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Seems like the story of apple again. Jeff has no real tech credibility, he is a old school boys network business guy with dodgy/bad performance rap. https://

Seems like the story of apple again. Jeff has no real tech credibility, he is a old school boys network business guy with dodgy/bad performance rap. https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2017/03/28/ge-needs-a-new-strategy-and-a-new-ceo/#82df5f34ad28 https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2017/03/28/ge-needs... "At this point, it is probably too late to save GE. By losing sight of the need to grow, and instead focusing on optimizing the old business while selling assets to raise cash for reorganizations, Immelt has destroyed what was once a great innovation engine. Now that the activists have GE in their sites it is unlikely they will let it ever return to the company it once was - creating whole new markets by developing new technologies that people never before imagined. The future looks a lot more like figuring out how to maximize the value of each piece of meat as it's carved off the GE carcass." Good luck to the folks that work at uber. You are going to need it.

valuearb 9y ago
That article is a bit biased, especially given that it ignores that not only has GE has paid out around $15 in dividends since Immelt took over, and that GE stock was in a huge bubble at the time. Uber doesn't need tech leadership, it needs adult leadership. It's wounds are all entirely self inflicted.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- origami777 9y ago
  To really dispute GP's claim you'd need to make a claim that GE has innovated in new categories under Immelt. The fact it paid out $15 in dividends might only support GP's (and the Forbes article) claim that Immelt has optimized for better selling what currently exists. This is the same thing that happened to MSFT under Ballmer. MSFT stocked performed well, but they missed the biggest opportunity of the post-PC era (mobile), were late to the cloud game, and probably missed some other opportunities I can't think of.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Every company doesn't need to innovate, sometimes just running the business well is the best strategy. Warren Buffett's entire massive track record is based on companies that do little innovation. And it's a strategy Uber desperately needs.
    - ncantelmo 9y ago
      I really don't believe this is true for tech companies at all. A decade ago, I had a front-row seat for Yahoo! under the stewardship of CEOs brought in to run the business well. The focus was not on innovation, and the company continued to languish. Why? Because tech companies that don't innovate get their lunches eaten by the ones that do. As for Buffett, I'm no expert on his portfolio, but I believe his track record was built on non-tech companies until very recently.
      - Aloha 9y ago
        Uber as far as I'm concerned isn't really a tech company - its a logistics company existing under tech company rules - in essence its a freight broker for human 'freight' - how it connects with its customers is irrelevant to what kind of company it is. In short, you're providing short term contracts between a consignor (the passenger) to transport an object (the passenger) between two known end points, by an independent contractor. Uber provides the infrastructure to make this happen, and takes a cut of the revenue from the shipment. If you wouldn't call JB Hunt a tech company, you shouldn't call Uber one. (The research into autonomous cars is not really central to their current core business model - and assuming the technology is successfully developed - their entire business model would change - they'd also need a massive capitalization to purchase a fleet of self driving cars when it does.)
        bsaul 9y ago
        "how it connects with its customers is irrelevant to what kind of company it is" This is a pretty bold claim. The fact that it's instant, and that it geolocalize every party involved thanks to a mobile app, and that every part of the process is fully automated is what makes uber something different from a regular cab company. To reduce uber to its high level functions abstracting away the technical details and implementation is i think one of the big mistakes business people make in general. I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of reasoning is what business CEO show in their slides before they take the decisions that completely screw the tech companies they're leading.
- wellboy 9y ago
  Uber does indeed need tech leadership as their entire premise is to segue the whole world to electric self driving cars. Their whole valuation is based on this premise, not that they replace taxis. This valuation has been botched by the recent success of Tesla, Apple, Google, GM and a few more who are developing self-driving technology. The one with the best technology will win the race and probably become the first trillion dollar company. So, in order to keep Uber competitive, you don't need to keep status quo. You need to invent probably the most meaningful technology of this century, at least of the next decades. This requires deep knowledge in tech, artificial intelligence, being able to find the right people for that, navigating the legal landscape in a.i. ethics (e.g. kill my passenger or kill the two pedestrians), motivating your employees through inspiring leadership and being able to lead your company through the next decades. Adult leadership as you called it is not it. It might conserve the company as is, but you need a lot more than that to make it succeed. Kalanick had the competitiveness and vision, however could not control his competitiveness, which lead him to build a toxic company culture. He might have succeeded in making Uber competitive to Tesla & Co. from a competition point of view, however, sooner or later the toxic culture would have made the company fold under the pressure, so the decision to replace him was a necessary one.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Their valuation never made any sense. They can never justify it. They can never win the self driving technology war. They were late to the party, they missed out on key patents. They chose a team that may have stolen technology from Waymo, exposing them to massive potential liability. Now they have to start over. Automous car technology will be freely available to everyone when it's commercially viable. Uber can't transition to that model unless it becomes far more economically successful. No one is going to give them $50B more to build out autonomous car infrastructure (cars, service, storage, parking) world-wide when they are still hemorrhaging money in their first business model. Uber doesn't need to invent squat. It has to maintain it's massive lead in drivers and installed apps. When it's customers want an autonomous car, they'll use the same app they always did.
    - wellboy 9y ago

