69: Climate Action is a Team Sport with Uber's Dara Khosrowshahi
Full Transcript
Transcript generated by AI. While we aim for accuracy, errors may still occur. Please refer to the episode’s audio for the definitive version
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Hello and welcome to Outrage and Optimism. I'm Tom Rivett-Carnac.
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Christiana Figueres: I'm Christiana Figueres.
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Paul Dickinson: And I'm Paul Dickinson.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: This week, we talk about wildfires, climate risks to the finance system and the global push for clean air. Plus we speak to Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of Uber, and we have music from Emmanuel Jal. Thanks for being here. So we often start this podcast with kind of an update as to how we're all doing, but I kind of feel this week we have to dive in because there's something happening that to me feels so consequential and really so upsetting. I don't know if you have had a Zoom call with a friend in San Francisco recently, but it is just astonishing the colour of the sky in that part of California. Orange sky. I mean, the state is burning. So I was looking into this today, and by this time in 2019 118,000 acres had burned. We do know it's a seasonal phenomenon, but we also know that it's getting worse. This year, just shy of 2.3 million acres has burned. It's the worst wildfire in California's history. A thousand acres are being consumed every 30 minutes, and there is a plume of smoke, 1200 miles long, that's visible from space. In the course of the time that we've done this podcast, occasionally these things come up, right? The Amazon burning, and then Australia burning, and now California, but it's not just California at the moment. If you look around, there's also major wildfires going on in Greece, where the world's largest refugee camp was consumed, in Brazil, in Argentina, in Bulgaria, in Indonesia. This just feels catastrophic.
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Paul Dickinson: We've got no way of holding it, and keeping it in our minds, and keeping it present. It's like a fireworks display. This incredible thing happens, and then it's kind of gone, and then the next one happens. Christiana, how can we hold this in our minds, so we can use it?
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Christiana Figueres: Well, first of all, with a lot of difficulty. But, yeah, let's visualize those skies and that plume, but let's begin to think about the impacts. First, the human impacts. So, we have friends whose home burned down completely, and they had to go and live with other friends while they figure out what to do. Lucky that they have friends who can host them. But the human misery of everything that has been lost there, not just property value, but, you know, memories, photographs, things that will never be able to return, in addition to property value. And I'm not sure, I haven't seen any deaths registered. Tom, have you seen that in your data? I don't think so.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I don't think there's so much clarity on that yet, yeah.
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Christiana Figueres: Well, let's hope that that stays that way. So, there's the human impact, then there is the biodiversity impact. Yes, fires are natural and cyclical, and there are actually even some trees, the sequoias, for example, that need fires in order to propagate, but not to this extent, not to this extent.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: And that was the thing that built in Australia, do you remember? There was the wildfires. Then later we realized just the scale of the biodiversity loss.
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Christiana Figueres: The scale of the biodiversity loss, which hasn't even begun to be assessed in California. But then those are just, you know, the immediate impacts. But we should also think about, and so what is happening long-term? How are these temperature increases, these fires contributing to more desertification, and how is that contributing? It's a compounding problem that the increase of heat dries the forest, makes it more kindlewood for larger fires, that brings more heat, that changes the water content of the soil, that leads to desertification, on and on and on, right? These processes don't stand alone in silos. They have huge ramifications for humans, for biodiversity and for the ecosystem itself. And, you know, somehow we tend to forget about that. We tend to go, oh, okay, well, there is fires here now and there were in Australia. But what about all of... Can we connect the dots is what I'm saying. Let's connect the dots. Because this is... It's terrible and it is only a small evidence of everything that is going on that doesn't get into the daily press.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah. And what's interesting about that connecting the dots piece is, you know, for years, as we've known this is coming, right? This is not an unexpected phenomenon that we get to this point with these wildfires. I mean, it's been predicted by scientists for a long time that this will get worse. And there was always kind of a tendency in the climate movement, the environmental movement, to have some kind of thought or assumption that, when it really begins to hit, then we'll realise how bad it is and then we'll change. But what's it... And we've had guests on the podcast, I remember, who've said that. Tom Friedman said that a while ago, and he really thought that that would... that dynamic would work. But it's interesting that while these wildfires are playing out, in other parts of the world, the Trump administration is trying to make incorporating climate risks into pension asset allocation illegal. And Priti Patel, the Home Secretary in the UK, is trying to make Extinction Rebellion a terrorist group. So actually, we're entering kind of a much more complicated world where it's not always that you go from risk straight to action. It enters this much more fluid, complex series of events. Let's put a bit of...
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Paul Dickinson: Sorry, Christiana, a tiny thing.
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Christiana Figueres: Go ahead, Paul.
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Paul Dickinson: A tiny bit of context really is also this week, the WWF Living Planet Report coming out saying, you know, we've lost 68% of mammal burden amphibian species, you know, in just 50 years. So there's that background noise as well. But so it complicates things. Sorry, Christiana.
