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Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.
- slice_of_life 9y agoPushing a founder out is often a bad idea. This might very well be the beginning of Uber's demise. This won't be good for the company. All CEOs make mistakes even great ones like Gates with antitrust or Zuck calling users dumb-fucks. They weren't kicked out, they instead were allowed to come into their own. There's a distinct fire that a founder has for the company they founded. You can't hire that. Without this fire at the early stages of a company, the company will likely lose out to competitors like Lyft. A hiatus is one thing but kicking a founder out is simply bad. Mark my word and take that to the bank. This was a bad move.
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- kbart 9y agoI don't think Uber can go much lower, negativity around it was simply overwhelming. Desperate times require desperate measurements - kicking CEO is like saying: "ok, we did some wrong things - sorry, but we will try to change for a better".
- jameskegel 9y agoNo they effectively euthanized a pet for making a mess on the rug- after they had already scolded it and put it outside.
- slice_of_life 9y agoDisagree. I think some of these VCs are just trigger-happy when it comes to dealing with founders. I don't know why this is the case; may be they think it's easy and they know better. How often do you hear VCs talk about how much they're on the founder's side like Vinod Khosla. At almost every turn, you'll hear Vinod go on about his reverence for founders. He does however add that this is not always the case. Sometimes, he says, founders must be asked to leave. When Vinod tells you to step aside, I think he'd most likely be right because you know his intentions aren't malicious. Do I think it had gotten to that point with Travis? My answer would be no.
- s73ver 9y agoNo. A pet making a mess on the rug is an accident. What happened at Uber was deliberate.
- slice_of_life 9y agoIt comes down to conviction and courage to follow through. I find it curious that just when he's out, one of the things that he'd fought against for so long has been done i.e. tipping. The reason it's courage involved in such a situation is because, against all external pressure, he maintained that he thought it would create friction. I can see that and some people may disagree - and those people can use Lyft, but at the end of the day, most people use Uber the way it is because of a certain experience that's possibly inexplicable to them. They just like it. Travis and his team have created this experience. If there's no courage and conviction, then Uber becomes indistinguishable from Lyft. I honestly don't think the next CEO will have as much courage to say something like, 'we know automation is coming and we have to be on top of it regardless of any negative feedback. If we don't, it won't matter because someone will do it anyway...' Time will tell and I think it will tell the same story I've told here.
- pishpash 9y agoCompletely agree. Uber (as a product) will turn into Lyft, rather than what should be the other way around on the merits. Uber is clearly a superior product. That is orthogonal to its quality as a company. I'm not convinced that having a good company culture requires the product to be shittier.
- s73ver 9y agoHow is Uber a superior product? They're both the same.
- sverhagen 9y agoI pretty much can't stumble upon an article about Uber that's not about controversy. I know that kind of news sells better. But in my perception now Uber had the pendulum swung far off center. I've been shocked by their (reported) ethics, to the point of not purchasing their services. I know that consequence is not taken by a majority of people, but I do sense a more than average disgust for Uber's ethics. If you'd asked me, I'd have welcomed their demise. The only thing to turn that around for me is new leadership. A woman for Uber CEO would be a good signal -- if the best candidate for the job happens to be one. Didn't Marissa Mayer recently resign from her job, and be available?
- slice_of_life 9y agoThere's no reason to believe that Marissa would be right for any sort of turn around if yahoo is the reference here.
- ebola1717 9y agohttps://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/874696738119888896 https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/874696738119888896
- JSONwebtoken 9y agoIf Marissa Mayer is the best female candidate that comes to mind, then that proves the best candidate for the job does not happen to be female.
- nailer 9y agoThat indicates how much the tech press love writing about scandals at unicorn startups, and how much some folk enjoy reading them.
- blfr 9y agoDidn't Marissa Mayer recently resign from her job, and be available? Even if you want to see Uber dead, there are more humanitarian ways.
- mholmes680 9y agoSheryl Sandberg. edit: nevermind, Kara says no. https://twitter.com/karaswisher?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor https://twitter.com/karaswisher?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwc...
- nova22033 9y ago> This might very well be the beginning of Uber's demise. Yeah they may start losing money every quarter.
- iii_3candles 9y agoCrowdsourced shaming works.
- omarchowdhury 9y agoSorry HN, but lmfao.
- Animats 9y agoThis 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 is bad enough. The real numbers have to be worse. Notice that leveraged loan in 2016.[2] All the details of that have to be disclosed in the prospectus for an IPO. [1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber/funding-rounds https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber/funding-rounds [2] https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/07/new-reports-confirm-1-15b-leveraged-loan-raised-by-uber-at-5/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/07/new-reports-confirm-1-15b-...
- phantom_package 9y ago> Uber has less than a year of runway left at their current burn rate. Do you have a source for this?
- epistasis 9y ago> Uber has less than a year of runway left at their current burn rate. If true, this seems far more likely to be a cause of Uber's death than Kalanick resigning. That, and the valuation being as insane as it is, which is also Kalanick's fault, which as you point out, makes it hard to find greater and greater suckers. Perhaps they'll be better off all around without Kalanick, assuming they can get the business side on track and get the burn rate under control, and perhaps make their business sustainable rather than a gigantic handout of VC money.
- Animats 9y agoUber bought market share by subsidizing rides. That can't go on forever. Or much longer, without more capital. They're already borrowing heavily, having run out of equity sources. The business model hype is supposed to be that they push taxis out of business, then raise rates. Or self-driving cars will somehow save them. Both are unlikely. [1] http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/growth-vs-profits-ubers-cash-burn-dilemma/ http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/growth-vs-profits...
- muglug 9y agoThis proves that speaking out makes a difference. Edit: HN discussion of Susan J. Fowler's original blog post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682022
- wbillingsley 9y agoIt clearly makes a difference as to who is CEO -- on several occasions a succession of bad news stories has effectively removed a tech CEO (Mozilla, GitHub, Uber, ...) Questions I'd be interested in your thoughts on: - does it actually change corporate behaviour? - is it a good thing that press (which it seems is sometimes influenceable) can effectively hire and fire by continued pressure? (And please note that's not whether this case was wrong, but whether it opens the possibility of intentionally targeted public campaigns to remove someone from a company sponsored by unstated private reasons. And those are genuine, not rhetorical, questions.)
- muglug 9y ago> does it actually change corporate behaviour? That remains to be seen, obviously. But a constant in the reports about Uber was that unscrupulous behaviour (e.g. obtaining the medical records of a rape victim) was enabled by the CEO. One might presume that a change in leadership will mean better behaviour. It will also probably mean that Uber can start hiring for all the C-level positions that are currently vacant, bringing in fresh blood and a different way of doing things. > is it a good thing that press can effectively hire and fire by continued pressure That is an argument that is as old as the oldest printed pamphlet. I'm not going to argue it here, but I'm glad that the press reported on wrongdoing by high-ups at Uber, and I'm glad that users and investors responded to that information.
- ebola1717 9y ago> - is it a good thing that press (which it seems is sometimes influenceable) can effectively hire and fire by continued pressure? If it holds people in power accountable for their actions, then yes, it's a good thing. I agree using the press may be a double edged sword, but if businesses and governments fail to keep their executives and personnel from harassing their employees, then what other recourse is there?
- kevinburke 9y agoAccording 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.
- blazespin 9y agoPlease investigate, not necessarily believe. Innocent til proven guilty still has some place in this world.. That being said, kudos to anyone courageous enough to speak the truth even at the risk of vilification.
