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Uber CEO tries to rewrite corporate culture amid backlash
Uber has been trying to recover from a long line of missteps and outright problems, with reports of sexual harassment, various lawsuits and investigations, reports of passenger tracking and a former CEO with plenty of issues of his own. The ride-sharing company's new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, took to LinkedIn Tuesday with a Medium-style blog post that promises new company "cultural norms" aimed at regaining the trust of employees and the return of positive public opinion. The new norms were shared with Uber employees at an all-staff meeting, according to Recode.
Uber hires a VP to fix its toxic company culture
Despite its incredibly high userbase, a string of controversies has led to what can only be described as a pretty terrible year for Uber. Now, just a few months after its employees left the company in droves, the successful ride-hailing company has recruited a new executive to save its sinking ship. After a former employee spoke out about sexual harassment at the company, Uber launched an investigation into its workplace culture, calling in Frances Frei, an expert on gender equality from Harvard Business School. Now, Frei has joined the successful tech startup full time, taking a role as Uber's Senior Vice President of Leadership & Strategy.
Nokia: We don't sell phones here
In an otherwise run-of-the-mill profile on cellphone manufacturing giant Nokia, The Seattle Times reveals this funny little tidbit about corporate culture at the Finnish firm: employees are supposedly barred from referring to the company's products as "phones." Instead, according to Vice President of multimedia strategy and business development Harry Santamäki, all of the handsets are known around the company as "multimedia computers," which we're sure elicits more than a few snickers when they're discussing the no-frills, monochrome, um, computers of the 1000 series. And proving that his anti-phone rhetoric isn't just lip service, Santamäki swears that he'll take a swig from the bottle of cod liver oil on his desk if he himself should ever happen to utter the archaic, forbidden word. Unfortunately for Harry, Engadget Mobile will continue to refer to Nokia's products as phones, cellphones, or perhaps even telephones, but luckily a little program called Greasemonkey should enable him to continue reading the site while remaining blissfully phone-free.[Via textually]