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Christiana Figueres: Yeah, I was just going to react to Tom's very important comment, but also say, Tom, I thought you were going to take us to a different place. I thought you were going to remark on the fact that these fires are becoming so frequent and so intense that we're beginning to normalize them in our experience. Yeah, that's true too. You know, it's very much the frog in the boiling water phenomenon. If you drop the frog into boiling water immediately, it will notice the difference and jump out. But if you drop a frog, by the way, my favorite animals, so I hate even using this example, but if you drop a frog into cold water and you heat it slowly, it normalizes the experience and the frog will sadly not notice. And that's what's happening to us, right? We, all of these experiences are becoming, I mean, abominably a normal part of our daily news. And so we just, our reaction is, oh, okay, well, now the fires are in California. They used to be in Australia. Now they're not. Oh, yeah, I remember they were also in Siberia. It's like, wait, stop.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah.
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Christiana Figueres: This is not normal.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah.
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Christiana Figueres: But we have, to a certain extent, or actually to a large extent even, we've normalized these extreme, extreme abnormal weather events.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Totally. And one of the ways in which we get broken out of that, to a certain degree, is by different types of analysis that can act as a mirror and reflect back to us what's happening. Actually, there was a really interesting piece this week. I know you saw it from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. And this is kind of unusual because it looks specifically at the systemic risks to the US financial system under climate change. And it basically says that we're heading to a world in which the US financial system is not going to be supportable in a scenario where climate change impacts begin to accelerate. What did you guys make of that report?
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Christiana Figueres: Yeah, can I quote that? Because it's just an amazing sentence. A world wracked by frequent and devastating shocks from climate change cannot sustain the fundamental conditions supporting the US financial system. I mean, whoa! Whoa, right? But then, you know, further down, the authors themselves say that they know that this is not going to be taken seriously by the Trump administration. I mean, it's just amazing, right? A report that actually, in and of itself, reports that it's not going to be taken seriously by those who commission the report. It's just mind boggling.
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Paul Dickinson: OK, so here's the thing. I think we have to recognise the Trump administration is, in some regard, a sort of aggregation of lobbyists against taking action that we all know that we desperately need taken. This report is a brilliant report. Its number one recommendation is the United States should establish a price on carbon. Now, I just want to make a tiny little point here because I've been studying politics all my life and I've been studying corporations all my life and I've been trying to find out what's the thing about governments and corporations. And here's the thing. Do you know what's really ruling the world? Is it governments? Is it corporations? What's ruling the world is technology. Technology is changing our world at incredible speed and then corporations and investors kind of sit in the middle of it and governments are kind of at the back of the bus being driven around. But when we have a carbon price, governments can reach forward to the front of the bus and they can steer the direction of technology. And that is my thesis for the day.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I like it. And in fact, being at the back of the bus and being driven around pretty much describes the experience that I would say every person I've ever spoken to in government feels they're experiencing. So I think that's probably pretty accurate in terms of what it feels like to be in government. Now, it's kind of ironic that this week when these terrible wildfires have been happening around the world, that we have also seen the first international day of clean air for blue skies. And that's kind of ironic, of course, because of the terrible sky scape that's happening in California at the moment. But it's also interesting and important because, of course, the air pollution issue is one that draws many more people into the climate change debate sometimes than climate change itself does. The Secretary General of the UN made a point on that day that nine out of every ten people on earth breathe unclean air. So 92% of the world's population live in places with air above the World Health Organisation guidelines. So it really feels like a kind of critical moment for us to focus on this. Do you guys think this has the potential to draw more people into this discussion?
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Christiana Figueres: Well, as we know, we've been working on that on that angle because it's so much easier for, especially for adults, which are increasingly scarce these days, for adults to understand the impact of air pollution on their children rather than the impact of climate change on their children, right? It's just much more immediate. They take their children to the hospital because of acute asthma attacks, etc. And so, it's more immediate and it is being caused basically by the same sources. So, yes, definitely a lever there, a very interesting overlap, and nowhere better than in India, where if you live in New Delhi, you are statistically known to live six years less than anyone else, anywhere else in the world because of the air pollution. And India is one of the countries that has actually taken a leadership in trying to clean up that air and moving over their vehicles to electric vehicles. Now, which vehicles are we talking about? Two-wheelers, because about 80% of all of the vehicles in India are two-wheelers. But very interesting push there, which is a public-private effort to transition those two-wheelers from loud polluting motorcycles to much more silent and less polluting motorcycles.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Which is going to transform quality of life in those cities apart from anything else. Completely.
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Christiana Figueres: It doesn't make the streets any less crazy. You're still committing suicide if you want to cross the streets. But at least the air is clean while you cross.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I do remember being with you in Beijing, actually, Christiana, and being at one of those traffic lights where all the two-wheelers are. And then they all head off completely silently. It's amazing, actually, to see that.
