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Assuming this is actually true, this tweet [0] captures the unusual state of Uber right now "Uber no longer has a COO, CBO, CFO, CMO or SVP of Eng and may tempo

Assuming this is actually true, this tweet [0] captures the unusual state of Uber right now "Uber no longer has a COO, CBO, CFO, CMO or SVP of Eng and may temporarily not have a CEO. From autonomous cars...to autonomous company." And there have also been reports about the CTO being asked to leave [1]. [0] https://twitter.com/hemal/status/874300172330647552 https://twitter.com/hemal/status/874300172330647552 [1] https://www.recode.net/2017/5/16/15616024/uber-sexual-harassment-work-hostility-investigation-executive-turnover https://www.recode.net/2017/5/16/15616024/uber-sexual-harass...

Cacti 9y ago
I struggle to think of a reason why they (or anyone else for that matter) even need a CBO or CMO.
- georgespencer 9y ago
  I'd speculate that most businesses would benefit from a good CMO. From [at times painful] experience: CMO should be a surrogate-founder level position for a quant marketer who is aware that they are not a qual marketer. Ultimately the challenge of optimising the deployment of a marketing budget in excess of $5m USD is difficult for a CEO who is operationally involved in any other area of the business, but pre-profit is an incredibly metric driven task. A good quant marketer will be able to handle numbers in a way that a brand marketer will not, but will be open to listening to arguments for qualitative marketing. The trouble is that marketing as a discipline is full of quals pretending to be quants, and most of them are bad. Whenever I have dinner with friends who run venture-backed startups I ask how happy they are with their CMO, and there's a general acceptance that CMOs have a two year lifespan. (I should add that I'm certain it's incredibly unforgiving being CMO in a startup where product/market and the unit economics are probably not proved. Simple things like calculating churn or LTV are made impossible. Tough gig.)
rockarage 9y ago
Good for Uber, because their leadership was overrated, Uber could be better offer with new leadership Here's why: 1.) Uber defeated much of their competition by burning cash in monetizing schemes that are shady and unsustainable. https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/31/uberpool-sf-buzzfeed-documents-burn-rate/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/31/uberpool-sf-buzzfeed-docum... https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/uber-true-cost-uh-oh https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/uber-true-cost-uh... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/business/economy/uber-drivers-tax.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/business/economy/uber-dri... https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/01/19/ftc-says-uber-misled-drivers-company-to-pay-20m-settlement/#65ceefa31c78 https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/01/19/ftc-says... 2.)Their other competitive advantage is branding, but that is not a moat-like advantage, if Uber was to disappear tomorrow, there are competitors who will quickly takeover & grow, this happened when Uber left Austin. 3.) They were complacent with sexual harassment & discrimination in the company. A business/startup should never allow harassment to be a thing, this is failure at leadership 101.
- dev360 9y ago
  > failure at leadership 101 "A fish rots from the head down"
- frakkingcylons 9y ago
  Their branding and existing install base is a huge advantage. Uber and Lyft returned to Austin last week after the Texas state legislature passed a law that overturns Austin's regulations. The local competitors have lost huge numbers of customers. Fare is shutting down, Fasten had to lower their rates, and Ride Austin saw their trip volume decrease by 55% in the first week [0]. I'd say it's pretty unlikely they will survive to the end of this year. [0]: https://austinstartups.com/what-we-learned-from-the-first-week-of-uber-lyft-returning-to-austin-5451a34889e7 https://austinstartups.com/what-we-learned-from-the-first-we...
  - petra 9y ago
    The interesting question is how much of that is due to hard advantages:discounts, lower costs, and better technology, having access to drivers vs branding ? because if the model changes(self-driving, or shuttles) and big competitors attack, the hard advantages will look quite different.
    - SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
      It simply underscores the fact that ridesharing is a commodity. If the price or experience is in any way different users will happily jump ship. I don't fear monopolization of the technology too much as it's relatively easy to bootstrap one of these companies in a short amount of time (options, while most would say are and were inferior, popped up in Austin within a month after Uber and Lyft's departure). As these apps grow, I think there will be an eventual ceiling on the experience part of it (there's only so much you can improve on the app experience of getting from point a to point b before you start to face diminishing returns). Eventually like gasoline the price of the service will be the main deciding factor in the future. This train of thought does not take into account the game-changing possibility of self-driving cars.
sanguy 9y ago
CTO is departing. Wants to escape before the Otto meltdown burns him.....
- linkregister 9y ago
  Or his direct mismanagement of Fowler's sexual harassment allegations.
panarky 9y ago
If it's even possible, healing a sick culture pretty much requires replacing most of the leadership, starting with the CEO. A 90-day leave of absence is not sufficient.
- cmurf 9y ago
  I agree but, can the board fire him? Is he a majority shareholder still?
  - kelnos 9y ago
    I don't think he's a majority shareholder by percent, but he certainly owns the majority of votes.
  - SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
    According to the article he holds super voting shares.
ljlolel 9y ago
you forgot President
Steko 9y ago
HN has been extremely dismissive of Holder's investigation and there was (and is) good reason to be skeptical but you also can't deny what looks like real consequences and hopefully change.

