SILICON Valley and its associated start-ups are often described as having a “Peter Pan” mentality. High jinks are indulged, and an adolescent atmosphere is encouraged. Smart young (or young-seeming) makers develop apps that approximate adult forms of labour and turn their companies into gold. Like J.M. Barrie’s creation, these Peters tend to be childish, boastful and a bit irritating to be around. But they can take you on an exciting adventure.

How better to describe recently deposed Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick, the 40-year-old bro who once joked about a service called “boob-er,” bragged that he enjoyed “pissing people off” and took his company from nothing to a $70bn valuation in under a decade?

As it turns out, you can’t stay in Neverland forever. And this week, we watched in real time as Uber and its leadership discovered what it takes to grow up. A major catalyst seems to have been the realisation that in business, as in everyday life, other people matter. There was also the growing understanding that, after a while, adolescence gets old.

The calls for change originated with rank-and-file employees such as engineer Susan Fowler, who got fed up enough with harassment, sexism and poor management to finally blow the whistle. Her detailed, damning blogpost about Uber’s toxic culture kicked off waves of commiseration and, in the end, a change of leadership at the top.

There also were the everyday Uber drivers, undervalued and unlistened-to, who were bold enough to call out a callous employer. It was a struggling driver’s recording of Kalanick telling him that “some people don’t like to take responsibility for their owns —” that prompted the CEO’s public acknowledgement that he needed to “grow up.”

From person to person the outrage spread, down even to common riders, who (rarely, but every so often!) looked up and decided that they didn’t want to support a business that ran the way Uber did.

Some simply popularised the #DeleteUber hashtag. After the company was accused of undermining a work stoppage called by New York taxi drivers being held in solidarity with immigrant travellers, managers were flooded with so many complaints that apologetic form letters were sent out begging riders to give the service another chance. Kalanick himself was forced to rethink his position on President Trump’s business advisory council.

It would be naive to be too high-minded about all this. People started to matter more to Uber, yes, but they began to matter most when they affected the business’s bottom line. It was only when it stopped being profitable to put up with Peter Pan that the grown-ups in the room — Uber’s board and investors — decided that he had to go.

Bloomberg-The Washington Post Service

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2017