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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.

#331

Post by Radim »

kornish wrote: post #153
dfabulich wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:…

“He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it.” – Dune , Frank Herbert

"The machines themselves condition the users to employ each other the way they employ machines."

- God Emperor of Dune, Frank Herbert (a prescient book on social feedback loops, my favourite in the series)

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

#332

Post by dredmorbius »

ckastner wrote: post #184
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…

> 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…

Facebook had a major ace in the hole by starting at Harvard. That's the network pretty much everyone wants to be a part of.

The irony is that in growing, FB traded down that cachet -- but managed to transition from cohort value to network value fairly successfully.

This is an argument I've made for years, I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one -- danah boyd has mentioned it several times as well.

I'm not saying Zuck didn't execute well -- the advantage still could have been blown (and I've only just learnt of a similar network started IIRC at Columbia University which didn't go as well). But for all the things Zuck can claim, building Harvard's social appeal is not one of them.

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

#333

Post by nodesocket »

nailer wrote: post #318
swang wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he could have cleaned ship years ago with all the previous scandals but he was either too stubborn or too arrogant to think any bad news would pull his company down. he was representative of uber's toxic culture and it seems like he should have stepped down right after he was caught bad mouthing a driver FROM HIS OWN COMPANY.

Is that the video where he explains how there wasn't huge demand for upmarket cabs to angry upmarket cab driver? There wasn't much scandal there.

Correct. It's the video where the Uber driver blames Travis personally for him buying cars and his small transportation business failing. I mean, how could an incredibly high interest and high upfront capital car loan into a very speculative and low margin business be risky? It must be Uber and Travis screwing him.

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

#335

Post by imranq »

kornish wrote: post #153
dfabulich wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:…

“He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it.” – Dune , Frank Herbert

Any of us could inflict real damage or destruction on our surroundings especially while driving but that doesn't mean we have "control" over them.

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

#336

Post by rock57 »

Travis Kalanick might be upset... All the way to the bank, as a holder of huge equity and majority voting power (so he seems to have the capacity to reinstall himself as a CEO when/if he finds it fit) who surely has negotiated nice conditions for himself in any liquidity event.

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

#337

Post by kissickas »

tommorris wrote: post #186
delroth wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No credit cards. Drivers get paid directly with cash. I can understand why some people might see this as a feature, but that's severely misunderstanding why people use services like Uber.

Also, payment is very culturally specific. In Brazil, Uber required drivers to accept cash payment having seen that it was successful in other countries like India. Suddenly carjackers realised that Uber cars were basically cash machines on wheels and so armed robbery, murder and mayhem ensued. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/brazils-love-affa...

As a counterpoint, Careem, Uber's biggest competitor in the GCC, accepts cash. I love the system as they've handled it well - if the driver has no change, they just add it to your account for use on the next trip, with no pressure to tip. You can even run a negative balance although I'm not sure what the limit is.

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

#338

Post by rtx »

This shows how important virtue signalling is today's America. We have well loved CEO's of billion dollar companies using actual slave Labour. No one write a about them. But here we have journalists like Sarah Lacy going on a crusade against him. Though she always forgot to mention that she has taken funding from VC supporting Uber's rival.
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