- joshuamorton 9y agoBelieve. Do not take action against individuals without investigation, but at organization levels, take measures as though the complaints are true.
- devoply 9y ago> Believe That's sounds like giving accusers too much power, especially if it leads to firing. It's not as if people don't lie.
- smt88 9y agoAccusers are unlikely to abuse this power in the workplace because it harms them, too. It's embarassing, stigmatizing, and often leads to conflicts with the friends of the aggressor.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dwaltrip 9y agoWe can respectfully and supportively receive such reports in good faith, but they need to undergo some level of verification.
- good_vibes 9y ago.
- samstave 9y agoRegardless of what he does professionally, his soul totally needs this.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- MrBlue 9y agoYes I've done several. Great overall experience but not to be taken casually.
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- altonzheng 9y agoHahaha I love this
- flyosity 9y agoIf 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 automaker) to just step in and take all the riches.
- panarky 9y agoI don't know if it's possible for a company to change a culture that's this sick. But it's almost certainly not possible to do it with the same CEO. A leave of absence is not sufficient.
- joering2 9y agoFrankly I don't believe its possible with Arianna Huffington neither. If you ever worked with her, you will clearly see shes a female type of Kalanick; the only difference he seems to love party, sex and alcohol and couldn't care about sexual harassment at his company; meanwhile Huffington is known for backstabbing employees (co owners too) and always gossiping behind others back just for fun and treat people like crap in general. In both examples, a normal company would not be able to thrive; and also look what happened with Huffington Post under her tensure; even AOL ceo did not want to work with her at some point. Bottom line -- removing Kalanick is like rearranging seats on Titanic.
- necessity 9y agoI believe that (much) more relevant than that is what regulators do with these services around the world. For the people it doesn't really matter if it's Uber or Lyft. We are already seeing a protectionist wave of regulations getting rid of affordable transportation throughout the developing and the developed world, I can only imagine that when self-driving cars actually hit the market for good it will be on the whole forbidden in some countries...
- smt88 9y agoUber was already likely to lose. It was way behind in autonomous vehicle tech. Also, it wasn't even close to profitable.
- bobbles 9y agoWhen any story about your company needs a tagline like 'embattled CEO blah blah blah' it might be time to step back
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- TheRealmccoy 9y agoSusan Fowler is the giant killer of this century. Salutation!
- soldierofhayley 9y agoHonestly when it comes to these "most powerful woman in tech" awards, she wins by a landslide.
- necessity 9y agoI'd say the media, who was already after Uber.
- visakanv 9y agoShe was the bullet in the gun that Uber held to its own head; they could've avoided it by not being a shitty place for women to work
- kevmo 9y agoExactly. And this had been coming for years. A transgendered friend of mine starting working there in 2014. She quit within a week. It was only a matter of time.
- MichaelGG 9y agoThey could have remained shitty, but taken plausible deniability actions. As with a top exec personally going to India to get a rape victim's health records (?!?!), Uber seems to have no concept of covering their asses. They just showed a complete lack of care in so many situations... Shows that ignoring the rules can certainly pay off.
- jchien17 9y agoWow, I thought he was just going to step away and take a break. Do we know who might replace him? It's also interesting that the five shareholders mentioned in the NYTimes article want 2 "truly independent directors". What does that mean? Depending on how many board seats there are, maybe two votes aren't enough?
- akras14 9y agoI bet it will be a woman. Merrisa Mayer? lol
- samstave 9y agoHaha I thought the same thing, then kicked myself for manifesting that thought into the universe, only because that seems the most probable Silicon Valley knee jerk reaction in this case...
- Cipater 9y agoIs there an issue if it's a woman? Is Marissa Meyer the only woman y'all know?
- whorleater 9y agoWe know of Elizabeth Holmes too!
- akras14 9y agoI have no issues with women being CEOs. I do have an issue when people get selected for political reasons, i.e. to keep the mob happy.
- santoshalper 9y agoWhat it means is that those investors believe that Uber's board is padded by Travis's cronies, and they want adult supervision brought in.
- curiousDog 9y agoWow! Looks like the investors really want their money back now and are pushing hard for an IPO.
- danso 9y agoWow, makes me want to skim over the original Susan Fowler thread to see if anyone predicted this happening [0]. Her allegations of course weren't the only problem Uber faced but it sure seemed to cause other previously overlooked issues and complaints to gain real resonance. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682022
- imron 9y agoNo, but quite a few posts mentioned Travis being part of the problem and promoting that sort of culture.
- grandalf 9y agoI called for it in the Susan Fowler thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13747414#13749264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13747414#13749264 I do wish it hadn't happened, though, I would have preferred if the company could have healed with him still managing to stay in control.
- danso 9y agoI wonder how things would have gone had Kalanick's family hadn't suffered that horrible tragedy a few weeks ago. That is, whether he would have had the energy/stubbornness to stay as CEO if he wasn't dealing with personal challenges at the same time as professional ones.
- anigbrowl 9y agoI'm sure that was a big factor. Turning a firm's culture around in this case would mean reinventing himself at the same time at the firm, and while that's doable it's a full-time thing. The loss of his mother and serious injuries sustained by his father in the same accident were a cruel twist of fate that would derail many people under the best of circumstances, never mind these more difficult ones.
- rmason 9y agoHope 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. Worst business move since Apple's board (with John Sculley's behind the scenes string pulling) fired Steve Jobs. How well did that work out for Apple's shareholders at the time? Travis Kalanick needed to change but do you really think that running Uber by committee is going to work? Guess it's time to try Lyft.
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- untog 9y ago> Travis is not without his flaws but he created an awful lot of value for them. It's business. Travis ought to understand that.
- robzyb 9y agoI don't (yet) have an opinion on this, but it's important to note the other side of the coin... > 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. He's been very well compensated for the value he's created. You don't keep a job because of what you've done in the past, you keep a job based on what you can do in the future.
- rmason 9y agoFiring founders was tried in the nineties and it always resulted in failure. Guess the Uber VC's need to painfully relearn that lesson? If Travis had been smart enough to create two classes of stock like Mark Zuckerberg and the Google founders he'd be calling the shots, instead he's out of a job.
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- dvt 9y agoNot unsurprising, as Uber really is trying to grow up, and Travis Kalanik has been the silicon valley poster boy for a bit too long. I still think he did a phenomenal job, not only launching a successful startup, but creating an international cultural movement. I wonder who will take his place, and, more importantly, I wonder if Uber will continue winning.
- zer00eyz 9y agoDid he do a lot, sure. Does he deserve to be complimented in any way shape or form? No... Not in the slightest. I think the question is can uber continue winning without being toxic to staff (drivers, women, I'm sure there are others), maybe stealing (waymo lawsuit), and building tools to avoid the law.... The answer is I don't know, but it is going to be hard to recover from.
- yladiz 9y agoI don't think that's quite fair. He absolutely deserves a lot of criticism for the things that happened under his watch as Uber CEO, but he did create a giant company that has the highest(?) valuation of any SV startup. He deserves some respect and compliments for that.
- zer00eyz 9y ago> but he did create a giant company that has the highest(?) valuation of any SV startup. He deserves some respect and compliments for that. The only people that benefited from his achivement were the investors. Considering where Uber stands at the moment they might not ever see a return on that. If creating value gives you some sort of moral pass then we shouldn't have any sort of issues with epipens being more expensive, or martin shkreli jacking up drug prices... after all they did it in the name of creating value.
- yladiz 9y agoIf you prefer to read what I posted that way, then that's your prerogative. I am simply stating that this isn't some kind of zero sum game or that it's black and white. I even stated (which you conveniently left out) that he does deserve criticism for the issues that happened during his tenure, and I believe he deserves a lot.
