our meaning in a world where the machines have now disrupted our intelligence and our muscles.
01:29:26
>> It's every universal income basic income test has failed. You know the answer
01:29:32
that you hear from folks is well the robots are going to do all the work. they're going to create um utility and
01:29:39
so our work won't have to create utility so people will just have money but it
01:29:45
goes to exactly what you're saying which is every single test they've done now
01:29:48
it's not 20 but they've done a couple tests where certain section of the
01:29:52
population similar population gets income certain section doesn't and every time the ones who are getting income do
01:29:59
worse in terms of outcomes because well we don't know the because I The because
01:30:06
is related to what you're saying which is market forces kind of that force someone
01:30:15
to work then create a perception of self-v valueue succeeding you know most people succeed
01:30:22
if they're driven to succeed they will succeed and as they succeed it comes with a very very deep and important
01:30:29
feeling of I am creating value I'm supporting my family I'm uh building this incredible piece of art, etc.
01:30:36
Whatever that value is to you, and wherever that meaning comes from, I'm an incredible parent. That value is what
01:30:43
keeps people going. Uh, and I don't think that, you know, the government raining money down on society is going
01:30:51
to help. >> It's refreshing to hear your perspective on this because a lot of the time, you
01:30:55
know, you'll hear CEOs in the media just saying, "It'll be fine. Everyone's going
01:30:59
to figure it out." And I think that's >> historically we have figured it out. So
01:31:02
maybe they're right. But but you have to ask whether they're giving you the real
01:31:06
stuff or not. >> Yeah. And that's kind of what I that's what I I think because I sometimes hear
01:31:10
about private conversations and the private conversations I hear about the sheer amount of disruption that they
01:31:13
anticipate and then when I see them on like CNBC or Davos, it's be fine and figure it out. And I understand the
01:31:18
incentive because if they were to start ringing the bell, it might hurt their own chance of like innovating and
01:31:24
fundraising and all those things. But I think you sit at this sort of happy medium of being Yeah. as the CEO of
01:31:29
Uber, you've got to you've got to pursue the opportunity in the technology. But
01:31:33
on the other hand, to be honest and say, listen, there's going to be big disruption and we I don't know the
01:31:38
answers. >> I remember you were talking about CNBC, a CNBC anchor once we had an interview
01:31:42
and afterwards she said, uh, you know, I really like you. >> You actually answer my questions. And
01:31:48
I'm thinking to myself, what am I not supposed to? There there's like the the PR trading is always if you
01:31:55
get a bad question, don't answer the question. just pivot to something else.
01:31:59
And for me, like I've I've sworn to myself, uh, and Noah, who's who's up
01:32:04
there, is probably going to kill me afterwards. It's just I'm going to answer the question. I'm not going to do
01:32:08
the BS. And again, I have to think the anchor knows what's happening. The audience knows what what's happening.
01:32:17
So, I'm like, I'll answer the question. If it's a shitty question, I'll deal
01:32:19
with it. >> I actually don't like interviewing CEOs, which is funny because the name of the
01:32:22
podcast because active >> how did how did the the Cuz I I looked before I came on. And I'm like, I'm
01:32:28
going to look up on uh uh yeah, the CEOs. And there aren't that many CEOs. >> Well, if I looked at your diary, what
01:32:35
would I find inside your diary? I would probably find you contending with being a father, your psychology. I might find
01:32:40
some things in there about your health. I can see you're a guy that goes to the
01:32:43
gym. >> Yeah. >> Um and I think it's all interlin. I think for you to be an exceptional CEO,
01:32:47
you probably think a lot about your past, your childhood, your health, your how to optimize and all these things.
01:32:53
And so honestly, you can't do a podcast like this for 20 years >> and just hit the same thing every day.
01:33:00
>> You need to be I need to be intellectually stimulated. >> And you and me are both multifaceted
01:33:04
creatures, I guess. So that's why it's evolved >> until we become AIs.
