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>travis + allies being more long term His actions and bad management hardly seem long term based thinking. While you could be right that is his intention, his

>travis + allies being more long term His actions and bad management hardly seem long term based thinking. While you could be right that is his intention, his actions to date, the bad management issues well documented, or his possible participation in fraud, to the antagonistic business practices hardly seem the best "long term" approaches.

geofft 9y ago
I was gonna say. Surely Travis and his allies are interested in Uber's long-term success, yes, but that's a very different claim from them being good for Uber's long-term success.
- blazespin 9y ago
  It's possible that Travis wants to regain control and suck out equity into this personal stake. Greedy mofo.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  > Surely Travis and his allies are interested in Uber's long-term success Why is that certain? Many people are interested in their own success at the expense of their companies. Kalanick in particular seems to celebrate selfishness.
  - thanksgiving 9y ago
    As far as I understand, Uber IS Travis. I'm not trying to say he is God or anything. This "generation" (Uber, snap) to me seems adamant in fixing the errors of the last generation where founders lost control too quickly (Angie's list). I'm not saying Travis is a good person. I'm just saying that in a war between founders and investors, it is usually a safe bet to side with founders.
  - geofft 9y ago
    Yeah, you're right - I should say rather that Travis and his allies presumably have no interest in a firesale and definitely have no deadlines like people are claiming the VC firm has, and also have no interest in a "safe-hands" leader, because that's never the sort of leader Travis has been. But yes, Travis' interest is likely to be his own over Uber's if they come into conflict. I just think he believes that they're aligned. (And I also think he's wrong.)
btown 9y ago
Not to defend his actions, but to consider his possible mindset in doing them: His actions could be explained as pushing hard to build a defensive moat against a world allied against Uber as quickly as possible. If regardless of what you do you lose a bit of PR here and there, you get kicked out of cities here and there, and you have to pay a few hundred million in settlements here and there, you might as well throw caution to the winds so that you still have plenty of market share left when you lose those things, right? It would seem that's the Uber way. Of course, breaking laws and conventional morality to do so is a slippery slope, and he severely underestimated how much those extremes would splash back on him personally. I hope that other excessive CEOs treat this as a wake-up call - limits and laws are there for a reason.
- matt4077 9y ago
  What ultimately got him wasn't his "maverick rule-bending to compete against the establishment". He created this bro-themed caricature of a corporate culture, and he did so for no reason other than enjoying that sort of atmosphere, or being incompetent to stop it. Or both. Let's not start some sort of myth of martyrdom around Kalanick by conflating these two. Although, yes, this strategy of braking local regulations and expecting to win a power struggle with every government anywhere was also on its last leg when he left, and would've gotten to him as well, sooner or later.
  - monknomo 9y ago
    "maverick rule-bending to compete against the establishment" seems like a really complementary way to say "lawbreaking company". I mean, their whole model was to go places, ignore the law and continue operating until they either got thrown out, or they pumped money to the right places to get the law changed. Scofflaw corps get nailed sooner or later, and a corp the is built on breaking laws might break some laws investors care about...
    - fapjacks 9y ago
      Perhaps, but I've heard politicians on the national level talk about this as just business as usual. If the system creating the laws sees "move fast and break things (like laws)" as the norm, then we can scold and shame all we want, but it's not going to change things. Regulatory capture and law-breaking startups seems to be what's expected out of American business by the very people doing the legislation.

geofft 9y ago

I was gonna say. Surely Travis and his allies are interested in Uber's long-term success, yes, but that's a very different claim from them being good for Uber's long-term success.

blazespin 9y ago
It's possible that Travis wants to regain control and suck out equity into this personal stake. Greedy mofo.
forapurpose 9y ago
> Surely Travis and his allies are interested in Uber's long-term success Why is that certain? Many people are interested in their own success at the expense of their companies. Kalanick in particular seems to celebrate selfishness.
- thanksgiving 9y ago
  As far as I understand, Uber IS Travis. I'm not trying to say he is God or anything. This "generation" (Uber, snap) to me seems adamant in fixing the errors of the last generation where founders lost control too quickly (Angie's list). I'm not saying Travis is a good person. I'm just saying that in a war between founders and investors, it is usually a safe bet to side with founders.
- geofft 9y ago
  Yeah, you're right - I should say rather that Travis and his allies presumably have no interest in a firesale and definitely have no deadlines like people are claiming the VC firm has, and also have no interest in a "safe-hands" leader, because that's never the sort of leader Travis has been. But yes, Travis' interest is likely to be his own over Uber's if they come into conflict. I just think he believes that they're aligned. (And I also think he's wrong.)

btown 9y ago

Not to defend his actions, but to consider his possible mindset in doing them: His actions could be explained as pushing hard to build a defensive moat against a world allied against Uber as quickly as possible. If regardless of what you do you lose a bit of PR here and there, you get kicked out of cities here and there, and you have to pay a few hundred million in settlements here and there, you might as well throw caution to the winds so that you still have plenty of market share left when you lose those things, right? It would seem that's the Uber way. Of course, breaking laws and conventional morality to do so is a slippery slope, and he severely underestimated how much those extremes would splash back on him personally. I hope that other excessive CEOs treat this as a wake-up call - limits and laws are there for a reason.

matt4077 9y ago
What ultimately got him wasn't his "maverick rule-bending to compete against the establishment". He created this bro-themed caricature of a corporate culture, and he did so for no reason other than enjoying that sort of atmosphere, or being incompetent to stop it. Or both. Let's not start some sort of myth of martyrdom around Kalanick by conflating these two. Although, yes, this strategy of braking local regulations and expecting to win a power struggle with every government anywhere was also on its last leg when he left, and would've gotten to him as well, sooner or later.
- monknomo 9y ago
  "maverick rule-bending to compete against the establishment" seems like a really complementary way to say "lawbreaking company". I mean, their whole model was to go places, ignore the law and continue operating until they either got thrown out, or they pumped money to the right places to get the law changed. Scofflaw corps get nailed sooner or later, and a corp the is built on breaking laws might break some laws investors care about...
  - fapjacks 9y ago
    Perhaps, but I've heard politicians on the national level talk about this as just business as usual. If the system creating the laws sees "move fast and break things (like laws)" as the norm, then we can scold and shame all we want, but it's not going to change things. Regulatory capture and law-breaking startups seems to be what's expected out of American business by the very people doing the legislation.