- sidcool 9y agoDid Susan Fowler's article start this fire? If so, it's an incredible and inspiring story every victim of harrassment should follow. Thanks Susan.
- Jpoechill 9y agoThe Uber movie. ^^
- ebola1717 9y agoI don't agree it's quite that uplifiting. The culture had to be absolutely horrible, all the way up to the top, for Fowler's story to have an impact. Uber was already gearing up their lawyers against her, and if their culture hadn't been so pervasive, and if there weren't a series of other contraversies at the same time, things might have ended poorly for her.
- anigbrowl 9y agoNo, but it did cause it to flare up after a lot of smoke and smoldering. I'd say the problems started ~2 years before that, partly from disregarding local regulators with impunity (rather than putting up a show of trying to cooperate) and partly from a strong of poorly-handled customer complaints where the firm seemed unwilling to take any responsibility for screening drivers. Those led to a persistent consumer narrative of indifference to social norms, which is never a good thing to have attached to your brand.
- samstave 9y agoIt will be interesting to see Uber's HQ corporate culture shift from the wild-westworld crazy co to one who's cash cow is closely managed by the monied interests who will surely own the company from this point forward to ensure all future scandals are either quashed or kept under wraps... With that said, who should lead Uber?
- imron 9y ago> to one who's cash cow is closely managed by the monied interests Not sure I'd use 'cash cow' to describe something that bleeds cash to the tune of billions of dollars a year.
- samstave 9y agoI'm sure there is a lot of cost gutting that could be done and the money they pull in is no laughing matter. Some deep cuts wil likely occur to make the company "more efficient" and "focused on core competency" etc...
- Marazan 9y agoGiven their main cost is 'running a mini cab service' it is hard to see what they can cut and still exist.
- samstave 9y agoWhile your comment puts the high level business model in rather simplistic terms, which I agree with, how is it that "running a mini cab system" costs them 700 million per [time period] and why does said system require 6700 employees as of April 2016 (according to quora) Laura's post from feb stated that on the ops/sre/infra team alone they had ~126 engineers, though I don't know if that includes managers... but it made it sound like there were many layers of managers, thus all the infighting So can't they cut some of this?
- Pandabob 9y agoWould Marissa Mayer be a good fit for Uber CEO? Given that she just resigned from Yahoo, one would think the board would at least consider her. Unless they're going to choose the next CEO from within the company.
- hendzen 9y agoGood chance of it being Arianna Huffington.
- cft 9y agoDo people believe that this PC circus can actually make a long term business profit?
- sidcool 9y agoHow about Eric Schmidt?
- r00fus 9y agoWhy would Eric even think of it?
- sidcool 9y agoQuestion is whether Uber board thinks about it.
- tiredwired 9y agoHow about Elizabeth Holmes?
- anigbrowl 9y agoThat would be hilarious
- MichaelGG 9y agoWhat? Why? I looked her up on Wikipedia - she's an author and a political commentator?
- goseeastarwar 9y agoFounder CEO's do not resign, they are fired. The article skips over the board entirely, but Travis must have been blindsided by his co-founder Garret Camp and early CEO Ryan Graves for this to have transpired. The board likely threatened to fire him unless he resigned, because there's no way Travis walks away because of this investor letter. It's more than likely the letter just provided the air cover his old friends needed to send him packing. edit: For those replying that Travis has control of the board, please cite your sources. Being the majority shareholder using dual-class stock is a much different thing. Shareholders elect board members, but you can't remove investors' board seats, that language is boilerplate in financing documents. Uber does not need the backing of the investors from the letter to remain solvent. With the exception of Fidelity, these aren't big players. Hundreds would take their place immediately given the chance.
- santoshalper 9y agoI don't think he was or could be fired, I think he lost support of the major investors, and decided to resign as requested.
- function_seven 9y agoThe board lacked the power to fire him. He controls most of the company. They had persuasive power, sure. But if he had wanted to dig in and refuse to leave, he could have.
- kawera 9y agoBut then he probably would have a hard time raising more money.
- askafriend 9y agoThis is the part that I think people are missing. Uber has a tight runway and burns a ton of cash every year. It needs focus, execution, and some more time (aka $$) to push this thing over the edge into profitability and IPO readiness. This means that Uber may need some money in about a year if it isn't IPO ready by then. Someone here mentioned that at their current burn, they have less than a year of runway left. So while Travis holds the majority of the voting power, he doesn't hold a ton of real-world cachet because of circumstance around the company. Uber is in a relatively fragile period in it's journey and no one at the top can afford to disagree right now so he has to mostly do what the big chunk of investors collectively tell him to do. The hope is that they can stay calm, run on autopilot without Travis for a bit and guide this cruise missile right through an IPO if everything goes according to plan. Since the investors effectively control the supply of additional capital, they are in a unique position of power here relative to Travis. I think Uber's downfall is a bit exaggerated in the rest of these comments here. They'll go through some troubling times, but they just need to stay calm, and guide the ship. A lot of the pieces are already in place thanks to Travis, but Uber doesn't necessarily need him to oversee the next milestone the same way they needed him the past couple of years of insane growth.
- ganfortran 9y agoAmazing the internet can empower an individual blog post to force the previously most formidable startup's CEO to resign. Fear this inter connected world. Fear the power of language.
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- matt4077 9y agoYeah. Also don't ask new employees for sex on their first day. Repeatedly.
- pfarnsworth 9y agolol what the fuck is going on with this company? Unbelievable amount of drama, I don't know how any employees can do any work at this point.
- khazhoux 9y agoAs the adage goes, sometimes the startup CEO for the first $70 billion, is not the same as for the next $70 billion.
- ogezi 9y agoHaven't heard this adage before bit it seems appropriate for the situation. Good one.
- vecter 9y agoOr as they say, "what got you here won't get you there"
- matt4077 9y agoKalanick's brohaviour has nothing to do with economic success. You absolutely do not need to harass people sexually to be successful.
- dingo_bat 9y agoAnd he didn't sexually harass anybody. I don't see your point.
- matt4077 9y agoHis 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.
- dingo_bat 9y agoI agree with everything you said but he literally did not sexually harass anybody. So saying that he did is just inaccurate. Regardless of how big of an asshole he is.
- ogezi 9y agoWell 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. Just my thoughts.
- michalu 9y agoMore 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.
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- openmosix 9y agoJust a few years ago, Uber was the place to be, the startup to imitate. How many Uber for X pitches did we see? The entire story makes me sad (not the resignation, that was kind of expected) - Uber was an icon of "disruption" and of challenging the status quo. Now, it's just a sad story and people prefer to not be associated with it.
- necessity 9y agoThat's only if you confuse the business model/company with the image of its CEO.
- forgottenacc57 9y agoHe should've stayed. I don't recall bill gates being a good guy. Being a good guy as requirement for being CEO is a 21st century thing.
- santoshalper 9y agoWithout support of his major investors, Uber would struggle to raise additional capital and would probably go bankrupt in 2018-2019 with their burn rate. They asked him to leave, but not nicely.
- matt4077 9y agoNone of the accusations against Uber and Kalanick are about behaviour that is "good business" in any imaginable way. Uber gains nothing from sexually harassing its employees. ...and if that's a 21st Century thing, so be it.Maybe you should do 21st-century things like being a good guy, considering this is the 21st century.
- beagle3 9y agoBill made a profit. If Travis did too, he would probably not have been asked to leave.
