Hiring Nightmares and Uber CEO Lessons

Looking at the course of my business – I have hired my share of people that make me look back and shake my head.

I once hired a person who I found out was homeless and used our office bathroom to shower (I was desperate to find a telemarketer). This was after repeated complaints by other employees sitting next to him. Lookin back – I realized why he wore the same blazer & pants every day. I initially thought it was like a poor mans Steve Jobs uniform.

Then, I hired a person that stopped showing up to work after 3 days then showed up literally 3 months later saying he got arrested and was in jail the whole time (I believed him based on how he looked that day and what he was wearing). I still hired him back and but he didn’t last.

Then, there was an “All Star” sales person that never ever for the life of her get anything done let alone make sales. That includes scanning in business cards.   Despite having 1-2 hour meetings on the objectives for that week – when I’d check in with her – it would be looking into lifeless eyes.

One last one – I hired an engineer once that after a few days told me the job has too much driving and he was not a comfortable driver hence the job was leading to too much stress and he wasn’t sleeping at night.   He was only driving 40-60 miles a day on paved American highways.

Now, given that I have had so many issues hiring and my team is approximately 10 people – how can we expect a company that goes from startup to $70 billion company to hire nothing but boy scouts and girl scouts?

Especially, considering the fact that the people at the top of the company (below the CEO but VP level) were likely the foundation of the company reputation of mavericks and disrupters that don’t care about what the laws are of society. It’s very likely that they will hire people just like them and hence you have quite a few “questionable” characters.

Generally, a startup will shed its skin and become a well oiled machine about a year or two before going public. More than likely, these events within Uber is a catalyst for Uber to start shedding it’s skin and evolve into it’s adult form. Perhaps this is a puberty of sorts and these incidents are examples of poor choices, acne and lessons.

The public generally always roots for the underdog – hence you are seeing a push for Lyft but I think there is undoubtedly too much talent and headstart for Uber to fall off the wagon and diminish.

What are some of your examples of hiring nightmares and what can we learn from UBER?