Being hired to Uber should be treated as a “privilege,” according to its CEO.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, tech stocks hit all-time highs. One of these stocks was ridesharing company Uber which, thanks to surge in necessity for services like Uber Eats, saw an unprecedented windfall. However, as the virus approaches an endemic state, those highs have become distant memories, requiring the companies that profited most to begin dialing back.

Over the weekend, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi sent out an email to employees stating that company needs to reduce its operating costs. “After earnings, I spent several days meeting investors in New York and Boston,” Khosrowshahi wrote. “It’s clear that the market is experiencing a seismic shift and we need to react accordingly.”

“We have to make sure our unit economics work before we go big,” Khosrowshahi added. “The least efficient marketing and incentive spend will be pulled back.”

“We will treat hiring as a privilege and be deliberate about when and where we add headcount,” he added. “We will be even more hardcore about costs across the board.”

Despite Uber’s ubiquity, the company has had difficulty reaching actual profitability since it first went public, and Khosrowshahi is getting tired of waiting. “We have made a ton of progress in terms of profitability, setting a target for $5 billion in Adjusted EBITDA in 2024, but the goalposts have changed,” Khosrowshahi said. “Now it’s about free cash flow. We can (and should) get there fast.”

“We are serving multi-trillion dollar markets, but market size is irrelevant if it doesn’t translate into profit.”