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Six contenders to be Uber's new CEO
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- foobaw 9y agoSheryl Sandberg or Marissa Mayer would be a huge win for Uber. I've worked with both of them, and know that they will bring extremely positive changes.
- jitl 9y agoMayer's recent track record with Yahoo seems to be ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ to this observer.
- hodgesrm 9y agoI would be stunned if Uber hired Marissa Mayer. Whatever virtues she may possess as a leader it's clear they don't include corporate turnarounds.
- foobaw 9y agoYou're right in that aspect - her track record with Yahoo isn't great, but she could definitely help out with corporate culture as an advisory role.
- kyrre 9y agofound the Lyft investor
- amrrs 9y agoIf this is true. This is again a very much of PR attempt than a legitimate hunt for the right CEO. Marissa was brought into Yahoo when Yahoo hardly had anything to do. And now it's time for Uber to find a female CEO not to run the company but to say Uber is pro-feminist!
- amrrs 9y agoIf this is true. This is again a very much of PR attempt than a legitimate hunt for the right CEO. Marissa was brought into Yahoo when Yahoo hardly had anything to do. And now it's time for Uber to find a female CEO not to run the company but to say Uber is pro-feminist!
- pwthornton 9y agoSandberg is an executive at a very successful company that makes a lot of money and is still on the way up. Mayer just flamed out as CEO, demonstrating that not only was she unable to turnaround a company, but that she also helped drive it further into the ground. I highly doubt Sandberg would want this job, and I highly doubt that Mayer can turn around a company.
- praneshp 9y agoI worked under Marissa at Yahoo, and am happy to state (with my real name attached to this comment) that 1. She was a good person, and went out of the way at times to make employees feel good. 2. She was a terrible boss, who would pass edicts like "our cubicle walls will be cut to 50% of their tomorrow", and pass it off as "because natural light is better for you". 3. I believed as an employee that she cherry-picked data to support pet beliefs like hiring at selected schools, banning remote work and closing satellite offices. 4. She had a preference for ex-Googlers/ex-Google APMs She would definitely bring positive change in terms of the scandals, but any competent HR department that has the company's long term interests in mind can do that, no?
- rokhayakebe 9y agoRe 2: If you are dealing with anything north of 5 people any permanent decision is likely to upset a percentage of your staff. Just because some dislike your decision that that does not make it less sound. Re 4: You have your preference as well, so does Google, IBM, Yahoo and the small law firm where I work. Everyone does when it comes to hiring.
- Relys 9y agoRe Re 2: The problem that I am seeing here is the lack of logic and thought put into the justification behind such a drastic change. Noise levels in a typical cubical environment are distracting enough to the average engineer. Same issue with the remote work policy. What it boils down to is a leader who creates "edicts" based on a personal preference or "cherry picked" facts rather than reason, logic, market research, A/B validation testing, etc.
- praneshp 9y agoRe 2: That was a real example, and a real reason. If you believe that it is sound logic, more power to you then. Re 4: I am sorry, I meant to complete that sentence with "when it came to hiring execs, or buying companies". She hired some (what I saw as) very poor execs who were once at Google, one of whom got a 60m severance package for underperformance.
- 9y ago
- ameen 9y agoPlease state her achievements as a CEO at Yahoo.
- startupdiscuss 9y agoWho suggests these contenders? They seem somewhat arbitrarily selected. I don't think it is credible to suggest, for instance, Sandberg. I don't think it is remotely plausible that she would be interested in the position. It would be interesting if the reporting revealed a little more about the decision/justification.
- forgotmysn 9y agothere was a report last week, i dont remember who published it, that Arianna Huffington, who sits on Uber's board, was pushing for Sandberg. the report strongly suggested that she had no interested in leaving fb, as you mentioned, but i dont think her addition to the list was arbitrary.
- dokein 9y agoI like how it's possible to go from contributing nothing to Yahoo (whose value was basically proportional to their share in Alibaba minus a small bit) to being a top contender for CEO at another company.
- smacktoward 9y agoOnce you're in the club, you have to work really really hard to get kicked out of it.
