Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud • Hacker News Board

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#191

Post by jforman » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 8:22 PM UTC

HNNoLikey wrote: post #190

jforman wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lost a parent and left a startup I founded, so I can sympathize with how incredibly terrible it must be to deal with two huge losses at the same time. But Uber has grown to impact an incredible number of souls. Gurley et al. have a serious fiduciary duty to exercise here, one not just aligned with their own greed. Separately, Khosla is not a paragon of founder-friendliness despite his public attestations. No VC…

> Khosla is not a paragon of founder-friendliness despite his public attestations There's no evidence he hasn't been anything but. I choose to trust him. If I had to choose between a VC leaving a company and the founder CEO leaving, I'd rather the VC left which is the mantra that Khosla advocates for. Before you say the VCs money is at stake, remember also the founders' and employees' sweat equity is also at stake -…

A VC's reputation is privately held data. The same for a founder's reputation. Public data is largely useless.

And there is, of course, evidence that Khosla is not 100% founder-friendly, as there is data for every other VC and every other founder out there. Every conflict is gray.

But choose as you wish, of course. That's capitalism.

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#192

Post by ahartman00 » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 8:52 PM UTC

smokeyj wrote: post #142

kuschku wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This gets especially interesting when you start to expand into Europan countries, and suddenly large amounts of the board seats are elected by the employees (usually a similar amount is chosen by investors and by employees). This is something that seems to be missing in the US.

> and suddenly large amounts of the board seats are elected by the employees Any stats or info on this? Would be interested to find out more.

not eu as a whole, but in Germany, "The law allows workers to elect representatives (usually trade union representatives) for almost half of the supervisory board of directors"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#193

Post by monknomo » Fri, Aug 11, 2017, 9:21 PM UTC

fapjacks wrote: post #134

monknomo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 inve…

Perhaps, but I've heard politicians on the national level talk about this as just business as usual. If the system creating the laws sees "move fast and break things (like laws)" as the norm, then we can scold and shame all we want, but it's not going to change things. Regulatory capture and law-breaking startups seems to be what's expected out of American business by the very people doing the legislation.

Certainly regulatory capture is a thing, as is law breaking.

Regulatory capture doesn't do you much good if nobody cares when a business breaks regulations, though :)

I think American society does care about businesses following laws and regulations. I think a narrow segment of the press is wowed by 'outlaw cool' and investor funding, but that is not the same as America as a whole.

Obviously corps are gonna lobby, but I think we as a society should and do draw a distinction between lobbying to change a law that you are not breaking and lobbying to change a law you are breaking. I am pretty sure most legislators who aren't closet anarchists take a dim view of things like that. I will wager a large amount that a vast majority of regulators take a dim view of things like that.

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#194

Post by smileysteve » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 2:51 PM UTC

HNNoLikey wrote: post #170

jforman wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A humiliating year of PR that makes it impossible to fill the empty executive ranks, followed by a crippling power struggle because I submitted a resignation I didn't mean? I would 100% have expected Sequoia to sue me after I took their money if I had done the same. We are not kings. At some point misalignment with your board is your responsibility. This isn't some Series B spat.

> I submitted a resignation I didn't mean? Consider his mental state during this time. He lost his mother for crying out loud and all these things were happening at the same time. Now the VCs want to pile on to that with a lawsuit. I lost my mom 3 years ago and I wasn't in a good place for months. I'm surprised he was able to even function whilst the weight of the world was on his shoulders. I'm not saying that he sh…

> but to sue him at this time like he wasn't directly responsible for the billions

There are different intentions in lawsuits; You seem to think they're seeking damages, but it seems more likely they're just trying to prevent the torturous interference of uncertainty he is causing as news breaks that he wants to be CEO again.

Leaks of backchanneling directly affect their investment and exit strategy. Whether he is CEO, on the board, or "a trusted advisor" the investors and company want to have an appearance of solidarity and confidence.

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#195

Post by zangiku » Sun, Aug 13, 2017, 11:47 PM UTC

sergefaguet wrote: post #185

will never, ever talk with Benchmark for any fundraising again. suing the CEO who made them ~ten billion dollars. what the actual fuck.

Until an exit, he hasn't made them anything except paper billionaires. If anywhere on the road to an exit Travis or any other CEO does anything unbecoming of a steward of the capital of the investors, he should be questioned and potentially removed. That is why laws that protect investor rights such as fiduciary duty requirements exist.

The reality is that when it comes to fraud or other potentially criminal activity, you've got to bat 1000 as a CEO. For even lesser offenses you don't get too many freebies. Welcome to the game.

And wtf are you arguing anyways? Because I invested in Enron and they made me money, in 1999 I should have been happy even while alarm bells were starting to be rung? Your argument would've lost conscientious investors a great deal of money in the end game. You've got to think longer than just right now.

Unless you have proof that the claims by Benchmark are literally fictitious, you're on the losing side of how this one'll play out.

Re: Benchmark Capital Sues Travis Kalanick for Fraud

#196

Post by uhhhhhhh » Mon, Aug 14, 2017, 4:14 PM UTC

btown wrote: post #187

uhhhhhhh wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree with the order of events here. His actions and business practices directly led to 'a world allied against uber', and getting kicked out of cities. That wasn't incidental, it was a direct result of their choices and behavior. You can't use the results of his actions to explain his actions.

The alternative would be licensing as a taxi company everywhere, which would invite the same political battles with entrenched operators (only with less leverage, since you'd be fighting the battles before you had the user base). So conflict is inevitable with this business model.

Ubers legal battles were because they didn't license, and thus got kicked out of multiple cities by violating their requirements.

By working with licensed drivers/companies or licensing their drivers, they would have avoided much of that problem, admittedly that would add to their revenue vs profit/yearly loss issues they have now. Lyft is in a similar boat, trying to lower loss-per-ride and get to a profitable state. It appears based on media reports that Lyft, despite not sharing many of the conflicting business approaches Uber used, is actually ahead of Uber at working its way to profitability.