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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.

#431

Post by Someone »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #389
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…

This is probably great news for Tesla, or other auto makers and technology companies who would love to acquire the Uber brand and software.

What software? Their self-driving tech is tainted by Waymo's claim they stole it, so it would have to be very, very good for some company taking the risk of using it. I doubt it is _that_ good, so I don't expect to many buyers for it.

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

#432

Post by NicoJuicy »

dfabulich wrote: post #100
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…

You're right, but I think that's exactly how/why Uber's investors were able to convince Kalanick to step down. Uber may or may not take over the world at some point, but Uber needs another round of investment in the next 18 months just to survive. If the existing investors refused to play ball, they could kill the next round, which really would kill Uber. And here's another important moral of this story for founders:…

He's "Amazon profitable", Uber has profits if you neglict investments for market dominance.

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

#433

Post by balladeer »

Let's assume Uber dies. One bad outcome from this could be that Lyft gets a monopoly. I hope that doesn't happen.

Also, it will be awesome if instead of another Uber created there will be an open pool of ridess/seats available and people can use the platform of their choice. A la airline ticket booking model (of course the exact same approach will/may not work) or the bus ticket booking approach. Also, airline industry isn't hyperlocal.

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

#434

Post by peferron »

matt4077 wrote: post #373
rmason wrote: post #12

Hope everyone's paying attention to the identity of these investors behind this horrid behavior. Travis is not without his flaws but he created an awful lot of value for them. They pressure him into taking a sabbatical, then two days in they pull this cowardly act of firing him remotely. Not only was it a cowardly act, but it was the wrong thing to do for the business. It will lead to an epic destruction of value. Wo…

Kalanick is no Steve Jobs, Kalanick is a bro on an ego trip who stumbled upon a business. But harassing women, and all his other flaws, are not what created uber. Steve Jobs' flaws actually served Apple. The worst he's been accused of is driving people hard to achieve the perfection he sought.

> The worst [Steve Jobs] has been accused of is driving people hard to achieve the perfection he sought.

And colluding with other tech companies to fix his employees' wages.

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

#435

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Retric wrote: post #404
baby wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys are talking about Uber dying, but I cannot fathom how this is possible from just the user's perspective. Uber seems to be everywhere, people take Ubers or driver for Ubers every day. How could a company this big fail? Stop growing maybe, but going bankrupt and shutting down?

It's easy to grow when you sell dollars for 70c each. But, when you suddenly need to sell them for 1.01+$ nobody wants to buy. Uber's problem is taxi companies have lower overhead because among other thing their drivers sometimes get hailed by people at street level. Which means their either taxi prices are lower and people stop using Uber or they pay drivers more and drivers mostly stop working for Uber.

Uber is profitable in certain cities, e.g. New York City [1]. They could turn cash-flow positive if they just gave up useless market share.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/ubers-revenue-profit-and-loss...

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

#436

Post by michalu »

ogezi wrote: post #34

Well this comes as a big surprise. I just thought that he'd be taking a break. I also think that he wasn't forced to resign as much as he thought it'd be the best choice for the company (he probably has majority voter control). Kalanick - because of his super competitive nature - was probably the best person to be CEO during the time he was but maybe its now time for a more matured and seasoned executive to take over…

More matured and seasoned executive? Kalanick is 40, has star experience like almost nobody in tech business... I'm wondering who would be more matured for highly unregulated, exploding industry that depends on innovation (solar, self-driving cars)?

With a new seasoned exec, I predict Uber will stabilize, IPO at some point and becomes the Yahoo of the industry. It won't be the next Google, Amazon or Facebook (all led by founder CEOs), that's for sure.

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

#437

Post by mhw »

danpalmer wrote: post #365
adamnemecek wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubers other differentiator is the fact that I can go to just about any city in the world and use it. I guess I could research and install fotaxi but as a 21th century consumer, I'm extremely lazy.

I don't think it comes down to just being lazy. Regardless of whether you've had good or bad experiences with Uber, you've had experiences, may have chatted to their support team, etc, and you know what to expect from the service and the company. The local alternative might be better, but it's an unknown.

So are the local restaurants when compared to McDonald's - I guess it all depends on what you want to get out of travel.

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

#439

Post by CRConrad »

anothercomment wrote: post #138
santoshalper wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The buck stops with the CEO, and it's clear that in the very least, he condoned the asshole culture.

Is it? Were steps not taken to remove the harassers, once the incidents came to light? How can the CEO watch over every social interaction?

> Is it?

Yes, from all accounts it's pretty clear that he condoned and even promoted an arsehole culture.

> Were steps not taken to remove the harassers, once the incidents came to light?

Basically, no. Now, years afterwards, a few heads have finally rolled -- but only after it snowballed into a major (international, not just US-national) media scandal. But not back when the incidents first came to light, no.

> How can the CEO watch over every social interaction?

1) By delegating to a HR department with instructions to follow the law. Which instructions they might have had on paper, but obviously not in actual fact, given the real prevailing culture there.

2) So it comes back to, again: By making it clear, in words and example, what the working culture is supposed to be like. So that potential victims can be assured they won't get harrassed, potential harrassers can be assured they won't get away with shit like that, and the HR department can be assured they're supposed to go after the harassers and support the victims, not the other way around.

I don't know, this all feels so obvious I am compelled to question your grounds for asking. Are you really claiming you didn't know this, or couldn't figure it out for yourself? Because even asking the question smells a bit fake; like concern-trolling in support of the culture Kalanick's fostered.

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

#440

Post by seesomesense »

bunkat wrote: post #405
baby wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys are talking about Uber dying, but I cannot fathom how this is possible from just the user's perspective. Uber seems to be everywhere, people take Ubers or driver for Ubers every day. How could a company this big fail? Stop growing maybe, but going bankrupt and shutting down?

Uber doesn't make enough from fares to be profitable, they use investors' money to heavily subsidize them. Once the investor money runs out, Uber won't be able to pay drivers unless they jack up prices considerably. Once they are no longer price competitive, customers will move to other services. Turns out the car service business isn't very sticky at all (even the drivers work for multiple companies...). Drivers sta…

Borrow or steal, it is all the same, until the courts rule otherwise...
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