After some soul searching, I decided to remove this post. If you are looking to find out more about Uber’s culture please read an amazing post by Susan J. Fowler Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber .
P.S. Are you hiring? My good friend is looking for work.
Well written and even tempered. Thanks!
How can you be libertarian and judge their sexism negatively? They can do whatever they want to do!
If you are referring to me, I am not libertarian. I am not affiliated with any political party.
“I felt kind of bad that I was not able to tip the guy after asking all those personal question, but I shrugged it off and proceeded to hurry up to my interview.”
you can always tip in cash, you know.
I was 100% sure that there will be a tip option in the app, which I find less socially awkward than giving cash.
Have I known app didn’t support that, I would absolutely have tipped him in cash.
I’m actually impressed they called you back to say they weren’t interested. Very rare these days.
Brilliant – super fast blogging
Thanks for the insight! I keep hearing more and more stories like these from different tech startups even over here in Europe. There seems to be a the unhealthy idea of “improving the world” or “making it a better place” by pushing out crappily designed software under not-acceptable working conditions for the employees with the sole goal to reduce time to market and maximize profit. The really bad part is that companies try to sort of sell this to possible employees (mostly young students) by perks like parties, weekend activities or even the stock market options in exchange for less pay (and frequent reades of HN know what that actually gives you in return…).
Sorry I like that Uber does not have a tip option. I’m not as rich as you.
^ Troll response.
If the app would have a 10% or 20% option for tips, then your $10 journey would cost you $11 or $12 depending on how you feel. You don’t need to be rich for that. If you can’t afford to tip a dollar, then you can’t afford to use Uber, because a private taxi (= Uber) is not exactly the first option to travel. You can always cycle, walk, take a bus/train, etc. if the additional $1 is too much.
This attitude that you’re not rich enough to leave a tip for a service oriented job is based purely on your won poverty consciousness, a bit of greed on your part and lack of gratitude.
You know if you really wanted, you could tip the driver with actual cash?
I absolutely would have, have I known that there will be no option to do that through the app.
You know if you walk into a taxi with the expectation that something like tipping would be part of the app, then you might not have walked extra to the bank or an atm to take out cash just to have some extra change just in case you like your Uber driver and want to tip him. That is a massive hassle and if you have to go through that pain every time you take an Uber then might as well skip Uber and go with a regular taxi, because there’s no benefit in Uber anymore.
Thanks for writing this. Almost everything you mentioned turned you off Uber, is actually a positive to me. I strongly love their libertarian attitude, and we need more SV startups like Uber.
However, the sexism issue I read today is incredibly disturbing. Unless they take drastic measures to get rid of sexist practices I cannot recommend anyone to work for them.
Wise decision.
I am personally saddened more engineers aren’t concerned enough about Uber’s well known, unethical and many times illegal practices to avoid working for them.
One person I read said an employee can do good work even at a company they know is unethical. Flabbergasted.