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Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

nytimes.com

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Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#151

Post by melvinmt »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #66
johan_larson wrote: post #9

I 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…

I'm not sure how the Uber fallout is a surprise to anyone. As an analogy, take every major political scandal you can think of - Monica Lewinsky, Watergate, Iran Contra, Chappaquiddick, etc - and imagine a single elected official perpetrating them all within the course of a year. How do you think they would be treated?

... with a red carpet to the White House?

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#152

Post by endorphone »

johan_larson wrote: post #9

I 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…

is the sort of housecleaning I would expect if the company had to file for bankruptcy

Uber is at a critical inflection point, and still remains a unsustainable company blowing through enormous amounts of cash. They desperately need to line up more, so unless they get their house in order they will not be an ongoing operation.

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#153

Post by FussyZeus »

tw04 wrote: post #61
austenallred wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kalanick still had the majority. The board couldn't "plan" this without his consent.

They absolutely could plan it without his consent. Uber is still hemorrhaging money. They'd be lucky to make it through 2018 if those investors turned off the tap.

Exactly. If you haven't made a profit you don't control shit, you get exactly as much control as the moneypurses allow you have and NO more.

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#154

Post by pjc50 »

lmm wrote: post #136
madeofpalk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But really, what triggered all this was acting like jerks. If you trivialise illegal activity as "acting like jerks", then none of this really holds much water. They've been jerks the whole time.

What's striking and weird is that flagrant illegal activity as a core part of their business model never seemed to matter, but now this huge upheval is happening in response to a small amount of (sure, illegal) personal behaviour.

Uber made a lot of enemies, so as soon as it tripped they've all jumped on the opportunity.

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#155

Post by [deleted] »

tyingq wrote: post #57
stale2002 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexual harassment and retaliation against employees for reporting it is not "just being jerks". It is illegal.

Perhaps it should be actually illegal, like criminally punishible, but it is not. It is a tort, civil violation, etc...but nobody is going to jail.

[deleted]

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#156

Post by _jal »

lmm wrote: post #136
madeofpalk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But really, what triggered all this was acting like jerks. If you trivialise illegal activity as "acting like jerks", then none of this really holds much water. They've been jerks the whole time.

What's striking and weird is that flagrant illegal activity as a core part of their business model never seemed to matter, but now this huge upheval is happening in response to a small amount of (sure, illegal) personal behaviour.

One of the cultural sicknesses the U.S. suffers from. If you win, all is forgiven. If you lose, there must be something wrong with you.

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#157

Post by _jal »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #56
stale2002 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexual harassment and retaliation against employees for reporting it is not "just being jerks". It is illegal.

Every large organization has instances of this, including Facebook, Google, and the Vatican. It's not right, but it's reality. The only thing is that every other company has done a great job of covering it up, like Amit Singhal who was fired from Google for sexual harrassment, but no one knew that before he joined Uber.

You're right that, statistically speaking, the odds of a company facing a sexual harassment problem approaches unity over time.

But this goes off the rails on the next part. On one hand, you have a company presumably following the legal process[1] of getting through a harassment accusation being accused of a "cover up" in order to implicitly draw an equivalence with a company that apparently had a policy of shielding specific employees from harassment claims.

[1] I have no first-hand knowledge of the situation, but haven't seen any suggestions of impropriety.

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#158

Post by accountyaccount »

johan_larson wrote: post #9

I 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…

They're currently being investigated by the Justice Department and fired dozens of people over sexual harassment. They also maybe knowingly stole self-driving tech. Seems like a few big deals.

And those are just the bigger issues, there are numerous issues with local municipalities and also issues with driver quality (someone in my state was raped by a driver who has since fled the country) and workforce satisfaction.

There are a series of issues that will be problematic for them as they approach the need for more funding. If they aren't triaged now they're going to have bigger issues in the near future.

Honestly this is the smartest thing they've done in a while.

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#159

Post by malandrew »

mattmanser wrote: post #145
V-eHGsd_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the massive amount of cash Uber's burning (or was), I can't imagine they wont be bankrupt soon let's wait and see what the q2 numbers look like before we start declaring the patient dead. The (for some reason) publicly reported q1 losses of 700m, were (was?) ~33% better than q4 2016 (1b). if the (presumably) publicly reported q2 numbers are in the neighborhood of 500m, you'd be looking at real growth. Quarter e…

Part of that is seasonal, cold = more taxis.

It's these types of comments that demonstrate how ignorant the doomsayers are about Uber's business. The doomsayers start with their desired failure outcome and work their way back to the present instead of seeing the myriad ways they could not be more wrong.

In this case, Uber is an international business that operates in the northern and southern hemisphere and many places with other relevant weather patterns like rainy seasons and dry seasons. The seasonality at this point is likely almost entirely smoothed out by the sheer number of places they operate in globally. The US market might be larger and more mature, but many international markets have largely caught up now.

Re: Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

#160

Post by pfarnsworth »

_jal wrote: post #157
pfarnsworth wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every large organization has instances of this, including Facebook, Google, and the Vatican. It's not right, but it's reality. The only thing is that every other company has done a great job of covering it up, like Amit Singhal who was fired from Google for sexual harrassment, but no one knew that before he joined Uber.

You're right that, statistically speaking, the odds of a company facing a sexual harassment problem approaches unity over time. But this goes off the rails on the next part. On one hand, you have a company presumably following the legal process[1] of getting through a harassment accusation being accused of a "cover up" in order to implicitly draw an equivalence with a company that apparently had a policy of shielding…

You are presuming that Google followed the proper legal process based on what? Did you even bother doing the research?

http://gizmodo.com/former-google-engineer-blasts-companys-hr...

According to multiple sources and internal notes read to me, after discussing the claims of an alleged encounter between Singhal and a female employee first with former Google HR head Laszlo Bock and also Google CEO Sundar Pichai in late 2015, he denied those claims at the time. He also apparently stated a number of times that there were two sides to every story.

A former Google employee I spoke to has described the search giant’s HR as “a nasty mess.” They are not alone. Monday afternoon, former Google engineer Kelly Ellis shared some of her own experiences with at the company in light of the news surrounding Singhal’s departure. Ellis previously tweeted about sexual harassment she faced at Google back in 2015.

Sounds eerily familiar. My point being the exact same as what I said. Uber isn't right for letting this happen, but companies like Google have allowed this to happen, you just don't hear about it.

That said, your bias against Uber is blinding you.

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