An Uber office in the UK (Elliott Brown, CC BY 2.0)
The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has launched an investigation into Uber based on a complaint about gender inequality, per The Wall Street Journal.
Since last August, the EEOC has been looking into questions around gender-related hiring practices and compensation disparities, among other issues, at the ridehailing giant. To gather information, the federal agency has been collecting official documents and interviewing current and former Uber employees.
In an interview at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech Conference on Monday, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi acknowledged that the investigation has been going on for some time and told the audience he takes sole responsibility for the company's culture. "Sometimes it takes a punch in the face to see things clearly," he said. "This was one of the moments for me. This was a rough week. But it is incredibly motivating, and I think we absolutely have the tools."
The probe comes just a few days after Liane Hornsey resigned from her role as Uber's head of human resources in the midst of claims that she mishandled allegations of racial discrimination. There's no evidence that she is part of the current investigation.
The EEOC investigation and the circumstances surrounding Hornsey's departure have sparked renewed scrutiny into a company that's been trying to clean up its act. For most of 2017, Uber was the subject of headline after headline as it faced high-profile lawsuits, attacks on its workplace culture and questions about its technology.
One of the lowest points came in February 2017, when former employee Susan Fowler published a blog post accusing the company's management of a pattern of sexual harassment. Fowler's blog post kicked off an internal investigation into Uber's work environment and diversity, and the resulting report ultimately led to former CEO Travis Kalanick's resignation and a commitment from the company to improve its culture.
The appointment of Khosrowshahi as Uber's new chief executive in August signaled a new direction for the troubled company. Its reputation has improved since then, but it still faces a number of problems.
Here's a look at some of the key happenings around Uber since Khosrowshahi took the helm nearly a year ago:
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September 2017: Just a few weeks after Khosrowshahi comes on board, London's transportation arm rejects Uber's application to renew its license after concluding the company was "not fit and proper" to operate. (In June, Uber was granted a 15-month license.)
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November 2017: The company confirms that, in late 2016, hackers stole the data of some 57 million riders and drivers from around the world. Khosrowshahi also admits that Uber had kept the cyberattack quiet for more than a year.
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January 2018: SoftBank completes its tender offer, buying a 15% stake in Uber at a valuation of $48 billion. The Japanese investor also put another $1.2 billion directly into the company at a valuation of about $70 billion. Stock sellers included Benchmark and Travis Kalanick.
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February 2018: About a year after Waymo first filed a trade secret lawsuit against Uber and two weeks into the resulting trial, the two companies reach a settlement. Uber agreed to give Waymo a small percentage of equity in the company to settle allegations that the company had stolen confidential documents regarding autonomous vehicle technology.
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March 19, 2018: Uber halts testing of its self-driving cars after a woman was struck and killed by one of its driverless vehicles in Tempe, AZ. (In May, the company shuttered all self-driving testing operations in Arizona.)
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March 23, 2018: Reports emerge that existing Uber investors are in the process of selling a total of $600 million worth of secondary shares. The round valued the company at an estimated $62 billion, down from a peak valuation of $70 billion but still more than any other VC-backed company in the world. The company also revealed that it turned a profit during the first quarter of 2018.
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March 26, 2018: Grab, a ridehailing company based in Singapore, agrees to pick up Uber's Southeast Asia operations. (The acquisition has since run into some regulatory issues and is not yet complete.)
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April 9, 2018: The company agrees to acquire JUMP, an electric bike startup, in its first acquisition under Khosrowshahi's leadership.
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April 24, 2018: In its 2018 diversity update, Uber reports that its proportion of female employees had increased by about 2% in the preceding year. As of April, women made up 38% of the company's workforce.
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July 9, 2018: Uber partners with Lime, agreeing to roll the company's electric scooters into the Uber app.
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July 11, 2018: Liane Hornsey resigns from her role as head of Uber's human resources department amid questions over how she handled race-based discrimination claims.
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July 16, 2018: Reports of the EEOC investigation emerge.
Related read: A 2017 timeline of Uber's no good, very bad year