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> 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. And in Jobs' case, it took an absence from the company of more than 10 years…
Jobs got fired from apple. Edit: Downvotes for simply stating a fact?
Somewhat off-topic: Why is something like Uber called ride-sharing to begin with? I'm not sharing my ride with anyone that coincidentally wants to travel (more or less) the same route as me. I pay somebody to drive their car first to me, and then some other place. This is called a taxi or cab [1], there Uber is a taxi company. At least in Germany, there used to be actual ride-sharing systems, of which the best one us…
Along these lines, Lyft started out as an actual ride-sharing platform with Zimride, until eventually the current model took off and they decided to sell the ride-sharing part of the company away.
"investors could lose billions of dollars if the company were to be marked down in valuation." The writer has it backwards. Investors would mark down an asset because it's worth less. The asset doesn't lose value by virtue of being marked down.
"The asset doesn't lose value by virtue of being marked down." It does in public markets. See sell offs, corrections.
'The asset' in my statement obviously refers to shares in Uber. Those aren't 'in public markets'.
Moreover, even if I were talking about assets in general, including those traded in public markets, my statement is still true. If company A buys shares in company B, and company B's share price subsequently goes down in value, then company A may mark down their own holding (i.e. reduce the value they report in their accounts) to reflect that new reality. But that reality (the lower public market value) preceded the mark down. So the mark down cannot be the cause of the reduction in value.
In simpler terms, 'marking down' is an accounting activity, or one of financial reporting. It's writing down what is. It's creating the reality. That's why it's called 'bean counting'. The beans exist before they are counted.
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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.
Like any good late-stage US capitalist, he outsourced it.
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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:…
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?
Well, if you're spending more than your revenue, that is the eventual outcome if money stream from investors dries up.
Uber doesn't really have many physical assets that could be liquidated. Their value is entirely based on profitability. Which is currently negative.
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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?
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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?
Uber doesn't make enough from fares to be profitable, they use investors' money to heavily subsidize them. Once the investor money runs out, Uber won't be able to pay drivers unless they jack up prices considerably. Once they are no longer price competitive, customers will move to other services. Turns out the car service business isn't very sticky at all (even the drivers work for multiple companies...). Drivers sta…
"drivers start to leave" where are they leaving to?
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.
If we are angry about Kalanick sexually harassing people (as we should be), Steve Jobs mentally/emotionally harassing people is as bad. There is no difference, don't make it seem like it is okay or that it was "good for Apple".
If this is true then he is his own worst enemy, and I find it very sad when anyone - no matter how big a jerk you think they are - is trapped in a repeating pattern of negative and destructive behavior.
To be clear: I am not absolving him of his behavior, I'm just observing that the culture comes from the founder and his wounds run deep.
[1] Scour filed for bankruptcy, Red Swoosh was acquired after enormous struggles to keep the company afloat.