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

nytimes.com

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

#341

Post by pavlakoos »

This looks good for Uber. Right now Uber needs operational and financial stability. Something Kalanick apparently didn't know how to provide. So moving him aside is good.

Also, I think investors forced him out by saying they will finance next round only if Kalanick is gone. And they need more investment, because losing $2bn a year makes them run out of cash soon and inevitably.

Still - Kalanick and his co-founder friends have a control over a board, so theoretically Kalanick can get his ass back as CEO as soon as he wants. If he wants...

The Kalanick-VCs deal might have another background. To cut those $2bn annual losses, Uber needs to change financially. Those changes will hit customers (prices will increase) and drivers (their pay and benefits decrease). So Uber needs an interim manager to introduce them - a "bad guy", who can take the "blame" for it. A change, that will not hit Kalanick's reputation.

But it's all good. Uber will continue to grow. The service is just too good.

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

#342

Post by bildung »

nodesocket wrote: post #111
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…

I concur. This is a very poor decision all of which stems from the snowballing and mob mentality of the outraged. Companies at this stage in an ultra competitive market (not talking about ride sharing, but self-driving) need their founders to lead and grow. It is just too early and critical to bring in a professional CEO. See Apple.

Uber hasn't been able to show a single GAAP-profitable market anywhere, including cities in the US. Rates would have to be more than 100% higher just to archive break even. Scale economics of that magnitude are unheard of with physical products. Self-driving is essentially just a media stunt for them, just like amazons drone delivery news that pop up every year just before christmas.

Just look at the numbers in this article[1] - they need scale economics of two times the cost of the driver of the cab to archive GAAP profitability, which, obviously, is impossible even with self-driving.

[1] http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver...

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

#344

Post by redditmigrant »

marcell wrote: post #293
necubi wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow -- I'm amazed to hear this sentiment. I'm personally proud that one of our VCs was involved. Travis helped build an incredible company, but his disregard for the law, for his employees' well-being, for basic decency threaten to tear all of that down. Just in the past six months: * Susan Fowler's blog post exposed a terribly broken HR system and a culture of sexual harassment that reached the very top. This has hu…

I don't think these examples are all that damning, aside from the Susan Fowler and HR failure: - Waymo: the judge has not ruled yet, and there is no evidence revealed to the public which implicates Uber. There is lots of evidence implicating Levadowski. - Greyball: I can see investors forgiving this as a necessary play to fuel growth. - Cursing the driver: a private conversation, neither here nor there. That said, th…

There is also the matter of obtaining medical records of a woman who was raped by an uber driver in India, which to me shows abject moral bankruptcy.

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

#345

Post by tskaiser »

imranq wrote: post #335
kornish wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it.” – Dune , Frank Herbert

Any of us could inflict real damage or destruction on our surroundings especially while driving but that doesn't mean we have "control" over them.

Insofar none of us would want to suffer the consequences of such acts we cannot truly say we are capable of carrying them out.

It is what we mean when we claim someone is "incapable of " such as murder. It does not mean they do not physically possess the means, but rather that they lack the psychological impetus to do so.

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

#347

Post by joering2 »

panarky wrote: post #45
flyosity wrote: post #5

If Uber ends up going down in flames, unable to recover from the scandals and lawsuits, and Lyft prevails, it will be the most incredible change of fate in the business world this century or perhaps longer. The future of automobiles and transportation is still being swirled about, and it feels like Uber's downfall has blown the game WIDE open, ready for anyone (maybe Uber, maybe Lyft, maybe Tesla, Google, Apple, an a…

I don't know if it's possible for a company to change a culture that's this sick. But it's almost certainly not possible to do it with the same CEO. A leave of absence is not sufficient.

Frankly I don't believe its possible with Arianna Huffington neither.

If you ever worked with her, you will clearly see shes a female type of Kalanick; the only difference he seems to love party, sex and alcohol and couldn't care about sexual harassment at his company; meanwhile Huffington is known for backstabbing employees (co owners too) and always gossiping behind others back just for fun and treat people like crap in general. In both examples, a normal company would not be able to thrive; and also look what happened with Huffington Post under her tensure; even AOL ceo did not want to work with her at some point.

Bottom line -- removing Kalanick is like rearranging seats on Titanic.

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

#348

Post by walshemj »

kevinburke wrote: post #81
blazespin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please investigate, not necessarily believe. Innocent til proven guilty still has some place in this world.. That being said, kudos to anyone courageous enough to speak the truth even at the risk of vilification.

Innocent until proven guilty is a great standard for criminal trials but probably not for the workplace, where people who report harassment are usually taking an incredible career risk by doing so.

The problem is with these "difficult" issues the first thing anyone who is trained to work in this area (even on the employee side) as I am - will tell you is you have to verify what you are being told.

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

#349

Post by dingo_bat »

santoshalper wrote: post #101
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lyft? That is just another corporate-controlled centralized system. I'd much prefer something along the lines of http://libretaxi.org/

Libretaxi sucks. I don't want to negotiate with the driver and I don't want to pay cash. In typical fashion, open source/FS people fail to understand what makes a product popular when they try to clone it. Nobody gives a fuck about "Libre", I just want to get a fucking ride.

To be fair, it's not very "libre" either if the only phone shown on the home page is an iphone.

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

#350

Post by yladiz »

zer00eyz wrote: post #44
dvt wrote: post #13

Not unsurprising, as Uber really is trying to grow up, and Travis Kalanik has been the silicon valley poster boy for a bit too long. I still think he did a phenomenal job, not only launching a successful startup, but creating an international cultural movement. I wonder who will take his place, and, more importantly, I wonder if Uber will continue winning.

Did he do a lot, sure. Does he deserve to be complimented in any way shape or form? No... Not in the slightest. I think the question is can uber continue winning without being toxic to staff (drivers, women, I'm sure there are others), maybe stealing (waymo lawsuit), and building tools to avoid the law.... The answer is I don't know, but it is going to be hard to recover from.

I don't think that's quite fair. He absolutely deserves a lot of criticism for the things that happened under his watch as Uber CEO, but he did create a giant company that has the highest(?) valuation of any SV startup. He deserves some respect and compliments for that.
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