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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.

#281

Post by ThrustVectoring »

askafriend wrote: post #266
kawera wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then he probably would have a hard time raising more money.

This is the part that I think people are missing. Uber has a tight runway and burns a ton of cash every year. It needs focus, execution, and some more time (aka $$) to push this thing over the edge into profitability and IPO readiness. This means that Uber may need some money in about a year if it isn't IPO ready by then. Someone here mentioned that at their current burn, they have less than a year of runway left. So…

That, and the fact that there's likely a ton of capital senior to Travis's under a liquidation event. If Uber gets revalued below $10B in "we can't get funding and ran out of runway" restructuring, Kalanick's stock is likely getting zeroed out.

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

#282

Post by goseeastarwar »

function_seven wrote: post #174
goseeastarwar wrote: post #20

Founder CEO's do not resign, they are fired. The article skips over the board entirely, but Travis must have been blindsided by his co-founder Garret Camp and early CEO Ryan Graves for this to have transpired. The board likely threatened to fire him unless he resigned, because there's no way Travis walks away because of this investor letter. It's more than likely the letter just provided the air cover his old friends…

The board lacked the power to fire him. He controls most of the company. They had persuasive power, sure. But if he had wanted to dig in and refuse to leave, he could have.

If Camp, Graves, Gurley, Wei, al-Rumayyan, and Huffington all wanted Travis gone, explain the mechanism he can stop that for me please.

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

#283

Post by pducks32 »

cryptophreak wrote: post #70
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…

Do we have any data to suggest that Uber is materially weakened? Do the negative headlines and social media posts necessarily translate into significant changes in consumer behavior?

Disclaimer: I'm in the Bay Area and roots in Chicago. People are not turning in my experience and have never heard of any of these scandals; however, when I bring them up and really get into them I have noticed people without prompt switching to Lyft. I think people who use Apple Maps or Google Maps' ride sharing feature find it especially easy to switch.

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

#284

Post by nebabyte »

epistasis wrote: post #78
Animats wrote: post #41

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…

> 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…

But that's nothing new, Uber has been on that shaky ground for months now. "If Kalanick can turn this around" (and his banking on automated to make them viable) were basically the only hail marys the diehard bulls clung to. (Name recognition/network effect being useless for obvious reasons that've been covered here in the past) with this, all their eggs are in automated.

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

#285

Post by anigbrowl »

danso wrote: post #106
grandalf wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I called for it in the Susan Fowler thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13747414#13749264 I do wish it hadn't happened, though, I would have preferred if the company could have healed with him still managing to stay in control.

I wonder how things would have gone had Kalanick's family hadn't suffered that horrible tragedy a few weeks ago. That is, whether he would have had the energy/stubbornness to stay as CEO if he wasn't dealing with personal challenges at the same time as professional ones.

I'm sure that was a big factor. Turning a firm's culture around in this case would mean reinventing himself at the same time at the firm, and while that's doable it's a full-time thing. The loss of his mother and serious injuries sustained by his father in the same accident were a cruel twist of fate that would derail many people under the best of circumstances, never mind these more difficult ones.

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

#286

Post by cthulha »

amrrs wrote: post #206
ckastner wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. Nope, This is wrong. Kalanick stood in front in the fight against the City officials and Taxi unions across the globe. Uber could've been done and dusted had it been left as a product to be sold by itself. Kalanick pushed Uber up high against t…

That might be a big deal in America, but it has not been part of Uber's appeal in Australia. Uber here is absolutely focused on the product experience.

If anything, there's a proportion of people who supported local government rules and existing taxi services over the American interloper, a counter-balance to the anti-union and anti-municipal crowd.

Please be mindful that the American experience does not translate globally, even to other english-speaking western countries!

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

#287

Post by pishpash »

gordon_freeman wrote: post #188
pishpash wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will also be a tragedy. With Kalanick gone, Uber is already behaving like a conformist, viz. the recent headlines (1) "Uber co-founder: We’ve been too obsessed with growth" (what?); (2) "Uber is (finally) rolling out tipping" (just awful). That sounds just like Lyft and Lyft is not a worthy rival in any sense of the word.

Why Lyft is not worthy rival of uber? Pretty much wherever you can find uber in USA, you can find Lyft. And considering they have taken way less money from investors than uber and still doing as well tells me that Lyft's executives are not doing that bad after all!

Besides being a coattail follower, on the key things that matter: transparent and market-based pricing, Lyft makes the wrong, paternalistic choice.

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

#288

Post by pducks32 »

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…

With Apple again, if Jobs had not been fired then we may not have the Jobs that people remember today. When he returned Apple had nothing and the board basically kneeled at his feet. He had complete freedom. Way more than he did before his departure.

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

#289

Post by Marazan »

samstave wrote: post #64
imron wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to one who's cash cow is closely managed by the monied interests Not sure I'd use 'cash cow' to describe something that bleeds cash to the tune of billions of dollars a year.

I'm sure there is a lot of cost gutting that could be done and the money they pull in is no laughing matter. Some deep cuts wil likely occur to make the company "more efficient" and "focused on core competency" etc...

Given their main cost is 'running a mini cab service' it is hard to see what they can cut and still exist.

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

#290

Post by anigbrowl »

Pandabob wrote: post #19

Would Marissa Mayer be a good fit for Uber CEO? Given that she just resigned from Yahoo, one would think the board would at least consider her. Unless they're going to choose the next CEO from within the company.

No, her name is associated with decline. I think a woman CEO is likely, but it doesn't have to be from inside tech. I bet on Indra Nooyi.
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