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Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board
- lettergram 9y agoI can't imagine Uber doesn't start raising prices and drop out of markets they aren't profitable in. No way they can bring in more investments (although maybe they could get a loan). Given the changes and their runway, I honestly see Lyft managing to outpace Uber in the next 12 months.
- xyzzy_plugh 9y agoDoesn't Uber operate in a ton of countries? Lyft operates only in the US, right? And even then, isn't Uber in more cities? Lyft has no choice but to subsidize itself into extinction. If Uber pulled back entirely into the US alone then Lyft would be truly doomed. Only by spreading themselves thin does Lyft have a fair fight.
- vertex-four 9y agoOn the other hand, if they didn't spread themselves thin (and often into countries which don't actually need Uber), they likely wouldn't have received the amount of funding they have, and they'd be a more reasonably-sized competitor to Lyft.
- BinaryIdiot 9y agoWhy do you think they can't get more investments? They just completed this report and now Travis is out; unless you have proof you can't say they didn't fix their issues. So not only have they shown concern to solving a major PR and culture issue but they're absolutely HUGE. If they IPO it could be an incredible exit. Am I missing something? They seem far, far more investable now.
- lettergram 9y agoThey have three lawsuits that can sink the company, given their runway. They now have next to no leadership, and they still have no clear path to making money. Their board is up in arms, their CEO stepped down, but still has full control. If they want investment, it's going to be a down round. And their CEO will have to give up a significant chunk of the business. Even then, idk who else is left with the capital they'd need.
- res0nat0r 9y agoAll this shakeup at the top, but will it affect anything on the ground? I'm still going to take an Uber this weekend and no one not in tech that I know will even hear about any of this, let alone know who the CEO is. Sounds like they are trying to cleanup their image, then will get back to expanding their already massive reach they have in their cities they are already in around the world.
- in_cahoots 9y agoTravis' resignation was the lead story on Nytimes.com and on the front page of the Washington Post. This isn't just a niche story anymore.
- res0nat0r 9y agoSure, but is the company going to implode from this? I wouldn't think so. They are already massive and seem to be just cleaning house at the top to try and shed their lawbreaking image, and now move into phase two: become legitimate and grow even further while being more mindful and cooperative with city regulations, where it benefits them.
- mr_turtle 9y agoSecond this,, why would any who uses Uber take into account the internal turmoil happening within the company when they decide to use the app or not? The costs of Uber going up or decrease in availability of drivers should matter more. Drivers only care about their bottom line which is rate per mile/time and frequency of riders.
- sebastos 9y agoYes, you're missing that this is all wish fulfillment doomsdayism. People are nursing some recreational outrage because of the revelations regarding Uber's culture. So now they all have a pet theory that Uber will fail. They're working backwards from what they _want_ to happen though, so their "theory" can explain anything: "Kalanick is a loose cannon who's going to run the company into the ground" Kalanick steps down "They have no leadership, they'll close their doors in a week" etc.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rtpg 9y agoyou're acting like this is the start of the idea that perhaps the entire taxi industry is not worth what Uber is claiming, or that having a bunch of autonomous vehicles is probably hard for an iOS app company to manage, or that they ultimately have never proven they can keep drivers happy without subsidizing prices, or that they might not get huge backlash from legal action around driver status, or ..... There's an argument for Uber's eventual success, but there's a lot of stuff against it too. It's not an absurd theory.
- ghaff 9y agoI'm no expert, but I have to believe that the next step has to be stabilize the patient. - Cut back on actions and strategies that only make sense in the context of massive continued growth. - Set prices to sustainable levels even though that means the buy-on-price segment of your customer base goes away. That's an ultimately unprofitable race-to-the-bottom segment you don't want anyway. - At that point, potentially pull out of places where you don't have the critical mass to operate--especially in non-US markets where there are probably fixed costs to operate. - Autonomous vehicles? That's going to happen over a decade or three timeframe that's utterly irrelevant to Uber even if a first mover advantage was defensible. - And, yeah, the company is now far less valued to investors but it can potentially at least stay intact as a viable business.
- tacomonstrous 9y ago>I honestly see Lyft managing to outpace Uber in the next 12 months. Perhaps in the US. But Uber has a large presence in a number of other countries, while Lyft has none, AFAIK.