- anothercomment 9y agoDid he sexual harass anybody, or what is the point of his resignation? Another case of scapegoating?
- santoshalper 9y agoThe buck stops with the CEO, and it's clear that in the very least, he condoned the asshole culture.
- anothercomment 9y agoIs it? Were steps not taken to remove the harassers, once the incidents came to light? How can the CEO watch over every social interaction?
- exolymph 9y agohttps://www.recode.net/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-india-assault-rape-medical-records https://www.recode.net/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-indi...
- anothercomment 9y agoIt sounds as if people were fired, investigated and so on. I don't understand the part about the medical records. Surely merely wanting to double check the story isn't the issue? Illegally holding the record would, but it seems the responsible person was also fired? I mean, given their business practices, I am not surprised if their culture turns out to be toxic. I just don't see the reasoning behind blaming him for sexist men in the company, if he never supported such actions.
- dullgiulio 9y agoMaybe you just need to be clarified the meaning of scrapegoat: you kill the goat instead of your son, that's the biblical story. It means blaming someone inferior (or, of inferior importance) instead of someone higher up. Blaming the CEO cannot be scrapegoating by definition.
- rahimnathwani 9y ago"investors could lose billions of dollars if the company were to be marked down in valuation." The writer has it backwards. Investors would mark down an asset because it's worth less. The asset doesn't lose value by virtue of being marked down.
- omarchowdhury 9y ago"The asset doesn't lose value by virtue of being marked down." It does in public markets. See sell offs, corrections.
- rahimnathwani 9y ago"It does in public markets." 'The asset' in my statement obviously refers to shares in Uber. Those aren't 'in public markets'. Moreover, even if I were talking about assets in general, including those traded in public markets, my statement is still true. If company A buys shares in company B, and company B's share price subsequently goes down in value, then company A may mark down their own holding (i.e. reduce the value they report in their accounts) to reflect that new reality. But that reality (the lower public market value) preceded the mark down. So the mark down cannot be the cause of the reduction in value. In simpler terms, 'marking down' is an accounting activity, or one of financial reporting. It's writing down what is. It's creating the reality. That's why it's called 'bean counting'. The beans exist before they are counted.
- omarchowdhury 9y agoMy point is that a given reduction in value can cause more reduction in value.
- halite 9y agoGood.
- omarforgotpwd 9y agoStarting to look like Uber might not be worth $69B. (Tesla is valued at just under $61B today). I wonder who the new CEO will be...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- wellboy 9y agoTesla should buy Uber, for $20B or so. They won't get a network for their autonomous cars this cheap again.
- camelite 9y agoShould 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?
- kevinburke 9y agoMost 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.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dixie_land 9y agoI'm going to default to believing people that report harassment unless I can find credible evidence it didn't happen. I hope to God you don't show up for jury duties.
- odonnellryan 9y agoThere are multiple ways to interpret the phrase "I believe you."
- a_imho 9y agoPlease elaborate, I'm not a native speaker and I don't see how it can be interpreted differently in this context.
- jamesrcole 9y agoI'm a native speaker and I don't think there are multiple interpretations.
- forgottenacc57 9y agoFinally John Scully will steer the ship in the right direction. Wait, what?
- favorited 9y agoThat was a Gil Amelio quote, not John Scully.
- matt4077 9y agoKalanick is no Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was an asshole at times, but that behaviour was always about driving people hard to create what he considered a perfect product. Kalanick's brohaviour has nothing to do with economic success. You absolutely do not need to harass people sexually to be successful.
- qb45 9y agoIt wasn't Kalanick's who did it but his employees. And guess what, Apple had a fair number of stories about toxic work culture and sexual harassment too.
- fnovd 9y ago>Mr. Kalanick last week said he would take an indefinite leave of absence from Uber, partly to work on himself and to grieve for his mother, who died last month in a boating accident. He said Uber’s day-to-day management would fall to a committee of more than 10 executives. >In the letter, titled “Moving Uber Forward” and obtained by The New York Times, the investors wrote to Mr. Kalanick that he must immediately leave and that the company needed a change in leadership. >In the letter, in addition to Mr. Kalanick’s immediate resignation, the five shareholders asked for improved oversight of the company’s board by filling two of three empty board seats with “truly independent directors.” They also demanded that Mr. Kalanick support a board-led search committee for a new chief executive, and that Uber immediately hire an experienced chief financial officer. >"“I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life I have accepted the investors request to step aside so that Uber can go back to building rather than be distracted with another fight,” Mr. Kalanick said in a statement. Apparently a 10-executive committee of indeterminate duration wasn't going to suit the board's needs. Taken along with the immediate CFO search, it sounds like Uber simply does not have the time to let Travis sort out both Uber's culture issue and his own personal issues before things start to go sour. Unfortunate timing as I think that, had the accident not happened, Travis would have been able to turn things around. When it rains, it pours.
- snowwrestler 9y agoI think this is right on. It's a crucial moment for Uber and that is no time to hand leadership off to a big committee. I'm seeing a bunch of references in these comments to when Steve Jobs was fired from Apple.[1] A more relevant reference might be when Jobs stepped down to treat his cancer. He named one interim CEO--Tim Cook--and fully empowered him to run Apple. If it was Travis's idea to leave a 10-person committee in charge, that is the sort of insecure, bad decision that would set off investor alarm bells. [1] This is actually not a great comparison to Travis. Jobs was not CEO when Sculley fired him, and in fact had never been CEO of Apple. He was one of 3 founders, each of whom was arguably crucial to the early success of Apple--Jobs, Woz, and Mike Markkula, who did serve as CEO and sided with Sculley in firing Jobs. Apple subsequently grew 10x under Sculley.
- 9y ago
- nodesocket 9y ago"The investors made their demand for Mr. Kalanick to step down in a letter delivered to the chief executive while he was in Chicago..." So brutal to be fired from the company you founded and built via a FedEx.
- rrdharan 9y agoBetter than via UberRUSH amirite?
- myblake 9y agoHell, its about time.
- shubhamjain 9y agoDo VCs care more about public perception than long-term health of the company? Uber has been in the news for all the wrong reasons but thinking from the VCs POV, I doubt there is a better person to run Uber than TK. The company's monopoly is still precarious and I have a feeling that without a CEO like TK, the fate looks like a combination of retreating from markets, heavy losses, and a huge drop in valuation.
- ebola1717 9y agoIt's not just public perception - it's internal perception too. Attrition at Uber is through the roof. Yeah, Travis is one of the best people for the job and his aggressiveness built Uber, but you can't build and maintain Uber if the rest of your talent is fleeing and you can't replace them because of your rep. Plus, he's obviously created a lot of liabilities for Uber at the same time that he's created value - besides the massive cultural problems, Uber's facing a number of dangerous lawsuits.
- jaypaulynice 9y agoWow...Travis Kalanick has his flaws, but come on, he will come back bigger just like Steve Jobs. That hurts! A company like Uber needs an aggressive CEO, not a pushover CEO...this is one reason why investors kill companies. I see this happen so many times, a company takes too much investment, the CEO is replaced, then the company dies within a year...
- matt4077 9y agoNone of Kalanick's kinks is helpful to Uber. Don't promote this idea that it's good business to sexually harass you employees.
- jlborxes 9y agoKalanick has sexually harassed his employees? Must have missed that part.
- jaypaulynice 9y agoWhat?! How am I promoting what you just said?
- kulu2002 9y agoWhat if Daimler thinks of buying Uber...
- samstave 9y agoJesus Chrysler, I'd rather put the brakes on that idea, although I'm sure others would prefer to ford ahead.
