Uber Taps Facebook Live Director To Head Up Driver Products

Uber, the ridesharing service, has tapped one of Facebook’s product directors to head up driver product development, a role that has been vacant since December.

Citing Uber Head of Product Manik Gupta, TechCrunch reported that Daniel Danker, who was in charge of video for Facebook Live, has joined the company as senior director and head of driver product. “Drivers are the heart of the Uber experience, and Daniel’s passion for our mission and deep product knowledge will ensure we continue to improve and innovate on their behalf,” said Gupta in a statement to TechCrunch. Danker is a veteran of Silicon Valley, working at Microsoft from 2000 to 2010. Following that, he was employed by BBC and then served as chief product officer for Shazam for close to three years, reported TechCrunch. Danker will be in charge of product strategy and execution, noted the report.

Danker is joining Uber a few weeks after it launched its new driver app, which was developed to make it easy for Uber drivers to find information and better track their earnings. In a blog post announcing the redesign in April, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that drivers are the “heart” of the service, and that Uber lost sight of that along the way. “We focused too much on growth and not enough on the people who made that growth possible. We called drivers ‘partners,’ but didn’t always act like it. We needed to do better, and 180 Days of Change was the first step,” wrote the executive. During the past six months, Khosrowshahi said Uber has launched close to 40 new features aimed at improving the driver experience. Still, he said that is just the beginning. “While 180 Days was about correcting missteps of the past, we also needed to think longer term, and the obvious place to start was the Driver app. It sits at the center of the driver experience, but after a redesign two years ago, it was already showing its age,” he noted.