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Christiana Figueres: Yes, yes, yes.
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Paul Dickinson: I know. I mean, you know, who cannot love electric vehicles? Who cannot love renewable energy? Zero emissions. Fantastic. And also, who can't love Zoom that we're doing now? Let's just remember that, you know, one of the things that have come out of the pandemic that is big for me personally is this massive increase in video communication, which I love for 24 years, as you all know. And to what degree? And there's actually going to be a podcast miniseries.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: A teenage crush is how you've described your feeling about video conversation.
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Paul Dickinson: Where I interview myself endlessly on video in a kind of... And Clay's got special technology, so there's no feedback. But the point being that, you know, we've got... Just look at the tech stocks. You know, the companies are like Microsoft have got... Apple have got just insane valuations at the moment. So we are recognising, I think, that there's a move for permanent digital solutions to many of these problems. So renewable energy, digitisation of what previously was physical. It could be an exciting new world with more localisation, more renewable use of energy and also just products and services. But what we need is massive companies with incredible technology platforms who would be able to reimagine everything. I have no idea who or, you know...
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Christiana Figueres: Who could that be for example? Who would have a little example?
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Who could that be?
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Paul Dickinson: I'm stuck, I'm stuck. Now we should turn to that.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I mean, you know, it's very exciting to have Uber on the speaker. Obviously, they have been, you know, at the cutting edge of this and not without the controversies, right, as we'll get into with Dara as well. So let's turn to that conversation because you're right, that combination of transformation of transportation, electric vehicles, renewable energy, etc. Uber are really placing themselves at the heart of that now. So Dara Khosrowshahi is the CEO of Uber, a position he's held since 2017. He's an Iranian-American and his family escaped at the beginning of the Iranian Revolution and came to the US. He's had a long and distinguished career, first in finance and then later as the CEO of Expedia. His arrival at Uber was very much as a candidate who was coming to turn things around, succeeding the controversial founder, Travis Kalanick, and he took Uber public in 2019 and has now made, as we're going to talk to him about, this kind of remarkable series of climate announcements to be zero carbon across all Uber rides by 2040 with some very compelling markers along the way. So let's talk to him and then we'll come back together afterwards and reflect on what we heard. I can't wait.
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Christiana Figueres: Dara, thank you so much for taking some minutes out of your absolutely crazy days these days to join us here on Outrage and Optimism. And let me say that we are ecstatic about your recent climate announcement, and we will get to that to a minute, but in the spirit of delayed gratification, which is the proof of adulthood, we wanted to ask you something before we get to your recent announcement and let you look back a little bit at all your three years with Uber, because it is our understanding, but happy to be corrected, that you were brought in to Uber because Uber was having quite a nice little collection of issues there in public perception and treatment of your people, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And you were brought in as the visionary, the determined person, to do what we would call Uber 2.0, in addition to the fact that Uber has just completely disrupted the entire transportation industry. But you were brought on to disrupt the disruption. And so my question to you is, three years hence, where do you feel you are in your vision of the Uber that you would like to see? Where are you in public perception? Where are you in performance? What is your self-assessment with respect to, not necessarily where you were, but where you want to go?
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): Well, thank you very much for having me on and for starting such a simple question.
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Christiana Figueres: Yeah, just to warm you up, that's all.
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): Yeah, exactly, exactly. It was, listen, I knew when I was coming to Uber that it was going to be a challenge, it was going to be a turnaround, truly, truly great company. And with the culture to some extent, the culture of growth at all costs, allowing it to be this disruptor, but I think the company went from disruptor to incumbent and didn't recognise that all of a sudden it was incumbent. And when you do become the incumbent and have power and have four to five million drivers, for example, using your platform to earn, you have to understand that there are responsibilities that come to that, there are responsibilities in terms of how you act, how you communicate, how you take the input, not just based on what can, what's the best optimisation for your shareholders, but also taking input from governments, taking input from stakeholders, from your employees, how you should act, not just what you should do, and making decisions in a more considered way. And so Uber 2.0 is really Uber 1.5. We wanted to take the best of the innovation that has driven this revolution in the transportation business and make it something different but not lose what made Uber special. There's so much to do. I think the culture of the company has been reset. I think, as you can see with our pledge now, we are taking responsibility, not just for business but for the environment, for governments, for the places, for the cities in which we operate. But there's so much to do and really, for me, the next three years are about taking our transportation business that was about cars and really transforming it to be about movement from point A to point B in a city for people. Uber was about cars. Like push a button and a car would show up. Uber is got to be about people. It's got to be how do I get from one point to another point in the city and a car may be the best solution and e-bike may be the best solution. Maybe I should take a bus, maybe I should take a train, maybe I should walk. Our ability to make that decision based on real-time data on what's going on in the city, what the prices are, what your alternatives are, and what you're solving for. You may be solving for time sometimes, you may be solving for price sometimes, you might be solving for the environment sometimes, and we really want to lay that out for you. Then we've got this different business that we've grown from almost nothing, this food delivery business, UberEats, which is the largest food delivery on a global basis in the world outside of China. It's at a $30-plus billion run right now, and we're moving from food delivery-
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Christiana Figueres: Doing badly during COVID, I should say. Doing quite well during COVID. You must have known this was coming, Dara.
