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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.

#561

Post by jacquesm »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #435
Retric wrote: post #404

Earlier 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...

Yes, but that would tell the investors to forget about any pay day justifying the valuation.

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

#562

Post by PMan74 »

hkmurakami wrote: post #117
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…

Pardon me for being somewhat rude, but your perspective suggests that you're perhaps relatively young? IBM's recent demise, Lehman Brothers going down under, Enron, Arthur Anderson / Worldcom, the dismantling of Japanese mega conglomerates by the GHQ, Apple's 90's turnaround, the death of workstation companies, deregulation of US airlines, are all orders of magnitude more impactful than if Uber dies and Lyft prevails…

> IBM's recent demise

Somebody should let them know!

Certainly on a downward trend of late but ~80BN in revenues last year is far from dead

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

#563

Post by post_break »

macspoofing wrote: post #554
kevinburke wrote: post #3

According to the article 5 different VC firms representing 40% of the voting shares asked him to resign today. Kalanick still controls the majority of voting shares and a board seat. Most of Kalanick's trouble started with Susan Fowler speaking out. Please believe women when they report harassment in the workplace. Many of their reports may not be as clear cut as Mrs. Fowler's.

>Please believe women when they report harassment in the workplace This meme is often repeated in context of sexual harrassment (workplace or otherwise). How do you square that with the fact that women are as capable of laying and misleading as men are? How do you square that with "innocent until proven guilty" when accusation are leveled against another individual or company.

He didn't say that women don't lie about harassment, just that they are taken more seriously. Similar to rape claims.

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

#564

Post by kevinmchugh »

ransom1538 wrote: post #538
Retric wrote: post #404

Earlier 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.

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.

it's also a massive recruiting and advertising campaign, since they have no product without hiring huge numbers of drivers

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

#566

Post by LoSboccacc »

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:…

Given K ruthless record I'd say he bailed before the crack more than stepped down to see it flourish.

Would wait to see what'll happen to his equity before take a bet, but gonna guess will be sold high and eventually rebought after the crack when K will try to step back in at a better condition, with less stakes and more hard cash.

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

#568

Post by matt4077 »

dingo_bat wrote: post #524
matt4077 wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kalanick's brohaviour has nothing to do with economic success. You absolutely do not need to harass people sexually to be successful.

And he didn't sexually harass anybody. I don't see your point.

His misbehaviour is (in this case) tolerating such behaviour at Uber, something which many seem to consider a strategy to "let boys be boys" and create a great business freed from the oppressive shackles of "political correctness".

But go google and you'll find quite a few anecdotes that do make it seem as if he has a strange hangup with women himself.

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

#569

Post by hacknat »

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…

They're spending a lot. If they throttle back to the core business they might be able to squeak by. I do wonder how feasible that is given how bizzare their cap table is.

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

#570

Post by austinshea »

samfisher83 wrote: post #555
microtherion wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Jobs got fired from apple. Edit: Downvotes for simply stating a fact?

Apple is an electronics company.
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