6 ms·
It also serves as a cautionary tale; as an entrepreneur, be very careful whom you accept money from. In many cases, it's a Faustian deal.
by ShabbosGoy 9y ago
It also serves as a cautionary tale; as an entrepreneur, be very careful whom you accept money from. In many cases, it's a Faustian deal.
- HarryHirsch 9y agoa Faustian deal Faustian deal indeed. The only way to read Faust is as the story of someone who is in over his head and screws up at every turn. Every thing that Faust touches turns to shit. There's nothing Faustian about Faust.
- Hydraulix989 9y agoAlmost everyone that uses that phrase uses it in OP's context, making your comment seem like mere pedantry.
- hughw 9y agoBut welcome pedantry (to me).
- HarryHirsch 9y agoAnd topical. Travis Kalanick plays Faust, Matt Cohler from Benchmark plays Mephisto. Susan Fowler plays Gretchen (or perhaps Marthe Schwerdtlein, no one applies for a leading position at any large company without doing diligence through inside contacts, and no one can tell me that she didn't know that Uber was full to the rafters with perverts and sex maniacs).
- vcao2 9y agoIt also serves as a cautionary tale; as a venture capitalist, be very careful whom you provide capital to. It has been obvious for years that Travis Kalanick will run Uber into the ground, unless controlled. This is not new. One of the reasons there isn't a CFO is so he doesn't have to justify his awful ideas. It's good to see Benchmark is finally admitting that they (and the rest of the board) have failed to do their job; by failing to more adequately govern Uber. Uber is a looming disaster for investors, and I pity employees there who think their options are going to make them rich. That will only be true for a very, very few, because Travis has made decisions that will leave most of them with basically nothing.
- rtx 9y agoAs a customer they have my Support. Travis and team have created something amazing.
- ryanwaggoner 9y agoThis is a pretty laughable comment to make about a guy who took a company from $0 to $70 billion. Uber has completely changed transportation for millions of people around the globe. You might be right that Uber needs someone different for the next phase, but you make him sound like Michael Scott.
- jon_richards 9y agoWasn't Michael Scott also extremely successful in the show?
- ryanwaggoner 9y agoI've watched like 4 episodes of the office, but we're talking about the same guy, right? The one who is a middle manager at a small sales office in Scranton? Pretty far cry from growing a company from $0 to billions in revenue, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, and upending a global industry. In 8 years.
- jon_richards 9y agoIt was a plot point of the show that his branch was the only successful one. The company was literally selling printer paper in an increasingly digital world. He may not have made billions of dollars, but he still succeeded at a seemingly impossible task.
- ethbro 9y ago> creating hundreds of thousands of jobs I'd say it's a stretch to call these jobs until they're proven sustainable without VC money subsidizing drivers.