Cacti 9y ago

I struggle to think of a reason why they (or anyone else for that matter) even need a CBO or CMO.

georgespencer 9y ago
I'd speculate that most businesses would benefit from a good CMO. From [at times painful] experience: CMO should be a surrogate-founder level position for a quant marketer who is aware that they are not a qual marketer. Ultimately the challenge of optimising the deployment of a marketing budget in excess of $5m USD is difficult for a CEO who is operationally involved in any other area of the business, but pre-profit is an incredibly metric driven task. A good quant marketer will be able to handle numbers in a way that a brand marketer will not, but will be open to listening to arguments for qualitative marketing. The trouble is that marketing as a discipline is full of quals pretending to be quants, and most of them are bad. Whenever I have dinner with friends who run venture-backed startups I ask how happy they are with their CMO, and there's a general acceptance that CMOs have a two year lifespan. (I should add that I'm certain it's incredibly unforgiving being CMO in a startup where product/market and the unit economics are probably not proved. Simple things like calculating churn or LTV are made impossible. Tough gig.)

rockarage 9y ago

Good for Uber, because their leadership was overrated, Uber could be better offer with new leadership Here's why: 1.) Uber defeated much of their competition by burning cash in monetizing schemes that are shady and unsustainable. https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/31/uberpool-sf-buzzfeed-documents-burn-rate/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/31/uberpool-sf-buzzfeed-docum... https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/uber-true-cost-uh-oh https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/uber-true-cost-uh... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/business/economy/uber-drivers-tax.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/business/economy/uber-dri... https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/01/19/ftc-says-uber-misled-drivers-company-to-pay-20m-settlement/#65ceefa31c78 https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/01/19/ftc-says... 2.)Their other competitive advantage is branding, but that is not a moat-like advantage, if Uber was to disappear tomorrow, there are competitors who will quickly takeover & grow, this happened when Uber left Austin. 3.) They were complacent with sexual harassment & discrimination in the company. A business/startup should never allow harassment to be a thing, this is failure at leadership 101.

dev360 9y ago
> failure at leadership 101 "A fish rots from the head down"
frakkingcylons 9y ago
Their branding and existing install base is a huge advantage. Uber and Lyft returned to Austin last week after the Texas state legislature passed a law that overturns Austin's regulations. The local competitors have lost huge numbers of customers. Fare is shutting down, Fasten had to lower their rates, and Ride Austin saw their trip volume decrease by 55% in the first week [0]. I'd say it's pretty unlikely they will survive to the end of this year. [0]: https://austinstartups.com/what-we-learned-from-the-first-week-of-uber-lyft-returning-to-austin-5451a34889e7 https://austinstartups.com/what-we-learned-from-the-first-we...
- petra 9y ago
  The interesting question is how much of that is due to hard advantages:discounts, lower costs, and better technology, having access to drivers vs branding ? because if the model changes(self-driving, or shuttles) and big competitors attack, the hard advantages will look quite different.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
    It simply underscores the fact that ridesharing is a commodity. If the price or experience is in any way different users will happily jump ship. I don't fear monopolization of the technology too much as it's relatively easy to bootstrap one of these companies in a short amount of time (options, while most would say are and were inferior, popped up in Austin within a month after Uber and Lyft's departure). As these apps grow, I think there will be an eventual ceiling on the experience part of it (there's only so much you can improve on the app experience of getting from point a to point b before you start to face diminishing returns). Eventually like gasoline the price of the service will be the main deciding factor in the future. This train of thought does not take into account the game-changing possibility of self-driving cars.

sanguy 9y ago

CTO is departing. Wants to escape before the Otto meltdown burns him.....

linkregister 9y ago
Or his direct mismanagement of Fowler's sexual harassment allegations.

panarky 9y ago

If it's even possible, healing a sick culture pretty much requires replacing most of the leadership, starting with the CEO. A 90-day leave of absence is not sufficient.

cmurf 9y ago
I agree but, can the board fire him? Is he a majority shareholder still?
- kelnos 9y ago
  I don't think he's a majority shareholder by percent, but he certainly owns the majority of votes.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
  According to the article he holds super voting shares.

ljlolel 9y ago

you forgot President

Steko 9y ago

HN has been extremely dismissive of Holder's investigation and there was (and is) good reason to be skeptical but you also can't deny what looks like real consequences and hopefully change.