Hi. Um care Swisher, Editor at large of Recode. Your listening to Rico decode from the Box Media Podcast Network Today we're gonna play an interview from the 2018 code conference, which I coproduced with Rico's executive editor Peter Kafka. This is an interview I did with Dara Coast, Russia. He the CEO of uber. Let's take a listen the next person to bring out. We have two more great interviews and I just want to say I got this T shirt. I do a podcast called Rico Decode and at the beginning of it, I It's an amazing experience to do. A podcast is the fans are astonishing. I get stopped a lot by fans. Love podcast. I think it's because you're in their ear and they think they know you, which they don't.

But and it's really interesting this Peter came in here and his son spent two weekends making a T shirt at the beginning. The show. I say I'm Cara Swisher. You may know me as, and I make a joke, a joke around things and this kid's butt to his Aiden made a T shirt of all my You may know me as um, and and gave it to me and printed it, which is fantastic and slightly odd. Fantastic. Um and I love it. I was realizing some of them I want to treat it Does it has to do with this next speaker. But I had things like you may know me as the leading cause of heart attacks in Silicon Valley executives. You may know me as the nagging voice inside Silicon Valley's head where its conscience used to be. Um, you may know me as the only person trying to keep Peter Thiel in New Zealand. Oh,

I'm still trying, um, and all kinds of stuff. It's really, really I'm really funny. So so anyway, and that the person who never wants anyone to use the phrase cuddle puddle, which was great, remember that little anyway, so we just use them to do that. But one of the ones I have here, um, is is one. I have a lot of them about uber. I have to say I use it as a joke and a a punch line all the time, And that one,

because you may know me as a brilliant jerk, but not the kind that works at uber. So, um, so without further ado, I want to bring out someone who I've gotten to. Come on. That's funny. It's not always a joke. What's gone on uber has been very serious. And it's a really interesting case for Silicon Valley. And this is its new CEO, Dara Coast. Russia. He, um I've gotten to know him.

I really have a lot of admiration for him and I we're gonna have a great talk about uber and where it's going so dark. Come out here. Thank you. Uh, you're slowly ruining my abilities to make fun of you. Um, yeah, the dumb, nice guy. That's how I think of you. So let's start talking about how you got there at the Christmas party for over this year. You turned all the reporters in the room and tell them what you said.

Um, I said thank

you for my job. Yeah, you did. He did, Which was really lovely. We like that because you liked egomaniacs. So But when you got your job, you didn't think it was part of a really strange process having covered it and stuff like that. You didn't think you got the job, correct?

No, it was It was one of the most bizarre process is out there. And I was kind of Ah, unknown third party. Right on which I think you swore

to figure out who. Yes, I did. I said that it was a man who was not a white man who was a person of my I don't really I don't know what you're but in any case, they were. So I'm still figuring out, you know, but your purge in it said it was not someone you think it was. They gave me all kinds of clues, but I couldn't figure it out. But I had different parts of you and stuff like that. But I did figure you out eventually. But you didn't think

you had the job? No, it was. I mean, I was competing with these headliners. Legends of Business. Jeff Immelt. Meg What? Men. And I was just a guy in Seattle who was running Expedia in my own nest there. And And, you know, the one of the advantages that that I had waas. I love my job. I love what I was doing at Expedia, and at first it was a bit of a lark and, like I'm happy where I am,

I'm doing great. I actually talked with Daniel Ek, who was the next person you have on. I remember conversation over drink with Daniel and Daniel's like Since when is life about being happy like this is about doing something great like this is an important company in your lives, you know? And like, you have to try this. And so when they call me again, I'm like, You know what? What the hell? Let's let's do this. But I didn't take it seriously. First, I didn't sell myself to the company because I wasn't interested in getting a job because I had a great job. I was interested in doing this if I was the right person for so I wasn't particularly like politicking.

And with all the board dynamics going on, I was just like, Hey, this is me. I got my strength like I mean, it says if if I'm the right person for this role, I'm game, Uh, and I thought, there's a very small chance of my getting in on the one person who all along was like, you're gonna get you're gonna get a sip. My wife, she she she and I bet five bucks and she wants, right. She should have been more.

Yeah, when you got it, when you found out you got it.

