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Stanford Graduate School of BusinessDara Khosrowshahi, CEO, Uber
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CHAPTERS
Chapter summaries
Audience warm-up and Uber usage poll
The host opens by welcoming Dara Khosrowshahi and quickly polls the audience on their Uber usage. The exchange sets an energetic tone and highlights how widely used Uber (including Uber Pool) is among the students.
- •The host welcomes Dara and notes the excitement in the room
- •Audience poll shows nearly everyone uses Uber
- •Follow-up poll asks who used Uber that week
- •Dara asks about Uber Pool usage and reacts to the show of hands
Immigrating from Iran: assimilation lessons and finding belonging through sports
The host asks how arriving in the U.S. as a child shaped Dara’s leadership. He reflects on being nine years old, relying on family stability, and learning early lessons about communication and adaptation—especially through sports.
- •Dara describes immigrating at age nine and the flexibility of kids in new environments
- •He emphasizes family as a constant source of protection and stability
- •He shares a lesson about saying “no” when he didn’t understand English instead of reflexively saying “yes”
- •Sports—especially soccer—helped him connect socially and assimilate at school
- •He mentions staying engaged with sports as an adult, including early-morning soccer fandom
Finding a mentor: Barry Diller, “go to the source,” and betting on people
Dara recounts meeting Barry Diller during his time at Allen & Company and why Diller became his first true mentor. He highlights Diller’s insistence on unfiltered information and connects it to a broader lesson he learned at Allen & Company about choosing people over roles or companies.
- •Dara describes working as a young analyst on Barry Diller’s Paramount Pictures bid
- •Barry Diller sought out the person who built the deal model and asked for a direct explanation immediately
- •Dara says Diller believed information loses fidelity as it gets filtered, so he went straight to the source
- •He recalls Diller’s concise reaction after losing the battle: “We lost, they won. Next.”
- •Dara cites Herbert Allen’s principle of “bet on people,” and explains he chose to follow Diller as a career-defining decision
From Allen & Co to IAC: being pulled into a bigger role
Dara explains how his working relationship with Barry Diller expanded beyond deal work into a full-time operating role. He describes being asked to work exclusively for Diller and using that moment to turn a narrow assignment into a job opportunity.
- •Dara describes the predecessor of IAC evolving from Home Shopping Network activities and dealmaking
- •Barry Diller asked Dara to become his dedicated deal person
- •Dara pushed back due to existing responsibilities, and Diller reframed the “portfolio” as being Diller himself
- •Dara asked for a job rather than a limited assignment, and Diller agreed
Running Expedia: growth, competition, and painful lessons from Booking
The conversation shifts to Expedia, where Dara led significant growth but faced a major competitive reversal as Priceline/Booking became the category leader. Dara explains what he sees as the strategic mistake: underestimating the power of a lower-margin model.
- •The host frames Dara’s tenure as growing Expedia from 2 to 10 billion over 13 years
- •The host notes Priceline/Booking became far larger by the time Dara left
- •Dara explains Expedia hesitated to compete aggressively because it didn’t want to sacrifice higher margins
- •He describes an opportunity to buy booking.com that Expedia passed on because its unit economics looked worse
- •He summarizes the lesson as “low margins are an asset,” emphasizing cost discipline and long-term market share
Engineering margin change and rebuilding Expedia as a technology-led operator
Dara explains how quickly Expedia recognized the competitive issue and how difficult it was to re-engineer the business economics. He describes betting on core platforms and shares a pivotal leadership turning point: taking direct operational control of expedia.com after two failed leadership hires.
- •Dara says they realized the issue relatively quickly, but changing the model required major revenue/margin redesign
- •He describes investing in core technology platforms to enable the shift
- •He recounts failing twice to find the right leader for expedia.com and facing board pressure
- •He decided his third choice would be himself, becoming operational CEO of expedia.com while also corporate CEO
- •He says running expedia.com taught him how to truly operate a company and align business and technology, helping turn the broader company around
Interviewing for Uber CEO: setting expectations through transparency
Dara describes approaching Uber from a position of strength because he already loved his job at Expedia. He explains that he was candid about what he brought and what he needed from the board, including confidentiality and clarity of leadership.
- •Dara says he wasn’t looking to leave Expedia, which shaped his posture in the process
- •He characterizes the process as an interview more than a negotiation
- •He presented expectations to the board, including keeping boardroom discussions private
- •He emphasized the need for clarity on who the leader would be and the freedom to make needed changes
- •He explains his general principle: go first with transparency to avoid a mismatch for either side
Redefining “winning”: taking the shot, building with a team, and choosing impact
Asked what “winning” means, Dara says he wasn’t optimizing for happiness or status but for doing something meaningful. He shares a turning-point conversation that pushed him toward the Uber role and then outlines how he thinks about career decisions: people, personal impact, and the organization’s impact.