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Paul Dickinson: Thank you for feeding us, Dara.
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): Sometimes you're better lucky than good. And the transformation that we're trying to drive with food is really moving from just food to local commerce. And so that anywhere you want to go to in your city or anything that you want brought to you, whether that's food or groceries or pharmacy, we can bring to you, and Uber can figure out how to do it most effectively on a real time basis, on demand, anytime you want. So that's the vision, and we got a lot of work to do to get there.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: So I want to ask you about the commitment you just made and the impact of that and the systemic impact of that, which is where it's so important. But one of the interesting things about Uber is you're trying to transform, your commitment isn't necessarily your company, it's also this network of drivers and the relationship you have with them, which is kind of a new thing in a relationship between a company and those who provide a service on that platform. And that's also one of the things that you have kind of got a task which is partly done and has road to run in terms of what that looks like in the 21st century. And at the core of this commitment, you have a partnership with drivers of providing money to help them transition their vehicles. Can you just briefly set that out for us and also explain why you think what you've done there will be enough to really achieve what you want to achieve?
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): Yeah, absolutely. So the commitment that we've made is that by 2030 in the US, Canada and Europe, our fleets will be essentially emission free or all electric. And by 2040, we want to be as such on a global basis, everywhere that we operate.
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Christiana Figueres: Wait, this is the moment for the big hurrah, Dara. Sorry to interrupt you, but this is the moment in which we have to let go of our excitement about that amazing announcement. Really, very, very exciting.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Because my understanding is it's 0.15% today, right? So it's not like you're sort of doing something easy that's nearly there at the moment, right?
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): You've got to set big goals for big action. And, you know, from my standpoint, the hurrah will be in 2030 when we actually get it done, because there's a lot of work to do between now and then. And for us, there's a fundamental economic problem. I think that you've got to marry economics with intention in order to do big things. Right now, for drivers who use our system, it's more expensive to operate an electric vehicle. It's just more expensive. So we had to bridge that gap. And that gap will be bridged naturally through battery technology, et cetera, in four to six years. But we don't have four to six years to get started. So what we've done is essentially take action to create a catalyst to start to get a significant number of our drivers over to electric vehicles. First of all, we've got to create consumer demand by doing it. So we are launching Uber Green in the US and all around the world so that consumers can choose to essentially vote with their time to request a green vehicle to come to them. That's going to create more demand for hybrids and electrics that will create the incentive for drivers to move over from traditional vehicles to hybrids and electric. And we're putting in additional monies into that pool equal to about 800 million over the next five years to essentially help them make that transition.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: So that's provided as grants to the drivers, is that right? Or how does that work?
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): That's essentially the Uber Green is going to have fees on top of it. That we take no take on. You collect. Well, we collect and then give directly to the driver so that we recreate this economic momentum in terms of demand and supply at big, big scale. At the same time, we've gone out and negotiated with a number of vehicle companies, charging companies, et cetera, to deliver very significant discounts, to again, bridge the gap between the economics of gasoline cars or hybrid cars, which are the most economic today, to electric vehicles now to start making that transition. That's really the push there.
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Christiana Figueres: Are you also having an impact on charging infrastructure? I would imagine that the cities in which you're doing this are waking up to yet another business opportunity, which is the infrastructure for charging that is going to be necessary for this. So you're basically, I would assume, moving the entire biosphere there.
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): We're certainly doing our best. Then again, you've got to catalyze action, not just from cities, but also from private companies as well. So for example, we have a great partnership with BP, who is making enormous investments in moving from natural resources to renewable resources. Part of that is setting up very, very significant charging infrastructure in the cities in which they operate. What's really important about this charging infrastructure is that you need fast chargers in the middle of the city so that commercial vehicles who have to charge don't lose too much time. Charging takes too much time right now. At the same time, you've got to set up charging infrastructure in neighborhoods where commercial drivers live in. A lot of cities that are planning out the infrastructure tends to be in more wealthy neighborhoods for people who have garages. Well, actually, the infrastructure should be planned differently. It should be in the less fortunate neighborhoods where people don't have garages, etc., where they live, where they can recharge overnight and be ready to work the next morning.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I suppose that would be the, if you were looking from a social perspective, that might be a criticism some people would make, that it might lock some people out who've come to rely on Uber as a form of income, and if they can't afford an electric vehicle, will that no longer be available to them at a certain point?