01:33:08
>> Until we become AIs. Yeah. Just closing off on that then, um, what can we do
01:33:15
about this from an AI AV perspective? Is it the government's responsibility? Is
01:33:20
it collective action? So one is I do think that we don't talk enough in that for example with
01:33:26
autonomous AI can be a force for good right it's these drivers are going to be
01:33:30
safer than human beings and those we can take the 35,000 fatalities to 3,000 fatalities etc. I do think that the AI's
01:33:40
the AV is going to bring down the price of transportation. So a a big part of our goal is to make ondemand
01:33:48
transportation available for everybody. One of the folks that I was talking to was talking about how Uber has changed
01:33:54
her mother's life. Like her mom can get around and it just wouldn't get around
01:33:58
without it, right? We want more moms like that. So, I do think it's important
01:34:02
to recognize that if transport fundamental transportation becomes safer, it becomes cheaper. Going back to
01:34:09
Jean's paradox, that's a good thing for society, right? I don't think that the answer as it
01:34:17
relates to society is to try to slow down the pace of change because China won't for example if we're uh
01:34:26
talking about the west. So I think you just have to lean into it. I think that discussions like this are important. I
01:34:32
think you look for technology leaders who are talking about it. Daario, for example, Anthropic is talking uh about
01:34:39
it, pissing some people off, but I think he's having good discussions there. And
01:34:43
then I do think that the the society arming up to be able to retrain large groups of people at scale is not a
01:34:55
skill. I don't see people investing that and I don't see that as a core capability of any of our countries etc.
01:35:02
There's one thing I can come up with, it will be that is the retraining machine.
01:35:06
>> You've got f four kids. >> Yes. >> They come to you, they say, "Dad,
01:35:10
listen. AI, robotics, give me some advice for my future. What should I be doing?"
01:35:14
>> Work hard. You're going to be fine. Work hard. It's it's just that's I mean, now
01:35:21
the AI theoretically can can work harder than you, but I I find one of the pieces of advice I give to
01:35:28
young people is don't plan. Okay. I wind up, we went through a history. I wound
01:35:33
up where I am today having not planned a thing. I didn't when I was an investment
01:35:39
banker. I wasn't dreaming of becoming CEO, etc. And and what I find is that people who have too much of a career
01:35:45
plan, who have too much clarity about what they're doing, they they lose their
01:35:49
curiosity. And and human beings look for positive signal, right? you whether you
01:35:56
like it or not. Anytime someone agrees with you makes you feel a little bit better, anytime you get signal that goes
01:36:03
against your preconceived notions, either you ignore it or you're like, "All right, [ __ ] I'm going to I'm going
01:36:09
to take this on." It's unpleasant. And so with with career planning, what I
01:36:15
find is people who have too clear uh career plan, they're looking for signals
01:36:20
that feed into their career plan. I'm going to be a vice president by this much. I'm going to make X money by this
01:36:24
much. and they're not looking around, they're not being curious. They're not
01:36:27
looking for signal that can change, you know, their life. And and and so what I tell some folks is like before you go
01:36:34
out and try to change a world, let the world change you first. You know, take input. And if you're like this, you got
01:36:44
blinders cuz I'm going here. You're not going to take input. You're not going to
01:36:47
let you're not going to take all the stimulus coming in from the world. though it's, you know, the one constant
01:36:54
I see is people who are good are good. People who are good. I've never seen a
01:36:58
successful person in in a job or a career get there without working hard. And my guess is, I don't
01:37:06
know about you, you kind of wound up where you're wound up kind of by accident.
01:37:12
>> And people are like, well, you got lucky. I got very lucky to be here. like
01:37:17
I had so many kind of moments and and some would say I took advantage of that l of of that luck but
01:37:25
to some extent I was able to take advantage of that luck because I was open being open. You jumped from Expedia
01:37:31
to Uber. Um in part helped by some advice that our mutual friend Daniel E the founder of Spotify gave you.
01:37:38
>> He's actually just text me. I text him saying hey can you uh can you send me a
01:37:41
question to ask Dario but he said I'm in the middle of now texting while we're
01:37:44
talking. Damn it. No, just before I walked in, I've just looked. He texted me back saying he's on an earnings call.
