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Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

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Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#121

Post by matt4077 »

abiox wrote: post #77
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like newspeak to call people "greedy" for suing someone despite that they (nominally) made a lot of money for those people. It seems like the fund is insisting that its investments follow the law, not indemnify criminal actions, etc. Doing that to an investment that made you money seems the opposite of greedy. How are we seeing this so differently?

> It seems like the fund is insisting that its investments follow the law the fund is not the police or courts, though... right? it's not their "job" to ensure the law is asserted upon the land - at least not beyond their own avoidance of wrongdoing. > not indemnify criminal actions IANAL, but the state is the plaintiff in criminal cases. this case just seems to be benchmark asking that newly added board seats be rem…

This is a civil matter, not criminal. Yet.

The fund alleges that they were the injured party, because Kalanick lied about and/or didn't disclose facts which were material to their decision.

Besides, it's common practice at that level to inform law enforcement when crimes are suspected. See, for example, Pepsi calling the FBI when they were offered CocaCola's recipe.

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#122

Post by [deleted] »

throwawy11111 wrote: post #61

Benchmarks in a bind and at war with travis; they need to liquidate their stake in next year or two. Softbank deal to buy out their shares fell apart in part b/c no CEO. Benchmark wants safe-hands leader who will cost-cut firesale their way to quick IPO. travis + allies being more long term; blocking benchmarks CEO picks (meg). so board civil war continues with benchmarks dirty tricks like this sour grapes lawsuit an…

[deleted]

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#123

Post by mcguire »

eridius wrote: post #106
benmathes wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber has different share classes with different voting rights https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/12/technology/uber-chief-tra... --------------------------------- Even if a worker sells only 10 percent of his or her stock back to the company, that worker agrees to give Mr. Kalanick the voting rights to 100 percent of his or her stock. Each share of Class A stock comes with one shareholder vote, while each share of Class…

> Employees must follow the “instructions of Travis Kalanick,” according to the buyback agreement, “with respect to any and all matters” that are submitted to a shareholder vote. Wow. I knew about the super-shares, but giving Travis (not even Uber's CEO but Travis personally!) control over the voting rights of any employee who sells any of their stock back to the company seems pretty fucked up. Is this done at any ot…

I think the answer to that is, not if they want to be part of the S&P 500.

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#124

Post by Sacho »

joering2 wrote: post #113
tim333 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was talk about leaving temporarily before the shareholder revolt kicked in.

Its disapotiing to keep being downvoted just because im wrong. would love to see all these people im sure they never been wrong in their life. anyways Travis said himself he is leaving Uber because his mother just died, which was not a lie. And I believe when your mother dies you need time to grief and its perfectly fine to take time off.

This is true, but the board allegedly pressured him into resigning the week after. Here's the NYT article with details - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/technology/uber-ceo-travi... - although, given the lawsuit, it's not clear if the reporting was completely correct.

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#125

Post by tyingq »

joering2 wrote: post #113
tim333 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was talk about leaving temporarily before the shareholder revolt kicked in.

Its disapotiing to keep being downvoted just because im wrong. would love to see all these people im sure they never been wrong in their life. anyways Travis said himself he is leaving Uber because his mother just died, which was not a lie. And I believe when your mother dies you need time to grief and its perfectly fine to take time off.

People will downvote a comment that is objectively incorrect. I wouldn't take it personally.

Enacting a coup while the king is absent from the castle is a common tactic.

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#126

Post by monknomo »

matt4077 wrote: post #115
btown wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to defend his actions, but to consider his possible mindset in doing them: His actions could be explained as pushing hard to build a defensive moat against a world allied against Uber as quickly as possible. If regardless of what you do you lose a bit of PR here and there, you get kicked out of cities here and there, and you have to pay a few hundred million in settlements here and there, you might as well throw…

What ultimately got him wasn't his "maverick rule-bending to compete against the establishment". He created this bro-themed caricature of a corporate culture, and he did so for no reason other than enjoying that sort of atmosphere, or being incompetent to stop it. Or both. Let's not start some sort of myth of martyrdom around Kalanick by conflating these two. Although, yes, this strategy of braking local regulations…

"maverick rule-bending to compete against the establishment" seems like a really complementary way to say "lawbreaking company".

I mean, their whole model was to go places, ignore the law and continue operating until they either got thrown out, or they pumped money to the right places to get the law changed.

Scofflaw corps get nailed sooner or later, and a corp the is built on breaking laws might break some laws investors care about...

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#127

Post by sjg007 »

Uber should IPO unless they are waiting until they decimate traditional taxis but I don't see that happening in key markets. They could buy up medallions on the sly though. Economically, Amazon loses money in expansion and they have no real competitors online so I don't see why uber can't do the same.

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#128

Post by calafrax »

tmh79 wrote: post #50
aresant wrote: post #15

Among the complaints of bad behavior: "Kalanick [aquired] a self-driving startup that, according to a confidential report not disclosed to Benchmark (the "Stroz report") allegedly harbored trade secrets from a competitor . . . " The Stroz Report was created when "Otto and Uber jointly hired an outside forensic expert Stroz Friedman. Friedman interviewed employees, including Levandowski and Lior Ron, reviewed their di…

RE the stroz report: from what I've heard, AL did take a bunch of files, and he planned to use as leverage against google/waymo to get his 120m bonus, and Uber told him more or less "dont let that shit touch anything we do". He also had some kind of big google earth photo taking kit at his house for long after he quit google.

well, no problem then. just stealing your employer's property to use to use for extortion. what a nothingburger.

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#129

Post by calafrax »

throwawy11111 wrote: post #61

Benchmarks in a bind and at war with travis; they need to liquidate their stake in next year or two. Softbank deal to buy out their shares fell apart in part b/c no CEO. Benchmark wants safe-hands leader who will cost-cut firesale their way to quick IPO. travis + allies being more long term; blocking benchmarks CEO picks (meg). so board civil war continues with benchmarks dirty tricks like this sour grapes lawsuit an…

I don't think this is just one party. Kalanick has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. The only reason he has been around for so long is because people have been waiting to use him as the fall guy for all of Uber's misconduct. Apparently that day is now here. His voting rights aren't worth the paper they are printed on unless he can raise more money so my guess is he will be signing those away shortly if he wants to walk away with anything.

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#130

Post by wbl »

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #112

> Benchmark argues that it never would have granted Kalanick those three extra seats had it known about his "gross mismanagement and other misconduct at Uber" Buyer's remorse! Investors think they deserve so much power because they put capital upfront and understand how to play the legal system to their benefit, while more industrious actors are busy actually building the value of the company. Yeah and I can tell the…

He who pays the piper picks the tune.
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