
Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O. - java_script
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/technology/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick.html?_r=0
======
Animats
This may kill Uber. Kalanick is a jerk, but he created that insane valuation.
Uber has less than a year of runway left at their current burn rate. Unless
they can find a bigger sucker than the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi
Arabia,[1] they're going broke in 2018. (That "undisclosed amount" in 2017
isn't a significant investment on Uber's scale.)

IPO? No way. They'd have to publish audited numbers. What's leaked out is bad
enough. The real numbers have to be worse. Notice that leveraged loan in
2016.[2] All the details of that have to be disclosed in the prospectus for an
IPO.

[1] [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber/funding-
rounds](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber/funding-rounds) [2]
[https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/07/new-reports-
confirm-1-15b-...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/07/new-reports-
confirm-1-15b-leveraged-loan-raised-by-uber-at-5/)

~~~
dfabulich
You're right, but I think that's exactly how/why Uber's investors were able to
convince Kalanick to step down.

Uber may or may not take over the world at some point, but Uber needs another
round of investment in the next 18 months just to survive. If the existing
investors refused to play ball, they could kill the next round, which really
_would_ kill Uber.

And here's another important moral of this story for founders: Kalanick has a
controlling interest in Uber, so on paper, nobody could have removed him as
CEO by shareholder vote. But despite complete control over the vote, you don't
really own your company if you're dependent on future investment.

No matter what the cap table says, if you're not profitable, it's not really
yours yet.

~~~
baby
You guys are talking about Uber dying, but I cannot fathom how this is
possible from just the user's perspective. Uber seems to be everywhere, people
take Ubers or driver for Ubers every day. How could a company this big fail?

Stop growing maybe, but going bankrupt and shutting down?

~~~
bunkat
Uber doesn't make enough from fares to be profitable, they use investors'
money to heavily subsidize them. Once the investor money runs out, Uber won't
be able to pay drivers unless they jack up prices considerably. Once they are
no longer price competitive, customers will move to other services.

Turns out the car service business isn't very sticky at all (even the drivers
work for multiple companies...). Drivers start to leave and the downward
spiral begins. They just couldn't get to self driving vehicles fast enough -
which may be why they were trying to borrow technology from Google.

~~~
auggierose
Come on, self driving cars was never a solution for Uber in the medium term.
Cabs are in the midst of normal traffic, not even highway or anything. No way
this will work good enough within the next 15 years

~~~
ProblemFactory
"Uber is a play on self-driving cars" is a misleading but often repeated
story.

When Uber started and raised its first investment rounds, self-driving cars
were too far away to be part of a business plan. I doubt the latest investors
take that view either - spending billions per year until self-driving cars
happen is a way too expensive way to build up a fickle user base who will
switch the moment a competitor offers 10% lower rates.

And when self-driving cars do arrive, there is no reason to believe that Uber
will have exclusive access to them. Google and other software companies will
be licensing the technology to anyone who pays for it, car manufacturers will
be selling cars to anyone who pays for it.

It may kill taxi driver as a career, but there is no defensible advantage to
Uber compared to Lyft, Hailo, Taxify, and so on.

~~~
Cacti
Yeah. The whole driverless car thing with Uber is such a load of crap. It
wasn't even in the plan until they started hemoraging money and had to come up
with some excuse to keep investors on board. And by that point they were late
to the game.

Uber as a play on driverless cars is a smokescreen to distract people from the
fact they have little advantage over other companies and can't for the life of
them turn a profit.

~~~
rubicon33
> _they have little advantage over other companies and can 't for the life of
> them turn a profit._

At this point why doesn't Uber just lay off a HUGE portion of their staff and
kill the R&D. It's hard to imagine if they downsized significantly and quit
investing in self driving cars, that they couldn't tip the needle into
profitability.

Isn't that a fairly common move for a startup? Burn money to get off the
runway, then downsize to stabilize?

------
davidf18
Much of the resistance to Uber (such as laws that were broken, protests) were
from entrenched interests. At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically
improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse
gas. It provided completion for the entrenched Yellow Cab monopoly with its
very high rates. Sometimes Uber would have higher rates but then you could
take a Yellow Cab instead.

The Yellow Cab special interests paid off politicians so that there was a
limit of 13,000 Yellow Cab medallions for 8.5 million people. The price of the
taxi medallion was $1.2 million. While people in Manhattan could get a taxi,
there were no taxis in Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, ... Because of the artificial
limit on medallions which only benefited medallion owner but not New Yorkers,
a driver leasing a cab for a 12 hour shift could pay $125 just to lease the
car.

When Uber and Lyft came, the rates were lower, one could use Uber Pool to have
even lower rates and save on greenhouse gas. Now taxi services have some
availability outside of Manhattan. Now many Yellow Cabs are idle and the value
of the medallions went for $1.2 million to about $700,000 or less.

In NYC, the Yellow Cab medallion owners tried to get the mayor to put
restrictions on the growth of Uber/Lyft, but New Yorkers protested.

Uber/Lyft have increased customer value, lowered greenhouse gasses while not
forcing drivers to pay excessing leasing fees for vehicles.

~~~
CPLX
This is factually incorrect. You're drawing a direct parallel between
medallion taxis and Uber/Lyft rides, when they are not in fact the same at
all.

The outer boroughs, and every neighborhood in the city, has had car service
options for decades, where you call a phone number (or often walk to a local
storefront stand) to get a ride.

This is the _exact_ market segment that Uber has entered. Literally. There
wasn't and still isn't a restriction on the number of TLC car service cars on
the streets.

This idea that there "were no taxis" in the boroughs and now there are is
ridiculous. There weren't many yellow cabs before and there still aren't.
There used to be thousands of TLC cars before and there still are. Except now
people use an app instead of calling Arecibo or Carmel.