- dawhizkid 9y agoAs a former Uber employee (left 6 mo ago) this is shocking. Can't imagine who will step in...
- smt88 9y agoWhat are your thoughts on Fowler's assessment of the company, the scandals, and Kalanick himself?
- throwaway5752 9y agoI have no idea why everyone is going on about Fowler/harassment scandals. He should have been fired by the board for the results of the Otto acquisition and the handling of Waymo lawsuit, and that was probably a much larger factor.
- matt4077 9y agoLet's just agree that there are very many, very good reasons not to support Kalanick in any way.
- amaks 9y agoSomebody in Lyft must be opening a champaigne right now.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- usrusr 9y agoBecause they won't get any more free advertising from Kalanick whoopsies? Must be someone in the public relations department, because that will now have to get a much more generous budget.
- acjohnson55 9y agoThat makes no sense. If anything, they're probably shitting themselves. They've been able to brand themselves as the anti-Uber this whole time.
- joshmn 9y agoIs there an available API/service that does the trip tracking part of Uber? Of any technical challenge that would present a bunch of clones popping up, I can see that being one of them. The rest is just generating an invoice and accepting a credit card payment. Obviously, not to scale, but for small-medium-sized locales, it could suffice.
- smt88 9y agoThere already are lots of Uber clones. You can buy Uber-clone code to start your own. The hard part of cloning Uber as a company is building both sides of the market. It's almost impossible to do without a clever strategy and tons of cash.
- ipsum2 9y agoThat's simply not true. Places where Uber and Lyft aren't allowed have a thriving alternative ride-sharing economy. In Austin, there are 3 different Uber-clone apps that do a fine job: Ride Austin, Fasten, and Fare.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ebola1717 9y agoKara Swisher's podcast had an excellent episode on Uber that did a great job surveying this firestorm, and defending Travis' business direction, without exonerating his leadership's many flaws. Definitely worth a listen.
- nodesocket 9y agoSame day they fire Travis, they add tipping. No coincidence there.
- sidcool 9y agoShould Google acquire Uber?
- omarforgotpwd 9y agono?
- whytaka 9y agoWhat a useless website https://istravisstillceo.com https://istravisstillceo.com turned out to be.
- kgdinesh 9y agotime to update that.
- pshin45 9y agoTravis Kalanick's words to that Uber driver back in Feb 2017 are very ironic now in retrospect: "Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit. They blame everything in their life on somebody else."
- ungerik 9y agoResigned, or rather has been fired by his investors?
- dirtylowprofile 9y agoHere in Asia, Uber pricing is too much and our most popular rival is Grab. Now that Jack Ma is planning on investing. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-15/jack-ma-said-to-explore-joining-1-5-billion-grab-fundraising-j3y5wu9k https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-15/jack-ma-s...
- pishpash 9y agoUber is just shooting itself in the foot at this point. The few things it did get right, no tipping and market-driven pricing, are being rolled away. Then it would truly have no advantage.
- Fricken 9y agoWould filling Kalanick's shoes be regarded as the best, or the worst job opening in Silicon Valley?
- mattlondon 9y agoAll this talk about Lyft becoming the new Uber is perhaps a bit unrealistic. Apart from in SF, I've never found Lyft available anywhere I've been (although I understand it is operating on other parts of the US). To momentarily sing-praises of Uber: the same app, the same login, the same card just works internationally pretty much where ever I have gone on work and vacations regardless of currencies etc - morals aside it is a slick service - but so far I've not been able to use a single Lyft ride because they dont seem to be available apart from the US. Please come to London & the EU Lyft! I dont want to use Uber due to their well-publicised issues but there is no alternative apart from "old world" solutions.
- cirenehc 9y agohave you been to NYC? LA? Seattle?
- mattlondon 9y agoNot in the past few years - SF only. But I do appreciate that Lyft is active elsewhere in the US, just that Uber appear to be active in a LOT of markets where Lyft is not (i.e. there are places in the world that are not major US cities).
- ASpring 9y agoCertainly Uber is more places but in the past 2 weeks I've spent time in "cities" of sizes around 50-60k people and almost all have had both services. Often Lyft will have less cars on the road but I did not struggle to find a Lyft.
- anigbrowl 9y agoThis seemed inevitable. If the firm is stronger in 24 months then it will lead to a substantial cultural change in the tech industry.
- schlumpf 9y agoHow could the board kick out a CEO founder given the vertiginous increase in equity valuations said founder presided over? Because those valuations are only meaningful to end investors (i.e. the LPs) when shareholders experience positive cash flow. At Uber the opposite is happening. Why shouldn't we assume, then, that the board realizes Uber is headed for a fatal pinch[0] and has acted accordingly? Bloomberg in April reported[1] Uber's cumulative cash burn at US$8 bn since its founding in 2009. You can argue that Travis Kalanick presided over rising valuations but so far there is no evidence of an increase in book value per share. Conversely that cash burn risks being crystallized as "value destruction" if revenue growth stalls. The alleged personnel issues, the lawsuit, the bad press -- they are history and the firm has no choice but to cope with them. But failing to improve net margin can be quickly fatal and if that is happening then the other issues remain relevant. TK, who also presided over those, becomes part of the problem rather than part of the solution. [0] http://paulgraham.com/pinch.html http://paulgraham.com/pinch.html [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-14/embattled-uber-reports-strong-sales-growth-as-losses-continue https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-14/embattled...
- paul7986 9y agoHappy to see this as Uber allowed and per their PR laughed at it's users' back accounts getting hacked/losing money. I had 1k stolen from my bank account via Uber and after my research showed... - THey knew about these hacks happening ...about ten or more people a day - Their PR was it's the users fault for choosing a weak password vs. doing a press release letting users know they need to change their passwords and offering 2 way verification - You could not and probably still can not outright and quickly cancel your UBer account. No you have to send a message and I waited days to severe all any ties with them. This happened to me and 1000s of others in 2015 per my search on Twitter then. Then in 2017 you see just how horrible this organization is ... it does not give at ratz ass about anyone who is not a KalaNick bro including employees, customers, drivers.. basically all groups it needs to operate and succeed. Still wanting it to go down in flames and my 1k back into my bank account!!!
- jonthepirate 9y agoFor my own selfish interests, I was hoping they would keep him in there for as long as possible. I exercised my Lyft shares and the value is shooting up the moon.
- rock57 9y agoTravis Kalanick might be upset... All the way to the bank, as a holder of huge equity and majority voting power (so he seems to have the capacity to reinstall himself as a CEO when/if he finds it fit) who surely has negotiated nice conditions for himself in any liquidity event.
- rtx 9y agoThis shows how important virtue signalling is today's America. We have well loved CEO's of billion dollar companies using actual slave Labour. No one write a about them. But here we have journalists like Sarah Lacy going on a crusade against him. Though she always forgot to mention that she has taken funding from VC supporting Uber's rival.
- matt4077 9y ago"Virtue Signaling" is the most asinine, mean-spirited concept invented since about the middle ages. Its only ever used as a blanket dismissal of others' opinions, even going so far as to blatantly use the moral strength of an argument as a weapon against that argument.
- Inconel 9y agomean-spirited concept invented since about the middle ages. I'm unsure if this is hyperbole or not. With regards to it's use, in my observation I don't think it's used so much as a weapon against an argument as much as perhaps a weapon against the self congratulatory and rather shallow nature of online protest. I didn't always feel this way but it seems that whenever the term is brought up you have a number of posters who feel it's incredibly important that it be known, to complete strangers on an internet message board, that they are the good guys and are sincere in their beliefs and actions. In any case, I'm not very smart so I could be wrong in my observations.