Arianna Huffington. Call me. Yeah, and And I was ah, uh, shopping for groceries. And she's like, Arianna, I'm sorry, Dara. I have good news and bad news.

Usually I have good news and bad news of Bandidos. Yes. Oh, there she is. I'm really sorry. Yeah, How are you? Exactly?

And usually I'm not the bad news. First, I'm, like,

give you the good news. She said you have the

job. I'm like, Well, what's a band is It's leaked already. So it was that I think you

report it. Yeah. Yeah,

it was a little awkward. I already had a job, but I got this new job and we had to. I put our chairman, Barry Diller at the time the Expedia chairman in a really difficult position, and he handled with aplomb and he was amazing. And we are where we are now.

So let's talk about where we are now. Let's talk about the past when thinking about this job, you had a company that was toxic and a lot of wood, like a very toxic atmosphere. You had Susan and set off Susan Fowler and set off Think, how did you imagine you were going to fix that? You had a founder who was making trouble and continue to make trouble while you were there, and we'll talk about that. But what did you How did you think about when you first came

there? So I split up. I'm an engineer by training. And you The way to take on complex problems is to split meant to component parts on for me. First off and super important was the governments of the company, the governments of the company. You had benchmark and Travis to some extent really battling each other. And it was a battle over the control of the company. So you had, um, people who were focused on control, rather success. And so one focus from he was solved the governance so that you don't have players solving for control, but just thinking about the success of the company. And I think we've gotten there now. Second for me was management culture. Augment the management team,

bring in some Mayan folks Tony West, Barney Harford looking for a CFO now and also re very quickly go after the culture of the company, restate what we think the norms and a culture of uber should be. We brought that we can crowdsource that from from the company itself rather than it being kind of a top down thing. And I think that's starting to work. And, you know, the one norm that we talk about time is do the right thing. And if we start doing the right thing and if we start acting differently eventually the world will notice. And we're not gonna be able to control when the world will notice. Eventually the world will notice because the truth comes out in everything good, bad. And then the third waas is looking, you know, after culture management is thinking about the business strategically setting us up for an i p. O andi really setting up the business so that we can be profitable over

the long time completing investments that you did? Absolutely so when you were, let's talk about the culture, the doctor, culture and Travis were you had to do. He's on the board. Is your big shareholder. Yeah, you got there. And I remember you knew we had lunch, and and I was like, he's gonna do something bad, like, just let me just tell you that. And you're like, Oh, Kara, don't be so negative. And I was like, I'm gonna be I'm gonna I'm right. And so one of the

things That's the part where you say that.

No, but I think you didn't. You did. You understand? Cause I think you okay? I was like, You're an adult. You didn't come from this culture, did you? Did you feel like you have? How did you How did you go into that? Because here's someone who is a hard driving great success. Success. But the methodology was flawed. Deeply flawed. Sure. Listen, it's it's how did you know about dealing with that? Um,

bye. My focus is on making a company succeed. I don't want to get into me versus someone else if I'm completely pure about the success of the company. And don't think about politics, et cetera, um, the rest. I believe we'll take care of itself. And it's a little bit of this, you know, innocent outlook on life. But it's like it's worked for me, right? So,

you know, initially, he then kicked your shins with

the board members. So? So he did. But they're like, two great board members of Ursula and John are great board members. I didn't like how it happened, but instead of like, focusing on how it happened and the fact is, Travis has a right to you. No, Uh uh. Governmental right to bring on those two board members said focus on that. Well, they're actually two great board members. So let me get to know them, and I've got to know them and let me use them to help me build a company that is successful. But it's also successful in the right way. And if I focus on that, the rest will take care of itself.

How did you What is your relationship with him now? Founder relationship is important. I mean, obviously it's highly valued in Silicon Valley probably knows who valued in some ways. Sometimes, sometimes

sometimes, sometimes not. I mean, every every situation is different, and the I think that the founder relationship is complicated and also, frankly, the former CEO relationship is complicated. Um, I'm a former CEO of Expedia. I'm still on the board, Mark. Focus Room has taken over for me. My job is to get the hell out of the way, you know, And and Mark has to make his mark on that company Marcus, to make its mark and which means he's the new CEO. He's going to do things differently and in doing things differently.