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): Well, I think that's why we are putting the monies up to allow them to make the switch. And we're working with various sustainability groups to make sure that our investment is going to the people who need it most. Because listen, we are going to want more drivers using our system five years from now. The growth and the category continues to be very, very significant, so it's in our interest to make sure that the dollars are going to the right place.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Can I just ask, I know Paul is coming with a question, but I'm also really interested in your analysis of whether the vehicle manufacturers are ready for this, right? So the average ownership of a car is six years. So if you're saying all vehicles, zero emissions by 2030 in major markets, that basically reverse engineers into the idea that anyone who's going to drive an Uber shouldn't buy anything other than a pure EV from about 2023, 2024 onwards. Do you think the manufacturers are ready for that? And what kind of impact is that going to then have on that system?
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): You've done your math. So I think one difference in terms of the math there and how long vehicles last is that the average driver who is using Uber to earn, especially full-time, drives many more miles and usually buys a used vehicle, not a new vehicle, which makes it much easier. And the combination of buying used and many more miles reduces the lifetime length of the vehicle. So in professional use cases, actually the turnover can be faster, which allows us to move over our fleet, call it at the kinds of accelerator pace to get to 2030 zero emissions. And I think that's one area where we really need governments to focus. The focus right now is so much about the number of vehicles going electric when the real focus should be about the number of miles going electric. So if you move a single commercial vehicle going electric is equal to five individually owned vehicles going electric. And so having the focus on the commercial use cases that make up for many more miles per vehicle is a change in terms of the calculus that a lot of governments and cities have to go to that we're really starting to communicate with them about.
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Christiana Figueres: I was very taken by a term that you used before, Dara, sorry, Paul. You said voting with your time. So if I ask for an Uber Green, I might have to wait one or two more minutes before that one comes. But what I wanted to hear you put forward is does that mean that you have an extraordinary confidence in us as your users that there are going to be more and more of us who will be willing to wait a few more minutes for a green Uber and pay a little bit more? And at what point do those two intersect? At what point does time and cost, which is currently going up if you look at it on a graph for a green Uber, but at what point do the two lines intersect? And because there is so much demand and because you have helped so many Uber drivers get their electric vehicles, at what point does it actually become cheaper and faster to get a green Uber? Because ultimately that's where we want to go, Dara, isn't it? We don't want sustainability to be more expensive and more complicated and more time demanding. We actually want sustainability to be the choice that we, you know, sort of a non-brainer choice, right? Of course we're going to do that because it's cheaper, it's faster, it's better for the environment and it's better for my quality of life. But right now we're not there yet. So what is your confidence that your customer base is going to help you get over that hill?
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): So one is, call me a fool, but I have faith in humanity and people talk about climate change.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I hope that's still in place after November, you don't have to comment on that.
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): Yes, or I need to have faith in humanity. I think the most important point of time that you've identified is right now in 2025. And that's why we funded the 800 million because the economics right now don't work, both in terms of time and in terms of cost. So we have to bridge those economics. And we do think that there is a segment of the population who will be willing to wait a couple of minutes more for an Uber. We will optimize our product. There's all kinds of things that technology can do. We'll track how much you have helped the environment. We will give you badges for saving on your carbon footprint, et cetera. So we will do things on the consumer side to encourage consumers to take these Uber greens, again, to help bridge the gap, both in terms of money and in terms of behavior. Once you get to 2025, 2026, 2027, our projections in terms of vehicle costs, in terms of charging infrastructure and the liquidity that this 800 million will be able to create in the marketplace, then suggest that you will be moving downhill from there, that EV costs actually are going to work out. Now, this absolutely requires help from the cities in which we operate in terms of infrastructure and in terms of, again, thinking about EV passenger miles, not thinking or thinking about EV miles, not thinking about EV number of vehicles.
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Paul Dickinson: Okay, so this segues into the question I am very much looking forward to asking you, Dara. You talked about having faith in humanity and humanity has faith in you. Your company has the most phenomenal engagement with the human population. I love the BP link. I love the message you're delivering to manufacturers. But technology is kind of flying ahead of our social understanding or our systems to some extent. You said governments need to focus, for example, on miles conducted electrically. I mean, you're actually at the very intersection of policy and business and your impact is incredible. Cities across the world, laws to some extent are influenced in a relationship with you, which is complex but hopefully very positive. Can you talk a little bit, as a global corporation, thinking about norms of governance in the 21st century and how you handle that?
