Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi took on a new persona last September, working as a driver with his own company. Under an initiative called Project Boomerang, ‘Dave K’ takes riders through San Francisco in a newly purchased second hand gray Tesla Model Y. The drivers’ complaints were valid.
“I think the entire industry has, to some degree, taken drivers lightly,” he told The Wall Street Journal during a recent interview.
During his time driving, Khosrowshahi struggled with navigating the platform — from signing up as a driver to getting penalized by the app for declining trips. He saw firsthand instances of ‘tip baiting’ and had to handle the rudeness of some Uber passengers.
In one memorable instance, the CEO found himself ignoring frantic phone calls from his chief legal officer, who were trying to alert him about a hacker who had breached Uber’s network.
Read also: App Alert: Did You Yell at Your Gig Worker?
Uber hired Dara Khosrowshahi, the top boss of Expedia Inc., in 2017. In the ensuing years, the executive has been credited with improving the company’s image, repairing poor relations among investors, and improving finances.
Project Boomerang — the latest experiment in the CEO’s years-long journey to reinvent driving at Uber — faces a number of challenges in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The US economy is set to reopen in 2021 amid a debilitating labor shortage, with ride-hailing companies scrambling to onboard drivers. Uber finally realized that the solution lay in offering bonuses and making some tough changes that drivers had long wanted.
Uber’s ride-share revenue is set to grow more than 100% in 2022, according to consumer receipts analyzed by market-research firm YipitData, with the company posting its first full-year adjusted profit since its founding. Uber’s dominance of the US ride-share market has grown to 74% – an increase from 62% in early 2020.
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