Uber, AI, and and Learning from Lalita Sahasranama
Sometimes when I have a few moments, I sit back and wonder how the world would have functioned if we all took a breath and decided to prioritize collective welfare as the most critical metric in the world. This occurred to me the first time I used the Uber app in India.
Getting taxis in India was notoriously tricky in my childhood. There was a taxi stand and unions, and they quoted random prices. The drivers barely made money, and the taxi stand owners and travel agents swooped in profits. All that changed with Uber. They brought in an era where they used technology to replace the intermediaries and connected the driver directly to the customer. The drivers were thrilled for the first couple of years. Uber treated them well and gave them incentives. They had broken the yoke of these middlemen and loved being called Uber partners. The same idea was replicated in almost all aspects of the service economy. You could now find a barber, electrician, A.C. technician, dog walker, and plumber on an application. The idea of Uber was so powerful that I strongly felt the government should cap how much commissions these companies could charge because it was one of the simplest ways to elevate people from poverty.
Please drop all the capitalist economic theories you have learned and think about this seriously. We could sustainably connect service providers and consumers in localized regions. This would then be the single most significant act of employment generation. If companies like Uber ran sustainably at low margins, the wealth would be equitably distributed to the service providers. Drivers could make a reasonable living and provide their children with a good education. The same goes for all the other apps that sprang up for similar services. Instead, we now have a scenario where Uber has raised billions of dollars in venture capital and are not profitable. The customers are not happy with the quality of service, which has degraded significantly after Uber stopped paying incentives to drivers. The drivers are unhappy because their incomes have dropped considerably, and Uber has kept increasing its margins.
How did this genius idea that had the potential to change the world suddenly become just another replacement for a taxi stand? Consider most businesses around you if you think this is limited to Uber. They are in a similar boat. Can we blame this on the human condition, or do we have other elegant answers? Let’s examine a verse from the beautiful Indian text of Lalita Sahasranama and review Uber’s journey to see if it fits what’s mentioned in this ancient text.
The Knots That Make Up The Human Condition
We all are deluded into thinking that the world is constantly changing. What we learn and discover today is so unique that the past has no lessons for us. Yet, in the next few minutes, I hope to show you that our individual and collective actions are governed by tendencies deeply rooted within us since time immemorial.
I am taking you back to a long time ago when the gods prayed to the divine mother. They wanted her to take from and marry Lord Shiva, who was known as the eternal yogi. When the mother goddess appeared, her beauty and divinity were so sublime that the gods did not know how to propitiate her. Hence, they begged Devi to teach them how to sing her glories. The eight companion energies accompanying her began to sing her praises, and thus was born the Lalita Shasranama. This divine text was transmitted by Lord Hayagriva to Sage Agastya, who prayed to Lord Shiva to be initiated into chanting this sacred composition. He then passed it on to Sage Vashistha, who transmitted it to his grandson Sage Parashara, who passed it to his son, the legendary muni Ved Vyasa who then gave it to the world.
Why am I giving you all this context instead of diving straight into the relevant verse? It is simply to show you that the ancient stories of Sanatana Dharma that have often been mocked as mythology hold seeds for human liberation in all aspects.
Verse 38–40 in the Lalita Saharanama talks about the three knots in every human being. These three knots are the Bramha Granthi, Vishnu Granthi, and Rudra Granthi.
Muladharaika nilaya brahmagranthi vibhedini Manipurantarudita vishnugranthi vibhedini
Agya chakrantaralastha rudragranthi vibhedini Sahasraram bujarudha sudhasarabhi varshini
Examining The Bramha Granthi
In Sanatana Dharma, Bramha is the lord of creation. Hence this knot is associated with all aspects of creation, expansion, multiplication, and procreation. The knot is why one of the strongest desires most individuals have is to create. That’s why creativity and creative thought have been given such a key role throughout human history. The invention of language, art, culture, and architecture all comes from this desire to create, which leads to a rush of creative energy within a person. In modern times, that’s why successful startup founders are worshipped with such god-like frenzy. That’s why every person in silicon valley is looking for a problem to solve so they can wear the mythical founder hat.
The Bramha Granthi is why Garett Camp and Travis Kalanick decided to create Uber. The mythology of Uber is based on the story that Travis was upset at the inefficient cab services and launched a bold new venture to change the world. They both had created and had successful exits from startups and were looking for the next big idea. Garett was enjoying his luxury but saw that his newfound wealth had no impact when it came to convenient transportation on demand. He shared this idea with many people, but the dynamics of the highly regulated transport market scared everyone away.
Travis, who had previously co-founded a peer-to-peer file-sharing service, Scour, had multiple brushes with the legal system and knew they could beat the authorities by moving fast. Hence Uber was launched as a premium black cab service for working professionals. The app got raving reviews from the press for its revolutionary convenience, tracking, and frictionless payment features.
They then hired city launchers to launch the service outside San Francisco. The launchers were tasked with moving into a city and setting up offices to launch the Uber service. They would also hire local managers to flood the local job boards with ads and lure them with signing bonuses and incentives. The managers would launch Uber and provide riders with free rides and discount coupons. Uber had data showing a customer needed to use Uber only 2.7 times to become a long-term user. Thus they poured billions of dollars into driver and passenger incentives to expand Uber before authorities could ban it.
Since Uber grew so quickly, they needed billions of dollars in V.C. investment. Their rapid success meant that they inverted the funding model. Instead of doing a roadshow to raise capital, Uber created the HomeShow. They asked investors to come to Uber headquarters and compete to invest in the company. Uber dictated terms and did not give investors rights to see financials associated with the company.
