Abstract
As 2016 wound to a close, Uber hardly seemed — from the outside at least — to be speeding toward a major crisis. The ride-hailing startup had expanded to 500 cities in more than 70 countries, and had surpassed more than 2 billion total rides. Venture capital continued to pour in, taking Uber’s valuation past $60 billion. A number of PR and legal woes were in the rear-view mirror. But Chief Technology Officer Thuan Pham had sensed there may be some bumps in the road ahead. Some engineers were complaining that it was becoming harder and harder to get things done. Others were starting to chafe over what they perceived as unfair pay and promotion practices. Pham had a sense that Uber had amassed a high level of both technical as well as organizational and cultural debt. As 2017 dawned, Uber suddenly found itself lurching from one disastrous situation to the next. A new chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, took the wheel in September 2017. Uber’s senior executives began working to get the company back on track, and started looking ahead to an IPO. As they took stock of the many tumultuous months they had just endured, they asked themselves: How could they not let this crisis go to waste? How could they pay down the technical and organizational debt that was bogging down the company? |
Learning Objectives This case introduces the concepts of technical debt and organizational debt. It prompts students to understand how companies like Uber that scale rapidly take shortcuts with both their technology and organizational structure and culture in order to grow quickly. The case asks students to evaluate processes for monitoring this debt and tactics for repaying or managing this debt as it “comes due.” |
Context
Uber, ride-sharing, technology, San Francisco, Silicon Valley
Students
This case was developed for MBA students in the People Operations: From Startup to Scaleup class.
Companies
Uber
Authors
Professor Hayagreeva Rao, Professor Robert I. Sutton, Julie Makinen, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
Case No: HR-46 | Publication Date: August 1, 2018 |
Copyright @ 2018 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, Case Writing Office, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Knight Management Center, 655 Knight Way, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5015.