Street hailing was and still is prohibited, both for Uber and for phone style
car services.

The massive innovation, of course, is the use of a smartphone app for hailing,
which made it technically possible to create the market that we see today.
Uber, Lyft, and the other companies that built internet enabled hailing
solutions certainly do deserve credit for building out that innovation, but
that change was just an obvious outgrowth of the technological change to
everyone having a handheld always connected small computer. It was inevitable.

The dynamic you're describing for NYC just doesn't really fit the facts. Nor
does the idea that a lot more people taking a lot more rides in cars is
reducing greenhouse emissions, but that's another matter.

~~~
RealityNow
I'll attest to the original comment by davidf18. Uber/Lyft have radically
changed NYC for the better. Ride sharing services are significantly cheaper on
the order of multiples, easier to use (eg. no more hailing, paying), and a
hell of a lot more pleasant to ride in than taxis.

Taxis were notoriously bad. They'd intentionally take slower routes to run up
the meter, refuse passengers trying to go to locations the drivers don't want
to go (despite this being illegal), etc. Not to mention this is all made more
attractive due to our failing decrepit subway system.

The smartphone app innovation you speak of was not inevitable. Taxis indeed
had a monopoly, and thus had absolutely zero incentive to developing an app.
The competition induced by the ride sharing services destroying them is what
incentivized them to finally launch an app, but I don't have it on my phone
nor do I know anyone who has, and it's probably inferior to that of its
competition.

~~~
CPLX
My point, which both of you appear to have missed, is that we're not actually
talking about taxis at all. Taxis are things you hail by flagging them down on
the street. They're still there, driving around in circles looking for you,
just like before. You're just not using them any more.

We're talking about something called _livery cars_ which have existed forever
and were also very widely used before Uber as well. You used to arrange for
pickup using your phone. You still arrange for pickup using your phone.

The car, the driver, and the laws surrounding both are essentially the same as
they were before. What's actually changed is _your phone_.

This distinction is quite different in cities that aren't New York, where
there were taxis and nothing else, and Uber has in fact created a new category
of private car transportation service. But here in NYC the non-taxi car
service market segment existed already and was vibrant, the parent comment
claiming they broke some kind of monopoly is just incorrect.

~~~
albedoa
> Taxis are things you hail by flagging them down on the street. They're still
> there, driving around in circles looking for you, just like before. You're
> just not using them any more.

> the parent comment claiming they broke some kind of monopoly is just
> incorrect.

Are you saying taxis are not a monopoly? Or are you saying ride sharing apps
did not break the taxi monopoly? If taxis were a monopoly, and if we are not
using taxis now because of ride sharing apps, then it would seem ride sharing
apps broke a monopoly.

------
naskwo
A few weeks ago, I posted on HN about my experience in Hamburg (no Uber in
Germany. The local taxi authority has its own app which works equally well, if
not better).

Last weekend, I was in Budapest. There is no Uber in Hungary (anymore), but
the main taxi company (Fötaxi) has its own app which works brilliantly.

I honestly see no "moat" around Uber in markets where (large) taxi dispatchers
have the insight to build a ride-hailing app.

It's only a matter of time before we are back to square 1, or rather, square
2.0:

* licensed, regulated taxis, either independent or through dispatcher * all connected to an (api-)interconnected ecosystem of ride hailing apps * payment to driver directly (cash or card), tipping discretionary * receipts emailed to rider afterwards, with annotated map and start- and end time

This will weed out dishonest drivers, and will benefit honest drivers.

Uber's only differentiator in well-organised urban markets is its app.

The turning point for Uber's decline will be when NY and London mirror Uber's
functionality in their own apps, with the benefit (in London) of cabs being
allowed to use the cab lanes (or, in Amsterdam, the bus lanes).

~~~
hueving
Paying the driver directly still sucks. In the US you constantly deal with the
"I don't take cards" bullshit and lack of simple feedback for when they take
you on a scenic tour.

I would be fine with taxis if I didn't have to interact with the driver at all
when it came to payment and could provide feedback right in the app.

~~~
wcummings
>In the US you constantly deal with the "I don't take cards" bullshit

Sounds like a free ride, to me. In my city cabs have to accept credit cards
_by law_. This means if the machine is broken, the cab is unfit for service.
If a driver refuses to take a credit card, _you don 't have to pay them_. If
they're rude about it, you can call 911, there's a whole division of the PD
dedicated to dealing with cabs. The threat of having an officer show up and a
possible fine or suspension is probably enough to "fix" their machine.

~~~
srj
Personally I prefer a simple feedback system that kicks out bad drivers to
confrontation and a need to call 911. Not to mention that there's quite a gap
between good service and service that complied with the law. If a driver is
rude, swears at me, drives dangerously, what can I do about that? Spend part
of my day calling a hackney division that probably doesn't care?

A rating system is actually superior to getting the government involved.

~~~
wcummings
You might be right but I'm js you do have some recourse. You can file a
complaint and your leisure. It only takes a couple complaints to trigger a
fine.

------
kevinburke
According to the article 5 different VC firms representing 40% of the voting
shares asked him to resign today. Kalanick still controls the majority of
voting shares and a board seat.

Most of Kalanick's trouble started with Susan Fowler speaking out. Please
believe women when they report harassment in the workplace. Many of their
reports may not be as clear cut as Mrs. Fowler's.

~~~
blazespin
Please investigate, not necessarily believe. Innocent til proven guilty still
has some place in this world..

That being said, kudos to anyone courageous enough to speak the truth even at
the risk of vilification.

~~~
kevinburke
Innocent until proven guilty is a great standard for criminal trials but
probably not for the workplace, where people who report harassment are usually
taking an incredible career risk by doing so.