- evgen 9y ago'Virtue signaling' is a term that is most often used by people who have a hard time understanding the concept of actual virtuous behavior. For those with sociopathic tendencies everything is a signal or feigned behavior that is used to achieve a specific end, so it is not hard to see why they would assume such behavior and intentions in others.
- Bakary 9y agoThere is a limited amount of attention that can be given to issues, it therefore makes sense that many unsavory individuals will slip through the cracks and never get in trouble.
- ktamiola 9y agoKarma is a bitch.
- pavlakoos 9y agoThis looks good for Uber. Right now Uber needs operational and financial stability. Something Kalanick apparently didn't know how to provide. So moving him aside is good. Also, I think investors forced him out by saying they will finance next round only if Kalanick is gone. And they need more investment, because losing $2bn a year makes them run out of cash soon and inevitably. Still - Kalanick and his co-founder friends have a control over a board, so theoretically Kalanick can get his ass back as CEO as soon as he wants. If he wants... The Kalanick-VCs deal might have another background. To cut those $2bn annual losses, Uber needs to change financially. Those changes will hit customers (prices will increase) and drivers (their pay and benefits decrease). So Uber needs an interim manager to introduce them - a "bad guy", who can take the "blame" for it. A change, that will not hit Kalanick's reputation. But it's all good. Uber will continue to grow. The service is just too good.
- NumberCruncher 9y agoprint "%s may or may not take over the world at some point, but it needs another round of investment in the next 18 months just to survive." % ('any Ponzi scheme')
- jeroenjanssens 9y agoPython 2? Absolutely barbaric.
- devdoomari 9y agopython2 has much better syntax than that... print "{something} may or may not take over the world at some point, but it needs another round of investment in the next 18 months just to survive.".format(something='any Ponzi scheme') python 2, 3 are nice... got loads of libs... just that they don't have enough static typings to help me around :(
- brianwawok 9y agoLook into mypy! Its a good start.
- devdoomari 9y agomypy is going in a nice direction! hope it would get scala or idris-level typechecks :) But... most library definitions are quite lacking... if only some big company would volunteer to fill that huge gap... (hope MS gives some luv! just like they did with Typescript + DefinitelyTyped)
- _jal 9y agoWake me when it finally gets a case statement.
- amyjess 9y agoI use %s with Python 3 when I don't specifically have access to 3.6 (like at work, where I have to use 3.4 because we're a RHEL 7 shop). I detest .format(), and I won't use it.
- naskwo 9y agoA few weeks ago, I posted on HN about my experience in Hamburg (no Uber in Germany. The local taxi authority has its own app which works equally well, if not better). Last weekend, I was in Budapest. There is no Uber in Hungary (anymore), but the main taxi company (Fötaxi) has its own app which works brilliantly. I honestly see no "moat" around Uber in markets where (large) taxi dispatchers have the insight to build a ride-hailing app. It's only a matter of time before we are back to square 1, or rather, square 2.0: * licensed, regulated taxis, either independent or through dispatcher * all connected to an (api-)interconnected ecosystem of ride hailing apps * payment to driver directly (cash or card), tipping discretionary * receipts emailed to rider afterwards, with annotated map and start- and end time This will weed out dishonest drivers, and will benefit honest drivers. Uber's only differentiator in well-organised urban markets is its app. The turning point for Uber's decline will be when NY and London mirror Uber's functionality in their own apps, with the benefit (in London) of cabs being allowed to use the cab lanes (or, in Amsterdam, the bus lanes).
- naskwo 9y ago[edit] replace "turning point" with "catalyst"
- adamnemecek 9y agoUbers 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.
- danpalmer 9y agoI 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.
- mhw 9y agoSo are the local restaurants when compared to McDonald's - I guess it all depends on what you want to get out of travel.
- michalu 9y agoIn the letter, in addition to Mr. Kalanick’s immediate resignation, the five shareholders asked for improved oversight of the company’s board by filling two of three empty board seats with “truly independent directors.” This seems like a narrative to cover their attempt to get more power in the company... Clearly Kalanick has appointed directors on board that are on his side, which is exactly what he should do and the point of shareholder's appointing directors... Of course, investors want their people
- CodeWriter23 9y agoI've not been a fan of Kalanick. But I do think he is going to do something really great in the future. Much greater than Uber.
- jbb67 9y agoI never understood why the tech press and sites like this one are obsessed with Uber. It's a taxi company with an app. That's it.
- chapmindustries 9y agoWhy does anyone care about Tesla? It's just another car company? Except that in both the case of Tesla and Uber the two companies have the potential to revolutionize transportation. Consequently, people are very interested by what these companies are up to.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- balladeer 9y agoLet'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.
- tyingq 9y agoDidi, I assume, would fill some of that vacuum.
- peter_retief 9y agoFor me its just really sad, I wish him well with new ventures
- dreamdu5t 9y agoWow turns if you give me a billion dollars and I burn it that's considered business and entrepreneurship in 2017 America.
- cgeier 9y agoSomewhat off-topic: Why is something like Uber called ride-sharing to begin with? I'm not sharing my ride with anyone that coincidentally wants to travel (more or less) the same route as me. I pay somebody to drive their car first to me, and then some other place. This is called a taxi or cab [1], there Uber is a taxi company. At least in Germany, there used to be actual ride-sharing systems, of which the best one used to be mitfahrzentrale.de, where people would advertise what route they were planing to drive (and when) and other people could "book" a seat on that route. I don't know if some others still exist, I haven't used them in years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab
- tronje 9y agoFurther off-topic, for anyone curious: There are a number of ride-sharing services, the self-proclaimed biggest being blablacar.de, previously known as mitfahrgelegenheiten.de, I believe. We also have a multitude of car-sharing services, where if you subscribe, you can look for a free car parked somewhere, and then drive it wherever you want within a certain area. Examples are car2go, DriveNow, and I believe Starcar and other rental-car companies also have services like that. Uber actually had to pull out of several german cities because of taxi-related regulations. Taxi-drivers in those cities need to obtain a license, which drivers for Uber obviously don't do. So (some german) institutions also view Uber as a taxi company. Source: https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/30/9648676/uber-germany-hamburg-frankfurt-dusseldorf https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/30/9648676/uber-germany-ham...
- elicash 9y agoAlong these lines, Lyft started out as an actual ride-sharing platform with Zimride, until eventually the current model took off and they decided to sell the ride-sharing part of the company away.
- amyjess 9y agoLyft also used a donation model back in the day (this was the case when I first started using them in 2014). You didn't have to pay for anything, but there was a "suggested donation" along with a message saying that drivers you donate money to will be more likely to give you a ride again.
- andreasgonewild 9y agoA-holes take notice, the times are changing. The only name here that deserves to be in history books is Susan J. Fowler's for having the courage to speak up.
- HappyTypist 9y agoSusan J. Fowler's blog post started the snowball that led to the firing of a $70 billion startup's CEO. I hope this encourages more people to publicly report systematic cultures of sexual harassment.
- DonHopkins 9y agoAnd also encourages more people to systematically stop sexually harassing other people. Because certain people like Uber board member David Bonderman have a really hard time getting it through their thick Neanderthal skulls that they shouldn't make crude sexist remarks about how women talk to much, while on stage at a company all hands meeting whose topic is how the company is turning over a new leaf to address their systematic culture of sexual harassment. Even if it's hilariously ironic because it was actually a man who just couldn't keep his big fat mouth shut. https://www.recode.net/2017/6/13/15795612/uber-board-member-david-bonderman-women-talk-too-much-sexism https://www.recode.net/2017/6/13/15795612/uber-board-member-...
