Uber Sent Me an Email. Here's How I Answered It.

I had a bad experience with Uber once, but it wasn’t Travis Kalanick’s fault.

And it wasn’t really that bad. After dinner with clients in Minneapolis one night, I used the Uber app to call a car. The car was there in five minutes, driven by a young guy who told me he’d just graduated from college two days before, leased a brand new Honda Civic through an Uber partner company and was going to drive until he figured out what he wanted to do with his life. I think he was just saying the word “life” when his right front tire blew out. He didn’t seem to know what had happened but he was sharp enough to realize he needed to pull over on the shoulder of I-35. I got out of the car and used the app to call for a backup car. That was when the kid emerged from the trunk holding the jack and asked, “Do you know how to work this?”

So, memo to Uber field operations: make sure every driver knows how to change a tire.

My backup ride pulled up in three minutes and I was on my way, feeling slightly guilty that I didn’t stay and help the guy change his tire. It might have been useful if I had been there to tell him he had to loosen the lug nuts before he jacked the car up. But maybe it was better for him to have the learning experience.

So, no, I haven’t had a bad experience with the Uber app or an Uber ride. My only bad experience with Uber comes when I read the news.

I don’t like reading about the Mean Man antics of the company’s deposed CEO Kalanick and the VC geniuses who kept backing him even when it was clear he had to go. The sexual harassment. The very bad, awful PR gaffes that exposed the culture at the top. The possible withholding of funds from drivers. Or how about this one, the one that finally put me over the top: Uber has been hacking their software to cheat their drivers and passengers. Not only that, but they used software to evade law enforcement, according to a New York Times investigation. “The program was called Greyball, and Uber used it to identify code enforcement inspectors and other officials who may have been conducting sting operations, and to prevent them from getting a ride on the app.” (If you want to get to the pathology of Travis Kalanick’s behavior read Mark Lipton’s new book, Mean Men, which lays out the sub-clinical psychopathic personality disorders of these bad boy CEOs.)

I get really mad at people who use software to cheat their customers and employees.

I haven’t used Uber since I was in New York last January. Every other trip I’ve made, I either drove my own car or didn’t need my own ground transport. So I haven’t been boycotting Uber, until last night when I arrived in Savannah, Georgia, to speak at the Ocean Exchange conference. And even then, I almost didn’t go through with it.

I had downloaded the Lyft app and used it to call for a car. My driver Andrew accepted and then I almost cancelled when I saw it was going to take 16 minutes for him to get to me. I know from experience that Uber has a staging lot at SAV. You punch the go button on the Uber app and you can see the headlights come on and hear the car start up. Uber doesn’t cheat on efficiency, that’s for sure. But I hadn’t ridden with Lyft yet, so I decided to stick with my decision.

I’d heard nice things about Lyft.

The best thing I’d heard was that Lyft CEO Logan Green had chosen not to pile onto criticism about Kalanick’s misdeeds because it wasn’t in their company culture.

“That’s true,” my driver Andrew told me when he finally got to me and we were on our way into town. It turned out that like many drivers, he takes customers from both apps. “Lyft is a much nicer company. They work harder and they pay me more.” As we drove, Andrew detailed all the differences between the two companies and mentioned all the accusations I’d read about in the press.

“There’s a driver who’s a mathematician and he’s figured out that last quarter, they paid drivers $15 million less than they claim. That’s fraud.”

So I’ll stick with Lyft for a while. And here’s what it will take for Uber to get my business back.

· Stop cheating: That’s number one. If I can’t trust your company, I don’t want to do business with you. If you cheat municipalities and drivers, you’ll cheat me. You’ll do that because you are, fundamentally a cheat. That’s why London has banned Uber, once their current license to operate runs out. According to The Guardian, London initiated the ban because “Uber’s approach and conduct demonstrate a lack of corporate responsibility in relation to reporting serious criminal offences, obtaining medical certificates and driver background checks.” I’m with London here. When London likes Uber again, maybe I will, too. And there’s hope: the new CEO has admitted they did the things they’re accused of and says they will correct them.

· Change the culture: That probably means getting rid of most, if not all, of the collaborators who enabled Kalanick in his behavior. Or at least do what the French did to collaborators. Shave their heads and shun them until they understand how badly they acted. Then get everyone — including your drivers, your riders and your VCs — to agree on why your company should exist. Give us your “why.”

· Know who your customers are: Here’s the dirty little secret of most app-based tech companies — you’re not their customer, you’re their product. Their “customer” is the capital. They — from Uber to Twitter to Facebook — are organized to serve the VC’s who fund them. They do that by “productizing” you. And me. And I don’t want to be part of that. Do you?

· Show me you’re not going to abuse us again: That will just take time. That’s the only way you heal relationships. You taught me not to trust you. Now you’ll have to teach all of us that you really are worthy of our business. From what I’m hearing, you’re making some of the right noises. Now let’s see if you can walk like you talk.

I signed up for Uber the first week they went live in NYC, however many years ago that was. And then they were shut down two weeks later. So I get how they grew up hostile to authority. And I love the many ways riding sharing apps contribute to our society and economy. But most of all, I love walking out of my hotel in Manhattan, pressing the connect button on the Uber app and seeing a nice clean mid-size car screech to a halt in front of me.

Andrew got me right to the door of the Airbnb I’d rented for my stay in Savannah. He insisted on hefting my back all the way across the grass verge to the sidewalk. I told him I’d give him 5 stars.

He told me he was sorry it took so long to pick me up and I admitted I almost cancelled when I saw it would take 16 minutes. “I know,” he said. “I got a fare three minutes before yours, a pickup at the airport but she cancelled. When I saw your pickup, I was praying you wouldn’t cancel, too.”

Since whichever app I use, I can get the same people in the same cars to pick up me, it almost doesn’t matter whether I use Uber or Lyft. But I want Uber to be a better company, an important company and when they are, I’ll go back to them. Until then, I’ll use the other guys. They’re nicer. And they try harder.