I wonder if it would have been difficult to get his (or convince him for) resignation if he wouldn't have been in grieving phase, considering his history of retaliation ?
Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.
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Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people that report harassment are taking a big career risk (and if they go public like Mrs. Fowler did, inviting abuse from Internet mobs) by doing so, so yes, I'm going to default to believing people that report harassment unless I can find credible evidence it didn't happen.
Goodbye innocent until proven guilty...
That is only for criminal trials. In civil trials you only need preponderance of evidence.
Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.
#533Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
If Uber was successful only in NYC, London, and Tokyo, someone would make the business work in every other city on earth.
Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.
#534People make a difference. Uber has a lot of execution left to master and without Kalanick and the other key players that have left the company, the odds are now definitely not in its favor. And yes, the self-driving car play was a brilliant fund raising play (leveraging the news of the amazing advances by Tesla) but a terrible waste of limited resources. It is acceptable to outsource such projects. Or to make strateg…
I think he was right about the self-driving. He doesn't have a moat otherwise, as explained in another comment above; specifically ts not hard for a city to develop, deploy and advertise their own cab-hailing app and only a little harder to then design partnerships with other cities to network and share profits.
Uber's play was that they could subsidize that through private investors in order to scale. But now they have to find, hire, and compensate basically the whole tier of upper management, while still burning operating money. I'm not a business major, but that's probably REALLY not good.
I'm surprised I haven't read about it in another comment yet, but this is screaming for a company with good management and a stash of solid reputation/PR/marketing to come get a really good deal. Maybe Facebook because the culture wouldn't clash as much as my next two: apple and Google? Apple has the cash, and needs an entry into automotive while we wait for the apple car. Google/Waymo+Uber immediately settles the lawsuit, puts uber back into moat territory with self-driving, and gives google some people on the ground to compete with Amazon in last-mile?
Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.
#535Earlier quoted context omitted.
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:…
I dunno, my guess is that he was too set in his ways to make the leap from "CEO of a growth startup" to "CEO of a mature company". If you look at founder/CEOs who have made that leap, they all tend to be very young (Jobs, Gates, Zuck, etc) and had very strong teams behind them. Someone like Kalanick - who has run multiple startups to various exits - has been running startups all his professional life. His management…
> I dunno, my guess is that he was too set in his ways to make the leap from "CEO of a growth startup" to "CEO of a mature company".
If you look at founder/CEOs who have made that leap, they all tend to be very young (Jobs, Gates, Zuck, etc) and had very strong teams behind them.
And in Jobs' case, it took an absence from the company of more than 10 years…
Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.
#536Should we believe men too when they're victimised by women, or is this a one way deal? What if it's a man and a woman accusing each other, or two men or two women. What if the dude is a historically oppressed minority?
Most people that report harassment are taking a big career risk (and if they go public like Mrs. Fowler did, inviting abuse from Internet mobs) by doing so, so yes, I'm going to default to believing people that report harassment unless I can find credible evidence it didn't happen.
How on Earth can someone possibly provide evidence a crime didn't happen?
Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.
#537Earlier 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…
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Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.
#538Earlier 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.
Of course they can be profitable. Uber doesn't have overhead. There are no Uber factories or millions of rotting vehicles in a warehouse. At the core it is a iOS/Android app (4 guys could maintain this), a call center (India), and a law firm (outsource it). They would have to cut their staff, remove the ping pong tables and get real but profitability is there. They are on a land grab.
Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.
#539Uber is dead in 18 months. I was just in vegas last week and its still filled with taxis, never saw a uber the whole week.
Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.
#540Does Uber buy lyft just to acquire a relevant management team?