~~~
paganel
People can also be very manipulative. Following down this path (i.e.
"believing that the accuser is right even before the investigation starts")
will only lead to less women being hired for relevant positions.

Here's a relevant scenario: I'm a man, I hold a managerial position and I have
to choose between hiring another man or a woman as a one of my direct-reports.
Let's say both contenders have the same qualifications, they're both equally
fit for the job, but then, I, as a manager, start thinking that if I hire the
woman she will then possibly think of filing a sexual harassment complaint
down the line in order to take my job. Remember the "believe" part, which
means that the sexual complaint doesn't even need to be backed by anything
real, because most of the times after the complaint has been made public the
damage is already done for me, as a male manager, no matter what the
investigation finds (if it manages to find anything). So I choose the man over
the woman as my direct-report.

~~~
orcdork
So what you're saying is, in your "relevant" scenario, you would discriminate
based on gender for a hiring decision.

~~~
paganel
When you introduce irrational events into a mostly rational world (i.e. when
you introduce "believe before investigation" into a world run by financial
compensation) then you're bound to have irrational responses, such as
discrimination, yes.

~~~
HelloNurse
Assuming other people aren't psychopaths is irrational optimism, while
desperate defensive strategies like not hiring high-risk people are perfectly
rational.

------
rmason
Hope everyone's paying attention to the identity of these investors behind
this horrid behavior. Travis is not without his flaws but he created an awful
lot of value for them.

They pressure him into taking a sabbatical, then two days in they pull this
cowardly act of firing him remotely. Not only was it a cowardly act, but it
was the wrong thing to do for the business. It will lead to an epic
destruction of value.

Worst business move since Apple's board (with John Sculley's behind the scenes
string pulling) fired Steve Jobs. How well did that work out for Apple's
shareholders at the time?

Travis Kalanick needed to change but do you really think that running Uber by
committee is going to work? Guess it's time to try Lyft.

~~~
necubi
Wow -- I'm amazed to hear this sentiment. I'm personally proud that one of our
VCs was involved.

Travis helped build an incredible company, but his disregard for the law, for
his employees' well-being, for basic decency threaten to tear all of that
down. Just in the past six months:

* Susan Fowler's blog post exposed a terribly broken HR system and a culture of sexual harassment that reached the very top. This has huge legal implications in addition to the obvious moral and ethical ones.

* Waymo's lawsuit could shut down Uber's self-driving car program, into which they have put hundreds of millions of dollars. There may be evidence that Travis colluded with Levandowski to steal Google's self-driving techonology.

* Uber is under investigation at several levels of government for their Greyball program to hide from law enforcement.

* On top of all this, Travis was videotaped cursing at a driver who complained about pay rates.

At this point, Travis had to go. It's going to be hard for Uber to recover
from all this, but this is the first step. I hope that this becomes a lesson
in SV that there are consequences to this kind of behavior, and that at some
point the adults will step in.

~~~
marcell
I don't think these examples are all that damning, aside from the Susan Fowler
and HR failure:

\- Waymo: the judge has not ruled yet, and there is no evidence revealed to
the public which implicates Uber. There is lots of evidence implicating
Levadowski.

\- Greyball: I can see investors forgiving this as a necessary play to fuel
growth.

\- Cursing the driver: a private conversation, neither here nor there.

That said, there may be issues that are not public, and the sexual harassment
problem alone may be enough. Senior leadership was rapidly leaving. We don't
know what the full Holder report said.

~~~
dtlv5813
Waymo: the judge has not ruled yet, and there is no evidence revealed to the
public which implicates Uber. There is lots of evidence implicating
Levadowski.

But uber is still lagging behind Waymo/Lyft in the self driving technology.
They were desperate to catch up, hence the acquisition of lewandowski's new
company in the first place. Now that path is no longer viable regardless of
the verdict.

Whoever becomes the new CEO will have to be laser focused to make their auto
pilot program work somehow. Without that, Uber has no path to profitability.

They really should have done what lyft did, building partnership with
companies like Google/Waymo and GM instead of trying to build their own auto
pilot program from scratch.

------
goseeastarwar
Founder CEO's do not resign, they are fired.

The article skips over the board entirely, but Travis must have been
blindsided by his co-founder Garret Camp and early CEO Ryan Graves for this to
have transpired. The board likely threatened to fire him unless he resigned,
because there's no way Travis walks away because of this investor letter. It's
more than likely the letter just provided the air cover his old friends needed
to send him packing.

edit: For those replying that Travis has control of the board, please cite
your sources. Being the majority shareholder using dual-class stock is a much
different thing. Shareholders elect board members, but you can't remove
investors' board seats, that language is boilerplate in financing documents.

Uber does not need the backing of the investors from the letter to remain
solvent. With the exception of Fidelity, these aren't big players. Hundreds
would take their place immediately given the chance.

~~~
function_seven
The board lacked the power to fire him. He controls most of the company. They
had persuasive power, sure. But if he had wanted to dig in and refuse to
leave, he could have.

