The Exchanges

Q yours. And so I thought I could, but they did ask to remain anonymous. So, I mean, they're clearly just terrified. Um, so when you mentioned Uber Eats there, and, um, again, I'm not a journalist, and so this is very un-British of me and very unlike me, but your friend asked, Uber Eats, why does Dara think you lost the lead to DoorDash, and what would you do differently?

A Well, I think the first thing that I would tell my anonymous friend Uh, is that we haven't lost a lead. Uber Eats is actually as big as DoorDash on a global basis, and so when we think about Uber, we think globally, right? And we are the global leader along with DoorDash. We're a very, very good company. Uh, and ultimately, I think we can be more profitable because of the platform that we have, because of the, of the breadth that we have in terms of rides and Eats coming together. Now, that's it in the U.S., We made a bet on, on speed, and we made a bet in the urban centers, right? This is Uber. We grew up in the big cities, and so the natural extension of Uber Eats was in the big cities, and the magic of Uber is push a button and a car shows up in five minutes, and so we made a bet on the fastest delivery possible. As it turns out, DoorDash made a bet in the suburbs. They went to Where the market was in the suburban markets have proven to be much, much, uh, larger than I think people expected early on. Kudos to them. And they also made a bet on selection, which is the number of restaurants, right? Selection and speed are to some extent inversely correlated. If I reduce the radii and I get you a delivery in 15 minutes, I probably can't show you as many restaurants as if I allowed, let's say, 30 or 45 minutes. So I think the biases that we had Which is coming from an urban rides…

AI assessment note: “made us early on bet on the wrong thing.”

Q How do you think, though, about focus and prioritization? Because, like, I totally understand that, but almost defending you, You can't just focus on the core and what's working today, and you have to have an eye for the future and alternative markets and products. So how do you think about as a leader, like, that decision between focus on the core today, and then adjacent products and future innovation?

A Well, I think that, and, and by the way, you always want to be expanding the course, so to speak, right? The, the investments of tomorrow then defines where the core is going to be five years from now. And so, For us, those future investments are in places where we believe we have a core skill set or an advantage or a right to win. We built our Uber Eats business essentially organically from a rides business. There are very few companies that have built, uh, organically a second business just as large as, as a base business. And then the Uber Freight business as well, uh, the vast majority growth there has been organic and it's because it went to the core of Of our understanding how to match supply and demand in a real-time basis in a particular city. The extension of that was Uber Eats into a three-sided marketplace, which is either restaurant courier, and then with freight, you know, just like in the olden days when you had to hail a taxi, you had to call a dispatcher. People are still doing that in freight, so we're digitizing that connection as well. Eats and freight are now core, but at the time, They were projects that were outside of core, but they utilized a skill set where, where it was a core skill set that we had, and as a result, they succeeded.

AI assessment note: “those future investments are in places where we believe we have a core skill set”

Q What's the most painful lesson that you've been through, and you're actually quite pleased to have been through because of the lessons?

A I think the biggest one professionally has been the pandemic. You know, we lost, uh, 85% of our volume overnight, and the business was already losing two billion dollars. It was a incredibly important moment for us, and we took some really tough medicine in terms of, uh, selling certain businesses, in terms of significant layoffs for the company, but I think It allowed us to come out lean and mean and focused, uh, allowed the Uber Eats business to really expand in extraordinary way. And I think we're coming out of the pandemic much, much stronger than we were going in. And I think now, especially with tech companies cutting back on spend, et cetera, we learned our lesson of the pandemic. So I think on a relative basis, uh, we've been performing pretty darn well, both top line and bottom line. And we, and we've got to keep that going, but it was a, It was an ugly, tough lesson, but it was a, it was one that I think we've, we've learned from.

AI assessment note: “I think the biggest one professionally has been the pandemic.”

Q putting in the work, Dara, you had an incredible run at Expedia, and I chatted to our mutual friend Daniel Ek before the show, And he said, you know, Dara had this incredible run on Expedia, and then the Uber opportunity came up, and so I, I was wondering, can you take me to that decision? Um, how, what were you thinking, and what was that decision-making process for you?

