Liane Hornsey, Uber’s chief human resources officer, said in a statement, “We are totally committed to healing wounds of the past<br />and building a better workplace culture for everyone.”<br />Uber’s aggressive culture began with its 2009 founding, when Mr. Kalanick and another founder, Garrett Camp, created a start-up<br />that would let customers hail a cab with little more than a few taps of their smartphone — bypassing many of the headaches people had with the taxi industry.<br />Inside Uber’s Aggressive, Unrestrained Workplace Culture -<br />SAN FRANCISCO — When new employees join Uber, they are asked to subscribe to 14 core company values, including making bold bets, being “obsessed” with the customer, and “always be hustlin’.” The ride-hailing service particularly emphasizes “meritocracy,” the idea<br />that the best and brightest will rise to the top based on their efforts, even if it means stepping on toes to get there.<br />Mr. Kalanick also held a 90-minute all-hands meeting on Tuesday, during which he<br />and other executives were besieged with dozens of questions and pleas from employees who were aghast at — or strongly identified with — Ms. Fowler’s story and demanded change.<br />Yet the focus on pushing for the best result has also fueled what current<br />and former Uber employees describe as a Hobbesian environment at the company, in which workers are sometimes pitted against one another and where a blind eye is turned to infractions from top performers.<br />In what was described by five attendees as an emotional moment,<br />and according to a video of the meeting reviewed by , Mr. Kalanick apologized to employees for leading the company and the culture to this point.<br />Mr. Kalanick also started putting into place what eventually became Uber’s 14 core values,<br />inspired by the leadership principles at one of the biggest public tech companies, Amazon.
