I wonder if Travis resigning was contingent on Bill Gurley leaving the board. As Bill seems to be the main anti-Travis actor on the board.
Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board
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Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board
#12I remain flabbergasted by all of this upheaval at Uber. What's happening is the sort of housecleaning I would expect if the company had to file for bankruptcy or got caught flat out bribing judges or something. But really, what triggered all this was acting like jerks. It seems to me, what should have happened (a long time ago) was that they got shut down for systematically breaking the law, or encouraging others to…
You're assuming the current board didn't have this planned for a long time. Let them break the law to get things done, then clean house after the stage was properly set. I STILL think that people are downplaying the Otto thing way too much, especially on this site.
It's easy to say that they're going to win in court... but this is GOOGLE - they're going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and likely a decade trying to win this thing. Google isn't going to stop until they've exhausted literally every legal avenue possible. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a good portion of this isn't Uber's board trying to save the company from that legal battle - fire Kalanick, boot *Gurley, then license the tech from Waymo that was previously stolen.
Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board
#13I can't imagine Uber doesn't start raising prices and drop out of markets they aren't profitable in. No way they can bring in more investments (although maybe they could get a loan). Given the changes and their runway, I honestly see Lyft managing to outpace Uber in the next 12 months.
Why do you think they can't get more investments? They just completed this report and now Travis is out; unless you have proof you can't say they didn't fix their issues. So not only have they shown concern to solving a major PR and culture issue but they're absolutely HUGE. If they IPO it could be an incredible exit. Am I missing something? They seem far, far more investable now.
They have three lawsuits that can sink the company, given their runway.
They now have next to no leadership, and they still have no clear path to making money.
Their board is up in arms, their CEO stepped down, but still has full control.
If they want investment, it's going to be a down round. And their CEO will have to give up a significant chunk of the business. Even then, idk who else is left with the capital they'd need.
Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board
#14I remain flabbergasted by all of this upheaval at Uber. What's happening is the sort of housecleaning I would expect if the company had to file for bankruptcy or got caught flat out bribing judges or something. But really, what triggered all this was acting like jerks. It seems to me, what should have happened (a long time ago) was that they got shut down for systematically breaking the law, or encouraging others to…
You're assuming the current board didn't have this planned for a long time. Let them break the law to get things done, then clean house after the stage was properly set. I STILL think that people are downplaying the Otto thing way too much, especially on this site. It's easy to say that they're going to win in court... but this is GOOGLE - they're going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and likely a decade try…
And Google does not need to win. At the scale of Google v. Uber, getting injunctions, delays, and bogging down Uber's self driving car efforts are valuable on their own.
Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board
#15For all the future founders on HN, the lesson here is to never do business with Bill Gurley. He's one of the reasons AngelList exists. I hope his lesser known reputation finally catches up with him and forces him out of Benchmark and out of the VC industry entirely.
The Ravikant v. Tolia (and Bill Gurley) Lawsuit: http://blog.ericgoldman.org/personal/archives/2005/02/ravika...
Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think they can't get more investments? They just completed this report and now Travis is out; unless you have proof you can't say they didn't fix their issues. So not only have they shown concern to solving a major PR and culture issue but they're absolutely HUGE. If they IPO it could be an incredible exit. Am I missing something? They seem far, far more investable now.
They have three lawsuits that can sink the company, given their runway. They now have next to no leadership, and they still have no clear path to making money. Their board is up in arms, their CEO stepped down, but still has full control. If they want investment, it's going to be a down round. And their CEO will have to give up a significant chunk of the business. Even then, idk who else is left with the capital they…
All this shakeup at the top, but will it affect anything on the ground? I'm still going to take an Uber this weekend and no one not in tech that I know will even hear about any of this, let alone know who the CEO is.
Sounds like they are trying to cleanup their image, then will get back to expanding their already massive reach they have in their cities they are already in around the world.
Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board
#17I remain flabbergasted by all of this upheaval at Uber. What's happening is the sort of housecleaning I would expect if the company had to file for bankruptcy or got caught flat out bribing judges or something. But really, what triggered all this was acting like jerks. It seems to me, what should have happened (a long time ago) was that they got shut down for systematically breaking the law, or encouraging others to…
You mean... Like the blatant obstruction of Justice a la Greyball? I'm sure the DoJ has gears in motion...
Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board
#18I remain flabbergasted by all of this upheaval at Uber. What's happening is the sort of housecleaning I would expect if the company had to file for bankruptcy or got caught flat out bribing judges or something. But really, what triggered all this was acting like jerks. It seems to me, what should have happened (a long time ago) was that they got shut down for systematically breaking the law, or encouraging others to…
Probably variations of people taking advantage of the chaos to do things they weren't bold enough to do before. Whether resigning or forcing someone else out. Lots of grudges get settled during a riot.
Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board
#19I'm unsurprised. Kalanick has enough support on the board that I'd imagine they'd make it uncomfortable for Gurley to stay. The whole situation is fascinating as it has shown how important the soft power board members hold is. Strictly speaking, no one can force Kalanick or Gurley out, but out they are.
The reason they were fired was because this whole mess got a lot of publicity. If there was no publicity, nothing would have happened.
Ask Warren Buffett even he complains board members dont do much work they just blindly follow what the CEO says.
Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board
#20I wonder if Kalanick saw the writing on the wall and is getting out of the way of the oncoming train wreck, in order to set up a Jobs-style comeback at some point...
Considering Kalanick was one of the people doing the writing I'm sure he did.