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): It's a really tough question to answer readily. I think it goes to a number of technology companies out there who have built platforms that have on top of them essentially content one way or the other. You see the Facebooks facing this. You see the Googles facing this, etc. There's this temptation for technology companies to say, hey, I've just built the platform. I'm going to get out of the way. I've just built a network where riders can connect to drivers and then I'm going to get out of the way. Whatever kind of car they can use. It's my job to connect. I'm not responsible for human behavior. But the thing is, we are. These platforms, to some extent, can create superhumans, right? A Twitter personality on Twitter in the square in London, you can make your opinions known to a hundred people if you have a loud voice. On Twitter, if you have a loud voice, millions of people will understand your opinion. And if that opinion is a false opinion or you're spreading lies and misinformation, well, Twitter is responsible for having created that superhuman spreader, call it. And I think that Twitter and some of the other platforms are now taking responsibility for that. For us, the responsibility is different. It's much more real world. So the first responsibility for us was actually safety, because there are bad people in the world, right? There are good people and bad people in the world. I just talked about having faith in humanity. But we want to make sure that our platform is a transportation platform. You're getting in a car with someone, and that person has to be comfortable with you sitting behind them and have that trust. We had to make certain that our platform was the safest platform out there. Safety was a top priority that we had as a company ever since I joined the company. And we built all kinds of systems in order to understand where a rider may not be safe. For example, someone can track you on where you're going. If there's an unpredictable stop, we'll reach out to you to make sure you're okay. We're working on technology that can record a ride, and it can be controversial in terms of privacy, but it's undeniably safer. So safety for us came first. And then for us with COVID, like you sit here and no one's walking around, but the skies are blue if you're not in San Francisco. We thought to ourselves that this is a reset moment. And just as we took responsibility for safety, we can take responsibility for doing our part in the environment. And climate is a team sport, right?
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Christiana Figueres: Nicely put.
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): Yeah, individuals have to participate and they don't get all of the benefit of the participation. The benefit goes to the team. And sometimes you're not going to feel that benefit personally. And it takes a certain kind of person to do it. And we thought if it's a team sport, we got to play our part and we've got to take action now. Do we have to do it? No. But is it our responsibility? Yeah. We got 100% as our responsibility.
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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify: Nice.
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Christiana Figueres: Dara, I have a difficult question for you. You're now warned. A toughie coming your way. And then we're going to wrap up being respectful of your time. Here's the toughie. Does Uber ever go driverless?
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): Yes, a long, long, long time from now. So we think the future has to be electric. It's got to be shared. Eventually, it'll be autonomous. The autonomous driver will just doesn't have to relearn anything. Like once it learns, it's just going to get better and better and better. It will be fundamentally safer. But there's going to be a very long hybrid period between where we are now. Once autonomous is actually safe to drive on the streets. And 10 years from now, I think we're going to have drivers. The majority of trips will be done autonomously. But 10 years from now, we will have more drivers using the network than today. Because there are going to be use cases in many countries or different use cases that demand the human know-how and human reaction to unpredictability. Just as there'll be some use cases, very simple routes in city centers that are well marked where autonomous vehicles will be able to complete a trip. So, we're going to be hybrid for a long time.
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Christiana Figueres: Interesting. Well, Daryl, unfortunately, we have to wrap up. And so, our question at the end of every episode, we ask every guest to write themselves on the spectrum between outrage and optimism because we feel that we need both in order to move forward. Now, everything we have heard from you puts you into the Uber optimistic box. But I'm just very curious. Is your top reason, I know there are many reasons for you, but your top, top reason to be Uber-ly optimistic?
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): You've got to be optimistic to be CEO of a company like Uber. And we go through bumps on a day-to-day basis. But I have faith in humanity, as I said. And we'll take on the bumps. But I think that the progress is ahead of us, absolutely.
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Christiana Figueres: Very exciting.
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Paul Dickinson: Well, thank you for moving 14 million people today.
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Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): Thank you very much.
00:38:29.906 --> 00:38:30.426
Tom Rivett-Carnac: I appreciate it. Thank you.
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Christiana Figueres: Thanks very much, Dara. Wonderful to see you. Bye.
00:38:33.926 --> 00:38:34.406
Dara Khosrowshahi (guest, CEO of Uber): Same here. Bye. Bye.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Bye. Okay, so how amazing that the podcast has reached the point where we can sit down with CEOs like Dara and delve into their climate commitments and learn more about it. What did you guys leave that discussion with?
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Christiana Figueres: Paul, you're the one that's in love with technology. You go first.
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Paul Dickinson: I am fascinated by the fact that, quite frankly, Uber is involved in the evolution of transport policy in multiple cities all over the world. Some people would say that's a terrifying thing. Some people would say that's a great thing. I'm just interested, as a kind of social scientist, frankly, that we have technology platforms that are global. We have global citizens. People get out of an airplane or something anywhere in the world and they hit their Uber app and it works whatever city they landed in. Not every city, but an awful lot of cities. I am completely fascinated at the potential for platforms like Uber. And of course, everyone will say this, Airbnb. And what else that's going to allow us to change the way we live in a positive way? I'm not trying to downgrade any of the complexities that have come out of either of those two great companies, but it's the potential for us to do more with less that I find so exciting enabled by these giant platforms.