~~~
kawera
But then he probably would have a hard time raising more money.

~~~
askafriend
This is the part that I think people are missing. Uber has a tight runway and
burns a ton of cash every year. It needs focus, execution, and some more time
(aka $$) to push this thing over the edge into profitability and IPO
readiness. This means that Uber _may_ need some money in about a year if it
isn't IPO ready by then. Someone here mentioned that at their current burn,
they have less than a year of runway left.

So while Travis holds the majority of the voting power, he doesn't hold a ton
of real-world cachet because of circumstance around the company. Uber is in a
relatively fragile period in it's journey and no one at the top can afford to
disagree right now so he has to mostly do what the big chunk of investors
collectively tell him to do. The hope is that they can stay calm, run on
autopilot without Travis for a bit and guide this cruise missile right through
an IPO if everything goes according to plan. Since the investors effectively
control the supply of additional capital, they are in a unique position of
power here relative to Travis.

I think Uber's downfall is a bit exaggerated in the rest of these comments
here. They'll go through some troubling times, but they just need to stay
calm, and guide the ship. A lot of the pieces are already in place thanks to
Travis, but Uber doesn't necessarily need him to oversee the next milestone
the same way they needed him the past couple of years of insane growth.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
That, and the fact that there's likely a ton of capital senior to Travis's
under a liquidation event. If Uber gets revalued below $10B in "we can't get
funding and ran out of runway" restructuring, Kalanick's stock is likely
getting zeroed out.

------
flyosity
If Uber ends up going down in flames, unable to recover from the scandals and
lawsuits, and Lyft prevails, it will be the most incredible change of fate in
the business world this century or perhaps longer.

The future of automobiles and transportation is still being swirled about, and
it feels like Uber's downfall has blown the game WIDE open, ready for anyone
(maybe Uber, maybe Lyft, maybe Tesla, Google, Apple, an automaker) to just
step in and take all the riches.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
Lyft? That is just another corporate-controlled centralized system. I'd much
prefer something along the lines of
[http://libretaxi.org/](http://libretaxi.org/)

~~~
santoshalper
Libretaxi sucks. I don't want to negotiate with the driver and I don't want to
pay cash. In typical fashion, open source/FS people fail to understand what
makes a product popular when they try to clone it.

Nobody gives a fuck about "Libre", I just want to get a fucking ride.

~~~
marmaduke
That's too reactive. The point is that there may be services we want (ride) on
infrastructure we can inspect and control and we might want to have respect
for the operators while we're at it. I see those as features which make
execution more expensive and tend to attract less investment and thus not as
well done, when done by volunteers in their spare time. That is a incentive
problem, not an open source problem.

~~~
sho
It's not too reactive at all, it's precisely how I feel as well. I travel a
lot in South East Asia and the absolute last thing I want is to have to
bargain with the driver (100% of the time they will try to rip me off) or
carry bundles of small notes at all times (100% of the time the driver will
claim to have no change).

I have no idea who LibreTaxi is for, if anyone, but their marketing page makes
me want to run a mile. Uber and grab have been a revelation for me in SEA and
I use them exclusively.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
I said "something along the lines of libretaxi". Not libretaxi. You can still
do libre with a reputation system and without having to bargain for every
ride.

------
acjohnson55
I, for one, will consider using Uber again. It is very important to me to see
a change in leadership. I simply couldn't square my use of the app with the
sense that Uber was deeply unethical, starting from the top.

Also, it's so disappointing to see so many people buy into the cult of
personality of the Startup Founder. There's a lot of half-baked reasoning
going on on why Uber's fate should be inexorable tied to Travis. So far, the
two main arguments I've seen are "because Steve Jobs" and "he raised so much
money for them". Neither one of these are compelling in explaining why Uber's
survival prospects should be further damaged by a change at the top.

The only argument that's compelling to me is the concept that they've built
their whole business on unethical assholery and it's going to take a lot of
time and energy to reorient a big company around a different M.O. But even
that's not very compelling, because it presumes that there aren't a whole lot
of people already there who would flourish in a healthy, ethical work
environment. I know a number of people there who feel that way.

~~~
ryandrake
> Also, it's so disappointing to see so many people buy into the cult of
> personality of the Startup Founder. There's a lot of half-baked reasoning
> going on on why Uber's fate should be inexorable tied to Travis. So far, the
> two main arguments I've seen are "because Steve Jobs" and "he raised so much
> money for them". Neither one of these are compelling in explaining why
> Uber's survival prospects should be further damaged by a change at the top.

It's such a strange idea--that out of the seven billion people on the planet,
only one is capable of leading [Company X]. Who really believes this?

~~~
Robotbeat
It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Successful leadership is only possible if
people actually follow and trust the leader. In the absence of that, you'll
get apathy and probably utter failure. So if this idea that only a single
person can lead a company spreads throughout the company, it becomes true.

------
fnovd
>Mr. Kalanick last week said he would take an indefinite leave of absence from
Uber, partly to work on himself and to grieve for his mother, who died last
month in a boating accident. He said Uber’s day-to-day management would fall
to a committee of more than 10 executives.

>In the letter, titled “Moving Uber Forward” and obtained by The New York
Times, the investors wrote to Mr. Kalanick that he must immediately leave and
that the company needed a change in leadership.

>In the letter, in addition to Mr. Kalanick’s immediate resignation, the five
shareholders asked for improved oversight of the company’s board by filling
two of three empty board seats with “truly independent directors.” They also
demanded that Mr. Kalanick support a board-led search committee for a new
chief executive, and that Uber immediately hire an experienced chief financial
officer.

>"“I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in
my personal life I have accepted the investors request to step aside so that
Uber can go back to building rather than be distracted with another fight,”
Mr. Kalanick said in a statement.

Apparently a 10-executive committee of indeterminate duration wasn't going to
suit the board's needs. Taken along with the immediate CFO search, it sounds
like Uber simply does not have the time to let Travis sort out both Uber's
culture issue and his own personal issues before things start to go sour.
Unfortunate timing as I think that, had the accident not happened, Travis
would have been able to turn things around. When it rains, it pours.

~~~
snowwrestler
I think this is right on. It's a crucial moment for Uber and that is no time
to hand leadership off to a big committee.

I'm seeing a bunch of references in these comments to when Steve Jobs was
fired from Apple.[1] A more relevant reference might be when Jobs stepped down
to treat his cancer. He named one interim CEO--Tim Cook--and fully empowered
him to run Apple.

If it was Travis's idea to leave a 10-person committee in charge, that is the
sort of insecure, bad decision that would set off investor alarm bells.

[1] This is actually not a great comparison to Travis. Jobs was not CEO when
Sculley fired him, and in fact had never been CEO of Apple. He was one of 3
founders, each of whom was arguably crucial to the early success of Apple--
Jobs, Woz, and Mike Markkula, who did serve as CEO and sided with Sculley in
firing Jobs. Apple subsequently grew 10x under Sculley.