- jaydub 9y agoEven if he's out as CEO he still will likely wield outsize influence due to his 1) board seat 2) equity stake 3) majority of leadership are presumably his people. Will be interesting to see who replaces him and whether the company actually changes.
- grappler 9y agoThis story made me think "Maybe I want to finally sign up for an Uber account, after years of avoiding them and using Lyft?" But then I thought, well, Travis still controls a majority of the votes and he's still on the board. Others out there who have also been avoiding Uber because of all the bad press, I'm curious how you are thinking about this.
- consultSKI 9y agoPeople 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 strategic alliances. Business is most often a series of trade-offs. Startups more so.
- mholmes680 9y agoI 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?
- kaushalc 9y agolets say this entire harassment thing hadnt blown up , then would Travis still have been fired may be a few months from now?
- throwawaymanbot 9y agoHe can now spend his time Masturbating over Ayn Rand books.
- dang 9y agoWe ban accounts that comment like this because they degrade the community and we're hoping for something better here. Please don't do it again. If you have a substantive point to make, please make it thoughtfully; otherwise please don't comment until you do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
- throwawaymanbot 9y agoDang... thats harsh. In my defense, I felt at the time it was relevant, due to the fact that he berated that cab driver one time. (Which was filmed) and mentioned Ayn Rand to the 2 blonde's he was with in the cab. That was the reference. However, its your house, and I respect the houses wishes, and will avoid making CEO Masturbating jokes ever again. Cheers!
- chatmasta 9y agoI can't wait to see the next company Travis builds. A few months from now I'm sure he will be feeling the hunger again. And man, talk about carrying a chip on your shoulder. I hope he finds further success in life and learns from his mistakes.
- pdog 9y agoRIP Uber, 2009–2017. It's been a good run.
- innopreneur 9y agoseems like this became the highest rated and commented story in the history of Hacker News...
- thrillgore 9y agoI can't say i'm not surprised, but nothing good will come of this.
- innopreneur 9y agoI 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 ?
- petraeus 9y agoUber 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.
- krisdol 9y agoDid you try calling one?
- jonwachob91 9y agoDoes Uber buy lyft just to acquire a relevant management team?
- booleanbetrayal 9y agoI called a board ousting of Kalanick some 6 months ago. This move is just too late to pull up from the current nosedive. RIP Uber.
- acjohnson55 9y agoI, for one, will consider using Uber again. It is very important to me to see a change in leadership. I simply couldn't square my use of the app with the sense that Uber was deeply unethical, starting from the top. Also, it's so disappointing to see so many people buy into the cult of personality of the Startup Founder. There's a lot of half-baked reasoning going on on why Uber's fate should be inexorable tied to Travis. So far, the two main arguments I've seen are "because Steve Jobs" and "he raised so much money for them". Neither one of these are compelling in explaining why Uber's survival prospects should be further damaged by a change at the top. The only argument that's compelling to me is the concept that they've built their whole business on unethical assholery and it's going to take a lot of time and energy to reorient a big company around a different M.O. But even that's not very compelling, because it presumes that there aren't a whole lot of people already there who would flourish in a healthy, ethical work environment. I know a number of people there who feel that way.
- ryandrake 9y ago> Also, it's so disappointing to see so many people buy into the cult of personality of the Startup Founder. There's a lot of half-baked reasoning going on on why Uber's fate should be inexorable tied to Travis. So far, the two main arguments I've seen are "because Steve Jobs" and "he raised so much money for them". Neither one of these are compelling in explaining why Uber's survival prospects should be further damaged by a change at the top. It's such a strange idea--that out of the seven billion people on the planet, only one is capable of leading [Company X]. Who really believes this?
- chrisdbaldwin 9y agoI'd argue this is a common organizational dysfunction -- "only the leader can lead," nonsense. There are glaring organizational problems at Uber, and I truly hope removing Travis from the head helps turn their toxic culture around.
- jpttsn 9y agoIt's probably not only one. But maybe it's not quite seven billion.
- cdevs 9y agoLike watching Silicon Valley
- bobjordan 9y agoThere are a lot of lessons to be learned here but I think one of the biggest to remember is - don't send any emails to anyone (even Mom) that you wouldn't want to be published on the front page of the NYT. Let alone to thousands of employees. For example, the yearly event emails that Travis sent from the frat-boy CEO frame of view. The employees probably received it well ahead of the event and likely even an uptick in morale, but in the long term, it is not an email he is proud of sending.
- thedevil 9y agoI'm going to go against the crowd and say that Uber survives as a business for now. They may scale back expansion and they might raise prices. They may even get acquired at a lower valuation. But I bet they'll still be operating. I think their burn rate is almost surely the result of subsidizing expanding markets. I can't imagine established markets being anything but ludicrously profitable. Disclaimer: I don't necessarily like Uber, I've never even used them and I know almost nothing about their (former) CEO outside of headlines.
- m0sa 9y ago"Uberraschung"
- alexandersingh 9y agoI don't know Kalanick, though I've read about how his brashness and "win at all costs" attitude was forged through his past startup failures[1] If this is true then he is his own worst enemy, and I find it very sad when anyone - no matter how big a jerk you think they are - is trapped in a repeating pattern of negative and destructive behavior. To be clear: I am not absolving him of his behavior, I'm just observing that the culture comes from the founder and his wounds run deep. [1] Scour filed for bankruptcy, Red Swoosh was acquired after enormous struggles to keep the company afloat.
- tmcpro 9y agoIf they were smart they would hire a diplomat like Condoleezza Rice (Dropbox). They have a ton of experience dealing with crisis, external perceptions, government relations, and lobbying on an international level.
- erikb 9y agoI am really disappointed that another article discusses a power struggle without mentioning the power struggle. Something like this is nearly always a power struggle. That the accusations may be valid is just showing that the people attaining power have a higher chance in this situation. It doesn't change the fact that it is a power struggle. So who are the people taking over? For an news paper that shouldn't be hard to figure out. Who are the three new guys? They are 100% sure linked to the group taking over. They are certainly not "neutral". Who is likely to become the new CEO? This guy is certainly the leader of the coup or a puppet.
- ryanx435 9y agoit doesn't mention the power struggle because this article is PART of the power struggle. The journalist who wrote the article is basing the story based on the people who they have interviewed (who are the ones who are struggling for power) as well as the continuing narrative surrounding Uber (which is the story the people struggling for power are trying to create) you should read this very interesting (but simplified) exploration of power talk for a general idea of why this article was written the way that it is: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-ii-posturetalk-powertalk-babytalk-and-gametalk/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-...
- erikb 9y agoThanks, I'll check it out.
- erikb 9y agoI'm about 50% through (the e-book; if someone presents interesting knowledge he should also get paid for it). So what you're saying is that I shouldn't have such expectations towards the reporter. The reporter may or may not be smart enough to look behind the curtain, but his official job is not to look behind but to present the "objective" official grand narrative. Talking about the actual power struggle would expose him since it may be considered unprofessional and un-objective, as well as hurt his trust relations with people who give him inside info. So the most naive but objective report may actually be written by the smartest reporter. New point of view. Thanks!
- webwanderings 9y agoSo your business depends on me not uninstalling your app by a single click of a button, while you don't even offer anything unique? And you have crazy valuation which is threatened by your company's culture? Ah, the modern times!