A Yeah, I actually have Daniel to, to thank or blame, depending on the day, uh, as it relates to introducing me to, to the opportunity. I had been reading about Uber's troubles in the news just as everyone else, and to some extent had been watching in amazement. And Daniel had, I think, pointed the company or headhunter to me, and we were having drinks, and he let me know. He said, Dara, like, did they give you a call? And they had given me a call, and, and my first answer was, hell no. And I was talking to Daniel, I'm like, listen, I've been here for 13 years, I'm having a great time, I'm happy, and I still remember Daniel, like, staring into my eyes with his cold skin and ebbing eyes, and he said, Dara, since when is, Life about happiness. It's about impact. It's about impact, and you can have an impact on Uber, and Uber's a truly important company in our society, and for me, hearing that really flipped a switch. Uh, and by the way, I do want to be happy, and I think happiness is, is important, but everyone that I talk to, all of our employees who are here at Uber are here because we can have an impact, because they believe, and we believe very much, that Uber is a different technology company that the tech that we build shows up in the real world. You know, we've got five million earners earning on our platform. The impact that we can have as a company is enormous, and I was l…

AI assessment note: “he said, Dara, since when is, Life about happiness. It's about impact.”

Q How do you think, though, about focus and prioritization? Because, like, I totally understand that, but almost defending you, You can't just focus on the core and what's working today, and you have to have an eye for the future and alternative markets and products. So how do you think about as a leader, like, that decision between focus on the core today, and then adjacent products and future innovation?

A Well, I think that, and, and by the way, you always want to be expanding the course, so to speak, right? The, the investments of tomorrow then defines where the core is going to be five years from now. And so, For us, those future investments are in places where we believe we have a core skill set or an advantage or a right to win. We built our Uber Eats business essentially organically from a rides business. There are very few companies that have built, uh, organically a second business just as large as, as a base business. And then the Uber Freight business as well, uh, the vast majority growth there has been organic and it's because it went to the core of Of our understanding how to match supply and demand in a real-time basis in a particular city. The extension of that was Uber Eats into a three-sided marketplace, which is either restaurant courier, and then with freight, you know, just like in the olden days when you had to hail a taxi, you had to call a dispatcher. People are still doing that in freight, so we're digitizing that connection as well. Eats and freight are now core, but at the time, They were projects that were outside of core, but they utilized a skill set where, where it was a core skill set that we had, and as a result, they succeeded.

AI assessment note: “those future investments are in places where we believe we have a core skill set”

Q I do have to ask you, you mentioned kind of the globalization. You acquired Kareem. Talk to me about the decision-making process there, and another anonymous friend. In hindsight, are you happy you made the acquisition?

A Yeah, very happy. I mean, for, for me, it was a bet on, um, Medasser and Magnus, who were the founders at Kareem, and they're still with the company. They're incredibly talented entrepreneurs. And Kareem, actually, early on, Was looking to build a mobility business, delivery business, and a payments business in the Middle East. Uh, the Middle East, it's the demographics in the Middle East are great demographics. It's a young demo coming online. And the bet that Kareem was making in this platform, uh, building out a mobility delivery and payments business was something that we can learn from. And the Middle Eastern business for us has been enormously successful and Kareem is absolutely a part of that success.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, very happy. I mean, for, for me, it was a bet on”

Q You mentioned the one-way door, two-way door there. My only pushback would be, or not even pushback, but I had the amazing CMO from Facebook, Alex Schultz, on the show recently. He said, actually, there are so, so few decisions that are actually one-way door. Like, all acquisitions are kind of two-way doors. It's okay. What's a one-way door, do you think?

A I think one way doors be either big mistakes, right? So if you make a big acquisition and that can be fatal for you, right? So size matters in this, in this case, I think a second one is what's the blast radius of the mistake? Does it affect third parties and what's the appetite for those third parties to recover? Let's say from, from that mistake. An example that I'll give you is we've actually slowed down in terms of some of the velocity of features that we ship for our earners, right? So it's, we're iterating constantly as it relates to eaters, riders, et cetera, uh, trying X out or trying Y out. But as it relates to earners, this is how they're making a living. This is how they're earning And we've got to be more careful in terms of earner facing innovation because of the possibility or making mistake. And a mistake for an earner is, hey, they didn't get the, they didn't get paid the way that they thought they were going to get paid. Or you, you've changed something about your pricing or routing algorithms. And many earners, you know, they're on the platform, 20 hours a week, 40 hours a week. So the blast radius, the consequences of those, uh, of the mistake Uh, is bigger, uh, and there are third parties that you really have to take care of. These earners are incredibly valuable, uh, to us. So that, you know, is it a two-way door? Sure it is, but there's a lot of friction i…

AI assessment note: “I think one way doors be either big mistakes, right?”

