1.

1 Company Background

Uber was created due to company’s founder Garrett Camp and co-founder Travis Kalanick faced
a problem on finding a driver during a snowstorm in Paris. Uber started in 2009 as UberCab and
later renamed as Uber Technologies Inc. (Uber).

Uber initially launched in San Francisco in 2011 and later that year it started expanding to other
US cities. Its first international launch was Paris in 2011, followed by Toronto, London, Sydney,
and Johannesburg.

Uber had about 22,000 workers employed in the organisation as of December 2018 , nearly 91
million active customers and over 3,9 million drivers employed in 63 countries and 700 + cities,
and had annual incomes of around $11.27 billion.

1.2 Uber and AI

In order to compete in the new world market, Uber uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to make their
product more efficient. Estimating Time of Arrivals (ETA) system is one of the example of AI
used by Uber. Appendix A shows how the ETA works in the mobile application.

In order to define price and routing, ETA metrics flow through the user's internal networks. The
fare estimate, the approximate time of arrival and the route the driver takes are shown to
passengers. Uber’s map service team also uses AI models to eliminate and render corrections
based upon the error forecast in their current ETA estimating method.

2.0 Question1
Although Uber is a well-known business but it has also been involved in unethical business
practices.

2.1 Case #1 UBER’s Manager Performed Unethical Behavior or Sexual Harassment

Against Engineer (November 2017)

According to Susan Fowler blog (2017), Susan Fowler was a 26 years old woman who joined
Uber as an engineer back in November 2015. On her blog, Susan said that her new boss sent a
suspicious message about business chat on the first day that she helped to rotate on her new
squad. The manager also told Susan that he sometimes had problems working, so he could not
concentrate on his job, since he was attempting to find a companion with whom to have sex.
Susan figured that Susan's boss obviously wanted to make love with her.
Susan was upset, took screenshots of messages from the manager, and reported the unethical
actions of the manager to the Uber HR department. After reporting her case to the HR and to the
management, Susan was told that they were not going to do much since the boss was at a higher
position so the HR management was hesitant to discipline the boss. Susan eventually chose to
quit her team and moved to a new team. Only a few months of service, it was then discovered
that the other technicians had been harassed and faced sexual assault from their superiors. yThe
other engineers were also overlooked when they told HR managers of the improper conduct.
Susan published a blog in 2017 2 years later the incident that went viral on the Internet.
According to Steven Mintz (2019), Susan sued Uber in the United States Supreme Court on this
case. In response to Susan’s claims 20 senior executives were fired by Uber including the
culprits of this case. (Mintz, 2017).

2.2 Case 2# Woman Who Was Raped by One of the Uber Drivers in India (December 2014)

An Indian Female executive of age 26 claimed that her Uber Driver named Shiv Kumar Yadav
has allegedly raped her on her trip from South Delhi to North Delhi on 5th December 2014. She
booked a ride using Uber application but her driver took her to a secluded area and raped her.
She filed a lawsuit against Uber on her character assassination. The Uber driver acknowledged
that he has sexually assaulted many other women too.

The case highlights policy deficiencies in protection online & offline. The police reported that
the car did not had GPS installed and the driver was not verified. The driver is in judicial
detention. Uber apologized and said they runs a 'complete check' of the driver screening after
seven rapes and pursues an enhanced system.

2.3 Consequences of Uber’s Unethical Business Practice to Stakeholders

The unethical business practices by Uber has affected their stakeholders. In case 1, employees
will be affected first. Susan fowler being the victim in the case was severely affected. After this
case percentage of women employees also decreased drastically. Working environment of the
company was turning to out to be very unfriendly due to which employees were getting very
uncomfortable fowler and other female workers were the ones most affected.
CEO of the company itself faced a great impact even he was forced to resign due to the immense
pressure from people and media. He had no option but to assign another CEO in his place, this
case turned out to be a disaster for him (Bemont, 2017).

Lastly customers had no more trust left in the application after the incident and they all boycotted
the application which brought a serious downfall in the company’s profits and sales.

For case 2, the higher hierarchy being the first stake holder affected was questioned for such
sloppy security and also raised questions on the application being safe at all as it seemed that
there was no proper check of driver’s background. Uber was completely banned in Delhi after
the incident, customers the second stake holders completely boycotted the application as there
were no proper security measures also there was no check and balance of driver’s background.
Victim of this case had her life changed totally she is one of the main stake holders who was not
even aware that one ride will change it all in a blink of an eye. Lastly the driver ruined his life
committing such a serious crime even claimed of committing such crimes before as well.

For both case 1 and 2, the independently contracted drivers would question their loyalty to the
company. Even the potential driver’s wanting to join Uber are driven off by such scandals.

Uber lost its reputation among the industry as a result its rivals became more strong taking
advantage of such scandals. It reviews gone from positive to being extra negative as they were
disappointed seeing how the women’s are treated by the company also they had no more trust in
the company as even the customers were not safe and shifted to other alternatives.