Uber and the Future of Work

European Straits #68

Dear all,

Last Friday I was invited by Uber to participate in a day-long seminar on platforms and the future of work at their London headquarters. There were many prominent scholars and policy thinkers from the UK, some (but not all) working with Uber on a regular basis.

Uber is reaching out to such thought leaders because the company is undergoing a kind of fresh start. They have a new CEO (Dara Khosrowshahi). They’ve divested their assets on difficult markets such as China (where they sold to Didi Chuxing) and South-East Asia (where they sold to Grab). They’ve been tackling the issue of becoming a company that is more welcoming for women. Now they’re seeking to engage more with a key stakeholder: the drivers. And a way to do that is to reflect on how Uber’s being a platform radically changes the labor experience for this new breed of workers.

I was invited because I’m working on a research paper on covering risks in the platform economy. As part of work conducted through Sciences Po an…