Q I love that. Um, tell me, my friend, you inherited this, like, bluntly, quite challenged board, a conflicted board. What did you learn in terms of board alignment, board management, from this very unique situation?

A You're absolutely right, which, which was the board There was a giant conflict and a struggle for control of the board. One of the first things that I told the board when, when I became CEO is that I need the board to be about the success of Uber versus control of Uber. And that's going to result in some pretty significant changes on the board. The most important change was bringing in Ron Sugar, who's our chairman. And then we reshaped the board, and I think I was lucky, because with the new CEO, it gave me permission to work with Ron to reshape the board, and the board now is, like, they're all in, it's all about Uber, it's not about control, but I had the opportunity, I had called the stage to make a change, and as a result, we were able to move pretty fast, and I think our board, at this point, is second to none.

AI assessment note: “I need the board to be about the success of Uber versus control of Uber.”

Q My family actually lost everything too when I was younger. For me, when I lost everything, I equated rebuilding with worthiness. When I rebuilt it back, I would be worthy again. The trouble is, Dara, I've kind of rebuilt a little bit of it back now. And I don't really feel that worthiness. How do you think about worthiness and that rebuilding, and whether that's part of it?

A I think for us, there's always been this sense of pursuit of excellence. So I don't think with my family it's about rebuilding or worthiness or money one way or the other, but it's about pursuit of profession. My dad told me, hey, you can be two things. You can either be a doctor or an engineer. Pick one. So there's always this Drive that my parents instilled in us. But for us, being worthy is not about an end state. It's about going all in, putting in the effort, being diligent, working hard, and that's what drives me. If I feel like I put in the hard work, sometimes it's gonna work out, sometimes it doesn't. But if I put in the work, then I'm worthy that day, and then the next day I gotta come back.

AI assessment note: “being worthy is not about an end state. It's about going all in”

Q My family actually lost everything too when I was younger. For me, when I lost everything, I equated rebuilding with worthiness. When I rebuilt it back, I would be worthy again. The trouble is, Dara, I've kind of rebuilt a little bit of it back now. And I don't really feel that worthiness. How do you think about worthiness and that rebuilding, and whether that's part of it?

A I think for us, there's always been this sense of pursuit of excellence. So I don't think with my family it's about rebuilding or worthiness or money one way or the other, but it's about pursuit of profession. My dad told me, hey, you can be two things. You can either be a doctor or an engineer. Pick one. So there's always this Drive that my parents instilled in us. But for us, being worthy is not about an end state. It's about going all in, putting in the effort, being diligent, working hard, and that's what drives me. If I feel like I put in the hard work, sometimes it's gonna work out, sometimes it doesn't. But if I put in the work, then I'm worthy that day, and then the next day I gotta come back.

AI assessment note: “being worthy is not about an end state. It's about going all in”

Q I think it'll be fantastic, but I want to start with something from Ali, actually, because Ali told me about your family in Iran losing everything way back, and I all believe that we're kind of functions of our past, and so I'm really diving in at the deep end, but what would you say you're running from when you think about that?

A God, it's, um, I, I do think that the events of Iran and our family losing everything, and, and we had a huge family, big family business, etc., I don't know if it's something that we're running from, but I think the whole family to some extent is running to rebuild essentially what we lost in Iran. You've got a next generation that is incredibly passionate and ambitious. If you look at, uh, my cousins, Adi and Hadi, et cetera, it's just an example, which is, I think we just have this immigrant chip on our shoulder and we Very much look up to her parents who built this incredible business in Iran. And we all, we all want to do our parts to rebuild again. And I think that's definitely shaped the ambition that my family has. I will tell you that while we lost all of our money in the business, so to speak, that the thing that we never lost was family. And so for me personally, the having the family around us, having that sense of love and belonging and protection, It's something that I treasure, and building that collective and having that shared success, like, for example, in business, for me, is something that really draws me. For me, like, you know, celebrating your success as an individual, it's not nearly as fun as celebrating as a family or a team. So for me, I think family shaped how I look at success, and for me, success is joint success, is shared success.

