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Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#251

Post by r00fus »

drewblaisdell wrote: post #161
flyosity wrote: post #5

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…

If Uber dies and Lyft becomes the new market leader, who is the new underdog?

Small-time taxi drivers.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#252

Post by reubenswartz »

JabrZer0 wrote: post #222
laluser wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon already has Flex. Source: I'm a software engineer in that team. Uber is way too expensive at this point.

There's no doubt that Amazon has much more established delivery logistics than Uber at this point, but I wonder if the real value would come from another angle: Uber has been pushing hard on self-driving cars (I mean, in the long term, it strikes me as their only viable business model, so it makes sense). By my best estimates, salary for delivery drivers for Amazon packages run somewhere between $6B and $10B per year…

Minor point-- Amazon does about $35B per quarter.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#253

Post by jsemrau »

Animats wrote: post #107
epistasis wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber has less than a year of runway left at their current burn rate. If true, this seems far more likely to be a cause of Uber's death than Kalanick resigning. That, and the valuation being as insane as it is, which is also Kalanick's fault, which as you point out, makes it hard to find greater and greater suckers. Perhaps they'll be better off all around without Kalanick, assuming they can get the business side on…

Uber bought market share by subsidizing rides. That can't go on forever. Or much longer, without more capital. They're already borrowing heavily, having run out of equity sources. The business model hype is supposed to be that they push taxis out of business, then raise rates. Or self-driving cars will somehow save them. Both are unlikely. [1] http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/growth-vs-profits...

That is exactly my point for a while now [1]. The investors could have easily picked on taxi company handed them several billions, but they chose Uber. Mainly because of the hype created by the senior leadership team. They seem to have overplayed there hand.

[1]https://medium.com/@thisTenqyuLife/nobody-will-talk-about-ub...

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#254

Post by acchow »

temp20160423 wrote: post #121
Animats wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber bought market share by subsidizing rides. That can't go on forever. Or much longer, without more capital. They're already borrowing heavily, having run out of equity sources. The business model hype is supposed to be that they push taxis out of business, then raise rates. Or self-driving cars will somehow save them. Both are unlikely. [1] http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/growth-vs-profits...

Completely ridiculous. The model was not to raise rates in the future. The whole reason they could raise so much money was that they showed as they reduced rates, they induced more demand. They also had data showing increasing lifetime customer value. I recommend reading Brad Stone's The Upstarts. If they can have higher profits/customer while having lower rates than other companies, then they actually have a moat. I…

> The whole reason they could raise so much money was that they showed as they reduced rates, they induced more demand

This is true for almost any good.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#255

Post by btmiller »

rmason wrote: post #62
robzyb wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't (yet) have an opinion on this, but it's important to note the other side of the coin... > Hope everyone's paying attention to the identity of these investors behind this horrid behavior. Travis is not without his flaws but he created an awful lot of value for them. He's been very well compensated for the value he's created. You don't keep a job because of what you've done in the past, you keep a job based on…

Firing founders was tried in the nineties and it always resulted in failure. Guess the Uber VC's need to painfully relearn that lesson? If Travis had been smart enough to create two classes of stock like Mark Zuckerberg and the Google founders he'd be calling the shots, instead he's out of a job.

You're going to face a lot of harsh criticism if all you can focus on here is VC and profit.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#256

Post by sumedh »

rmason wrote: post #12

Hope everyone's paying attention to the identity of these investors behind this horrid behavior. Travis is not without his flaws but he created an awful lot of value for them. They pressure him into taking a sabbatical, then two days in they pull this cowardly act of firing him remotely. Not only was it a cowardly act, but it was the wrong thing to do for the business. It will lead to an epic destruction of value. Wo…

Jobs did say that looking back getting fired from Apple was a good thing. So who knows maybe Travis will come back later with a some new perspective in life.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#257

Post by chronic7ul »

King-Aaron wrote: post #239
sidcool wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But does winning have to come at the cost of basic human dignity and law?

It often does, really.

Correct. This is why you see almost no billion dollar "tech" companies coming out of Scandinavia or Europe in the past 10 years. The places with so called, work life balance.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#258

Post by kamaal »

watwut wrote: post #227
hkmurakami wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an embattled company like this in a fiercely competitive industry, you need committed leadership and not a rotating cast of hired guns looking to make a quick buck. Kalanick has serious issues but he's demonstrated unquestionably forceful (and polarizing) leadership that mere "managers" will never be able to replace. I've been bullish on Uber despite all their mistakes and internal issues because at the end of th…

Yeah, but winning meant becoming big while loosing money and saddling company with long term problems. Investors likely care about the money thing more.

There is no easy way for these people to make money. Not unless they start charging their customers some multiples of price higher than they are doing currently.

Here in India, I go by the office cab to home everyday. I generally chat with the drivers as to why they don't drive for Uber/Ola etc. The answer is they need to make a good 1300 rupees on a round trip to be profitable, at a minimum of 6 trips per day. A trip with Uber/Ola etc costs 300 rupees(With pool). But even then!

So that's like these people need to start charging a minimum of 5x extra to make profits. At that price these people are no longer a viable means of transport.

To be profitable you need to back to the yellow taxi medallion thingy all over again.

EDIT: Fix a mistake.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#259

Post by anigbrowl »

chrissnell wrote: post #223
sidcool wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But does winning have to come at the cost of basic human dignity and law?

Of course not, but there isn't another option for Uber. Second place isn't good enough, not with their burn rate. You need Ghengis Khan if you want to slaughter and conquer.

It's this slaughter and conquer mentality that has caused them so many problems. I mean Lyft's main selling point to consumers has been 'Uber without all the attitude.' If Uber had been a little more customer-focused and emollient a few years back, they'd have held onto a much larger slice of the ride-sharing market.

Look at Google; they're firmly business-minded and have often butted heads with regulators and so forth, but most people like google, not least because of that 'don't be evil' branding and and their habit of giving people Nice Things.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#260

Post by pm90 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #178
fnovd wrote: post #98

>Mr. Kalanick last week said he would take an indefinite leave of absence from Uber, partly to work on himself and to grieve for his mother, who died last month in a boating accident. He said Uber’s day-to-day management would fall to a committee of more than 10 executives. >In the letter, titled “Moving Uber Forward” and obtained by The New York Times, the investors wrote to Mr. Kalanick that he must immediately lea…

I think this is right on. It's a crucial moment for Uber and that is no time to hand leadership off to a big committee. I'm seeing a bunch of references in these comments to when Steve Jobs was fired from Apple.[1] A more relevant reference might be when Jobs stepped down to treat his cancer. He named one interim CEO--Tim Cook--and fully empowered him to run Apple. If it was Travis's idea to leave a 10-person committ…

> If it was Travis's idea to leave a 10-person committee in charge, that is the sort of insecure, bad decision that would set off investor alarm bells.

To be honest, from what I've read, the two men don't seem to be similar at all except in the fact that they both founded spectacularly successful/revolutionary startups. Jobs might have been incredibly rude but he did not promote a culture of sexual harassment...that is just a different kind of aggressive culture. He was more about pushing people to unreasonable limits, not giving due acknowledgements etc.... all of which are reprehensible, but nowhere near as terrible as sexual harassment.

Like you mention, it seems EXACTLY the result of an insecure man trying to make himself irreplaceable rather than an adult understanding the reality of the situation and the actions required to save his baby (Uber).

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