Uber Employees Are Now Served Lowly Starbucks

They used to get craft coffee
By Newser Editors,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 30, 2019 10:45 AM CDT
Uber Employees Are Now Served Lowly Starbucks
In this Aug. 16, 2019, file photo, the logo for Uber appears above a trading post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.   (AP Photo/Richard Drew, file)

Uber's struggles have now hit its employees' coffee mugs. That's according to the Washington Post, which takes a look at how Uber's floundering since its May IPO—its stock price is down more than 25%, and Business Insider notes its market value sank Friday below GM's for the first time—is hitting home for workers. There's the office coffee, which is no longer the craft coffee Stumptown—it's Starbucks. "Uberversary" balloons are apparently no longer handed out, either. And that's for the workers who remain: More than 800 employees have been cut since the company went public, a figure that includes a third of its marketing department and about 8% of its product and engineering teams.

There are other things that rankle, per the Post, like the end of anonymously asked questions at all-hands meetings and a survey shown to drivers within the app that asked about small loans, leading some to fear the company was considering rolling out a payday loan service (Recode has much more on that here). The Post's report follows Uber's preview last Thursday of a revamped app that puts its ride services and food delivery services in one place, with Uber declaring it was out to become the "operating system for your everyday life." At CNN, Matt McFarland notes Uber trotted out other new features and a partnership with celebrity chef Rachael Ray at the "flashy press event," but "the actual announcements at the event may be too incremental to turn around a company facing a long and daunting list of problems." (More Uber stories.)

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