AI assessment note: “I don't know if it's something that we're running from, but I think”

Q putting in the work, Dara, you had an incredible run at Expedia, and I chatted to our mutual friend Daniel Ek before the show, And he said, you know, Dara had this incredible run on Expedia, and then the Uber opportunity came up, and so I, I was wondering, can you take me to that decision? Um, how, what were you thinking, and what was that decision-making process for you?

A Yeah, I actually have Daniel to, to thank or blame, depending on the day, uh, as it relates to introducing me to, to the opportunity. I had been reading about Uber's troubles in the news just as everyone else, and to some extent had been watching in amazement. And Daniel had, I think, pointed the company or headhunter to me, and we were having drinks, and he let me know. He said, Dara, like, did they give you a call? And they had given me a call, and, and my first answer was, hell no. And I was talking to Daniel, I'm like, listen, I've been here for 13 years, I'm having a great time, I'm happy, and I still remember Daniel, like, staring into my eyes with his cold skin and ebbing eyes, and he said, Dara, since when is, Life about happiness. It's about impact. It's about impact, and you can have an impact on Uber, and Uber's a truly important company in our society, and for me, hearing that really flipped a switch. Uh, and by the way, I do want to be happy, and I think happiness is, is important, but everyone that I talk to, all of our employees who are here at Uber are here because we can have an impact, because they believe, and we believe very much, that Uber is a different technology company that the tech that we build shows up in the real world. You know, we've got five million earners earning on our platform. The impact that we can have as a company is enormous, and I was l…

AI assessment note: “hearing that really flipped a switch”

Q we don't really stick to it, uh, we always, I, for me, when I lost everything, I equated rebuilding with worthiness. When I rebuilt it back, I would be worthy again. The trouble is, Dara, I've kind of rebuilt a little bit of it back now, and I don't really feel that worthiness. How do you think about worthiness and that rebuilding, and whether that's kind of part of it?

A I think for us, there's always been this sense of pursuit of excellence. So I don't think with my family, it's about, you know, rebuilding or worthiness or money one way or the other, but it's about pursuit of profession. You know, my dad told me, Hey, you can, you can be two things. You can either be a doctor or an engineer, pick one. So there's always this drive that, uh, my parents instilled in us, but for us, uh, Being worthy is not about an end state. It's about going all in, putting in the effort, being diligent, working hard, uh, and, and doing the hard work, and that's what drives me. If I, if I feel like I put in the hard work, sometimes it's gonna work out, sometimes it doesn't, uh, but if I put in the work, then I'm worthy that day, and then the next day I gotta come back.

AI assessment note: “Being worthy is not about an end state. It's about going all in”

Q Speaking of that kind of discomfort with going with the crowd, would you say that you're a wartime CEO? Would you say that's your natural preference?

A I think, you know, Expedia was, it was, I was at Expedia for 13 years, and it did feel like wartime. It was a big turnaround, and turnarounds in business are difficult. Turnarounds in technology are harder, and for example, with Expedia, we had to undergo a giant re-platforming of the whole technical platform, so you had to keep the business going, and then rebuild the technical platform, which was pretty tough. Now, it was wartime, Not in the public eye. Uh, and then Uber definitely has, has been wartime. Like it's, it's, it's a wartime every day. Although, although I think we're, we're really getting a handle on the business and I'd say we're winning, but I do feel comfortable in difficult situations. I don't take setbacks too seriously. I just keep pushing. So am I comfortable in wartime? Reasonably.

AI assessment note: “I do feel comfortable in difficult situations... So am I comfortable in wartime? Reasonably.”

Q Speaking of going as hard and fast as you can, how do you define high performance in leadership? You said about kind of leaving nothing on the field before.

