With Lyft Nipping at Its Heels, Uber Races Toward IPO
*By Bridgette Webb*
Dara Khosrowshahi marked his first anniversary as Uber's CEO by addressing ride safety on Wednesday at an event in New York City, where he debuted a string of new features. It's the latest in a series of changes the relatively-new chief has introduced after a cascade of PR nightmares that pushed founder CEO Travis Kalanick out the door.
But Andrew Hawkins, transportation reporter for The Verge, said there's still serious work to be done, and chief among those efforts should be plans to stop harassment.
"In terms of Uber's internal culture over the last 12 months or so, there is still issue with harassment, employees feeling that top-level executives aren't responding to issues of racial and gender harassment," Hawkins said Wednesday in an interview on Cheddar.
"It's not clear that \[Khosrowshahi's\] main task of righting the ship, correcting Uber's toxic work culture, has been a 100 percent success."
Among the features Khosrowshahi unveiled Wednesday was an emergency button for drivers in case of an accident and a hands-free way to interact with the app while driving. Drivers in 39 states will also now have the ability to start an insurance claim through the app.
The updates come as the company is prepping for an IPO, which Khosrowshahi said is on track for next year.
Uber recently selected Nelson Chai, who as a former banker and New York Stock Exchange exec is well-versed in the IPO process, as its new CFO. The position had been vacant for almost three years.
Joshua Franklin, private equity and IPO correspondent for Reuters, said it's very likely that Uber will make it to market by its intended goal, but it might not get there before chief U.S. rival Lyft.
"From a Lyft perspective, you can get out front and tell your story. You do get a chance to define the market," Franklin in a separate interview on Cheddar Wednesday.
He added that the criteria for a ride-sharing company's success is still undetermined.
"No one knows what the performance metrics are going to be for ride-sharing," he said. "Someone can come out and say it needs to be dollars per ride or repeat visits per ride, per customer."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/ubers-path-to-an-ipo).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
