Uber CEO: I Have To Be Honest, AI Will Replace 9.4 Million Jobs At Uber! - Dara Khosrowshahi

You come to Uber, you're going to work

your ass off. And if you're not

performing, we're going to let you know.

>> But do you ever worry that they might

not be able to deal with the truth?

>> Then they can leave because the most

important skill in life is the skill of

working hard. And when you see the top

athletes, Ronaldo, Michael Jordan, of

course they're talented. But the thing

that's different about them is they work

their asses off. And that's a learned

skill. That's not something you're born

with. You may be smarter, more talented,

etc. But I'm not going to let anyone out

me. with that mentality. When you joined

Uber, it was losing 3 billion per year.

Now it generates 8.5 billion in free

cash flow every year. But it seems that

you were forged in such a way that you

were going to be relentless.

>> Yeah. And it really started with being

born in Iran with the Islamic Revolution

in 1978. We were not safe there. And I

remember at one point we had these

revolutionary guards come into the

backyard and bullets went through our

living room. So my family came to the US

to rebuild their lives.

>> You were 8 9 years old.

>> Yeah. And it really destroyed my dad.

Sorry me.

It's tough for me to talk about it.

It's okay.

All right, let me try again. Seeing that

has put me on a road where I just wanted

to make my family proud. So I studied

bioelect electrical engineering and then

my first job was investment banking and

I got to see the process of big

companies being built and then I had the

opportunity to take over Expedia

>> and in your 12 years as CEO Expedia

sales increased from 2.1 billion to 8.8

8 billion and you were the highest paid

CEO of a US tech company

>> and I left it all behind to get over

>> and I want to get into practical company

building how you would get that company

to work hard and create a culture of

continuous improvement and all that

stuff but there's alien that's arrived

amongst us which is AI now driving I

think is one of the biggest employees in

the world like as a profession

>> I mean we've got 9 and a half million

drivers and couriers on our platform

>> those drivers careers that you have will

be out of work being honest about the

situation what do the 9 million people

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yeah, let's do this.

Darren, you lead one of the most

consequential, interesting, talked about

companies of my generation. It's worth

hundreds of billions of dollars last

time I checked and it's a it's a company

that I use every single day.

>> Thank you.

>> I've looked through your story. You were

the CEO of Expedia.

>> Mhm. at one point.

>> You're currently the CEO of Uber and

you've turned that company from a a

lossmaking company to a highly

profitable company and one that has

continued to be successful through such

a great time of transition. I

your story starts in a very interesting

way

>> and I was you know when I start doing

the research for guests sometimes I I I

think I come in with some kind of

presumption that I grew up in

California, you went to Stanford etc.

>> But that is not the case. Can you take

me to that earliest context so I can

understand

how and why you are the way that you

are?

>> Uh quite the quite the starting

questions but but but I'll try. I I

think that for me the events that shaped

my life and maybe a part of who I am

really started with my being born in

Iran and Iran at the time was

modernizing becoming a modern society

and my family built a pretty big

industrial company that that everyone

was quite proud of in Iran. We lost all

of that with the revolution in 1978

and my family had to come to the US to

rebuild their lives.

>> You had to come to the US.

>> We were not safe there. One of my uncles

actually was um a cabinet member of the

Shaw who had just been toppled. And at

one point, we had uh uh these

revolutionary guards come into the

backyard. They were actually going after

our neighbor's house. Uh and one of

their guns went off and bullets went

through our living room. Uh shattered

the glass in the living room. And at

that point, my mom's like, "We're not

safe being here." So, we had to come to

the US. And I do think that event to

some extent has shaped not just me but

my family in that the rebuilding of our

lives um of our uh economic lives to

some extent where we're all trying to

rebuild what we lost in Iran. Do

>> you look back on that and and can you

identify any sort of fingerprints that

were left on you from that time that

have defined you in a business capacity?

I think at my core I never feel safe,

you know, when the the experience of

losing everything and and for the kids I

I tell you it was fine for the kids, but

seeing my parents lose everything and

and it really destroyed my dad. You

know, it really

his losing his value to the world as he

saw it um really hurt his inner being.

And I do think to some extent seeing

that has put me on a road where I want

to rebuild. I want to make my family

proud. But at the same time I never that

feeling of having the floor, you know,

the rug pulled out of you of building

everything. That's a feeling that never

leaves you. I think I think Americans

underestimate

what this place represents in its

ideals, right? which is if you build

something it's yours. There's a rule of

law can't be taken away from you. That

is not true for the majority of the

population of the world. And so I think

for me there's a drive to build and at

the same time never ever ever taking

anything for granted, never being

satisfied because the minute you take

things for granted then that rug can be

pulled out from under you. on your

father. There was a moment where he a

couple of years, I think six years,

where he got trapped in Iran and wasn't

granted an exit visa.

>> Yes.

>> And I imagine at that time your mother

was raising you alone here in New York

City.

>> Yeah. In Terry Town, New York, 45

minutes north of New York City, but she

she went from a life of never having to

work to she had to become a salesperson

to make some money and she did it all

herself and she really stepped up. So I

think it shaped us. It was difficult in

some ways. I I miss my dad. I remember

when he left, he was like a giant

compared to me. And then when he came

back, it was my sophomore year at

college and he still saw me as a kid.

And so he wanted to drive me to uh to

college and and he did. And then he's

like he wanted to hang out. I'm like,