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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

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
  Why do you say, autonomous car technology will be freely available to everyone? So, if Apple or Google are the first to achieve autonomous driving stage 4 technology, they will directly open source it even though it is their one competitive advantage? I don't buy that. They'd use that technology to build out their advantage over all the competitors instead. Regarding your point about Uber not being able to compete in the autonomous technology race. Having a network of drivers (which will become obsolete) and users is a bit of an advantage, but not much. The first company to reach stage 4 can release their own app and get 100 million installs in a few months, if they reach stage IV. They don't need the Uber app. Maybe a second mover who reaches stage IV after the first mover will buy Uber, because they can't get that many installs as the first mover, and they want to catch up as fast as possible, but that won't be worth more than a few billion.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Google and Apple are going to licenses their autonomous tech. Tessa, GM and Volvo are going to sell autonomous cars. No one who reaches stage 4 is going to build tens of millions of their own cars within months and build the parking/service infrastructure nationwide to boot. No one is going to download their app till they do. The idea that the company that is first and best at developing autonomous tech is going to also simultaneously build huge factories and make good cars is ludicrous.

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
Why do you say, autonomous car technology will be freely available to everyone? So, if Apple or Google are the first to achieve autonomous driving stage 4 technology, they will directly open source it even though it is their one competitive advantage? I don't buy that. They'd use that technology to build out their advantage over all the competitors instead. Regarding your point about Uber not being able to compete in the autonomous technology race. Having a network of drivers (which will become obsolete) and users is a bit of an advantage, but not much. The first company to reach stage 4 can release their own app and get 100 million installs in a few months, if they reach stage IV. They don't need the Uber app. Maybe a second mover who reaches stage IV after the first mover will buy Uber, because they can't get that many installs as the first mover, and they want to catch up as fast as possible, but that won't be worth more than a few billion.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Google and Apple are going to licenses their autonomous tech. Tessa, GM and Volvo are going to sell autonomous cars. No one who reaches stage 4 is going to build tens of millions of their own cars within months and build the parking/service infrastructure nationwide to boot. No one is going to download their app till they do. The idea that the company that is first and best at developing autonomous tech is going to also simultaneously build huge factories and make good cars is ludicrous.