5 ms·

Jeff Immelt Pulls Out of Running for Uber CEO

25 points by tim_sw 9y ago

Overtonwindow 9y ago
Is Carol Bartz available?
- CalChris 9y ago
  I'm a Bartz fan based on Autodesk; she's the operational definition of adult supervision. But at 68, I think Uber wouldn't be the right choice for them or her. And after Yahoo, she wouldn't touch Uber with the board situation it has.
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    Maybe you could explain what it is specifically about running Uber that would preclude a 68-year-old from doing it? Edit: Just to be clear, if it's not already: Part of why I ask is because I think Carol Bartz would be a fine candidate to give Uber the reality check it seems to need. She's a bullshit-eliminator. But there's a question as to whether Uber is merely a place where there is a lot of bullshit (this I think most people agree on) or whether it's a place constructed of bullshit. If the latter then there's not really much hope for a Bartz type figure to succeed.
    - CalChris 9y ago
      Uber is world scale and frankly, it's a mess with a drama laden founder still on the board. I just don't think she'd have the stamina to deal with that; I'm not sure who would. Happy to be surprised and as I've said, I'm a Bartz fan. I don't think Uber is constructed of bullshit but do they ever need a Bartz. Unfortunately, Kalanick has constructed an après moi, le déluge situation.
    - pfarnsworth 9y ago
      She utterly failed at Yahoo. Why should she get a chance to ruin a second company?
alexandros 9y ago
Dodged a bullet there. I just cannot see how Immelt, whose claim to fame is putting billions into GE Digital (search for previous HN conversations of GE's software efforts for if you want to laugh/cry) would have been any use to a young company fighting in a hyper-competitive space, where the outcomes range from "world domination" and "collapse into nothingness". Immelt's track record is working within a large, established bureaucracy, and maybe keeping things from completely falling apart.
- Overtonwindow 9y ago
  A question that has been raised elsewhere and I think worth revisiting is: Does Uber need a CEO from a certain industry, or does industry not matter? Transportation industry vs software, etc.
  - aphextron 9y ago
    I think the real question should be why do companies feel the need to hire a "Professional CEO"? Is there some intangible skillset which only previous CEOs posess which is required to lead a company? Plenty of startups have been lead to success by founders with zero business accumen. Why not look internally for someone who knows the product inside and out, and actually still cares about the company rather than showing up for a payday?
    - Overtonwindow 9y ago
      You might find this article interesting: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-23/a-history-of-adult-supervision-in-silicon-valley https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-23/a-history...
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - user5994461 9y ago
      Most founders fail many times before they finally manage to make any company somewhat successful.
EternalData 9y ago
getting to the point where you really wonder who is next at this point lol "Donald Trump no longer pursuing Uber CEO job"
mandeepj 9y ago
It is worth noting that "Benchmark, meanwhile, is reportedly still pushing for Whitman to get the job." source - http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/27/technology/jeff-immelt-uber/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/27/technology/jeff-immelt-uber/...
jedberg 9y ago
> Another finalist is Meg Whitman, the chief executive of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. While Whitman has previously said in the media she has no interest in the job and plans to stay at HPE, sources say she is very much still in the running. I worked for Ms. Whitman at eBay. She is exceptionally smart and very good at being a leader. I met her a few times, and after the first time, she remembered who I was and what I did at the company every time after, even though I was inconsequential to her. This skill however was also her downfall. I was at eBay when it grew from 3,000 to 13,000 employees. As it got bigger, she could no longer know what was happening everywhere. Her leadership success comes from knowing everything that is happening and being able to make sure the right people are doing the right things and talking to the right people. But it breaks down when she can no longer have total knowledge of all happenings. I think she'll make a good leader at Uber, but given that they are already at 12K+ employees, I wonder if she's learned to delegate better since I last worked for her. I hope she has, because it was really her only weakness.
- lordnacho 9y ago
  Isn't that the opposite of great leadership? Leadership is a nebulous term that roughly -you need an essay to define it even roughly- means getting people on board with your mission. If you can only micromanage a bunch of people, and you grow beyond where you can do that, and the mission fails because people no longer know what you want, then surely you've not provided leadership?
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > Isn't that the opposite of great leadership? What is great leadership? An ability to excel in well-parametrised circumstances? Or doing well enough in a broad set of situations? Steve Jobs was a great leader. He only worked well in specific circumstances, circumstances he sought to produce and maintain. The failure in the Whitman anecdote above is not in the scaling limit to her leadership. It is that she failed to detect it before she passed it. Presumably, she has learned her lesson.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
virtuabhi 9y ago
I think the perfect CEO for Uber is Vishal Sikka. PhD in AI (cars!) from Stanford - Startup founder - Revitalized SAP with in-memory HANA database - Managed Infosys with 200k employees. Vishal Sikka has both exceptional techincal skills and management experience. And he is available for a new job! Like Travis, Sikka is very bullish and calls himself a "kshatriya warrior". I think that Sikka and Travis would be quite compatible with each other.
- jedberg 9y ago
  > I think that Sikka and Travis would be quite compatible with each other. I think that's what they board is trying to avoid. They shoved Travis out because they didn't like his style. I don't think they want someone else with his style.
  - virtuabhi 9y ago
    Yes, but given that Travis & his supporters have board seats + many full-time employees are fans of Travis, a new CEO who is in sync with Travis for aggressive business decisions while at the same is grounded, displays "CEO-style" behavior in public, would be a perfect fit.
- z6 9y ago
  Ticks all the checkboxes, except for the gender one.
- perseusprime11 9y ago
  Why does Uber need a guy who managed Infosys?
  - virtuabhi 9y ago
    (1) Managing Infosys is one part of his resume. (2) Both are big companies - Uber has 12k employees + 300k contractors, Infosys has 200k employees, both have operations in many countries. (3) Sikka moved Infosys towards investing in AI/ML and building enterprise products with state-of-art automation. (4) Contrary to popular perception, Infosys is a valued company in many respects including HR policies, growth, and frugal innovation.
rmason 9y ago
Had to pass this one along about the two candidates for Uber CEO still in the running ;<). https://twitter.com/sokane1/status/901841886306021377 https://twitter.com/sokane1/status/901841886306021377
rmason 9y ago
Meg Whitman has told the Wall Street Journal for a second time that she doesn't want the Uber CEO job. So who does that leave? https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/meg-whitman-stands-by-statement-she-wont-be-uber-ceo-1503524245 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/meg-whitman-stands-by-state...
- lsh123 9y ago
  I bet Marisa Mayer is on the list
  - perseusprime11 9y ago
    She is the one list of CEOs to take the company to ground.
coolswan 9y ago
Darkhorse: Padmasree Warrior. They really need a seasoned executive who understands autonomous cars. My best idea to get her is for Uber to acquire NIO.
Overtonwindow 9y ago
There's a discussion already on this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15111937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15111937
- dang 9y ago
  Thanks. Since the current submission was earlier, points to a marginally more informative article, and isn't paywalled, we've merged the comments into this one.