Definitional is like do things differently from my choices. So I can't get too personal or offended about that. And I think with Travis in early on, I was like, Listen, I'm gonna need my space and, uh, he did respect that. And once we got rid of the control, the struggle for control, et cetera, my focus is on taking the company forward, and now he's kind of found his thing and he could be an entrepreneur. You can build something. So he's a board member. And just as I informed the entire board, I inform them and we have constructed dialogues. But also I am taking the company in a different direction, and I think he respects that, and I think ultimately you know whether the direction is the right one or the wrong one will be what

you consult with him a

lot. Not a lot, but it's I consult with. I consult with them the way that I consult with the board, and it is a different direction that we're going in in terms of culture. The strategy for us is now broadened in terms of mobility, et cetera. I did bring in a big partner and Softbank, and I'm very happy about that. So, you know, do I consult with him? I consult with him just like I consult with the rest

of the board. Okay. We're gonna take a quick break now from a word from our sponsors will be back with this interview from the code conference after this. Today's show is brought to you by Transferwise. Do you ever need to send money internationally? Sure. Your bank or PayPal can get your money from A to B. But that transfer will cost you more than it should. A lot more. That's the old way of doing things. Let me tell you about the new, smarter and cheaper way to send money internationally. Transferwise Transferwise was founded by two friends, Tablet and Christo who are frustrated by their banks. Bad exchange rates and high fees. They wondered, what if we could bypass the bank's entirely?

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Recode Media with Peter Kafka. Peter, Who'd you talk to this week? Carrot. You know who I talked to this? You were sitting with me on stage when we talk to them. This is our conversation with Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg, who I think you accused of being an autumn Aton robot or feeling this person she has real feelings. Care on. Also CTO Mike Schroepfer. You know, we talked about because you were there if you weren't there, we talked about a lot of things. The main idea was Facebook's sort of acceptance or not acceptance of their responsibility for the entire world. Two billion people, at least it is a long,

wide ranging conversation. I think we did a good job. You be the judge. Sounds great, Peter. You confined recode media on Apple podcast Spotify, Google play music Or ever you listen to your podcasts. Let's talk about what you've been doing now. Besides your delightful I'm sorry video, which is

delightful.

I like, really I

can't thank you. That's what it was. That was that irony

and there were no Haytham. So why you're doing it? Because I see why you're doing it. You

know what? We're doing it because it was very important, for we thought that that our consumers and our target base to know that this is a new uber and were turning over a new leaf. I'm really looking forward to get the heck off TV very, very quickly. But the fact is that we are a different kind of company and our values are different, and the fact that people had a negative viewpoint of the uber of 23 years ago was hurting a brand and hurting her business. And we've got to reverse that. Uh, and so we are putting money in marketing. It's a message that I think is going to resonate, and we're gonna transition into the product itself in some of the steps that we're taking on the product side on safety, etcetera, really, fundamentally reimagining the product and improving our product in a way that I think is pretty responsible.

Let's talk about that product. Let's see what the core product you have to a component sobs of the customers and the drivers. Just recently, your driver issues still continue to be something you have to deal with. Talk about buying long term. Sure, yeah, so talk about that. It's because last time when Travis was here on the stage intervention, he actually, when I asked about self driving, he actually told the truth. He's like the problem with uber's business model is the guy sitting in the front seat. We got to get rid of him, and then it's all gravy for us, like once we get rid of him, it's a great business, which I was like Thank so

God this'll is something that fundamentally disagree with, uh, the face of uber. Is the person sitting in the front seat mostly guys by as she would like to have more women sitting in the front seat as well? Because it's a great form of employment. You know you can You can be here on Boston. You don't need to work full time. That is the face of uber, right. It's it's We build a delightful lap, you can get in and get up. But ultimately, the time that you spend with our service is really the time that you spend with our driver partners. So we have launch. Actually, one of the first product was that we made is launching a new driver app. It was built in concert with the drivers. We actually consulted them they were involved in in building out the app on. We're introducing

a lot of features that there's a lot of still disgruntlement. They don't feel like they're paid enough that they're getting e get email