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Christiana Figueres: Well, what I'm impacted by is the movement of, in our personal experience, of a vehicle being a good that was highly coveted, basically the status symbol of who you are and your visible identity in countries like the United States. You are who your car is, or who your cars are, sadly. But we are definitely moving away from that. We're moving away from looking at a vehicle as a thing, as a good, as a possession, to understanding that transport is actually a service, it's not a good. And honestly, Uber has contributed more to that behavioural shift and that mental shift more than any other company I know. Because they really pushed on that. Before that, we had car sharing options and Paul, you've been a member of a car club for a long time. That definitely moved in that direction. But I think Uber came to take that thought and really totally, totally push it to the next level. To the point where teenagers no longer necessarily, certainly in industrialized countries and developing countries, I think it's still different. But in industrialized countries, teenagers don't look forward to their 16th or 18th birthday when they can finally get a driver's license. I mean, most kids are not even interested in getting a driver's license, let alone saving up for their first, you know, secondhand car, because now they can drive their friends around. No, transport is now a service. And what is interesting is the high expectation of kids and of us adults of that service. When I want a car to take me from A to B, I want the car to be here now. And that's, I think, for me, the difficulty. And we talked about this to Dara a little bit. I think that is the huge challenge that he has in moving to, in this transition period, where he's moving to electric vehicles. Because as he said, people vote with their time. And you have to overcome that initial gut reaction of, I want that car here now. I don't want it two minutes from now. And while the majority of the cars are still internal combustion engines, you will have to wait a little bit longer for an electric vehicle. But he is banking on that demand going up. And I think that's fantastic. That he is literally banking on that demand increasing to the point where it will be normalized within the company. And if it is normalized within the company, that will help to normalize in the market. So, sorry to go on and on about this, but let me summarize. They have helped to move us from transport being a good to a service. And the second piece that they have been helping us to normalize is the fact that vehicles no longer need to be internal combustion engine vehicles. They can be electric. I mean, it's just honestly revolutionary.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah. No, I think I agree with all of that. And the other thing I'd point to, which really struck me in the conversation there, and it sort of has been emphasized in the comments you just made also, is the systemic nature of this and how you can see the different parts affect each other. You know, because what, I mean, he basically said in the conversation that Uber almost had to go to this point, because many of the cities that they operate in are already implementing those kinds of clean air policies, they're going for zero emission zones in the centers, etc. So they've been kind of driven by where the marketplaces are to step further forward, and they've seen that consumers want it, etc. That's brought Uber into the mix to step further forward, and now that will have an impact on the vehicle manufacturers, it will allow cities to go further forward. So it's that intersection of different elements in action. And that's what we've talked about so much, that's so exciting when you see the system shift, and one part takes a big jump forward, that gives permission to other parts to jump forward. This commitment will, I'm sure, give permission. Governments will look at this and think, wow, maybe we can go further and faster. I mean, I'm hearing reports now that the UK government is considering all new vehicles in the UK being electric vehicles by even as soon as 2030. I mean, that's still rumours, right? We'll see what they come out with. So that's really exciting. That accelerates things even further.
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Paul Dickinson: But just reaching from the back of the bus forward, remember the policy responses to making this happen. Yes, tax, greenhouse gas emissions, you know, tax material consumption, tax extraction, but remove taxes from labour. And so there's more employment, there's more opportunities for people to work, and they earn more, and that keeps the economy going.
00:45:01.757 --> 00:45:10.357
Tom Rivett-Carnac: And that's the bit where I think we asked him, and I honestly don't have the tools to judge whether his answer was satisfactory, or he said, is 800 million enough to help those drivers? Are you going to be in a point where some drivers get locked out of that as a source of revenue? What's that going to do to a social participation, social equity question? I don't know, and that needs to be looked into, and they should be held to account and challenged on that issue.
00:45:26.957 --> 00:45:32.077
Christiana Figueres: Yeah, I'm glad that you brought that up, Tom, because I was just going to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, guys. We are going off into the optimism cloud here, of all of the wonders that a company like this can do and can disrupt. But we shouldn't forget that there is no such thing as a perfect company, right? Uber, like any other company, is full of its own warts. Sure, contradictions. And contradictions. And he inherited very difficult situation of how Uber treats its drivers, relationship with governments, on and on and on and on. And that's, you know, all of those discussions and controversies are in the public domain. So, yes, a very impressive, disruptive company that is, you know, full of its own warts. And where I come down on that discussion, because some people like to focus only on the warts and then bring down the efforts that are being made to move forward. Where I come down is no one is perfect. None of the three of us on this podcast are perfect. The only two perfect people here are Clay and Marina. Clay and Marina. But other than that, you know, we are not perfect as humans. And no company is perfect. And for me, honestly, what is important is what is their present situation with respect to where they were in the past? Is it an improvement position? And above all, do they have stretch goals to improve even further? So I take companies, not statically where they are today, but I look at them as processes. What is the path that they are on? And the path has to lead to constant improvement. They don't have to be perfect. They're not going to be perfect today. In fact, they're not even going to be perfect tomorrow. But they have to strive for perfection on all issues and thereby be on a commitment and exercise a commitment of constant improvement not just on environmental issues but very, very intently on social issues because we know that the two go hand in hand.