25 points by tim_sw 9y ago

Overtonwindow 9y ago

Is Carol Bartz available?

CalChris 9y ago
I'm a Bartz fan based on Autodesk; she's the operational definition of adult supervision. But at 68, I think Uber wouldn't be the right choice for them or her. And after Yahoo, she wouldn't touch Uber with the board situation it has.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  Maybe you could explain what it is specifically about running Uber that would preclude a 68-year-old from doing it? Edit: Just to be clear, if it's not already: Part of why I ask is because I think Carol Bartz would be a fine candidate to give Uber the reality check it seems to need. She's a bullshit-eliminator. But there's a question as to whether Uber is merely a place where there is a lot of bullshit (this I think most people agree on) or whether it's a place constructed of bullshit. If the latter then there's not really much hope for a Bartz type figure to succeed.
  - CalChris 9y ago
    Uber is world scale and frankly, it's a mess with a drama laden founder still on the board. I just don't think she'd have the stamina to deal with that; I'm not sure who would. Happy to be surprised and as I've said, I'm a Bartz fan. I don't think Uber is constructed of bullshit but do they ever need a Bartz. Unfortunately, Kalanick has constructed an après moi, le déluge situation.
  - pfarnsworth 9y ago
    She utterly failed at Yahoo. Why should she get a chance to ruin a second company?

alexandros 9y ago

Dodged a bullet there. I just cannot see how Immelt, whose claim to fame is putting billions into GE Digital (search for previous HN conversations of GE's software efforts for if you want to laugh/cry) would have been any use to a young company fighting in a hyper-competitive space, where the outcomes range from "world domination" and "collapse into nothingness". Immelt's track record is working within a large, established bureaucracy, and maybe keeping things from completely falling apart.

Overtonwindow 9y ago
A question that has been raised elsewhere and I think worth revisiting is: Does Uber need a CEO from a certain industry, or does industry not matter? Transportation industry vs software, etc.
- aphextron 9y ago
  I think the real question should be why do companies feel the need to hire a "Professional CEO"? Is there some intangible skillset which only previous CEOs posess which is required to lead a company? Plenty of startups have been lead to success by founders with zero business accumen. Why not look internally for someone who knows the product inside and out, and actually still cares about the company rather than showing up for a payday?
  - Overtonwindow 9y ago
    You might find this article interesting: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-23/a-history-of-adult-supervision-in-silicon-valley https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-23/a-history...
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - user5994461 9y ago
    Most founders fail many times before they finally manage to make any company somewhat successful.