every day. So we have three million driver partners around the world on and there are some better disgruntled all of them. I think I want to make more money, but fundamentally they get to be their own bosses and they get to work on their own terms. In general, I think driver earnings are going up and we have an increased time and distance in certain places. Uh, and you know,

we challenge then with them. If they feel you know the push pull of the system, not giving them what they need, they obviously don't benefits and

other things that we'll listen in In Europe, we rolled out a insurance feature with Axel, where the driver partners actually do get benefits. If they have accidents, they have insurance. They got maternity paternity benefits, etcetera. So we are actually, we have to build a great service. And actually, I think one of the fundamental growth blockers that we have are we going to be able to have enough driver partners and recruit enough driver? Barner is long term. So one is we're working on the product very, very actively. Two is we are going to work on earnings and maximizing earnings as long as it doesn't fundamentally hurt the price of the product, and that's tough. So,

for example, pool is a product, and we're investing hundreds of millions of dollars in pool in order to get to people into a car. Those two people can pay a much, much lower rate, and the driver doesn't have to take the brunt of the brunt of that. And then we are also looking at benefits. You know, there's this, as you think about the gig, economy and independent workers, et cetera. There's this independent workers there, the second class citizen that all the sun doesn't get access to benefits, health care, et cetera.

Just because they've chosen to work for themselves versus, you know, outsource their career to a company. I think when you think about the future of work, work is gonna be much less about a company than it is going to be about the work itself and so part of what I want to do. We want to do it. Uber is Thio. Think about the independent workers not bullying in second classes. And can we economically buildout benefits packages and insurance so that this this can be a safer way of living while the same time being

your own competition. Four. Drivers starting to get rougher,

rougher Listen, it's It's, I think, that the competition for drivers is, ah, bigger competition within the economic context, because economy is getting better. And, as you know, unemployment rate is at an all time low, so we have to compete against the economy. For drivers, it's not necessarily us versus Left, et cetera. It's our sourcing, just more drivers to come onto the platform. We have to make it more attractive because there are alternatives are becoming

more attractive. Still, talk about the core business I've noticed just in San Francisco, prices going up quite a bit, like talk about because then I now I'm like, I think I'll just walk or I think I'll just It's not quite as like, Wow, it's a good bike. No, I'm taking one of those scooters. Those

things. They're not Scooter Z box. So I do think Tom, time and distance has has come up.

Did you just buy?

You bought one of those things we bought Jump, which he bugs, and a very, very important push for us is Thio innovate to lower costs. In other words, not just take the rates down in order to lower costs, but actually use innovation to lower the cost of getting from point A to B examples of our pool again on we've expert, we have I bought a new product which is go express pool where

you meet at a certain

point, you meet. At a certain point, you may wait so you may walk a block or two. He may get dropped off a box to from where you're going. It allows us to match much, much more efficiently and allows the ride, too. Take less turns so the ride itself becomes much more efficient. And then we are thinking about alternative forms of transport. If you look at jump, the average length of a triple jump is 2.6 miles. That is 30 to 40% of her trips in San Francisco or 2.6 miles or less. Jump is much, much cheaper than taking an uber X, and some extent it's like, Hey,

let's cannibalize ourselves. Let's create a cheaper form of transportation from from A to B and for you to come to uber and who were not just being about about cars and uber not being about what the best solution for us is, but really being about the best bikes, scooters, bikes, perhaps scooters. I want to get the bus network on. I want to get the BART or the metro et cetera on tuber. So anyway, for you to get from point A

to B But you want to start your own Bart. No,

no, no. We we want Thio. We're not gonna go vertical everywhere, just like Amazon sells their party goods. We are going thio also offer their party transportation service is so we want to kind of be the Amazon for transportation And we want to offer the bart as a an alternative company called Musavi that it is connecting Metro etcetera into into payment system. So we want you to be able to like, say, should I think Bart, should I take a bike? Should I take a uber all of it to be real time information, all of it to be optimized for you and all of it to be done with the push

of about any transfer

to any transportation? Totally frictionless,

really eats is also

a growing business for you. Eat is an exploding business in a good way. It's now at a $6 billion bookings run, right growing over 200%. I think we are going to be the largest food delivery business in the world. Ex China. And it is it's taking advantage of our customer base. It's taking advantage of our brand, but also kind of we creative startup within, within the company that can use all of our local infrastructure in all the cities that we're in. And you know, eats is on only 250 cities on a global basis, and they got another 350 to go in order to catch

up to arise. So that's a promising business. These other ones are the ones you're looking for growth because because you all need to keep that fat.

