Uber CEO Says He Expects Employees to Answer His Emails on Weekends ‘Immediately’ — or Else Risk Getting ‘Pushed Out’

One skill is non-negotiable for Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi — the skill of hard work.

In a recent episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast, Khosrowshahi said that at Uber, he doesn’t talk about work-life balance. He has created an environment where he can send emails over the weekend and expect a response back immediately. 

“We’re going to be really demanding,” he told the podcast. “If you’re not performing, we’re going to let you know — and if you don’t fix it, we’re going to push you out.”

The Uber CEO said that hard work is “the most important skill in life” for young people to develop, whether they study engineering, medicine or literature. He calls hard work a “skill” because it requires staying focused on something, not being discouraged by failure and embracing a “grim determination.” Putting in hard work compounds over time, he noted. 

“For me, with my kids, I just want to teach them how to work hard,” Khosrowshahi said. “For me, growing up, as a banker, as an executive, I’m not going to let anyone outwork me. If that’s true, then they may be smarter, more talented, etc., but I’m not going to let anyone outwork me.”

The benefits of hard work

Though Khosrowshahi acknowledged that working at Uber is “incredibly hard,” he also noted that it comes with immense agency. Individuals can make a noticeable difference and impact the company, he said. 

Khosrowshahi also said that working in Uber’s demanding environment results in tremendous learning. Employees quickly learn on the job and adapt to a fast-paced style of work. 

Additionally, “while you will have worked hard, you’re going to have a great time,” Khosrowshahi said. “But don’t come here if you want to coast.”

The cost of hard work

Khosrowshahi added on the podcast that hard work could coexist with flexibility. If an employee wants to have dinner with their family, they can carve out that time, he said. He himself is “religious” about having dinner with his family every night from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. when he is in town. 

However, Khosrowshahi said that there were “tradeoffs.” So if he is having dinner at 8 p.m., by 9:30 p.m., he is checking emails and performing work tasks. When he wakes up at 5:30 a.m., he is also checking emails. 

Other CEOs have more balanced approaches to work. Karri Saarinen, CEO of $1.25 billion work coordination startup Linear, told Entrepreneur last year that he has purposefully created a remote-first culture where employees can take breaks and work the standard 40 hours a week. 

“People are rushing too much and launching things that don’t quite work,” Saarinen said. “In our company, we always try to err on the side of quality, not quantity.”

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