EternalData 9y ago

getting to the point where you really wonder who is next at this point lol "Donald Trump no longer pursuing Uber CEO job"

mandeepj 9y ago

It is worth noting that "Benchmark, meanwhile, is reportedly still pushing for Whitman to get the job." source - http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/27/technology/jeff-immelt-uber/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/27/technology/jeff-immelt-uber/...

jedberg 9y ago

> Another finalist is Meg Whitman, the chief executive of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. While Whitman has previously said in the media she has no interest in the job and plans to stay at HPE, sources say she is very much still in the running. I worked for Ms. Whitman at eBay. She is exceptionally smart and very good at being a leader. I met her a few times, and after the first time, she remembered who I was and what I did at the company every time after, even though I was inconsequential to her. This skill however was also her downfall. I was at eBay when it grew from 3,000 to 13,000 employees. As it got bigger, she could no longer know what was happening everywhere. Her leadership success comes from knowing everything that is happening and being able to make sure the right people are doing the right things and talking to the right people. But it breaks down when she can no longer have total knowledge of all happenings. I think she'll make a good leader at Uber, but given that they are already at 12K+ employees, I wonder if she's learned to delegate better since I last worked for her. I hope she has, because it was really her only weakness.

lordnacho 9y ago
Isn't that the opposite of great leadership? Leadership is a nebulous term that roughly -you need an essay to define it even roughly- means getting people on board with your mission. If you can only micromanage a bunch of people, and you grow beyond where you can do that, and the mission fails because people no longer know what you want, then surely you've not provided leadership?
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > Isn't that the opposite of great leadership? What is great leadership? An ability to excel in well-parametrised circumstances? Or doing well enough in a broad set of situations? Steve Jobs was a great leader. He only worked well in specific circumstances, circumstances he sought to produce and maintain. The failure in the Whitman anecdote above is not in the scaling limit to her leadership. It is that she failed to detect it before she passed it. Presumably, she has learned her lesson.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

virtuabhi 9y ago

I think the perfect CEO for Uber is Vishal Sikka. PhD in AI (cars!) from Stanford - Startup founder - Revitalized SAP with in-memory HANA database - Managed Infosys with 200k employees. Vishal Sikka has both exceptional techincal skills and management experience. And he is available for a new job! Like Travis, Sikka is very bullish and calls himself a "kshatriya warrior". I think that Sikka and Travis would be quite compatible with each other.

jedberg 9y ago
> I think that Sikka and Travis would be quite compatible with each other. I think that's what they board is trying to avoid. They shoved Travis out because they didn't like his style. I don't think they want someone else with his style.
- virtuabhi 9y ago
  Yes, but given that Travis & his supporters have board seats + many full-time employees are fans of Travis, a new CEO who is in sync with Travis for aggressive business decisions while at the same is grounded, displays "CEO-style" behavior in public, would be a perfect fit.
z6 9y ago
Ticks all the checkboxes, except for the gender one.
perseusprime11 9y ago
Why does Uber need a guy who managed Infosys?
- virtuabhi 9y ago
  (1) Managing Infosys is one part of his resume. (2) Both are big companies - Uber has 12k employees + 300k contractors, Infosys has 200k employees, both have operations in many countries. (3) Sikka moved Infosys towards investing in AI/ML and building enterprise products with state-of-art automation. (4) Contrary to popular perception, Infosys is a valued company in many respects including HR policies, growth, and frugal innovation.

rmason 9y ago

Had to pass this one along about the two candidates for Uber CEO still in the running ;<). https://twitter.com/sokane1/status/901841886306021377 https://twitter.com/sokane1/status/901841886306021377

rmason 9y ago

Meg Whitman has told the Wall Street Journal for a second time that she doesn't want the Uber CEO job. So who does that leave? https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/meg-whitman-stands-by-statement-she-wont-be-uber-ceo-1503524245 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/meg-whitman-stands-by-state...

lsh123 9y ago
I bet Marisa Mayer is on the list
- perseusprime11 9y ago
  She is the one list of CEOs to take the company to ground.

coolswan 9y ago

Darkhorse: Padmasree Warrior. They really need a seasoned executive who understands autonomous cars. My best idea to get her is for Uber to acquire NIO.

Overtonwindow 9y ago

There's a discussion already on this here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15111937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15111937

dang 9y ago
Thanks. Since the current submission was earlier, points to a marginally more informative article, and isn't paywalled, we've merged the comments into this one.