Listen to this episode on your phone here.
I’m excited to bring you this episode – it’s a recording from the conference I organized, Curbivore. Titled ‘Delivery from the Front Lines’, this panel interview I hosted features Uber’s Vice President of Product, Sachin Kansal, and Uber Eats courier Barbra Watkins. This is a unique discussion because rarely do conferences, even ones about the gig economy, feature voices from the gig worker community. Barbra had a lot of great one-liners and was an excellent panelist, as was Sachin. Can’t wait for you to take a listen!
Panel Interview
- Sachin Kansal, VP of Product for Uber
- Barbra Watkins, Uber Eats courier
- Sachin worked with taxi drivers at the beginning of his career, moved to Uber
- Barbra started driving on the recommendation of a friend, almost quit her first day!
- Switched to Uber Eats during the pandemic
Why Deliver Food?
- Enjoys being able to get out of the car!
- Can be difficult to find apartment complexes, not always enjoyable to climb multiple flights of stairs
- Benefit to deliver food during the pandemic, too
- Customers: please come out for your food! Especially if you live in an apartment complex
Feedback from Couriers
- Important to have a dialogue with drivers and couriers
- There are focus groups, Slack groups and other ways to get feedback
- Sachin has been driving for the last four years and still goes out to drive
- Need to see what is happening on the ground!
Delivery is Moving to the Curb
- This is difficult for drivers! They can get tickets if they double park downtown
- This is something Uber is aware of – it’s tricky
- On Uber’s side, they’re trying to balance the algorithm so there aren’t too many couriers arriving at one place at the same time
- Don’t necessarily need to be replaced by robots