valuearb 9y ago

That article is a bit biased, especially given that it ignores that not only has GE has paid out around $15 in dividends since Immelt took over, and that GE stock was in a huge bubble at the time. Uber doesn't need tech leadership, it needs adult leadership. It's wounds are all entirely self inflicted.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
origami777 9y ago
To really dispute GP's claim you'd need to make a claim that GE has innovated in new categories under Immelt. The fact it paid out $15 in dividends might only support GP's (and the Forbes article) claim that Immelt has optimized for better selling what currently exists. This is the same thing that happened to MSFT under Ballmer. MSFT stocked performed well, but they missed the biggest opportunity of the post-PC era (mobile), were late to the cloud game, and probably missed some other opportunities I can't think of.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Every company doesn't need to innovate, sometimes just running the business well is the best strategy. Warren Buffett's entire massive track record is based on companies that do little innovation. And it's a strategy Uber desperately needs.
  - ncantelmo 9y ago
    I really don't believe this is true for tech companies at all. A decade ago, I had a front-row seat for Yahoo! under the stewardship of CEOs brought in to run the business well. The focus was not on innovation, and the company continued to languish. Why? Because tech companies that don't innovate get their lunches eaten by the ones that do. As for Buffett, I'm no expert on his portfolio, but I believe his track record was built on non-tech companies until very recently.
    - Aloha 9y ago
      Uber as far as I'm concerned isn't really a tech company - its a logistics company existing under tech company rules - in essence its a freight broker for human 'freight' - how it connects with its customers is irrelevant to what kind of company it is. In short, you're providing short term contracts between a consignor (the passenger) to transport an object (the passenger) between two known end points, by an independent contractor. Uber provides the infrastructure to make this happen, and takes a cut of the revenue from the shipment. If you wouldn't call JB Hunt a tech company, you shouldn't call Uber one. (The research into autonomous cars is not really central to their current core business model - and assuming the technology is successfully developed - their entire business model would change - they'd also need a massive capitalization to purchase a fleet of self driving cars when it does.)
      - bsaul 9y ago
        "how it connects with its customers is irrelevant to what kind of company it is" This is a pretty bold claim. The fact that it's instant, and that it geolocalize every party involved thanks to a mobile app, and that every part of the process is fully automated is what makes uber something different from a regular cab company. To reduce uber to its high level functions abstracting away the technical details and implementation is i think one of the big mistakes business people make in general. I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of reasoning is what business CEO show in their slides before they take the decisions that completely screw the tech companies they're leading.
wellboy 9y ago
Uber does indeed need tech leadership as their entire premise is to segue the whole world to electric self driving cars. Their whole valuation is based on this premise, not that they replace taxis. This valuation has been botched by the recent success of Tesla, Apple, Google, GM and a few more who are developing self-driving technology. The one with the best technology will win the race and probably become the first trillion dollar company. So, in order to keep Uber competitive, you don't need to keep status quo. You need to invent probably the most meaningful technology of this century, at least of the next decades. This requires deep knowledge in tech, artificial intelligence, being able to find the right people for that, navigating the legal landscape in a.i. ethics (e.g. kill my passenger or kill the two pedestrians), motivating your employees through inspiring leadership and being able to lead your company through the next decades. Adult leadership as you called it is not it. It might conserve the company as is, but you need a lot more than that to make it succeed. Kalanick had the competitiveness and vision, however could not control his competitiveness, which lead him to build a toxic company culture. He might have succeeded in making Uber competitive to Tesla & Co. from a competition point of view, however, sooner or later the toxic culture would have made the company fold under the pressure, so the decision to replace him was a necessary one.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Their valuation never made any sense. They can never justify it. They can never win the self driving technology war. They were late to the party, they missed out on key patents. They chose a team that may have stolen technology from Waymo, exposing them to massive potential liability. Now they have to start over. Automous car technology will be freely available to everyone when it's commercially viable. Uber can't transition to that model unless it becomes far more economically successful. No one is going to give them $50B more to build out autonomous car infrastructure (cars, service, storage, parking) world-wide when they are still hemorrhaging money in their first business model. Uber doesn't need to invent squat. It has to maintain it's massive lead in drivers and installed apps. When it's customers want an autonomous car, they'll use the same app they always did.
  - wellboy 9y ago