4 ms·

Uber's Board to Discuss Leave of Absence for Travis Kalanick

50 points by ghughes 9y ago

ktamura 9y ago
>Mr. Kalanick is also dealing with the death of his mother, Bonnie Kalanick, last month, in a boating accident that also left his father seriously injured. The board meeting on Sunday is being held in Los Angeles because in the weeks since his mother’s death, Mr. Kalanick has been spending time with family there, where he grew up. Completely independent of what's going on at Uber, I sympathize with Kalanick and his family. It's very hard to balance family tragedies with entrepreneurship.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
chollida1 9y ago
What specifically would a "leave of absence" accomplish? Presumably this means he's coming back, Given two things that as of today still seem very likely: 1) that he is coming back 2) he still owns a controlling interest wrt voting shares of the company What is this really going to accomplish? Does anyone think and serious decision that Travis disagrees with are gong to be made while he's gone? He's ll just reverse it when he returns so whats the point? The only thing I can think of is that this allows a scape goat to come in, introduce some potentially unpopular rules at the company, clean house again if required and then let Travis come back as the good guy who didn't have to make the hard and unpopular decisions?
- nxc18 9y ago
  Damage control and placating the media. Having scandal after scandal while doing literally nothing is a really bad look. The board here gets the best of both worlds, publicly appearing to do something while also still doing basically nothing.
  - 65827 9y ago
    I think you might be a tad overly cynical, this is basically unheard of nowadays and a pretty major move by the board.
    - meowface 9y ago
      It is very unusual, but is it really accomplishing much? If he still effectively controls the company and will return from his leave, then what message is this supposed to send? A pay cut or something would make a lot more sense, if they don't want to fire him outright.
  - grandalf 9y ago
    True, and people also deserve the chance to reinvent themselves.
  - happy-go-lucky 9y ago
    > The board here gets the best of both worlds, publicly appearing to do something while also still doing basically nothing. +1. They have suffered an irreversible damage, made everyone doubt their integrity.
dang 9y ago
An article about a conversation that hasn't happened yet doesn't pass the "significant new information" test that we use to distinguish which instances of long-running stories count as dupes: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20significant%20new%20information https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=.... When such submissions make HN's front page, all that happens is that the same discussion from the last N cycles gets repeated, since there's nothing new of significance to talk about. Of course, when something new does happen, the same discussion will mostly repeat then too—but at least there will be some mutation to keep things from getting too generic. For those who are curious, this test originated after the Snowden deluge of 2013 (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20significant%20new%20information%20snowden https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&date...) and has turned out to work pretty well.
- falsedan 9y ago
  What's the long-running article that this is a dupe of?
  - dang 9y ago
    Not article; story. Uber. Edit: Oops, forgot that this was a dupe in the strict sense (thanks detaro). My point was that a second test ("significant new information") applies during deluges.
    - falsedan 9y ago
      The story is 'Uber'? I don't understand: were their a lot of submissions of this article? Was it marked as a dupe because we have a lot of submissions about Uber (on different topics)?
      - dang 9y ago
        This article was a straight-up dupe of another submission of the same article. Even if it hadn't been, though, the 'significant new information' test—i.e. the lack thereof—would have made it a dupe. Otherwise we end up with a front-page of Uber Uber Uber the same way we had Snowden Snowden Snowden in 2013, with the discussions always the same.

50 points by ghughes 9y ago

>Mr. Kalanick is also dealing with the death of his mother, Bonnie Kalanick, last month, in a boating accident that also left his father seriously injured. The board meeting on Sunday is being held in Los Angeles because in the weeks since his mother’s death, Mr. Kalanick has been spending time with family there, where he grew up. Completely independent of what's going on at Uber, I sympathize with Kalanick and his family. It's very hard to balance family tragedies with entrepreneurship.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

chollida1 9y ago

What specifically would a "leave of absence" accomplish? Presumably this means he's coming back, Given two things that as of today still seem very likely: 1) that he is coming back 2) he still owns a controlling interest wrt voting shares of the company What is this really going to accomplish? Does anyone think and serious decision that Travis disagrees with are gong to be made while he's gone? He's ll just reverse it when he returns so whats the point? The only thing I can think of is that this allows a scape goat to come in, introduce some potentially unpopular rules at the company, clean house again if required and then let Travis come back as the good guy who didn't have to make the hard and unpopular decisions?

nxc18 9y ago
Damage control and placating the media. Having scandal after scandal while doing literally nothing is a really bad look. The board here gets the best of both worlds, publicly appearing to do something while also still doing basically nothing.
- 65827 9y ago
  I think you might be a tad overly cynical, this is basically unheard of nowadays and a pretty major move by the board.
  - meowface 9y ago
    It is very unusual, but is it really accomplishing much? If he still effectively controls the company and will return from his leave, then what message is this supposed to send? A pay cut or something would make a lot more sense, if they don't want to fire him outright.
- grandalf 9y ago
  True, and people also deserve the chance to reinvent themselves.
- happy-go-lucky 9y ago
  > The board here gets the best of both worlds, publicly appearing to do something while also still doing basically nothing. +1. They have suffered an irreversible damage, made everyone doubt their integrity.

dang 9y ago

An article about a conversation that hasn't happened yet doesn't pass the "significant new information" test that we use to distinguish which instances of long-running stories count as dupes: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20significant%20new%20information https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=.... When such submissions make HN's front page, all that happens is that the same discussion from the last N cycles gets repeated, since there's nothing new of significance to talk about. Of course, when something new does happen, the same discussion will mostly repeat then too—but at least there will be some mutation to keep things from getting too generic. For those who are curious, this test originated after the Snowden deluge of 2013 (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=by:dang%20significant%20new%20information%20snowden https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&date...) and has turned out to work pretty well.

falsedan 9y ago
What's the long-running article that this is a dupe of?
- dang 9y ago
  Not article; story. Uber. Edit: Oops, forgot that this was a dupe in the strict sense (thanks detaro). My point was that a second test ("significant new information") applies during deluges.
  - falsedan 9y ago
    The story is 'Uber'? I don't understand: were their a lot of submissions of this article? Was it marked as a dupe because we have a lot of submissions about Uber (on different topics)?
    - dang 9y ago
      This article was a straight-up dupe of another submission of the same article. Even if it hadn't been, though, the 'significant new information' test—i.e. the lack thereof—would have made it a dupe. Otherwise we end up with a front-page of Uber Uber Uber the same way we had Snowden Snowden Snowden in 2013, with the discussions always the same.