01:37:50
Never mind. But um he said, "Good luck with the interview." Um what did Daniel
01:37:54
X say to you that helped to form that decision to go to Uber? >> So he's the one who recommended I think
01:37:59
I was I was uh contacted by head hunter. He recommended me to the head hunter who
01:38:05
called me. Uh I told him I was actually at the Allen and Company conference going back in a a circle with him and we
01:38:11
were having a drink one night and he asked me, he's like, "Did the head
01:38:13
hunter call you?" there's this Uber roll and at the at the time Uber was a
01:38:17
disaster like disaster and everyone was reading about it. I was at Expedia. I had just gotten this wonderful contract
01:38:25
that you said at the beginning. So I was I was going to stay and I love working for Barry. We're like it it it's been
01:38:31
it's been the best professional partnership of of my life. And I said of course I'm not going to go. You know I'm
01:38:38
so happy about what I'm doing at Expedia. And Daniel like looks at me. He's got his like cold Scandinavian
01:38:45
eyes. He's like, "Dra, since when is life about being happy? It's about
01:38:50
making impact. Uber is a great company and you can have an impact on that company. You've got to do this." So the
01:39:00
next day I had called the head hunter previously. I said, "No, no, I'm not
01:39:05
interested." The next day I called the head hunter and I said, "Let's talk." So
01:39:08
Daniel was the one who opened me up. And your dad, he gave you advice. >> Well, I talked to my dad and uh his my
01:39:17
dad is keeps things simple and he said, "Do you as far as he when a company
01:39:24
who's a verb tells you to run it, you just say yes." So, I thought that was
01:39:30
good uh good advice. And and ultimately I think people who come to Uber stay at Uber. They come
01:39:40
because of the challenge but they stay because of the impact. Like we are building a company that is important to
01:39:47
the world and for me I could come and I could have an I could have impact on impactful company. So why the hell not?
01:39:53
And when he says a company that's a verb, he's referring to the fact that
01:39:56
everybody in the the taxiing or transportation category uses Uber as a verb to even if they're talking about a
01:40:03
competitor. >> Exactly. Right. >> Um and there's always one company in
01:40:06
every sort of industry that owns them. >> We have a closing tradition here where
01:40:10
the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for. And the question left
01:40:14
for you is, what is one conversation that if you could rewind time and have you would have today but can no longer
01:40:21
have? It was a conversation with with my dad. Um, you know, I told you I came to New York
01:40:31
from San Francisco and uh it was because my dad was getting very old and he was losing his mental facilities.
01:40:39
>> And I'm glad I came back and I got to spend time with him. But those last
01:40:44
times, you know, when I spent time with him, it wasn't really him. And I wish I
01:40:49
could talk to him about his experiences, his younger life, the excitement of building something and then the loss and
01:40:57
regrets he had in in life as well. I never had, you know, my relationship with him was kind of was there was love.
01:41:05
No question about love, but we didn't have the deep kind of conversations that
01:41:10
certainly I'm hoping I get to have with my kids. So, that's a conversation I'd
01:41:14
love to have. And you can't get time back. Uh, and that's one of the tragedies of life, but it's also one of
01:41:20
the beauties of life, you know, which is there are some mistakes that you make that are permanent. Um, and you can't
01:41:26
get that back. But my then making genuine conversations with you and connections with my friends and having a
01:41:36
real relationship not just with my wife and my kids, but actually like with my workmates. you know, we
01:41:44
having those genuine conversations and connections um is my way of correcting for the
01:41:51
conversation I never had with my dad. >> Dra, thank you. >> Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
01:41:59
You're a huge inspiration for me in so many ways and even more so now having
01:42:03
done so much research on you in preparation for this conversation because it is it is rare to find a
01:42:08
leader who has been consistently successful across different domains who's built this really really in my
01:42:12
opinion quite rare skill stack from investing to CFO to then being able to transition to CEO and then has
01:42:18
repeatedly contended with moments of transition and given us all frameworks as founders and entrepreneurs for how to
01:42:23
deal with that transition. One of the great ones I take away from you is is honesty. Yeah, honesty is so powerful.
01:42:29
And I'll tell you, I learned I learned that skill from my wife. She's just she
01:42:34
she's always like people are people. Doesn't matter. You know, they eat, they
01:42:38
crab, they have to go to sleep. And she treats everybody in her life the same way regardless of their position. And
01:42:45
and uh >> like your dad did. >> Uh yeah. Yeah. And she's she's honestly
01:42:51
it's just so powerful. >> Thank you so much. >> You're very welcome.
01:42:55
>> An unbelievable inspiration. Thank you. I appreciate it. >> YouTube have this new crazy algorithm
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