00:47:41.617 --> 00:47:44.097
Paul Dickinson: What a great corporate coach you are, Christiana. On those social issues, once again, when the lower paid are getting more money, that will bring the economy back up, Mr. Tom.
00:47:51.157 --> 00:47:54.557
Tom Rivett-Carnac: And the reality is that many companies are highly complex. They're trying to do the right thing in some areas and they're succeeding in some areas, but they're also not perfect in those big areas where they need to run in big controversies. Next week, we have a CEO of an even more controversial company than Uber. An amazing conversation. So do join us then.
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Paul Dickinson: A fascinating interview. Fascinating interview.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: But back to today, we should not end this episode without noting that today is the 19th anniversary of the fall of the Twin Towers in New York City. And the terrible loss of life that that led to, and of course, the way that it subsequently changed the world and the very real suffering that people still endure today and that that date represents in people's minds. And in large part in recognition of today, we are bringing you an amazing piece of music called We Want Peace by Emmanuel Jal. Now Emmanuel has an amazing life story. He started his life in the early 1980s in the war-torn region of southern Sudan as a child soldier. And this song originally came out as a campaign of the same name that called for peace in all of Sudan. Emmanuel says that music is the only thing that can speak to the mind, the heart and the soul. To him, music is healing. And he says that artists are prophets and emotional leaders. Whatever sounds and lyrics they produce can lead us to action. He remembers that when he was a child soldier, he used to play music to gain courage when he was afraid to fight in a battle. And it helped him to gain that courage. And also, that when he would lose a battle, he would then sing to gain hope. Music can help us go above and beyond in all our efforts. And we'll need that support in the great struggle with the climate crisis that we're now facing. What a story behind a song. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for joining this week. This is We Want Peace by Emmanuel Jal. We'll see you next week.
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Clay (podcast producer): So there you go, another episode of Outrage and Optimism. The song you just heard is We Want Peace by Emmanuel Jal. I've been really enjoying this music, and one thing I get to do is, for every week, I get to learn a lot about these artists for the podcast, and this week, for Emmanuel Jal, I am just blown away at how much good he's doing. He has several organizations that he started, one educating South Sudanese refugees to become first class professionals in law and medicine and education. He's received the Desmond Tutu Reconciliation Award. He was named hero in the global campaign against violent extremism by the UN. He co-starred with Reese Witherspoon in a movie. He's collaborated and performed music with Alicia Keys, Peter Gabriel and Ed Sheeran, and way more. And yeah, he also has six award nominated studio albums. Amazing. I know I just skimmed over a lot, but there's way more waiting for you in the show notes. Go check it out. Okay, on to the credits. Outrage and Optimism is a Global Optimism production and is produced by Clay Carnil, an executive produced by Marina Mancilia German. Thank you to our team that makes this podcast happen. Sarah Law, Katie Bradford, Laura Richardson, Sophie McDonald, Fran Newman, Sarah Thomas, Sharon Johnson, and John Wharton. Our hosts are Tom Rivett-Carnac, Christiana Figueres and the Paul Dickinson. Special thanks this week to Brooke Anderson and Shinpei Tse and the team at Uber for coordinating with us to make our interview with Dara happen. I was on and off the phone with Brooke like five times this week. She was very patient with all my technical requests. And then when we all jumped on the Zoom together for the interview, she showed what it looked like in San Francisco out her window. And I mean, I had been seeing pictures, but to see a live view, you know, was just. Yeah, so please stay safe, Brooke and everyone who's affected by these fires. You are in our hearts and minds. And of course, a special thank you to our guest this week, Dara Khosrowshahi. So if technology drives the bus that we're on, it definitely has Wi-Fi. You can find us at Global Optimism on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. And yes, we're on LinkedIn, the 21st century office break room with a TV. If you love the podcast, please leave us a rating and a review. We have this membership to a website that collects all of our ratings and reviews in one place. I can read them all. It's where I read them all. And I have great news. We just hit 1,000 ratings. So thank you to everyone who has clicked the stars to rate us. And please, if you haven't already, write us a review. We read every single one. Next week, a controversial interview you won't want to miss. Thanks for listening. We'll see you then.
