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Uber drives Travis Kalanick to meditate in the most unusual of places

The thinking goes that people turn to religion during periods of the greatest turmoil and, w...
Newstalk
Newstalk

13.41 8 Jun 2017


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Uber drives Travis Kalanick to...

Uber drives Travis Kalanick to meditate in the most unusual of places

Newstalk
Newstalk

13.41 8 Jun 2017


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The thinking goes that people turn to religion during periods of the greatest turmoil and, while he maybe hasn't found God, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick clearly reckons it's high time he got in touch with his spiritual side.

The CEO of the ridesharing platform has had to weather a storm of bad publicity for the company of late, with his own actions not helping manners after dashcam video of the 40-year-old Californian arguing with an Uber driver leaked.

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He subsequently said he was "ashamed" of his foul-mouthed retort to the driver's concerns about falling prices and announced he was looking for a chief operating officer to help steady the ship.

The waters got choppier this week, as it emerged that Uber had fired more than 20 staff as part of its investigation into claims of sexual harassment. 

The company began an investigation into some 215 employees earlier this year. So far, TechCrunch reports that the investigation has found at least 20 employees were at fault in terms of discriminatory, bullying and other harassing behaviour.

There were also reports yesterday that the company had fired its head of Asian business due to a controversy over his alleged acquisition of a rape victim's medical records. Eric Alexander then allegedly showed the records to Kalanick and Emil Michael, the company's VP of business.

To help Kalanick make better decisions, he's taken the advice of wellbeing evangelist and Uber board member Arianna Huffington (pictured above) and set aside time to get reflective.

The only problem is, he's made such a quick leap into the calming waters of meditation that his offices don't actually have the space that's required...

Speaking to CNBC on Wednesday, Huffington talked about a recent incident she saw as a positive change:

"Literally, it was an amazing moment last week when we were in the office and [Kalanick] said, I really need to go meditate in order to be in a place to make good decisions right now."

Unfortunately, Uber being perhaps the one trendy tech behemoth without meditation rooms, Kalanick was forced "into a lactation room that happened to be open."

"This is part of the change coming," Huffington added, suggested that Uber might be moving towards adding such private spaces to its premises as it attempts to move towards creating an altogether friendlier environment for employees.


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