~~~
matt4077
Kalanick is no Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was an asshole at times, but that
behaviour was always about driving people hard to create what he considered a
perfect product.

Kalanick's brohaviour has nothing to do with economic success. You absolutely
do not need to harass people sexually to be successful, and that idea must
die, fast.

In fact: If you promote such a culture, you're giving up the opportunities
that employees with different backgrounds, motivation, ad loyalty can bring to
the table.

~~~
Applejinx
I'd correct you, slightly: Kalanick's brohaviour (as you put it) has quite a
lot to do with stock market success because aggressive, amoral, bro-like
investors collectively act like economic success is a matter of showing
personality traits like their own.

So, if economic success ONLY depends on eliciting investment from these
people, then you need to be dominant and brutal in every perceivable way,
including sexual harassment, to signal that you're successful. This is far
from new.

If success also involves building a functioning company, you've got to look
beyond investor bros as a metric, and this is where Uber hasn't shown quality.

------
muglug
This proves that speaking out makes a difference.

Edit: HN discussion of Susan J. Fowler's original blog post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682022)

~~~
wbillingsley
It clearly makes a difference as to _who_ is CEO -- on several occasions a
succession of bad news stories has effectively removed a tech CEO (Mozilla,
GitHub, Uber, ...)

Questions I'd be interested in your thoughts on:

\- does it actually change corporate behaviour?

\- is it a good thing that press (which it seems is sometimes influenceable)
can effectively hire and fire by continued pressure?

(And please note that's not whether this case was wrong, but whether it opens
the possibility of intentionally targeted public campaigns to remove someone
from a company sponsored by unstated private reasons. And those are genuine,
not rhetorical, questions.)

~~~
muglug
> does it actually change corporate behaviour?

That remains to be seen, obviously. But a constant in the reports about Uber
was that unscrupulous behaviour (e.g. obtaining the medical records of a rape
victim) was enabled by the CEO. One might presume that a change in leadership
will mean better behaviour. It will also probably mean that Uber can start
hiring for all the C-level positions that are currently vacant, bringing in
fresh blood and a different way of doing things.

> is it a good thing that press can effectively hire and fire by continued
> pressure

That is an argument that is as old as the oldest printed pamphlet. I'm not
going to argue it here, but I'm glad that the press reported on wrongdoing by
high-ups at Uber, and I'm glad that users and investors responded to that
information.

------
slice_of_life
Pushing a founder out is often a bad idea. This might very well be the
beginning of Uber's demise. This won't be good for the company.

All CEOs make mistakes even great ones like Gates with antitrust or Zuck
calling users dumb-fucks. They weren't kicked out, they instead were allowed
to come into their own.

There's a distinct fire that a founder has for the company they founded. You
can't hire that. Without this fire at the early stages of a company, the
company will likely lose out to competitors like Lyft.

A hiatus is one thing but kicking a founder out is simply bad.

Mark my word and take that to the bank. This was a bad move.

~~~
sverhagen
I pretty much can't stumble upon an article about Uber that's not about
controversy. I know that kind of news sells better. But in my perception now
Uber had the pendulum swung far off center. I've been shocked by their
(reported) ethics, to the point of not purchasing their services. I know that
consequence is not taken by a majority of people, but I do sense a more than
average disgust for Uber's ethics. If you'd asked me, I'd have welcomed their
demise. The only thing to turn that around for me is new leadership.

A woman for Uber CEO would be a good signal -- if the best candidate for the
job happens to be one. Didn't Marissa Mayer recently resign from her job, and
be available?

~~~
blfr
_Didn 't Marissa Mayer recently resign from her job, and be available?_

Even if you want to see Uber dead, there are more humanitarian ways.

------
pshin45
Travis Kalanick's words to that Uber driver back in Feb 2017 are very ironic
now in retrospect:

"Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit. They blame
everything in their life on somebody else."

~~~
a3n
That kind of thing is often said by people who are merely lucky enough not to
have fucked up so far, or to not have been fucked over. Individual success is
not a proof.

------
ChuckMcM
Think about this the next time you're putting up with bad behavior at work.
Susan Fowler ultimately lost her job and went through painful criticisms for
speaking out, but she did kick off a _lot_ of change at the company.

Think about this the next time you're tolerating bad behavior on the part of
your employees. A number of people lost their jobs in the resulting firestorm
but that fire reached right up to the top.

Think about this the next time you're considering investing in a company where
the leadership team plays fast and loose with law. Disruption is important,
but principles are just as important. If the leadership team gets their
advantage by not following the rules that others do, watch for them to not
follow the rules that they should as well.

------
pavlakoos
This looks good for Uber. Right now Uber needs operational and financial
stability. Something Kalanick apparently didn't know how to provide. So moving
him aside is good.

Also, I think investors forced him out by saying they will finance next round
only if Kalanick is gone. And they need more investment, because losing $2bn a
year makes them run out of cash soon and inevitably.

Still - Kalanick and his co-founder friends have a control over a board, so
theoretically Kalanick can get his ass back as CEO as soon as he wants. If he
wants...

The Kalanick-VCs deal might have another background. To cut those $2bn annual
losses, Uber needs to change financially. Those changes will hit customers
(prices will increase) and drivers (their pay and benefits decrease). So Uber
needs an interim manager to introduce them - a "bad guy", who can take the
"blame" for it. A change, that will not hit Kalanick's reputation.

