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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.

#521

Post by ada1981 »

_asummers wrote: post #488
baby wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys are talking about Uber dying, but I cannot fathom how this is possible from just the user's perspective. Uber seems to be everywhere, people take Ubers or driver for Ubers every day. How could a company this big fail? Stop growing maybe, but going bankrupt and shutting down?

Anecdotally, I've personally taken Lyft almost exclusively lately. Among my peers, I've noticed similar trends. I've even heard shifting in language -- rather than say "call an Uber", I've heard "call a Lyft"., Plural of anecdote is obviously not data, but those are my data points.

We've made the shift in NYC to Lyft or JUNO.

Not even sure if I installed Uber last month when I got a new iPhone.

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

#523

Post by exelius »

dfabulich wrote: post #100
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…

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:…

I dunno, my guess is that he was too set in his ways to make the leap from "CEO of a growth startup" to "CEO of a mature company".

If you look at founder/CEOs who have made that leap, they all tend to be very young (Jobs, Gates, Zuck, etc) and had very strong teams behind them.

Someone like Kalanick - who has run multiple startups to various exits - has been running startups all his professional life. His management style likely works very well at a startup, where failure is assumed so risk tolerance is high. At a startup, you need a field general leading the troops into battle.

But at a large, maturing company, you need a different skill set. Risk tolerance becomes a negative attribute once the company grows so large you can't control the risk anymore. Rather than a field general, you need a therapist capable of massaging the egos of the executive team and the board of directors. The job becomes more strategic and political -- execution is assumed, and failure is no longer an option.

I don't think Kalanick is that guy, and I think the board finally convinced him of that. But if I was an investor, I'd still be happy to listen to his next startup pitch...

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

#524

Post by dingo_bat »

matt4077 wrote: post #388
vecter wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or as they say, "what got you here won't get you there"

Kalanick's brohaviour has nothing to do with economic success. You absolutely do not need to harass people sexually to be successful.

And he didn't sexually harass anybody. I don't see your point.

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

#529

Post by TheCondor »

sidcool wrote: post #208
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…

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

It probably doesn't have to come at that cost, it's just not unusual for it to.

If you peal back the layers, probably most rapid growth, hard driving large companies have left a wake of upset and screwed over people behind it. Nobody "gives" you a hundred billion dollar company.. Uber's leadership was just particularly inept at pivoting from "scorched earth" to a slightly less savage strategy.

This will be an interesting pivot to watch, I've been kind of betting with myself when will the first week come with no news or good news for uber. I thought they'd have spun up the pr machine months ago, talking about co2 saved by carpooling or something. Giant company, currently fixed runway, all eyes on it and damaged culture. If uber doesn't die, the next CEO is a superstar.

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