Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O. • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by codecamper » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 8:58 AM UTC

bildung wrote: post #342

nodesocket wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Uber hasn't been able to show a single GAAP-profitable market anywhere, including cities in the US. Rates would have to be more than 100% higher just to archive break even. Scale economics of that magnitude are unheard of with physical products. Self-driving is essentially just a media stunt for them, just like amazons drone delivery news that pop up every year just before christmas. Just look at the numbers in this…

GAAP profit? Who can show that??

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

#372

Post by jeroenjanssens » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 8:58 AM UTC

NumberCruncher wrote: post #343

print "%s may or may not take over the world at some point, but it needs another round of investment in the next 18 months just to survive." % ('any Ponzi scheme')

Python 2? Absolutely barbaric.

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

#373

Post by matt4077 » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:00 AM UTC

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…

Kalanick is no Steve Jobs,

Kalanick is a bro on an ego trip who stumbled upon a business. But harassing women, and all his other flaws, are not what created uber.

Steve Jobs' flaws actually served Apple. The worst he's been accused of is driving people hard to achieve the perfection he sought.

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

#374

Post by matt4077 » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:01 AM UTC

rtx wrote: post #338

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.

"Virtue Signaling" is the most asinine, mean-spirited concept invented since about the middle ages. Its only ever used as a blanket dismissal of others' opinions, even going so far as to blatantly use the moral strength of an argument as a weapon against that argument.

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

#375

Post by matt4077 » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:04 AM UTC

jaypaulynice wrote: post #128

Wow...Travis Kalanick has his flaws, but come on, he will come back bigger just like Steve Jobs. That hurts! A company like Uber needs an aggressive CEO, not a pushover CEO...this is one reason why investors kill companies. I see this happen so many times, a company takes too much investment, the CEO is replaced, then the company dies within a year...

None of Kalanick's kinks is helpful to Uber. Don't promote this idea that it's good business to sexually harass you employees.

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

#376

Post by majewsky » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:05 AM UTC

nodesocket wrote: post #134

20years wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone think that Amazon could be eying Uber but waiting for them to lose value? Seems like it would be a natural fit for their delivery network especially considering their recent purchase of Whole Foods.

I'd prefer Apple to buy Uber as a $AAPL shareholder... Nevermind this is all nonsense.

But why? Is there any synergy between Apple and Uber?

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

#377

Post by matt4077 » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:06 AM UTC

forgottenacc57 wrote: post #63

He should've stayed. I don't recall bill gates being a good guy. Being a good guy as requirement for being CEO is a 21st century thing.

None of the accusations against Uber and Kalanick are about behaviour that is "good business" in any imaginable way. Uber gains nothing from sexually harassing its employees.

...and if that's a 21st Century thing, so be it.Maybe you should do 21st-century things like being a good guy, considering this is the 21st century.

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

#378

Post by Cheesegrits » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:08 AM UTC

kevinburke wrote: post #3

According to the article 5 different VC firms representing 40% of the voting shares asked him to resign today. Kalanick still controls the majority of voting shares and a board seat. Most of Kalanick's trouble started with Susan Fowler speaking out. Please believe women when they report harassment in the workplace. Many of their reports may not be as clear cut as Mrs. Fowler's.

Uber's business model reminds me of Zapp Brannigan.

Fry: "I heard one time you single-handedly defeated a horde of rampaging somethings in the something something system"

Brannigan: "Killbots? A trifle. It was simply a matter of outsmarting them."

Fry: "Wow, I never would've thought of that."

Brannigan: "You see, killbots have a preset kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their limit and shut down. Kif, show them the medal I won."

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

#379

Post by thinkfurther » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:08 AM UTC

Radim wrote: post #331

kornish wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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)

> Our main way of relating ourselves to others is like things relate themselves to things on the market. We want to exchange our own personality, or as one says sometimes, our "personality package", for something.

-- Erich Fromm ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu-7UDT0Xe4&t=1m34s )

> The danger of computers becoming like humans is not as great as the danger of humans becoming like computers.

-- Konrad Zuse

And when Picasso said that computers are useless because they only provide answers, was he just being witty, or pointing at an abyss, knowingly or not?

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

#380

Post by matt4077 » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:08 AM UTC

ganfortran wrote: post #21

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.

Yeah. Also don't ask new employees for sex on their first day. Repeatedly.