- carsongross 9y agoI wonder if Kalanick saw the writing on the wall and is getting out of the way of the oncoming train wreck, in order to set up a Jobs-style comeback at some point...
- castis 9y agoConsidering Kalanick was one of the people doing the writing I'm sure he did.
- xyzzy_plugh 9y agoWait so first he demands Kalanick resign, then he resigns? Did he burn all his bridges, or was there some strategy here?
- fnbr 9y agoI'm unsurprised. Kalanick has enough support on the board that I'd imagine they'd make it uncomfortable for Gurley to stay. The whole situation is fascinating as it has shown how important the soft power board members hold is. Strictly speaking, no one can force Kalanick or Gurley out, but out they are.
- sumedh 9y agoThe reason they were fired was because this whole mess got a lot of publicity. If there was no publicity, nothing would have happened. Ask Warren Buffett even he complains board members dont do much work they just blindly follow what the CEO says.
- draw_down 9y agoMaybe. There are also a couple lawsuits in the mix, and the harassment issue was a lot more than just press.
- fnbr 9y agoYup. The Holder report seems scathing, too, from what little we've seen. I would think that everything we've seen would have lead to a significant down round if Kalanick hadn't resigned (we still probably will). Given Uber's lack of profits & burn rate, a down round could send them into a death spiral.
- malandrew 9y agoAll that we've seen is a list of recommendations. How did you go from a list of recommendations with no explanation as to how each recommendation was arrived at to "seems scathing"?
- hkmurakami 9y agoHm so Kalanick is still on the. Pars so heoretically he can make a triumphant return at a later date?
- deleted 9y ago
- johan_larson 9y agoI remain flabbergasted by all of this upheaval at Uber. What's happening is the sort of housecleaning I would expect if the company had to file for bankruptcy or got caught flat out bribing judges or something. But really, what triggered all this was acting like jerks. It seems to me, what should have happened (a long time ago) was that they got shut down for systematically breaking the law, or encouraging others to do so. That would have made sense. But instead they are getting flayed alive by not much more than bad press for being jerks. Makes no goddamn sense.
- tw04 9y agoYou're assuming the current board didn't have this planned for a long time. Let them break the law to get things done, then clean house after the stage was properly set. I STILL think that people are downplaying the Otto thing way too much, especially on this site. It's easy to say that they're going to win in court... but this is GOOGLE - they're going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars and likely a decade trying to win this thing. Google isn't going to stop until they've exhausted literally every legal avenue possible. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a good portion of this isn't Uber's board trying to save the company from that legal battle - fire Kalanick, boot *Gurley, then license the tech from Waymo that was previously stolen.
- erichurkman 9y agoAnd Google does not need to win. At the scale of Google v. Uber, getting injunctions, delays, and bogging down Uber's self driving car efforts are valuable on their own.
- justicezyx 9y agoNot slow down, just not use what Google got through much more capital investment. That's where they should be, unless Uber prove that they are not using what was developed at Google.
- austenallred 9y agoKalanick still had the majority. The board couldn't "plan" this without his consent.
- neil1 9y agoI wonder if Travis resigning was contingent on Bill Gurley leaving the board. As Bill seems to be the main anti-Travis actor on the board.
- raleighm 9y agoI wondered the same. Or whether Gurley is exhausted with the whole thing and viewed now as a good time to hand the baton to someone else at Benchmark.
- andybg 9y agoIt's unclear if Gurley actually wants to leave the board. Part of me thinks that he knows something really bad is coming down the pipes (e.g. potential criminal liability re: Otto, etc) and he wants to distance himself now. It's half a conspiracy theory, but makes you think ...
- wsc981 9y agoThis was the same thing that popped my mind when I read this news. Also: if he leaves before something really bad happens to the company, he might claim he left because the unethical behaviour of the company didn't align with his ideals, perhaps not hurting his future prospects at the boards of other companies.
- csmattryder 9y agoIt's got to be the Otto lawsuit, that's obviously coming, after Levandowski dropped the ball with that "plead the Fifth" stuff. Even the Google network forensics team have him bang to rights[1] taking data while on-site at the campus, Google would be mental to not launch a volley and destroy a potential competitor in the process. And you don't drop $680m on an acquisition without going through board approval first, surely? Somebody's definitely complicit. [1] https://www.wired.com/2017/02/googles-waymo-just-dropped-explosive-lawsuit-uber-stealing-self-driving-tech/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/googles-waymo-just-dropped-exp...