The unabashed grow-at-all-costs model finally cost Uber heavily in lawsuits, culture, profitability, and goodwill. That, in a nutshell, is the challenge with the Bramhagranthi knot. Can you tame this inner beast that wants to continue eating and multiplying mindlessly until it bursts?
Examining The Vishnu Granthi
Lord Vishnu has the status of preserver in Sanatana Dharma. We all have a deep desire to preserve what we have created. We want our joy, happiness, and attaintments to be permanent. It’s very difficult to remember that everything we have is temporary. Thus we tend to hold on ferociously to what we have created or gathered. That’s why people will pay unimaginable sums to look and feel young forever.
The struggle with Vishnu Granthi is why Uber applied all kinds of legal and illegal tactics to sustain its incredible growth. Uber designed a work culture where they hired hyper-aggressive candidates willing to do whatever it took to grow the business. They developed the company to fight regulators and unions who wanted to shut down the business. When drivers faced threats from unions and law enforcement to shut down, they received incentives and reimbursements to stay on with Uber.
Uber also actively canvassed its users to protest outside council offices and made it easy for them to email officials supporting Uber. On one occasion, they even sent their employees to protest because enough customers did not turn up. They developed Greyball software to trick authorities by showing them ghost cars so they couldn’t find real Uber drivers.
They gave city managers enormous power and freedom to spend millions of dollars without oversight as long as they met growth targets. They also employed more than 400 paid lobbyists, which was more than the combined lobbying staff of Amazon, Microsoft, and Walmart. When they burned through drivers with aggressive targets, they started leasing cars to high-risk individuals with poor credit histories. This resulted in an immediate spike in incidents ranging from speeding tickets to sexual assault.
The unlimited power given to high-performing employees means the culture within Uber also degraded significantly. Female employees filed multiple lawsuits later and complained about a toxic workplace. The struggle to preserve something is a necessary path to growth, but when we blindly pursue growth at all costs, we create significant collateral damage. Then one event can spark a fire that destroys the whole company. In Uber’s case, the tipping point came Susan Fowler, an Uber Employee, wrote a blog post about the culture of rampant sexual abuse within the company. Many other employees shared their own challenges. Within three months, Uber went from being a rocket ship to a ticking time bomb, finally leading to the removal of Travis as the CEO.
Examining The Rudra Granthi
Rudra, or Lord Shiva, is the lord of destruction. After you have created something valuable and fought hard to preserve it, you start feeling you have absolute ownership and domination in that space. You don’t want anyone else to compete with you and try to kill competition using ethical or non-ethical means. Did you notice that the price and prestige of owning something are generally driven by exclusivity? The Rudra Granthi is why many of us suffer from this syndrome of constantly upgrading our lifestyles. One moment we state we would be the happiest if we could afford a small house. A few years later, we lock our eyes on an independent house because we had seen some friends upgrade and want the same exclusivity.
When it comes to business, Rudra Granthi manifests itself in the desire to destroy competition. We all learn in business school how healthy competition is the bedrock of capitalism. Yet when it comes to the real world, monopolistic companies command the highest stock prices. That’s why every high-flying startup wants to kill or buy the competition. Uber was no different. They were in life-and-death battles with many companies around the world. They created a system called Heaven and Hell which surveyed and misguided their competition. While Heaven gave Uber a live view of every ride in a city, Hell gave them real-time locations of Uber drivers who also drove for Lyft. They also had software to steal the prices offered by competitors and undercut them. They hired ex-CIA and secret service executives to monitor competitors and highly-ranked lawmakers and secretly recorded their conversations. When it’s war, both sides suffer losses.
DiDi Chuxing in China completely outplayed Uber. They did everything from sending fake texts to Uber drivers with threats and installing spies in the Uber China office, who wreaked havoc internally. Uber’s famed incentives for drivers and passengers were systematically abused to the tune of 40–50 million dollars a week. After two years and billions in losses, Uber exited China after selling to DiDi Chuxing. A similar story played out in South East Asia with Grab. Imagine for a minute if they had more realistic ambitions for their growth. In some countries, they could have partnered with smaller startups that knew the local economy and leaders. They would probably have found greater success and faced much lesser losses. All these infractions led to an external investigation into Uber, where the auditor recommended sacking Travis Kalanick and bringing in a professional CEO.
Summary
This urge to create, preserve, and destroy is hardwired into human beings. This plays out dynamics between individuals, families, businesses, and countries. Think about the arms race that’s happening in the world of artificial intelligence today. In his opinion piece, New York Times columnist Ezra Klien quotes an A.I. survey, where they ask the following question.
“What probability do you put on human inability to control future advanced A.I. systems causing human extinction or similarly permanent and severe disempowerment of the human species.”
The median response is 10%. Many experts say the number could be higher. Why would we compete to create technology with a significant chance of wiping out the human race? The answer is the three knots that urge us to create, preserve, and destroy. We are caught in a loop that we are incapable of stopping.
How do you overcome these knots? The answer lies in the Lalita Sahasranama.
The divine mother is eulogized as brahmagranthi vibhedini, vishnugranthi vibhedini, and rudragranthi vibhedini.
Basically, if you consistently meditate on her, she is the energy that pierces through these knots and helps you overcome your tendencies. One of the easiest ways to meditate and perform Sadhana to the divine mother is by using the Sadhana application.
It is designed by my Guru, Om Swami, and helps master the art of Sadhana, which can help you escape the tyranny of these knots. Imagine a world where you find a balance between the cycle of creation, destruction, and attachment. A world where you prioritize collective welfare and design systems that maximize it instead of expanding infinitely and depleting precious resources on the planet. All this is possible with Sadhana.
Sources
Om Swami — Kundalini — An Untold Story