- naturalgradient 9y agoIt seems hard to accept but at this level there are actually only few people even being considered by virtue of a) name recognition in the industry b) past experience managing large companies Whether they failed or not is almost irrelevant. Boards would vote for an arguable incapable Marissa Mayer over some super successful but unknown higher middle manager from Google because she is perceived as less of a risk.
- r00fus 9y agoWell, let's just say this CEO is going to play the role of John Sculley or Gil Amelio as a placeholder CEO until Travis's glorious return, then maybe it makes sense. I mean, take a look at Leo Apotheker at HP - he was a complete fall-guy.
- hn_throwaway_99 9y ago> I mean, take a look at Leo Apotheker at HP - he was a complete fall-guy. What? Apotheker wasn't a fall guy - he made plenty of awful, horrible decisions all on his own, like the Autonomy purchase and his ruminations about divesting the PC business.
- startupdiscuss 9y agoThere are two types of contenders: 1. Successful ones who have to be convinced that they should risk their reputation and take on the headaches at Uber. 2. Less successful ones, where you have to convince the current Uber decision makers to give them a shot. I think the field is narrower than this article suggests.
- blackkettle 9y agoand this may be even more problematic that it appears. the ones from category one might have difficulty knowing what to do - unless we're talking about the lyft CEO they know success from something other than uber. that might not necessarily be good. the ones from category two might have the same trouble as one, but add to that that they will have to compete/convince the board of probably every little move. and if they don't do something fairly dramatic, fairly quickly, the good people at the mid and lower levels will start to flee for greener pastures.
- jasallen 9y agoSeems like Uber would be a big step _down_ for Sandberg.
- pwthornton 9y agoAgreed. I'd be shocked if she did this. FB is a premiere tech company. She's second in command there. If she leaves, it would be to be first in command at another premiere company. Uber is a startup that doesn't make money (actually loses quite a bit per ride), has just been rocked by a major scandal and doesn't posses any sort of tech or business process that is really unique. There is nothing that Uber does right now that another startup could just copy. They lose money on each ride, and it's incredibly unclear how they will make money outside of trying to run taxis companies out of business by subsidizing fares with VC money and then jacking up fares when there is no more competition.
- dnautics 9y agoBuy low, sell high.
- ithinkinstereo 9y agoOn the flip-side, if she takes the helm at Uber and brings it from the brink to a huge IPO, she'll achieve GOAT status. She also has lots of experience dealing / managing a strong-willed founder with all the equity control. I really don't know anything about her personality and style, but if she's the super ambitious Mayer-type, I think she'll go for it (assuming she sees a path forward when she gets to see the behind-the-scenes numbers).
- encoderer 9y ago> it's incredibly unclear how they will make money outside of trying to run taxis companies out of business by subsidizing fares with VC money and then jacking up fares when there is no more competition If you look at the numbers, all they need to do to reach profitability is increase fares by 7% without increasing the driver's cut. I'm not suggesting they can just do that overnight without impacting their competitive position, but it's not "incredibly unclear" to me.
- misterbowfinger 9y agoWhy not internally promote one?
- stickfigure 9y agoAm I the only one sitting here thinking that maybe one of the qualifications for the position should be someone with some domain knowledge or experience? Yeah, that's probably hard to come by, but this doesn't sound like the author's even trying. Despite all the public hand-wringing, Uber's problem isn't all the bad press. The problem is that it's an immature business that hasn't figured out how to make money yet. It doesn't matter how progressive the captain is or how happy the crew is or how much fanfare the trip gets if they still steer the ship into an iceberg. Maybe the theory is that the head of a company that big doesn't really need to know the problem domain, just be a "good manager"? That's hard for me to believe; it certainly hasn't been true at any scale I have experience with.
- ceejayoz 9y agoRight now, the required domain knowledge and experience at Uber is "quietly running a large company without controversy", not "knows a bunch about taxis and self-driving cars".
- davidiach 9y agoIf they hire someone for image reasons, Uber is going to fail badly.
- ameen 9y agoI'm pretty sure the board will do just that. I'm looking forward to Yahoo 2.0