A Well, I think ultimately in leadership, high performance is about throughput and output. It's like no excuses. What are the results? And for me, when I think about performance at a senior leadership level, for me, it's sustained results. Like there's no glory in That's short-term glory. If you think about the best CEOs in the world, Jeff Bezos, or, you know, Elon Musk, or Jamie Dimon, their greatness has taken time. So for me, I'm not looking for that bullet high performance in a particular quarter in a year, but to me, high performances sustain excellence over a long period of time. One thing that really stuck with me is that the hallmark of a great CEO is Isn't necessarily how the company did while the CEO was there, but also how the company performed after the CEO left. And so for me, putting a great team together and then sustaining performance over multiple, multiple years in the end is what defines high performance.

AI assessment note: “to me, high performances sustain excellence over a long period of time.”

Q Do you think Wall Street appreciates that willingness to make mistakes and learn? Wall Street is unforgiving, and it doesn't have that iterative mindset, generally speaking. Do you think that's fair?

A I think that's fair. Uh, the translation layer to that decision-making by Wall Street is the financials that you report on a quarterly basis. Does it make sense on a theoretical basis To have more volatility, but up, but more growth. That does make sense on a theoretical basis, but capital allocators hate uncertainty, right? And so the demand of wall street is predictable earnings. Tell me what you're going to do and then do an inch better than, than what you're going to do. And that's just the game that then you have to either be comfortable with or not comfortable with. But if you want to play that game, you've got to play that game effectively. So I think as it relates to mistakes is We always go in with a cushion. And so we, that there's, I, I guess what you, the way I put it is, there's a budget of mistakes that I can make. And I can't kind of overspend on my mistake budget. Uh, and as long as I'm staying within my mistake budget, I'm doing well. And by the way, if I'm not spending my mistake budget, then probably I'm not learning enough. I'm not going fast enough. It's that balance that you got to figure out. And, and it's part of the art of being a bubble company. Some parts of it suck, but some parts of it are really fun.

AI assessment note: “I think that's fair. Uh, the translation layer to that decision-making”

Q Final one before we do a quick fire. Was it hard in terms of like naturally with any change of, you know, leadership, there are kind of the old guard and there is the newer team. Is that tough making that transition elegantly, but also if you don't like it, you know?

A Yeah, definitely. And, and the cool thing about Uber is I think we're, we're now a combination of call the old guard and the new team and, and it's become kind of a new, new team. There's There's really no difference, but literally there's, you know, a ton of my directs who were here way before me, and then some newer managers that, that we brought in. And I think actually in hindsight, the pandemic, like a shared giant crisis really brought us together, uh, as a team. But at the time it was difficult because part of my job was to communicate And, and then act accordingly in a very clear way, a delineation between what we call Uber two dotto versus Uber one dotto. So I had to very publicly talk about how, uh, we were different and how we were changing. We were changing our culture. It's about doing the right thing. Uh, and I do think that was difficult for some of the old guard because not everything about Old Uber was bad. Like they were, it was incredibly entrepreneurial, uh, uh, entrepreneurial company, innovative, very high bar for talent, et cetera. So I think that, that natural conflict was challenging. Ultimately. Now I think we've come together as a company and old guard, new guard, you know, who cares?

AI assessment note: “I do think that was difficult for some of the old guard”

Q What's the most painful lesson that you've been through, and you're actually quite pleased to have been through because of the lessons?

A I think the biggest one professionally has been the pandemic. You know, we lost, uh, 85% of our volume overnight, and the business was already losing two billion dollars. It was a incredibly important moment for us, and we took some really tough medicine in terms of, uh, selling certain businesses, in terms of significant layoffs for the company, but I think It allowed us to come out lean and mean and focused, uh, allowed the Uber Eats business to really expand in extraordinary way. And I think we're coming out of the pandemic much, much stronger than we were going in. And I think now, especially with tech companies cutting back on spend, et cetera, we learned our lesson of the pandemic. So I think on a relative basis, uh, we've been performing pretty darn well, both top line and bottom line. And we, and we've got to keep that going, but it was a, It was an ugly, tough lesson, but it was a, it was one that I think we've, we've learned from.

AI assessment note: “I think the biggest one professionally has been the pandemic.”

Q we don't really stick to it, uh, we always, I, for me, when I lost everything, I equated rebuilding with worthiness. When I rebuilt it back, I would be worthy again. The trouble is, Dara, I've kind of rebuilt a little bit of it back now, and I don't really feel that worthiness. How do you think about worthiness and that rebuilding, and whether that's kind of part of it?