Listen, it's is that the way I think about growth is there's a core Reid's business, which is still growing very, very healthy. We've got rid of that now. Overall, the growth rate of her business, Uh, this last quarter the revenue growth was 67%. The ride's business we haven't disclosed, but you know it's got to be at healthy rates in order for the overall business to be growing in 67% on on a revenue basis, so you got the ride's business eats a scaling. We've got businesses like freight that are going to be bigger businesses 3 to 5 years from now. And this concept of uber as a platform for us, it's something. I think that's very, very exciting. Kind of 5 to 10 years from now.

What about self driving? Nobody thinks you're staying in self driving.

Uh, I don't I don't think we're staying in self driving about nobody. Listen, were for the first thing that we've got to do is we have this incredible tragedy, Uh, and we've got to get back on the road. But we have to be satisfied, absolutely satisfied that we're getting back on the road in the safest manner possible. That's my focus right now. Uh, and we're working with a team to do. So we got panels outside experts former here and be Yeah, Yeah, we close phoenix. Um but we will get back on the road over the summer. Uh, and you know,

I actually think that this focus on really, really getting back on the road in a safe manner as possible. Ultimately, long term is you know, it's this is a difficult circumstance for everyone involved, you know, first the victim and the victim's family. But this is gonna make us a better company. And I think when I think about Autonomous, we want to play in at the technology that we're building is incredible. Ultimately, I think that we're not going to look too owned the technology for ourselves, and we'll license it to third parties will work with O E EMS, etcetera. The autonomous is kind of a horizontal technology that should be available to everybody. So that is something that we will look to you. We will look

to part you still look it. It is an existential threat to your business because a lot of that's her Travis out of

its existential. If we don't have access to the technology,

so what? You have to

make it what is? Well, listen, we have to have access to it, and I think they're going to be many all Thomas players. And that's why I think as a principle we will license out our own technology, and then we'll look to build around other autonomous technology as well. We're neutral. We're you know, we're network company. So if GM builds autonomous technology. You know, I'd welcome Waymo Thio to put cars into our network as well. We want Toby to

a totally new How is your relationship with Waymo? Now?

Get better. Listen, I've, you know, it's it's you build relationships slowly but surely I had a long relationship with the Google and I think we have, ah, trust level. And you know, we're having discussions with Waymo. Something happens Great if not to say about putting them on to our network. I mean, they're they're incredible technology provider out there. They're they're building, you know, they're serious about autonomous. And to the extent that that technology could show up on the network, I think would be a good thing. Now it's up to them whether they want to do it

or not. Right? And what are you using to convince them to do so that this is economics they need to be near The visit

is I think that if you're building the resident autonomous for you to be able to put your cars to have the highest utilization right because it is ultimately gonna be autonomous will be shared. That's fundamental to the technology. If it's shared, you won't have the highest utilization rate possible, and owning or being a part of the largest ride sharing network on a global basis will enable you to get a highest utilization out of your autonomous cars. And ultimately, I don't think it's going to block a while. I think that our network is gonna be a hybrid network for a long time. And there's this kind of as the drama of kind of our machine's gonna replace humans. You have no machines, augment humans. The magic is like machines and humans together or the thing that's better. You see it in manufacturing car manufacturing. You saw, you know, Facebook even talk about when they're looking for hate speech. It's a combination of humans and computers. Computers can't do it alone. Humans can

ski. Oh, machines were committed to staying in the autonomous

Yeah, and ultimately, our network is going to be a machine network and human network together, and I think that's a unique magic that uber can bring.