- •Dara recounts initially rejecting the Uber outreach because he was happy at Expedia
- •He shares a conversation with Daniel Ek that reframed the choice as doing something great rather than pursuing happiness
- •He says he optimizes first for who he will work with, then whether he can make a difference, and whether the place makes a difference
- •He describes winning as getting in the game and taking a shot, regardless of outcome
- •He emphasizes winning as a team and valuing shared success with teammates
Changing Uber’s culture: from aggressive early success to a more diverse, resilient organization
Dara addresses Uber’s cultural challenges and argues the earlier culture helped create the company’s historic success, even as it also enabled serious negatives. He outlines what needed to change—especially around diversity and the company’s relationship to the cities and people it serves—while emphasizing that it’s a multi-year journey.
- •Dara says Uber’s early culture helped it succeed, but also allowed significant negatives to develop
- •He argues success can blind organizations more than failure does
- •He describes gaps in diversity: thought, origin, gender diversity, and inclusion of underrepresented minorities
- •He notes weaknesses of being overly top-down in a founder-led environment
- •He emphasizes Uber’s physical, real-world connection to cities, riders, and drivers, and frames cultural change as a journey still early in progress
Concrete operational shifts: treating drivers as true partners
Pressed for specific examples, Dara describes changes in how Uber builds for drivers. He points to involving drivers directly in product development and to offering new forms of support through partnerships.
- •Dara says Uber historically used the language of “partners” without consistently treating drivers that way
- •He describes engaging driver partners in research and creating driver beta testing for the driver app
- •He frames this as building what drivers say they need rather than what Uber assumes
- •He mentions exploring benefits-related areas like insurance and parental leave considerations
- •He cites a partnership with AXA in Europe to provide insurance coverages for driver partners
Competition and the “silver bullet” question: shifting to customer obsession and multi-product focus
Asked for a single move to take out a competitor, Dara rejects competitor fixation in favor of customer obsession. He also describes Uber’s breadth—multiple products and global presence—as a defining feature that makes simplistic competitor targeting unrealistic.
- •Dara argues companies that focus too much on competitors can lose focus on customers
- •He says Uber has been guilty of being too competitor- and share-focused historically
- •He describes a new internal operating mode: operations, product, and technology working together around riders and drivers
- •He highlights Uber’s global scope and multi-product strategy, including rides and Eats, plus newer mobility efforts and freight
- •He concludes the focus must be internal execution rather than trying to “shoot” competitors
IPO mindset and investor expectations: truthfulness, big markets, and time horizons
The host asks about balancing growth investment with predictable profitability ahead of going public. Dara responds bluntly that Uber will not be predictably profitable and emphasizes being clear about the company’s identity so it attracts the right investors.
- •Dara says Uber won’t offer predictable profitability and that investors can choose whether that fits them
- •He argues for truthfulness and for focusing on product rather than trying to cater to short-term expectations
- •He tells a story about an investor claiming to be long-term but having a nine-month holding period
- •He says companies get the investors they deserve when they clearly state who they are and the limits they operate under
- •He describes his own preference as “short term impatient” on quick wins and “long term patient” on big bets, disliking the middle ground
Autonomy and the broader mobility platform vision: integrating partners and even public transit
Dara clarifies that autonomous vehicles are part of Uber’s long-term rideshare future and explains why ridesharing is central to commercializing autonomy at scale. He then expands to a platform vision: integrating third-party mobility providers—and potentially city transit—into a single A-to-B experience for people, food, and things.
- •Dara says autonomy and rideshare will ultimately be “one and the same” for Uber over time
- •He argues autonomy is exciting for safety and cost, but ridesharing is key to scaling commercialization
- •He describes a staged approach to autonomy: starting with a small percentage of routes and expanding
- •He says Uber can serve as a platform for autonomous-only players and will “welcome all comers”
- •He outlines a platform goal for multi-modal mobility and mentions integrating third parties like Lime and potentially transit options with better real-time information and payment
Personal resilience under pressure: family perspective, leaks, and keeping grounded
The host asks how Dara maintains sanity amid rebuilding Uber, IPO preparation, and internal leaks. He credits his wife and family, and says his upbringing created a perspective that reduces fear of loss and helps him stay focused on doing his best each day.
- •Dara says his wife is a core support system
- •He explains that coming from a family that lost everything and rebuilt it gave him perspective and reduced fear of loss
- •He acknowledges leaks are painful but says things are improving
- •He describes re-centering at home with his wife and kids and returning the next day to do his best
- •He frames the role as a rare opportunity he’s committed to giving everything he has
Global CEO as quasi-politician, then a lightning round to close
The host touches on Dara’s international profile as Uber CEO and jokingly asks about a future in government, which he dismisses while acknowledging the role’s political elements. The session ends with a quick lightning round of personal preferences and a final goodbye.
- •The host contrasts a past visa denial with Dara’s expanded access as Uber CEO and international meetings
- •Dara jokes the job is “half CEO, half politician,” but says he doesn’t want more politics
- •Lightning round covers games, basketball preference, music, and family-related humor
- •Dara answers prompts about cities, growth vs profits, phone preference, and transportation choices
- •The conversation ends with thanks and applause