But it's all good. Uber will continue to grow. The service is just too good.

------
khazhoux
As the adage goes, sometimes the startup CEO for the first $70 billion, is not
the same as for the next $70 billion.

~~~
vecter
Or as they say, "what got you here won't get you there"

~~~
matt4077
Kalanick's brohaviour has nothing to do with economic success. You absolutely
do not need to harass people sexually to be successful.

~~~
dingo_bat
And he didn't sexually harass anybody. I don't see your point.

~~~
matt4077
His misbehaviour is (in this case) tolerating such behaviour at Uber,
something which many seem to consider a strategy to "let boys be boys" and
create a great business freed from the oppressive shackles of "political
correctness".

But go google and you'll find quite a few anecdotes that do make it seem as if
he has a strange hangup with women himself.

~~~
dingo_bat
I agree with everything you said but he literally did not sexually harass
anybody. So saying that he did is just inaccurate. Regardless of how big of an
asshole he is.

------
sidcool
Did Susan Fowler's article start this fire? If so, it's an incredible and
inspiring story every victim of harrassment should follow. Thanks Susan.

~~~
ebola1717
I don't agree it's quite that uplifiting. The culture had to be absolutely
horrible, all the way up to the top, for Fowler's story to have an impact.
Uber was already gearing up their lawyers against her, and if their culture
hadn't been so pervasive, and if there weren't a series of other contraversies
at the same time, things might have ended poorly for her.

------
mattlondon
All this talk about Lyft becoming the new Uber is perhaps a bit unrealistic.

Apart from in SF, I've never found Lyft available anywhere I've been (although
I understand it is operating on other parts of the US).

To momentarily sing-praises of Uber: the same app, the same login, the same
card just works internationally pretty much where ever I have gone on work and
vacations regardless of currencies etc - morals aside it _is_ a slick service
- but so far I've not been able to use a single Lyft ride because they dont
seem to be available apart from the US.

Please come to London & the EU Lyft! I dont _want_ to use Uber due to their
well-publicised issues but there is no alternative apart from "old world"
solutions.

~~~
cirenehc
have you been to NYC? LA? Seattle?

~~~
mattlondon
Not in the past few years - SF only. But I do appreciate that Lyft is active
elsewhere in the US, just that Uber appear to be active in a LOT of markets
where Lyft is not (i.e. there are places in the world that are not major US
cities).

~~~
ASpring
Certainly Uber is more places but in the past 2 weeks I've spent time in
"cities" of sizes around 50-60k people and almost all have had both services.
Often Lyft will have less cars on the road but I did not struggle to find a
Lyft.

------
treebeard901
One thing that strikes me as strange is how we have had a persistent release
of negative information about Uber through many different kinds of media
outlets for the past few months.

This is not meant to cast doubt on the problems at Uber highlighted in these
reports.

However, It seems like the drip of negative information was intentional,
perhaps with the goal of having him resign.

Uber was guilty in the public eye almost immediately.

Even today the media narrative is that this is good for Silicon Valley culture
as a whole. Implicit in this line of thinking is that most SV companies have
the same culture problems. I find that to be troubling and largely incorrect.

~~~
ryguytilidie
This is a pretty strange line of logic. Uber has consistently been in the
media for YEARS about corrupt things they've done. I think the public decided
they were bad because of those many things, not by some stroke of luck...

~~~
treebeard901
While it is true they have been in the media for years for various reasons...
Over the past few months it seemed to be accelerating.

Perhaps the lesson here is that if you set out to disrupt powerful interests
across the world, you better have your own house in order, otherwise they will
disrupt you.

------
HappyTypist
Susan J. Fowler's blog post started the snowball that led to the firing of a
$70 billion startup's CEO.

I hope this encourages more people to publicly report systematic cultures of
sexual harassment.

~~~
DonHopkins
And also encourages more people to systematically stop sexually harassing
other people.

Because certain people like Uber board member David Bonderman have a really
hard time getting it through their thick Neanderthal skulls that they
shouldn't make crude sexist remarks about how women talk to much, while on
stage at a company all hands meeting whose topic is how the company is turning
over a new leaf to address their systematic culture of sexual harassment. Even
if it's hilariously ironic because it was actually a man who just couldn't
keep his big fat mouth shut.

[https://www.recode.net/2017/6/13/15795612/uber-board-
member-...](https://www.recode.net/2017/6/13/15795612/uber-board-member-david-
bonderman-women-talk-too-much-sexism)

------
TheRealmccoy
Susan Fowler is the giant killer of this century.

Salutation!

~~~
visakanv
She was the bullet in the gun that Uber held to its own head; they could've
avoided it by not being a shitty place for women to work

~~~
kevmo
Exactly. And this had been coming for years. A transgendered friend of mine
starting working there in 2014. She quit within a week. It was only a matter
of time.

------
schlumpf
How could the board kick out a CEO founder given the vertiginous increase in
equity valuations said founder presided over? Because those valuations are
only meaningful to end investors (i.e. the LPs) when shareholders experience
positive cash flow. At Uber the opposite is happening. Why shouldn't we
assume, then, that the board realizes Uber is headed for a fatal pinch[0] and
has acted accordingly?

Bloomberg in April reported[1] Uber's cumulative cash burn at US$8 bn since
its founding in 2009. You can argue that Travis Kalanick presided over rising
valuations but so far there is no evidence of an increase in book value per
share. Conversely that cash burn risks being crystallized as "value
destruction" if revenue growth stalls.