- pishpash 9y agoThe fact that Uber brought in tipping the day it got rid of Kalanick makes me believe it is a money issue. Basically Uber raised prices by 10-20% to match Lyft.
- rlanday 9y agoThe tip money only goes to the drivers, right? So it presumably will help to retain drivers, but won't give Uber itself any extra money.
- futhey 9y agoThere is another option: Perhaps Travis is just “going away for a while”, to return when things have quieted down.
- korzun 9y agoLike it or not, the liability of diversifying just went up. It's clear that the lynch mob of armchair activists will no longer be satisfied when action is taken against the individuals who are directly at fault; they tend to drag everybody they can into this mess and attempt to hold them accountable. Travis aside, you can't expect engineering managers to ignore what happened and risk their career because somebody in H.R might screw up. 1. You must get involved if you hear anything that could be remotely questionable. Otherwise, you will be the guy who ignored all of the signs and enabled the culture. 2. If you get involved, and it turns out to be nothing, you are now harassing a co-worker. It was just an office relationship, and things went sour? It's your fault now. 3. Don't get involved? You are an enabler and must be punished. I was reading a thread on Reddit last week (Things you can no longer do at work, or something like that) and apparently some men are scared to close the meeting room door if they are left alone with a woman these days. Amazing world we live in today.
- eliangidoni 9y agoA good CEO knows when to resign ! cheers for him, very humble!
- jorblumesea 9y agoNo fan of Kalanick, but letting leadership fall to a 10 executive committee at such a critical moment in Uber's history sounds like a complete disaster. Uber needs to make serious bold moves and I don't think anyone is lined up to make them. My guess is they'll try another funding round, fail at that, then attempt to IPO at an uncertain share price.
- davidf18 9y agoMuch of the resistance to Uber (such as laws that were broken, protests) were from entrenched interests. At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. It provided completion for the entrenched Yellow Cab monopoly with its very high rates. Sometimes Uber would have higher rates but then you could take a Yellow Cab instead. The Yellow Cab special interests paid off politicians so that there was a limit of 13,000 Yellow Cab medallions for 8.5 million people. The price of the taxi medallion was $1.2 million. While people in Manhattan could get a taxi, there were no taxis in Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, ... Because of the artificial limit on medallions which only benefited medallion owner but not New Yorkers, a driver leasing a cab for a 12 hour shift could pay $125 just to lease the car. When Uber and Lyft came, the rates were lower, one could use Uber Pool to have even lower rates and save on greenhouse gas. Now taxi services have some availability outside of Manhattan. Now many Yellow Cabs are idle and the value of the medallions went for $1.2 million to about $700,000 or less. In NYC, the Yellow Cab medallion owners tried to get the mayor to put restrictions on the growth of Uber/Lyft, but New Yorkers protested. Uber/Lyft have increased customer value, lowered greenhouse gasses while not forcing drivers to pay excessing leasing fees for vehicles.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- discodave 9y ago> When Uber and Lyft came, the rates were lower, one could use Uber Pool to have even lower rates > not forcing drivers to pay excessing leasing fees for vehicles. Err, the cheaper rates were due to uber subsidising rides with VC money, which was unsustainable. Uber also did start a leasing program for drivers.
- davidf18 9y ago> Err, the cheaper rates were due to uber subsidising rides with VC money, which was unsustainable. Uber also did start a leasing program for drivers. The cheaper rates in NYC which are extremely high compared with the rest of the USA were because there was no $125 / 12 hour lease fee because there were no medallions. Medallion owners would get mortgages (like houses) for the $1.2 million medallions and the high lease fee paid for the medallion mortgage. In fact the other special interests besides Yellow Cab medallion owners were credit unions who financed these mortgages. A $125 / 12 hour lease fee comes to over $90,000 per year. By not having to pay these excessive expensive leases, drivers could be paid less money and still make a profit. Drivers who leased the Yellow Cabs still have to pay for gas. Lower costs for taxi service means more time with customers in cabs. Everyone wins except medallion owners and credit unions with the mortgages and politicians bought off by these special interests.
- DelTaco 9y agoAction Jack Barker to step in? I think the only thing that can save Uber now is the conjoined triangles of success.
- Whatarethese 9y agoIs it really that hard to not sexually harass workers at your place of business?
- jamisteven 9y agoUBER: Crowdfunding the development of autonomous vehicles by temporarily giving people jobs and keeping all the data collected by the thousands of drivers using its app.
- notadoc 9y agoIf this had happened two years ago, would Uber have avoided any of the later negative press?
- ChuckMcM 9y agoThink about this the next time you're putting up with bad behavior at work. Susan Fowler ultimately lost her job and went through painful criticisms for speaking out, but she did kick off a lot of change at the company. Think about this the next time you're tolerating bad behavior on the part of your employees. A number of people lost their jobs in the resulting firestorm but that fire reached right up to the top. Think about this the next time you're considering investing in a company where the leadership team plays fast and loose with law. Disruption is important, but principles are just as important. If the leadership team gets their advantage by not following the rules that others do, watch for them to not follow the rules that they should as well.
- jayess 9y agoYou live by the sword, you die by the sword. But we still need people who live by the sword.
- danm07 9y agoNot to be wry but how often has kicking out the founder been the solution to VC's problems?
- TheRealmccoy 9y agoThings in life needs to be taken in totality and not in silos. Whatever Uber has managed to do is creditable, but at what cost? Being a jerk company? Thanks, but no thanks. I'd rather ride a bullock cart, than avail services of such a company.
- nether 9y agoI hope this means the downfall of (fundamentally misogynist) brogrammer culture.
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- bsvalley 9y agoTravis, if you're looking for a new adventure - I'm looking for a co-founder. Ping me ;)
- treebeard901 9y agoOne thing that strikes me as strange is how we have had a persistent release of negative information about Uber through many different kinds of media outlets for the past few months. This is not meant to cast doubt on the problems at Uber highlighted in these reports. However, It seems like the drip of negative information was intentional, perhaps with the goal of having him resign. Uber was guilty in the public eye almost immediately. Even today the media narrative is that this is good for Silicon Valley culture as a whole. Implicit in this line of thinking is that most SV companies have the same culture problems. I find that to be troubling and largely incorrect.
- ryguytilidie 9y agoThis is a pretty strange line of logic. Uber has consistently been in the media for YEARS about corrupt things they've done. I think the public decided they were bad because of those many things, not by some stroke of luck...
- treebeard901 9y agoWhile it is true they have been in the media for years for various reasons... Over the past few months it seemed to be accelerating. Perhaps the lesson here is that if you set out to disrupt powerful interests across the world, you better have your own house in order, otherwise they will disrupt you.
- tareqak 9y agohnrankings graph of this story: http://hnrankings.info/14600873/ http://hnrankings.info/14600873/ (I'm not affiliated with them, but I think this ranking information is important).
- postITcareer 9y agoThis guy may be a huge asshole.. but he is not anywhere close to why Uber has been having problems.. though I hope his resignation helps the company. Obviously his resignation followed immediately by their "180 days of change" campaign, in app tipping etc.. was a well planned move to get some heat off them
- postITcareer 9y agoTravis was not anywhere close to being responsible for the amount of heat he has taken lately... but this + their 180 days of change, in app tipping and things is good for the company and hopefully will make the drivers a little happier..
- postITcareer 9y agoPS I am an Uber/Lyft driver.. never thought I would be but an experiment in hustling up a little extra cash ended up working out great for me
- T3RMINATED 9y agoLyft is the future