- goodriddance 9y agoFor all the future founders on HN, the lesson here is to never do business with Bill Gurley. He's one of the reasons AngelList exists. I hope his lesser known reputation finally catches up with him and forces him out of Benchmark and out of the VC industry entirely. The Ravikant v. Tolia (and Bill Gurley) Lawsuit: http://blog.ericgoldman.org/personal/archives/2005/02/ravikant_v_toli.html http://blog.ericgoldman.org/personal/archives/2005/02/ravika...
- JajaMan 9y agoI've never heard of the guy, whats hew known for? Also what's wrong with angellist?
- goodriddance 9y agoEverything you need to know is linked to on that page I linked to. Nothing is wrong with AngelList. AngelList is great. It was Bill Gurley's slimey VC actions to conspire with Nirav Tolia against the other Epinions founders and early employees that led Naval Ravikant to found AngelList as an alternative to the VC system.
- jcrben 9y agoThat article doesn't say much. Which link in it has the meat?
- goodriddance 9y agoThe first link which is the actual claim filed in a US court of law.
- andybg 9y agoTHIS. A million times this. Go ask pmarca too.
- goodriddance 9y ago
- Stryder 9y agoUber is now more popcorn worthy than both HoC and Trump administration combined.
- econner 9y agoMeanwhile all of the rank and file employees keep the lights on and the ship afloat. Wishing their on-call teams all the best.
- jimjimjim 9y agoFinally! After years of assholes being assholes because it's not illegal to be assholes, now finally they are finding that there are repercussions. if you piss off everyone, then you better hope like hell that you don't fall and need someone's help. tldr: assholes.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- probably_wrong 9y agoUnfortunately, it seems the true lesson is "after years of being assholes, they get to go home with more money than many of us will ever see".
- V-eHGsd_ 9y agothat person has been elected president.
- exclusiv 9y agoAs to the parents points at hand - they got away with it. So, not "that person". All of them. Your cute political comment ignores ridiculouslness on your side. It's all the same trash. Either party. Don't be a homer.
- V-eHGsd_ 9y agocute comment edit aside, I'm not sure I follow the distinction you're trying to make. edit: to be absolutely clear, i'm not saying that trump has committed _every_one_ of the _specific_ acts referenced by the parent. but he is the amalgamation of every terrible, wrong-headed political move a person can make, and he's president. my point was the initial analogy was bad, "picture a candidate who's done every bad thing a candidate can do; how do you think they'd be treated?". well, they'd quite possibly be elected president.
- exclusiv 9y agoYeah Trump didn't drive a women off a bridge and leave her dead like your previous leader Ted Kennedy. I personally support third party but damn the left loves to ignore how dirtball their own party is. Add Mel Reynolds, Robert KKK Byrd and others to the mix and it's laughable the party is any more a champion for anything. I honestly don't understand how either side can wage an ethics war on the other. Someone makes a point about how dirtball politicians are in general and then it turns into criticism about the current powers that be as if the opposition is angelic. They both suck. Why can't we agree on that?
- V-eHGsd_ 9y ago"your leader"? "your party"? "ethics war"? you're making a lot of assumptions for a wed evening, no?
- icpmacdo 9y agoHow well is Garret Camp doing with running Expa?
- omarforgotpwd 9y ago"Hey, anyone remember how this company is supposed to run? Anybody? Wasn't ANYBODY here before? Hey, we're still worth $70 billion right?"
- DonHopkins 9y agoDid he resign in a show of support for David Bonderman, because he thinks women talk too much too?
- dandare 9y agoCould someone please explain to me how come Uber has 12,000 employees? Drivers are not employees, there is no content to curate, no brick & mortar operations, the app and tech stack is pretty much developed and stable. Sure the Otto and UberEATS are part of that number but still. Did I miss something?
- dagw 9y agoCould someone please explain to me how come Uber has 12,000 employees Because they can afford it and desperately want to grow. Let's say Uber operates in about 300 cities around the world and have their eyes on another 100. Dedicate an average of 3-4 people to grow and market your services in each city plus another 3 to handle local staffing, admin and regulatory issues and you're already at ~2500.