Uber Chapter Two

Uber Chapter Two

Tonight in my ethics course I happen to be doing the session I call “Truth & Lies” and it is meant to focus on issues like whether “Fake It Till You Make It” is ever an acceptable strategy in business. We use the Theranos case study with Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani as the poster children of the issue. It’s an interesting case for many reasons, not the least of which is that its a Silicon Valley high-profile situation involving many high-powered people and lots of money in an era when many regular Americans are leery of what’s going on in tech-land. People are struggling to pay for gas and groceries and buy even modest homes given the big run-up in prices of late. Nowhere is that more in evidence than in the Bay Area where all the Silicon Valley billionaires that spread some crumbs around for their employees has created lots of Silicon Valley millionaires that never dreamed they would have that kind of money. Of course, when they go house shopping within a reasonable commutation radius of their workplace, they quickly realize that those option dollars don’t go anywhere near as far as they thought. Add to that the huge retrenchment this year in tech stocks and those gains may have evaporated just as those house prices peaked and started to come back down to Earth. You can’t win is the thought that comes to my mind and probably to theirs.

This ethics class is taught by my friend Steve, who was a bit of a serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur, or at least Biz Dev and CEO guy who pocketed some of those option gains in days gone by. Steve began life as a theological student, who did what many of us of our era did, which was to move to the “dark side” of business and try to rationalize that if good people didn’t go into business, things would never change. It’s a great talking point, but hard to prove who changes who in that picture. I say this less about Steve, and more about myself since for all I know, Steve wore a priest collar every day he was a Silicon Valley CEO. The point is, I felt he was particularly well-suited to speak to business ethics issues and based on last year’s Theranos discussion, he did not disappoint. And, he has been gracious enough to agree to teach the class again this semester, and that will be tonight.

Between last semester and this semester, I have refined the framework for my ethics course and redefined some of the overarching topics that I find most important to cover in a two-credit course that spans sixteen weeks of a semester and needs to over all three aspects of Law, Policy & Ethics and how they interact in business decision-making. I feel very strongly that I need to do my part to make sure that these students get the opportunity to sit back and think about and perhaps be challenged about these issues in an environment where they can form their views more safely than when they are thrust into the breach at some less than perfect moment in their business or personal life and have to knee-jerk a reaction instead of having the benefit of having to consider some aspects of it in this course. I know there is no way to anticipate what they will encounter, but I think the topics I consider seminal are so fundamental that at least these categories of issue will certainly come up for my students in some way and at some time. Tonight’s topic is called Truth & Lies and I believe that especially because of the political landscape these days, it may be one of the most important we are faced by.

What makes the topic especially robust is that there really are two sides to the debate because it all devolves down to the definition of what is a lie and what is truth, Those should be absolutes, but they are often not. In addition, there is the matter of degree. How serious of a lie matters? How many lies create a pattern that is harmful? The challenge of the debate hinges on the extremes of absolutism versus the slippery slope of how lies compound. Suffice it to say, it is a difficult topic to pin down. However, it may be even more difficult because it has become such a pervasive issue in everyday business dealings. Some say its part of business, some say living has no place in business and needs to be dealt with harshly.

Today I got another first-hand lesson on truth and lies that revolved around my Uber ride from the airport home last night. As a summary, I got in the wrong Black Chevy Suburban for the ride home, while the other rider got into my Black Chevy Suburban trying to get to their home. Neither of us realized the mistake presumably until well into the ride and both of us just decided to continue the ride with the car we were respectively in, figuring we would sort of the billing after we were all home on that late night. It was left last night the way it was with this distinction. I was on the Uber system and the other rider had been billed in advance for his ride, but called and said he had not gotten the service and thus needed to be refunded his ride cost.

This morning I received a ride receipt for $241 fro. Uber for a ride to an address in Carlsbad that is the address of the other rider. Thus, it is clear that he used my Uber ticket to get home while getting his local ride company to refund him his payment to them. Thus, unless he was somehow ALSO billed by Uber (which seems unlikely), he knows that he has not paid for his ride and seems content to have that outcome stand. Meanwhile, I have told the local ride company, who called me today, that I was not paying a second time for a ride I had already OVERPAID for to Uber (My ride should have cost $163 + tip = $196, or $45 less than what I was charged). I spoke with and texted with the owner of the local ride company, a guy who called himself “Mo”. He sounded like a reasonable and educated man who bemoaned the overall screw-up and said that he didn’t blame me for mot wanting to double pay. He asked if I had evidence that I had paid Uber and I said I did and sent it to him. I suggested that since it clearly shows the other rider’s home address (a nice beachfront home valued at about $3MM), he had the basis for demanding payment.

That was when things got murky. While I have thought that the other rider was the lying party here, it occurred to me that Mo might be the liar in the equation. Perhaps he was paid by the client and was just trying to get a second payment. I tested that by suggesting that if he gave me the rider’s number I would call him on the theory that he owed me the difference in the ride price of $45. Mo pushed back forcefully and said he did not want that and that he was prepared to just take the loss. He furthermore told me that he would give me a future ride discount, and then a free ride and finally, two free rides not to contact the client. Me thinks Mo doth protest too much. It has occurred to me that I could drive to Carlsbad and very nicely go to the door of the rider and present him with the facts. This would be without demand, but rather present him/her with the facts and ask how he/she wanted to handle it since Uber does not seem inclined to fix it. Who knows if I will do that or if there is even another chapter to the Uber affair, but it does remind me that lying happens all around us on any given day in big business and small business and that the truth always struggles to be heard.

Sooooo, there is another chapter after all. Today I got a notice from Uber, who I had contacted by text (quite hard to figure out how to do this…and I’m sure they like it that way). They got back to me and told me they were crediting me back for the whole ride amount since it wasn’t my ride. I am now in the position of having ridden for free, just like the dirtbag in Carlsbad. I’m wondering what to do. Do I cal Mo and offer to pay him? Do I suggest my time spent on this is worth the price of the ride? Do I go have a drink with Mr. Carlsbad to toast our great unintended mutual crime? Do I write a tell-all book about how to scam Uber? I have to ponder this one a bit to decide.