The alleged personnel issues, the lawsuit, the bad press -- they are history
and the firm has no choice but to cope with them. But failing to improve net
margin can be quickly fatal and if that is happening then the other issues
remain relevant. TK, who also presided over those, becomes part of the problem
rather than part of the solution.

[0] [http://paulgraham.com/pinch.html](http://paulgraham.com/pinch.html) [1]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-14/embattled...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-14/embattled-
uber-reports-strong-sales-growth-as-losses-continue)

------
shubhamjain
Do VCs care more about public perception than long-term health of the company?
Uber has been in the news for all the wrong reasons but thinking from the VCs
POV, I doubt there is a better person to run Uber than TK. The company's
monopoly is still precarious and I have a feeling that without a CEO like TK,
the fate looks like a combination of retreating from markets, heavy losses,
and a huge drop in valuation.

~~~
ebola1717
It's not just public perception - it's internal perception too. Attrition at
Uber is through the roof. Yeah, Travis is one of the best people for the job
and his aggressiveness built Uber, but you can't build and maintain Uber if
the rest of your talent is fleeing and you can't replace them because of your
rep. Plus, he's obviously created a lot of liabilities for Uber at the same
time that he's created value - besides the massive cultural problems, Uber's
facing a number of dangerous lawsuits.

------
throwaway5752
I have no idea why everyone is going on about Fowler/harassment scandals.

He should have been fired by the board for the results of the Otto acquisition
and the handling of Waymo lawsuit, and that was probably a much larger factor.

~~~
matt4077
Let's just agree that there are very many, very good reasons not to support
Kalanick in any way.

------
dvt
Not unsurprising, as Uber really is trying to grow up, and Travis Kalanik has
been the silicon valley poster boy for a bit too long. I still think he did a
phenomenal job, not only launching a successful startup, but creating an
international cultural movement.

I wonder who will take his place, and, more importantly, I wonder if Uber will
continue winning.

~~~
zer00eyz
Did he do a lot, sure.

Does he deserve to be complimented in any way shape or form?

No... Not in the slightest.

I think the question is can uber continue winning without being toxic to staff
(drivers, women, I'm sure there are others), maybe stealing (waymo lawsuit),
and building tools to avoid the law....

The answer is I don't know, but it is going to be hard to recover from.

~~~
yladiz
I don't think that's quite fair. He absolutely deserves a lot of criticism for
the things that happened under his watch as Uber CEO, but he did create a
giant company that has the highest(?) valuation of any SV startup. He deserves
some respect and compliments for that.

~~~
zer00eyz
> but he did create a giant company that has the highest(?) valuation of any
> SV startup. He deserves some respect and compliments for that.

The only people that benefited from his achivement were the investors.
Considering where Uber stands at the moment they might not ever see a return
on that.

If creating value gives you some sort of moral pass then we shouldn't have any
sort of issues with epipens being more expensive, or martin shkreli jacking up
drug prices... after all they did it in the name of creating value.

~~~
yladiz
If you prefer to read what I posted that way, then that's your prerogative. I
am simply stating that this isn't some kind of zero sum game or that it's
black and white. I even stated (which you conveniently left out) that he does
deserve criticism for the issues that happened during his tenure, and I
believe he deserves a lot.

~~~
zer00eyz
It wasn't my intent to ignore your statement.

The problem is were never going to know how much of the success your praising
is tied to the awful behavior that you say we should be critical of.

Were talking about the lance armstrong of CEO's. The collective behavior is
corporate doping, lying cheating and stealing to get to the top isn't the path
to sustaining success.

------
pishpash
Uber is just shooting itself in the foot at this point. The few things it did
get right, no tipping and market-driven pricing, are being rolled away. Then
it would truly have no advantage.

------
rahimnathwani
"investors could lose billions of dollars if the company were to be marked
down in valuation."

The writer has it backwards. Investors would mark down an asset because it's
worth less. The asset doesn't lose value by virtue of being marked down.

~~~
omarchowdhury
"The asset doesn't lose value by virtue of being marked down."

It does in public markets. See sell offs, corrections.

~~~
rahimnathwani
"It does in public markets."

'The asset' in my statement obviously refers to shares in Uber. Those aren't
'in public markets'.

Moreover, even if I were talking about assets in general, including those
traded in public markets, my statement is still true. If company A buys shares
in company B, and company B's share price subsequently goes down in value,
then company A may mark down their own holding (i.e. reduce the value they
report in their accounts) to reflect that new reality. But that reality (the
lower public market value) preceded the mark down. So the mark down cannot be
the cause of the reduction in value.

In simpler terms, 'marking down' is an accounting activity, or one of
financial reporting. It's writing down what is. It's creating the reality.
That's why it's called 'bean counting'. The beans exist before they are
counted.

~~~
omarchowdhury
My point is that a given reduction in value can cause more reduction in value.

------
ebola1717
Kara Swisher's podcast had an excellent episode on Uber that did a great job
surveying this firestorm, and defending Travis' business direction, without
exonerating his leadership's many flaws. Definitely worth a listen.

------
danso
Wow, makes me want to skim over the original Susan Fowler thread to see if
anyone predicted this happening [0]. Her allegations of course weren't the
only problem Uber faced but it sure seemed to cause other previously
overlooked issues and complaints to gain real resonance.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682022)

~~~
grandalf
I called for it in the Susan Fowler thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13747414#13749264](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13747414#13749264)

I do wish it hadn't happened, though, I would have preferred if the company
could have healed with him still managing to stay in control.