A I think for us, there's always been this sense of pursuit of excellence. So I don't think with my family, it's about, you know, rebuilding or worthiness or money one way or the other, but it's about pursuit of profession. You know, my dad told me, Hey, you can, you can be two things. You can either be a doctor or an engineer, pick one. So there's always this drive that, uh, my parents instilled in us, but for us, uh, Being worthy is not about an end state. It's about going all in, putting in the effort, being diligent, working hard, uh, and, and doing the hard work, and that's what drives me. If I, if I feel like I put in the hard work, sometimes it's gonna work out, sometimes it doesn't, uh, but if I put in the work, then I'm worthy that day, and then the next day I gotta come back.

AI assessment note: “Being worthy is not about an end state. It's about going all in”

Q I think when you have such a big transition, you learn about yourself in many ways. What did you learn about yourself as a leader, as a person, when making the transition from Expedia to Uber?

A You know, Harry, honestly, I haven't had time to think about that. I'm not particularly introspective and it may be a strength. It may be a weakness. Um, I'm here to do a job. Uh, I love it. A friend of mine was asking me, are you having fun? I'm like, no, I'm not having fun. It's too hard, but I love what I'm doing, but we're mid path, you know, and, uh, maybe in another five years, I'll have time to think and learn and kind of be introspective about what I learned about myself. Right now, I'm just learning about the company, about the opportunity, and, and just going, just going as hard and fast as I can.

AI assessment note: “honestly, I haven't had time to think about that. I'm not particularly introspective”

Q Speaking of going as hard and fast as you can, how do you define high performance in leadership? You said about kind of leaving nothing on the field before.

A Well, I think ultimately in leadership, high performance is about throughput and output. It's like no excuses. What are the results? And for me, when I think about performance at a senior leadership level, for me, it's sustained results. Like there's no glory in That's short-term glory. If you think about the best CEOs in the world, Jeff Bezos, or, you know, Elon Musk, or Jamie Dimon, their greatness has taken time. So for me, I'm not looking for that bullet high performance in a particular quarter in a year, but to me, high performances sustain excellence over a long period of time. One thing that really stuck with me is that the hallmark of a great CEO is Isn't necessarily how the company did while the CEO was there, but also how the company performed after the CEO left. And so for me, putting a great team together and then sustaining performance over multiple, multiple years in the end is what defines high performance.

AI assessment note: “in leadership, high performance is about throughput and output. It's like no excuses.”

Q it's sustained over long periods of time with portfolios and duration. A lot of that time people can think you're wrong or crazy in a lot of ways. What do you tell yourself, and I have this a lot, um, in the case of Pakistan I was just crazy, um, but what do you tell yourself when actually you have that criticism, but you believe that you're being patiently right?

A I think you have to have the heart to stick it out as a leader, and you have to Be willing to be misunderstood for a long period of time. Otherwise, it's difficult to leave. I still remember a discussion I had with my former mentor, Barry Diller, my former boss, and, and I was having trouble a little bit because I fundamentally disagree with the decision that the team was making, and Barry said, listen, I didn't bring you here to be average, and so if you're agreeing with your team, and you're doing what is obvious, then essentially you're going to perform a In an average way, your output will be average. As a leader, you have to be willing to kind of bust out of the obvious, do something non-obvious, different, surprising, and then stick to that decision. Obviously live with the consequences of that decision. So I'm quite comfortable with going against the grain. Like if I'm not going against the grain, then I don't think I'm doing my job and I think I'm missing something. The minute that the whole market believes in one trend, that's when I think to myself, there's something wrong here. There's, there's group kind of thing going on. How can I either avoid group think or how can I take advantage of it? What's the opportunity here for me? So I'm just, I, I actually, if I agree with everyone, it makes me distinctly uncomfortable.

AI assessment note: “you have to Be willing to be misunderstood for a long period of time”

Q And speaking of making the right short-term versus long-term call, and how to balance it, often it's said that the best CEOs are the best capital allocators. Do you agree with that statement?

