Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi emailed employees hours before the company's massive IPO. Here's what he said.
- Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi sent a letter to company employees ahead of its massive IPO on Friday.
- Uber priced its IPO at $45 per share, giving the company an initial valuation of $75.5 billion.
- In the letter, Khosrowshahi said that being accountable to shareholders and the public will mean even more responsibility for Uber employees.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi sent a letter to company employees ahead of its May 10th IPO, reflecting on the company's decade-long history and how going public will impact Uber's future.
Uber executives including Khosrowshahi rang the opening bell on the balcony of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday morning as the company prepared to list its shares under the ticker symbol "UBER." The company has priced its IPO at $45 per share, giving the company an initial valuation of $75.5 billion.
In the full letter published by Bloomberg, Khosrowshahi talks about how Uber went from early test runs to providing billions of trips to customers around the world.
"Since our first trip in the summer of 2010 to today, Uber has redefined what it means to scale a startup -- from only a few cars and a handful of employees to operations in more than 60 countries, 10B+ trips, and 3.9M people finding work on our platform."
As a publicly traded company, Uber will now have to deal with increased public scruinty and quarterly earnings reports and calls with analysts, and Khosrowshahi said that will mean even more responsibility for Uber employees.
"We'll have an even deeper responsibility to our customers, to our shareholders, to our cities, and to each other. With every share purchased, someone else will join us as a co-owner of Uber- and we'll gain another person to whom we owe a duty to always 'do the right thing, period.'"
Uber drivers went on strike in more than a dozen cities on Wednesday to advocate for higher pay and better working conditions as the company's IPO approached.
Uber's IPO comes less than two months after its primary competitor, Lyft, joined the NASDAQ. Lyft went public with a $21 billion initial valuation but shares have dropped more than 20% in value since March 29th. Khosrowshahi and a handful of Uber executives were at the New York Stock Exchange on May 10th to ring the opening bell and shares of Uber will be available later in the morning.