How to Be an Ethical Pirate at a Startup

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Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is trying to transform the company's culture after a series of high-profile scandals. He says that while startups and their founders benefit from behaving like ethical pirates, they should never behave like sociopaths, thieves or criminals. If you're working for an ethical pirate, you should feel proud of your shared values, he says.

Early-stage startups are a lot like pirate ships — they need a buccaneering spirit to survive. But every startup needs to shed its pirate nature at some point, and evolve into something more akin to a navy — no less heroic, but more disciplined. Dara Khosrowshahi, as Uber CEO, took on the most extreme pirate-to-navy transition in startup history. Though Uber blitzscaled to become the most valuable startup in the world, it was also notorious for its toxic culture — and Dara turned the company around. His method? Truth-telling and doing the right thing

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