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

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

#541

Post by daemin » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 12:49 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #486

naskwo wrote: post #352

A few weeks ago, I posted on HN about my experience in Hamburg (no Uber in Germany. The local taxi authority has its own app which works equally well, if not better). Last weekend, I was in Budapest. There is no Uber in Hungary (anymore), but the main taxi company (Fötaxi) has its own app which works brilliantly. I honestly see no "moat" around Uber in markets where (large) taxi dispatchers have the insight to build…

>London mirror Uber's functionality London black cabs have been available by app for a while (Hailo). The main reason people use Uber is that it's about 30% cheaper.

London Black cabs are more expensive than regular taxis because of the huge amount of knowledge those drivers have. The ability to know the city well, along with all road works, detours, construction, and places of interest, is amazing. Even now Google is only approaching this level of knowledge and it still has to improve its interface.

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

#542

Post by SamUK96 » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 12:50 PM 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.

It is to my knowledge that the problems have been around from the start, but you haven't noticed it.

I'm pushed to think that the "media" didn't report on it too much because the problems were economic. But as an average media company, that story doesn't sell, it doesn't interest the average reader, so they don't report it that much. Then the sexual harrasment scandal surfaced and _that_ is when the media jumped on board, because everybody loves getting political and hearing about scandals and feminism and all those kind of controversial topics.

If anything, the scandal damaged Uber's public image, but that is a superficial problem in proportion to their disasterous funding model and general financials.

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

#543

Post by zakk » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 12:53 PM UTC

netheril96 wrote: post #532

zakk wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Goodbye innocent until proven guilty...

That is only for criminal trials. In civil trials you only need preponderance of evidence.

You are mistaking two different aspects.

You can be declared guilty by preponderance of evidence, of course, but still you are innocent until proven guilty.

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

#544

Post by emilsedgh » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 12:53 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #523

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:…

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…

Uber's valuation is still based on its growth. Therefore, it still needs to be a startup to justify this valuation and burn.

I'd argue that a "mature CEO" is not a fit for Uber which needs to keep growing or die.

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

#545

Post by bjacobel » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 12:55 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #418

matt4077 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't further this narrative that sexually harassing women and his general brohaviour are good for business. They are not. There are ways in which being an asshole ay be good for founders (cf Steve Jobs). Kalanick is just an asshole, and even take-no-prisoner ask-forgiveness-later businesses run much better with a bit of attention to human decency.

has Kalanick himself ever harassed women? I'm genuinely asking, I haven't followed the Uber story closely but I thought the harassment accusations weren't aimed at the CEO. I don't think anyone's suggesting that sexually harassing women is good for business.

When another executive (probably illegally) obtained medical records of a woman who was raped by a driver in India, Travis viewed the records and repeatedly aired his belief internally that the whole thing was a setup by a rival company and no rape had occurred.

https://www.recode.net/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-indi...

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

#546

Post by jerf » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 12:58 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #435

Retric wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to grow when you sell dollars for 70c each. But, when you suddenly need to sell them for 1.01+$ nobody wants to buy. Uber's problem is taxi companies have lower overhead because among other thing their drivers sometimes get hailed by people at street level. Which means their either taxi prices are lower and people stop using Uber or they pay drivers more and drivers mostly stop working for Uber.

Uber is profitable in certain cities, e.g. New York City [1]. They could turn cash-flow positive if they just gave up useless market share. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/ubers-revenue-profit-and-loss...

"Uber is profitable in certain cities, e.g. New York City [1]. They could turn cash-flow positive if they just gave up useless market share."

I would assume that would also depend on how much of their fixed costs they can shed in conjunction with that. Uber may not die quickly but it could still die slowly if they lose the ability to move forward because they had to cut too much of their R&D and sales infrastructure to get to that positive number.

Plus such a massive layoff would be a big red flag to customers too. By Uber's nature, a particular ride isn't a long-term commitment, but I think people would start looking for a stronger-looking horse even so. One of those differences between homo economus, who every time they need a ride rationally examines all their options regardless of the future and realizes that as long as Uber can complete this ride the internal state of Uber doesn't matter, and homo sapiens, who will take into account the fact that Uber doesn't seem to be doing well even if doesn't rationally matter at this particular point.

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

#547

Post by krisdol » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 12:59 PM UTC

petraeus wrote: post #539

Uber is dead in 18 months. I was just in vegas last week and its still filled with taxis, never saw a uber the whole week.

Did you try calling one?

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

#548

Post by Pica_soO » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 12:59 PM UTC

Super_Jambo wrote: post #409

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?

The reason it's so big is they're burning VC cash to subsidize rides. So yea when billionaires are paying your taxi fair to try and drive the local taxi firms out of business naturally they're everywhere. But when that cash runs out the necessary price hike could just as easily drive them out of business. It's not like the drivers have any great loyalty. We really need pro-competition legislation to stop this sort of…

billionairs can get burned too

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

#549

Post by toomanybeersies » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 1:00 PM UTC

johnbellone wrote: post #472

naskwo wrote: post #352

A few weeks ago, I posted on HN about my experience in Hamburg (no Uber in Germany. The local taxi authority has its own app which works equally well, if not better). Last weekend, I was in Budapest. There is no Uber in Hungary (anymore), but the main taxi company (Fötaxi) has its own app which works brilliantly. I honestly see no "moat" around Uber in markets where (large) taxi dispatchers have the insight to build…

First, I hate having to have multiple apps to do the same thing. That would drive me crazy for every city. I would pay a premium not to do that. Second, none of these apps I have seen thus far even attempts to make it easier for the user to add payment methods. Each time I need to put in my credit card information? Twice if I am on business? Nobody has taken advantage of Apple or Android pay integration. I don't cons…

> That would drive me crazy for every city

Most people only go to another city once or twice a year, so it's not a significant issue for them.

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

#550

Post by xutopia » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 1:01 PM UTC

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?

Listen to victims.