A I think from a long-term basis, yes. You know, from a short-term basis, you've got to earn the right to invest your capital. Uh, so if, if you insert capital with resource allocator, I absolutely agree with that, right? It's up to you to decide, uh, where to allocate your resources, where to make bets, where to pull back, et cetera. And then tactically, you've got to earn the right to then allocate capital over the long-term. So, uh, over a 10, 15 year period, Capital allocation becomes really important, but tactical resource allocation and finding the right team to actually execute on those plans, that I think short-term is incredibly important. You got to take care of the short-term to earn your, to earn the long-term, so to speak.

AI assessment note: “I think from a long-term basis, yes.”

Q Do you think Wall Street appreciates that willingness to make mistakes and learn? Wall Street is unforgiving, and it doesn't have that iterative mindset, generally speaking. Do you think that's fair?

A I think that's fair. Uh, the translation layer to that decision-making by Wall Street is the financials that you report on a quarterly basis. Does it make sense on a theoretical basis To have more volatility, but up, but more growth. That does make sense on a theoretical basis, but capital allocators hate uncertainty, right? And so the demand of wall street is predictable earnings. Tell me what you're going to do and then do an inch better than, than what you're going to do. And that's just the game that then you have to either be comfortable with or not comfortable with. But if you want to play that game, you've got to play that game effectively. So I think as it relates to mistakes is We always go in with a cushion. And so we, that there's, I, I guess what you, the way I put it is, there's a budget of mistakes that I can make. And I can't kind of overspend on my mistake budget. Uh, and as long as I'm staying within my mistake budget, I'm doing well. And by the way, if I'm not spending my mistake budget, then probably I'm not learning enough. I'm not going fast enough. It's that balance that you got to figure out. And, and it's part of the art of being a bubble company. Some parts of it suck, but some parts of it are really fun.

AI assessment note: “I think that's fair. Uh, the translation layer to that decision-making”

Q Final one before we do a quick fire. Was it hard in terms of like naturally with any change of, you know, leadership, there are kind of the old guard and there is the newer team. Is that tough making that transition elegantly, but also if you don't like it, you know?

A Yeah, definitely. And, and the cool thing about Uber is I think we're, we're now a combination of call the old guard and the new team and, and it's become kind of a new, new team. There's There's really no difference, but literally there's, you know, a ton of my directs who were here way before me, and then some newer managers that, that we brought in. And I think actually in hindsight, the pandemic, like a shared giant crisis really brought us together, uh, as a team. But at the time it was difficult because part of my job was to communicate And, and then act accordingly in a very clear way, a delineation between what we call Uber two dotto versus Uber one dotto. So I had to very publicly talk about how, uh, we were different and how we were changing. We were changing our culture. It's about doing the right thing. Uh, and I do think that was difficult for some of the old guard because not everything about Old Uber was bad. Like they were, it was incredibly entrepreneurial, uh, uh, entrepreneurial company, innovative, very high bar for talent, et cetera. So I think that, that natural conflict was challenging. Ultimately. Now I think we've come together as a company and old guard, new guard, you know, who cares?

AI assessment note: “at the time it was difficult because part of my job was to communicate”

Q How did Barry Diller influence you as a leader? What a hero.

A Oh, uh, in every way. In every way. He's, he's been my I, I worked for him for over 20 years. Uh, I think that I'm here because of him, because of the shots that he took, because he, the opportunities that he gave me. Uh, and, and I think what's extraordinary about Barry is, despite all of his accomplishments, he is still unbelievably curious. He, he has a thirst for knowledge that I have not seen, you know, I've never seen, but also, as, as you get older, you kind of think you figure it out. I think if he has Barry, he's like, I haven't figured anything out. I'm still going. Uh, and that curiosity and that drive is, is pretty extraordinary, and it's definitely shaped me.

AI assessment note: “and that curiosity and that drive is, is pretty extraordinary, and it's definitely shaped me.”

Q yours. And so I thought I could, but they did ask to remain anonymous. So, I mean, they're clearly just terrified. Um, so when you mentioned Uber Eats there, and, um, again, I'm not a journalist, and so this is very un-British of me and very unlike me, but your friend asked, Uber Eats, why does Dara think you lost the lead to DoorDash, and what would you do differently?

