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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.

#321

Post by kelnos »

cthulha wrote: post #286
amrrs wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 gl…

I think you're really just reinforcing the point. He's been willing to do whatever it takes. In the US that meant testing how far he could push and how many regulations he could bend and break before people called him on it. In Australia, apparently, that means first pushing the product experience as far as possible to convince people Uber is much more desirable than taxis.

And regardless of that, it doesn't matter: by the time Uber started operating in Australia (or any non-US country, for that matter), they already had a history of pushing hard against existing norms. Uber would have never even gotten to the point where expanding outside the US would have been possible if it hadn't been for Kalanick.

Sure, he's a jerk, but to claim that he had nothing to do with Uber's expansion after launch is just absurd.

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

#322

Post by kamaal »

cthulha wrote: post #286
amrrs wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 gl…

But this was done globally though.

'Software company, Not a taxi company' argument was used extensively to circumvent license and medallion regulations. On top of it they used VC money to drive down the prices by 4x-5x.

Several tens of thousands of drivers in every state in every country they went to got shafted because of these moves.

So yes he was very brutal and ruthless upfront. You can't replace that kind of human quality easily.

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

#323

Post by GeneralMayhem »

goseeastarwar wrote: post #282
function_seven wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He owns more than 50% of the voting stock. Boards don't operate on one-man-one-vote, they operate on one-share-one-vote. If he had really wanted to stay no matter the consequences, he could simply have voted against his own firing.

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

#324

Post by ckastner »

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…

> Nope, This is wrong. Kalanick stood in front in the fight against the City officials and Taxi unions across the globe.

Don't kid yourself, this fight was fought by lawyers and lobbyists.

Uber financed one side of this fight, but seeing as the outcome of this fight was critical to Uber's business model, that wasn't some genius insight, that was self-preservation.

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

#325

Post by kelnos »

maaaats wrote: post #158
Fej wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear all this doom & gloom, but could Uber not just... raise prices? Sure, they would lose a lot of customers, but they would stay alive. How could Uber, barring wholly incompetent leadership, completely implode?

Uber needs the network effect. Lower usage means fewer uber drivers, which means it's harder for me to get a lift, which makes me use something else. So a relatively small dip can cause a collapse un usage.

Raising prices could include raising (by not as much) payouts to drivers, which could make them more attractive to drive than Lyft. Then again, if too many customers leave, then you have a surplus of drivers who get frustrated because they can't get fares. But perhaps there's a balancing point somewhere in the middle.

And many/most Uber drivers also drive for Lyft. There's no harm in leaving both apps on and grabbing a more-elusive (but higher) Uber fare when one comes along.

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

#326

Post by viraptor »

smt88 wrote: post #85
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…

So Travis created an insane valuation but the business isn't viable? That sounds like bad management to me. They may do much better without him.

They were run in a way that assumed funding and burning money to get there. If they suddenly need to turn profitable, they can still downsize a lot. Consider their 2000 engineers... That's on an established service. Sure, they would slow down new features and expansion, but they've have expenses they can cut. And prices they can raise.

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

#327

Post by Shanea93 »

smt88 wrote: post #103
camelite wrote: post #83

Should we believe men too when they're victimised by women, or is this a one way deal? What if it's a man and a woman accusing each other, or two men or two women. What if the dude is a historically oppressed minority?

We should also believe men, but that isn't a historical problem the way it is for women. As an exercise, ask a few men and women you know if they've ever been harassed or attacked at work. If they didn't report it, ask them why.

Anecdotally, I'm in the process of being sexually harassed by a director at the company I work for and choosing not reporting it. I plan to leave in a couple of months, my startup is in the final stages of closing a seed round - getting in to a sexual harassment lawsuit right now is the last thing I need in terms of stress and career.

The power dynamics are significantly different though, I don't feel at all in danger, I'm a 6'2 man who lifts weights in his spare time, so it's more of an annoyance than anything truly worrying. I understand that this person may go on to harass the next person who fills my role, but I simply have too much personally riding on the outcome of the present to leverage it in that way.

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

#328

Post by nailer »

sverhagen wrote: post #114
slice_of_life wrote: post #38

Pushing a founder out is often a bad idea. This might very well be the beginning of Uber's demise. This won't be good for the company. All CEOs make mistakes even great ones like Gates with antitrust or Zuck calling users dumb-fucks. They weren't kicked out, they instead were allowed to come into their own. There's a distinct fire that a founder has for the company they founded. You can't hire that. Without this fire…

I pretty much can't stumble upon an article about Uber that's not about controversy. I know that kind of news sells better. But in my perception now Uber had the pendulum swung far off center. I've been shocked by their (reported) ethics, to the point of not purchasing their services. I know that consequence is not taken by a majority of people, but I do sense a more than average disgust for Uber's ethics. If you'd a…

That indicates how much the tech press love writing about scandals at unicorn startups, and how much some folk enjoy reading them.

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

#329

Post by orcdork »

paganel wrote: post #212
kevinburke wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People can also be very manipulative. Following down this path (i.e. "believing that the accuser is right even before the investigation starts") will only lead to less women being hired for relevant positions. 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 qualificatio…

So what you're saying is, in your "relevant" scenario, you would discriminate based on gender for a hiring decision.

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

#330

Post by a_imho »

odonnellryan wrote: post #209
dixie_land wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to default to believing people that report harassment unless I can find credible evidence it didn't happen. I hope to God you don't show up for jury duties.

There are multiple ways to interpret the phrase "I believe you."

Please elaborate, I'm not a native speaker and I don't see how it can be interpreted differently in this context.
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