Contempt for rules is catching up with Uber
Uber is facing a perfect storm. Here’s a list of the setbacks and Uber’s reactions to them: 1) A series of non-US court decisions challenging the company’s business model, from a UK tribunal’s ruling that Uber drivers are employees, not independent contractors, to a recent Australian ruling forcing the company to pay value-added tax like the “legacy” taxi services. 2) After Uber chief executive officer Travis Kalanick joined President Donald Trump’s business advisory council and ignored a New York taxi drivers’ strike in response to Trump’s Muslim travel ban, the company was hit with a boycott. 3) Software engineer Susan Fowler described her year at Uber as one marked by sexual harassment and callous treatment by the company’s human resources department, which allegedly retroactively changed her performance assessment for the worse. Technological change may defy certain rules —but there’s nothing inherent in Uber’s largely commoditized technology, used by many other ride-hailing companies throughout the world, that allows the company to challenge every rule it encounters.
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