What about these other things that you were going into the vertical lift and take off Jeff hold on? Just left. He was doing

oh, Jeff Brown and Eric to run, elevate and and I think Eric is an amazing executive to run, elevate, and for us it is about defining the future of mobility for cities. And if three and the issue. The fundamental issue is that 50% of the world's population lives in cities now is going to 2/3 of the world population. The infrastructure, the transportation infrastructure of cities cannot keep up with that kind of growth. So one is you got to be smarter, which goes to sharing cars. Getting away from car ownership, which is pull second, is you need to build out alternative forms of transport nachos cars, which is the bikes that were getting into. And the third is just like residential has gone three dimensional skyscrapers and commercials gone three dimensions. You're gonna have to build 1/3 dimension in terms of transportation and elevate for us is the third dimension that we're taking a big bet on. But it's a long term bet, and we're doing it with a number of partners out there.

We're gonna take another break. The thanks Sponsors who bring this show to you will return to this interview from the code conference after this today's show is brought to you by away travel. They asked thousands of people how they pack, why they travel in what plugs the most about their luggage. Then they made an affordable, high quality suitcase that solves those problems. Choose from a variety of colors and four sizes, including to carry on sizes, each suitcases made with premium German polycarbonate that's unrivaled in strength and impact resistance, but also lightweight. There's a TSA approved combination lock built into the top of the bag, and inside each one there's a removable, washable laundry bag that keeps dirty clothes separate from clean. And here's the really cool part. I am always on my phone, and if it dies when I'm twittering when I'm traveling, which is always then it is a huge hassle for all my giant fans on that medium.

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Too embarrassed to ask. Every week we answer all of your questions about consumer tech in this week's Tech News. This week I talked to Peter Kafka and Casey Newton at the Code conference 2018. What do we talk about? Boys, everything. Everything. Like what? Come on. We talked about all the best speakers who said the most controversial thing. Yeah, What? Kerry said this Cheryl Sandberg offstage. You know, we didn't really say that. I talked about what Evans people really like behind the scenes.

Talk about Evan Spiegel's need shirt. Yeah, people didn't like that shirt was great. Sweater. Okay, All right. In any case, it was a great podcasts, and we talked about all the speakers of co 2018 which was a really great conference, which is just wrapping up. We're recording this from Rancho Palace. Faraday's by the beautiful sea. You confined to embarrassed Ask on Apple podcast Google play music wherever you listen. Podcast. That's too embarrassed to ask. See you there.

All right, last couple questions, and then we'll get to the audience. So I think a lot of people feel that you're just gonna carve up the world that you did. You're getting rid of. You got rid of China that you'll do that in other markets way

we sold in Southeast Asia. Right? Um, we are in a position to win in every market that were in, uh, and part of the reason why we sold in Southeast Asia is one we believe in Grab and Anthony, who runs that business. But we wanted to have enough dry powder to win every Where were you? India. In the Middle East, Africa, etcetera. We are going to be. I believe the winning player in those markets and we're gonna control are

there isn't a lot of ways. The investment yahoo made in China was what made it like. And right now

you're that won't be the path to my

success. Right? Right. Last question. When are you going public?

2019 2nd half of 2019. Right. And we're on track. I need a

CFO. You need a lot. You need some women executives. That would be sort of nice.

That would be definitely kind of nice and working on it. Working on it. It's on honest here, snow. I am, You know, to we talk about on recruiting, et cetera. In order to build a diverse in orderto build a diverse team, you gotta build a diverse slate, and that takes time. But it's not. You can see it, but it actually takes time to find the talent out there and to find divers down out there. And if I'm gonna tell my execs to do it, I've got to do it myself. Right? And so it is taking time. I don't know whether it will be a woman or a man, but I'm gonna make damn sure I look at both.

Yeah, this particular company could use some women executives,

so I agree. You can do it.

We'll make it out of questions from the audience. Right here. Hi. You said Wilson, president and CEO for the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility in Washington, D. C. You've had some some pretty high profile, diverse hires. Tony West, general counsel. You just hired Bo Young Lee as your first chief diversity officer, would operate on Dino. Um um Bozo one ST John's. That your chief marketing officer? Yeah, he's not saying no,

but okay, look, Randolph, sir. Okay, Chief Brand officer. Sorry. My question is is that you know, you hear about a lot of the Silicon Valley CEOs who talkto other CEOs when it comes to issues of diversity. Inclusion? What? What are you hearing when you talk to your fellow colleagues Who are the seals of the other Silicon Valley companies? About what you mentioned is the challenges that you're finding because this morning I asked same question of Randall Stephenson at 18 t Who who? They won't have a problem finding diverse talents. And yet you hear Silicon Valley companies and CEO is mentioning that they're finding challenges finding people of color of that conserve in these high ranking positions. And you found some of what you know. But what's been your your observations.

