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"investors could lose billions of dollars if the company were to be marked down in valuation." The writer has it backwards. Investors would mark down an asset because it's worth less. The asset doesn't lose value by virtue of being marked down.
It does in public markets. See sell offs, corrections.
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Please investigate, not necessarily believe. Innocent til proven guilty still has some place in this world.. That being said, kudos to anyone courageous enough to speak the truth even at the risk of vilification.
Innocent until proven guilty is a great standard for criminal trials but probably not for the workplace, where people who report harassment are usually taking an incredible career risk by doing so.
Here's a relevant scenario: I'm a man, I hold a managerial position and I have to choose between hiring another man or a woman as a one of my direct-reports. Let's say both contenders have the same qualifications, they're both equally fit for the job, but then, I, as a manager, start thinking that if I hire the woman she will then possibly think of filing a sexual harassment complaint down the line in order to take my job. Remember the "believe" part, which means that the sexual complaint doesn't even need to be backed by anything real, because most of the times after the complaint has been made public the damage is already done for me, as a male manager, no matter what the investigation finds (if it manages to find anything). So I choose the man over the woman as my direct-report.
This may kill Uber. Kalanick is a jerk, but he created that insane valuation. Uber has less than a year of runway left at their current burn rate. Unless they can find a bigger sucker than the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia,[1] they're going broke in 2018. (That "undisclosed amount" in 2017 isn't a significant investment on Uber's scale.) IPO? No way. They'd have to publish audited numbers. What's leaked out i…
> Kalanick is a jerk, but he created that insane valuation. I don't think Kalanick had much to do with it. He created the product, but it pretty much sold by itself -- similar to how Zuckerberg created Facebook, which sold by itself. I'm very optimistic about this change. To me, Kalanick, and the culture he bread, were toxic to Uber. I'm reminded of how Microsoft's share price jumped by 12% the day Steve Ballmer's re…
It's called execution...
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I don't think Uber can go much lower, negativity around it was simply overwhelming. Desperate times require desperate measurements - kicking CEO is like saying: "ok, we did some wrong things - sorry, but we will try to change for a better".
No they effectively euthanized a pet for making a mess on the rug- after they had already scolded it and put it outside.
How often do you hear VCs talk about how much they're on the founder's side like Vinod Khosla. At almost every turn, you'll hear Vinod go on about his reverence for founders. He does however add that this is not always the case. Sometimes, he says, founders must be asked to leave. When Vinod tells you to step aside, I think he'd most likely be right because you know his intentions aren't malicious. Do I think it had gotten to that point with Travis? My answer would be no.
If Uber ends up going down in flames, unable to recover from the scandals and lawsuits, and Lyft prevails, it will be the most incredible change of fate in the business world this century or perhaps longer. The future of automobiles and transportation is still being swirled about, and it feels like Uber's downfall has blown the game WIDE open, ready for anyone (maybe Uber, maybe Lyft, maybe Tesla, Google, Apple, an a…
Pardon me for being somewhat rude, but your perspective suggests that you're perhaps relatively young? IBM's recent demise, Lehman Brothers going down under, Enron, Arthur Anderson / Worldcom, the dismantling of Japanese mega conglomerates by the GHQ, Apple's 90's turnaround, the death of workstation companies, deregulation of US airlines, are all orders of magnitude more impactful than if Uber dies and Lyft prevails…
This may kill Uber. Kalanick is a jerk, but he created that insane valuation. Uber has less than a year of runway left at their current burn rate. Unless they can find a bigger sucker than the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia,[1] they're going broke in 2018. (That "undisclosed amount" in 2017 isn't a significant investment on Uber's scale.) IPO? No way. They'd have to publish audited numbers. What's leaked out i…
I concur. This is a very poor decision all of which stems from the snowballing and mob mentality of the outraged. Companies at this stage in an ultra competitive market (not talking about ride sharing, but self-driving) need their founders to lead and grow. It is just too early and critical to bring in a professional CEO. See Apple.
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You're right, but I think that's exactly how/why Uber's investors were able to convince Kalanick to step down. Uber may or may not take over the world at some point, but Uber needs another round of investment in the next 18 months just to survive. If the existing investors refused to play ball, they could kill the next round, which really would kill Uber. And here's another important moral of this story for founders:…
That's insanity. Why would existing investors refuse to play ball? They're basically locked into it. Uber's massive valuation is built on its potential and to anything they do that hurts Uber's access to capital hurts them. I think they made a huge mistake in pushing Kalanick out, but I'm an outsider. There is surely something dark at play here, that we don't know about.
Amazing the internet can empower an individual blog post to force the previously most formidable startup's CEO to resign. Fear this inter connected world. Fear the power of language.