Uber boss calls time on 'unfair' beers with the guys

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Photo / AP

The days of male colleagues sharing in an after-work pint are over because the tradition alienates female colleagues, according to the boss of the tech giant Uber.

Dara Khosrowshahi said that drinking beer "with the guys at work" is wrong and unfair, something he realised after undergoing training to make Uber a more inclusive workplace.

The executive, who joined from travel company Experian, said he would no longer go for a drink with just male colleagues after work, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Speaking in San Francisco, he said: "In my last job, when I wanted a beer after work I had a beer with one of the guys because it was comfortable, because it was a person who looked like me and a person I could be more casual with."

However he said that he now felt that this was wrong now that he had undergone workplace training to make Uber a more inclusive business for women.

"These guys worked for me, they were getting access to me that was not fair," he said.

The ride hailing chief executive said he has "corrected" his after work activities following a recent scandal in which his right hand man Barney Harford was found to have made racially insensitive and gender discriminative remarks that were later reported in the New York Times.

"That could have shown up in a New York Times article and that could have marked me," he said at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.

In July Uber's chief operating officer Barney Harford was revealed to have questioned an Uber advert featuring a mixed-race couple and mixed up two black women who had similar hairstyles. He later made a public apology, promising to work on his "blind spots".

Khosrowshahi, who brought Harford in as his right hand man when he took the reins at Uber following a history of working together at Experian, said on Thursday that Harford was a "great guy" and that he was "100 per cent behind him". He defended Harford by claiming that he was "sure that i have said things that are insensitive".

It is the latest in a series of accusations aimed at Uber, whose founder billionaire Travis Kalanick stood accused of turning a blind eye to sexual harassment, gender discrimination and allowing a toxic work environment before eventually bowing to pressure from investors and resigning in 2017.