So, um, I don't have a lot of time to talk to other CEOs in Silicon Valley right now. Just honest answer. And And it goes to two things. One is building a diverse slate so that you you're looking at all kinds of talent both in terms of underrepresented minorities and women as well. You just have to put in the work. I do think that there's too much, but focus on hiring, uh, in non enough of focus on development. I'm a huge believer in talent development. If all you're doing is hiring, then it's like you're trading, you know, with each other, and you're not actually building talent within these companies.

Development takes time. And one of the reasons why I'm really excited to have you on the team is like I'm committed to developing diverse talent at this company. Not gonna happen overnight. Gonna take 5 to 7 years. But then I think that we've succeeded. If we build some real stars of this company over prototype.

Okay, thanks. Sure. Let's keep question sharks. We only have a short amount time. We do have a drone thing going on, so I can't ask three questions. Hey, Dar. Jason Delray from Recode um, question about uber REITs. We talked about, um, believing you'll be the number one food delivery company outside it. With the exception of China,

I think way

are you think you are, um, globally. What is the long term differentiation of that business to consumers? Is it the partner restaurants? Is it just scale? Um, and the second part of that is curious in the U. S. If you think you'll need, um, any acquisition of other brands in the space to strengthen your your

hold here, I think that the magic that we have is the hard core execution and getting the delivery in under 35 minutes and getting in under 35 minutes every single time Thio move. That success factor from like 98% to 99% is incredibly difficult. But I think we have a team that is just really driven to making us as perfect and as fast as possible, and I think it's that simple. And I don't see anyone else as dedicated to just being fast every single time. That's a secret. It seems simple, but it's really hard to execute on.

In the 2nd 2nd question was just acquisitions in the space,

But I think we will be opportunistic. I've done lots of acquisitions in the past. We don't need an acquisition. But listen, this is a big space. There's a lot of growth in it. I think that deliver is going to be a much, much bigger portion of kind of beatings and and consumption going forward. Plan number one is organic and will be opportunistic of their acquisitions out there. We just don't need to do it.

Okay, Quick questions. A dark Congratulations, Chris Peiffer, Sea of hop. As long as we have humans that are driving, I'm just curious because a lot of the safety measures seemed to be aimed at the Ryder. And I'm just curious what you're doing for the driver now that I've got family members and friends that are

drivers. Yeah, so we are. Today, for example, we rolled out a 911 emergency button for riders were doing the same thing for drivers as well. And I think that in general we're trying to get much better at, uh, identifying and raiding our community. And that includes both riders and drivers and flagging unsafe riders. Just as we flag on safe drivers as well. We really are. I believe that it's a competitive differentiation. If we make uber the safest ride sharing platform on Earth for both riders and drivers,

I have one more question. What's thing that scares you the most right now is See you.

What scares me the most is that the company's too dependent on me making decisions. It's it's when when a decision has to come to me, it's a failure because then the team doesn't know what to Dio. I spent enough time on kind of putting my team together. I've spent a little too much I'm doing on. I got to get the team and that team has to get a line so hopefully they can. They can just fly without me.

All right. Darko Stress Rocky Thank you. Thanks for listening to this interview from the Code Conference 2018 will be releasing all of the interviews from this year's event in this podcast feed on Peter Kafka's show Recode Media. If you haven't already be sure to subscribe to Recode meeting with Peter Kafka to hear interviews with people like 21st century Fox CEO James Murdoch, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and Facebook CEO and CTO Cheryl Sandberg and Mike Schlepper. If you have a minute, please leave us a review on apple podcasts until other people about the show. And don't miss my other podcast. Too embarrassed to ask. You confined that show and recode media wherever you listen to Rico. Decode. Thanks for listening to this special episode of Rico Decode. And thanks to our editor, Joel, Robbie and our producer, Eric Johnson, I'll be back here on Wednesday tune and then.