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

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

#701

Post by davidf18 » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 3:39 PM UTC

Much of the resistance to Uber (such as laws that were broken, protests) were from entrenched interests. At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. It provided completion for the entrenched Yellow Cab monopoly with its very high rates. Sometimes Uber would have higher rates but then you could take a Yellow Cab instead.

The Yellow Cab special interests paid off politicians so that there was a limit of 13,000 Yellow Cab medallions for 8.5 million people. The price of the taxi medallion was $1.2 million. While people in Manhattan could get a taxi, there were no taxis in Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, ... Because of the artificial limit on medallions which only benefited medallion owner but not New Yorkers, a driver leasing a cab for a 12 hour shift could pay $125 just to lease the car.

When Uber and Lyft came, the rates were lower, one could use Uber Pool to have even lower rates and save on greenhouse gas. Now taxi services have some availability outside of Manhattan. Now many Yellow Cabs are idle and the value of the medallions went for $1.2 million to about $700,000 or less.

In NYC, the Yellow Cab medallion owners tried to get the mayor to put restrictions on the growth of Uber/Lyft, but New Yorkers protested.

Uber/Lyft have increased customer value, lowered greenhouse gasses while not forcing drivers to pay excessing leasing fees for vehicles.

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

#702

Post by Bartweiss » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 3:40 PM UTC

azernik wrote: post #140

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…

Alternate take (not originally mine): the bad state of Uber's financials is the cause of Kalanick's ousting. If the company had a longer runway, or wasn't facing the prospect of a down-round, he could have gotten away with anything.

This seems like the obvious rebuttal. Kalanick could have resisted any simple vote to remove, so this isn't a case of liking the results but not the methods. If Uber had strong financial footing, Kalanick would have been able to stay (and there would have been less interest in removing him).

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

#703

Post by Bartweiss » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 3:43 PM UTC

sharmi wrote: post #118

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…

Though not yet proven, wasn't a similar logic used by HR (or higher management) to justify not taking action against "star performers" for their transgressions?

Almost exactly the same, came to mind when I read that also.

I suppose there's some tipping point of "very valuable" and "not that badly behaved" where the argument is actually valid (see: all the Steve Jobs references in this thread). But at that point I guess the ethical solution is to make it very clear what new hires are in for, and pay a healthy "dealing with this person" bonus (see: Steve Jobs, again).

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

#704

Post by sctb » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 3:44 PM 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')

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14601085 and marked it off-topic.

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

#705

Post by ASpring » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 3:46 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #683

cirenehc wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have you been to NYC? LA? Seattle?

Not in the past few years - SF only. But I do appreciate that Lyft is active elsewhere in the US, just that Uber appear to be active in a LOT of markets where Lyft is not (i.e. there are places in the world that are not major US cities).

Certainly Uber is more places but in the past 2 weeks I've spent time in "cities" of sizes around 50-60k people and almost all have had both services. Often Lyft will have less cars on the road but I did not struggle to find a Lyft.

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

#706

Post by DelTaco » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 3:47 PM UTC

Action Jack Barker to step in? I think the only thing that can save Uber now is the conjoined triangles of success.

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

#707

Post by untog » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 3:47 PM UTC

beisner wrote: post #571

toomanybeersies wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But is that true for most people who use Uber, or even taxis? I wouldn't be surprised if a large portion of Uber/taxi users were in fact people traveling to a different city.

I would be surprised. At least in New York, people use taxis very often, and thus use Uber very often. I'd wager the vast majority of Uber usage is in people's home towns/cities.

Personally, I use other apps when in NYC, but fall back to Uber when I'm somewhere else and can't find a local app.

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

#708

Post by tmaly » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 3:49 PM UTC

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:…

How much interest does he actually control right now?

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

#709

Post by ryandrake » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 3:49 PM UTC

acjohnson55 wrote: post #590

I, for one, will consider using Uber again. It is very important to me to see a change in leadership. I simply couldn't square my use of the app with the sense that Uber was deeply unethical, starting from the top. Also, it's so disappointing to see so many people buy into the cult of personality of the Startup Founder. There's a lot of half-baked reasoning going on on why Uber's fate should be inexorable tied to Tra…

> Also, it's so disappointing to see so many people buy into the cult of personality of the Startup Founder. There's a lot of half-baked reasoning going on on why Uber's fate should be inexorable tied to Travis. So far, the two main arguments I've seen are "because Steve Jobs" and "he raised so much money for them". Neither one of these are compelling in explaining why Uber's survival prospects should be further damaged by a change at the top.

It's such a strange idea--that out of the seven billion people on the planet, only one is capable of leading [Company X]. Who really believes this?

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

#710

Post by sctb » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 3:51 PM UTC

awwwwsmwry wrote: post #363

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.

Women should stay at home and raise kids... you don't really need women in the economy or politics, nor do they need it to be happy.

We'll ban the main account as well as this one if you continue to use throwaways to violate the guidelines.