A Well, I think the first thing that I would tell my anonymous friend Uh, is that we haven't lost a lead. Uber Eats is actually as big as DoorDash on a global basis, and so when we think about Uber, we think globally, right? And we are the global leader along with DoorDash. We're a very, very good company. Uh, and ultimately, I think we can be more profitable because of the platform that we have, because of the, of the breadth that we have in terms of rides and Eats coming together. Now, that's it in the U.S., We made a bet on, on speed, and we made a bet in the urban centers, right? This is Uber. We grew up in the big cities, and so the natural extension of Uber Eats was in the big cities, and the magic of Uber is push a button and a car shows up in five minutes, and so we made a bet on the fastest delivery possible. As it turns out, DoorDash made a bet in the suburbs. They went to Where the market was in the suburban markets have proven to be much, much, uh, larger than I think people expected early on. Kudos to them. And they also made a bet on selection, which is the number of restaurants, right? Selection and speed are to some extent inversely correlated. If I reduce the radii and I get you a delivery in 15 minutes, I probably can't show you as many restaurants as if I allowed, let's say, 30 or 45 minutes. So I think the biases that we had Which is coming from an urban rides…

AI assessment note: “biases that we had... made us early on bet on the wrong thing.”

Q And speaking of making the right short-term versus long-term call, and how to balance it, often it's said that the best CEOs are the best capital allocators. Do you agree with that statement?

A I think from a long-term basis, yes. You know, from a short-term basis, you've got to earn the right to invest your capital. Uh, so if, if you insert capital with resource allocator, I absolutely agree with that, right? It's up to you to decide, uh, where to allocate your resources, where to make bets, where to pull back, et cetera. And then tactically, you've got to earn the right to then allocate capital over the long-term. So, uh, over a 10, 15 year period, Capital allocation becomes really important, but tactical resource allocation and finding the right team to actually execute on those plans, that I think short-term is incredibly important. You got to take care of the short-term to earn your, to earn the long-term, so to speak.

AI assessment note: “I think from a long-term basis, yes.”

Q it's sustained over long periods of time with portfolios and duration. A lot of that time people can think you're wrong or crazy in a lot of ways. What do you tell yourself, and I have this a lot, um, in the case of Pakistan I was just crazy, um, but what do you tell yourself when actually you have that criticism, but you believe that you're being patiently right?

A I think you have to have the heart to stick it out as a leader, and you have to Be willing to be misunderstood for a long period of time. Otherwise, it's difficult to leave. I still remember a discussion I had with my former mentor, Barry Diller, my former boss, and, and I was having trouble a little bit because I fundamentally disagree with the decision that the team was making, and Barry said, listen, I didn't bring you here to be average, and so if you're agreeing with your team, and you're doing what is obvious, then essentially you're going to perform a In an average way, your output will be average. As a leader, you have to be willing to kind of bust out of the obvious, do something non-obvious, different, surprising, and then stick to that decision. Obviously live with the consequences of that decision. So I'm quite comfortable with going against the grain. Like if I'm not going against the grain, then I don't think I'm doing my job and I think I'm missing something. The minute that the whole market believes in one trend, that's when I think to myself, there's something wrong here. There's, there's group kind of thing going on. How can I either avoid group think or how can I take advantage of it? What's the opportunity here for me? So I'm just, I, I actually, if I agree with everyone, it makes me distinctly uncomfortable.

AI assessment note: “you have to Be willing to be misunderstood for a long period of time.”

Q I love that. Um, tell me, my friend, you inherited this, like, bluntly, quite challenged board, a conflicted board. What did you learn in terms of board alignment, board management, from this very unique situation?

A You're absolutely right, which, which was the board There was a giant conflict and a struggle for control of the board. One of the first things that I told the board when, when I became CEO is that I need the board to be about the success of Uber versus control of Uber. And that's going to result in some pretty significant changes on the board. The most important change was bringing in Ron Sugar, who's our chairman. And then we reshaped the board, and I think I was lucky, because with the new CEO, it gave me permission to work with Ron to reshape the board, and the board now is, like, they're all in, it's all about Uber, it's not about control, but I had the opportunity, I had called the stage to make a change, and as a result, we were able to move pretty fast, and I think our board, at this point, is second to none.

AI assessment note: “I need the board to be about the success of Uber versus control of Uber.”