~~~
danso
I wonder how things would have gone had Kalanick's family hadn't suffered that
horrible tragedy a few weeks ago. That is, whether he would have had the
energy/stubbornness to stay as CEO if he wasn't dealing with personal
challenges at the same time as professional ones.

~~~
anigbrowl
I'm sure that was a big factor. Turning a firm's culture around in this case
would mean reinventing himself at the same time at the firm, and while that's
doable it's a full-time thing. The loss of his mother and serious injuries
sustained by his father in the same accident were a cruel twist of fate that
would derail many people under the best of circumstances, never mind these
more difficult ones.

------
dawhizkid
As a former Uber employee (left 6 mo ago) this is shocking. Can't imagine who
will step in...

~~~
smt88
What are your thoughts on Fowler's assessment of the company, the scandals,
and Kalanick himself?

------
openmosix
Just a few years ago, Uber was the place to be, the startup to imitate. How
many Uber for X pitches did we see? The entire story makes me sad (not the
resignation, that was kind of expected) - Uber was an icon of "disruption" and
of challenging the status quo. Now, it's just a sad story and people prefer to
not be associated with it.

~~~
necessity
That's only if you confuse the business model/company with the image of its
CEO.

------
jaypaulynice
Wow...Travis Kalanick has his flaws, but come on, he will come back bigger
just like Steve Jobs. That hurts! A company like Uber needs an aggressive CEO,
not a pushover CEO...this is one reason why investors kill companies.

I see this happen so many times, a company takes too much investment, the CEO
is replaced, then the company dies within a year...

~~~
matt4077
None of Kalanick's kinks is helpful to Uber. Don't promote this idea that it's
good business to sexually harass you employees.

~~~
jlborxes
Kalanick has sexually harassed his employees? Must have missed that part.

------
cgeier
Somewhat off-topic:

Why is something like Uber called ride-sharing to begin with? I'm not
_sharing_ my ride with anyone that coincidentally wants to travel (more or
less) the same route as me. I pay somebody to drive their car first to me, and
then some other place.

This is called a taxi or cab [1], there Uber is a taxi company.

At least in Germany, there used to be actual ride-sharing systems, of which
the best one used to be mitfahrzentrale.de, where people would advertise what
route they were planing to drive (and when) and other people could "book" a
seat on that route. I don't know if some others still exist, I haven't used
them in years.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab)

~~~
elicash
Along these lines, Lyft _started out_ as an actual ride-sharing platform with
Zimride, until eventually the current model took off and they decided to sell
the ride-sharing part of the company away.

~~~
amyjess
Lyft also used a donation model back in the day (this was the case when I
first started using them in 2014). You didn't _have_ to pay for anything, but
there was a "suggested donation" along with a message saying that drivers you
donate money to will be more likely to give you a ride again.

------
curiousDog
Wow! Looks like the investors really want their money back now and are pushing
hard for an IPO.

------
erikb
I am really disappointed that another article discusses a power struggle
without mentioning the power struggle.

Something like this is nearly always a power struggle. That the accusations
may be valid is just showing that the people attaining power have a higher
chance in this situation. It doesn't change the fact that it is a power
struggle.

So who are the people taking over? For an news paper that shouldn't be hard to
figure out. Who are the three new guys? They are 100% sure linked to the group
taking over. They are certainly not "neutral". Who is likely to become the new
CEO? This guy is certainly the leader of the coup or a puppet.

~~~
ryanx435
it doesn't mention the power struggle because this article is PART of the
power struggle. The journalist who wrote the article is basing the story based
on the people who they have interviewed (who are the ones who are struggling
for power) as well as the continuing narrative surrounding Uber (which is the
story the people struggling for power are trying to create)

you should read this very interesting (but simplified) exploration of power
talk for a general idea of why this article was written the way that it is:

[https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-
principle-...](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-ii-
posturetalk-powertalk-babytalk-and-gametalk/)

~~~
erikb
I'm about 50% through (the e-book; if someone presents interesting knowledge
he should also get paid for it).

So what you're saying is that I shouldn't have such expectations towards the
reporter. The reporter may or may not be smart enough to look behind the
curtain, but his official job is not to look behind but to present the
"objective" official grand narrative. Talking about the actual power struggle
would expose him since it may be considered unprofessional and un-objective,
as well as hurt his trust relations with people who give him inside info. So
the most naive but objective report may actually be written by the smartest
reporter. New point of view. Thanks!

~~~
ryanx435
glad you enjoyed it. I first found this article series maybe a decade ago and
it really changed the way I view the world. There are some flaws with it, but
the overall thesis is pretty solid

~~~
erikb
Yeah, every good model can offer two things: Increasing the amounts of options
in case there are two few (this model for instance enables god-seeking
sociopaths to accept god's awayness and embrace it as a new freedom), or
decreasing complexity and thereby also increasing your options (e.g. this
model described to me the difference between the different talk modes and
thereby enabled me to gather more information from such a news article like
the Uber article).

However no model is able to provide completedness. They either always lack
some significant amount of reality, or create significant amount of fantasy on
top. That was proven by different scientists in the 1930s and is explained
quite well imo in Goedel Escher Bach. I don't remember the details but at
least one of them was a Mathematician who basically delivered the proof that
Math can't solve all the problems that Math tries to solve. It is impossible.

------
bobbles
When any story about your company needs a tagline like 'embattled CEO blah
blah blah' it might be time to step back

------
Pandabob
Would Marissa Mayer be a good fit for Uber CEO? Given that she just resigned
from Yahoo, one would think the board would at least consider her. Unless
they're going to choose the next CEO from within the company.

~~~
hendzen
Good chance of it being Arianna Huffington.

~~~
sidcool
How about Eric Schmidt?

~~~
tiredwired
How about Elizabeth Holmes?

~~~
anigbrowl
That would be hilarious

------
consultSKI
People make a difference. Uber has a lot of execution left to master and
without Kalanick and the other key players that have left the company, the
odds are now definitely not in its favor. And yes, the self-driving car play
was a brilliant fund raising play (leveraging the news of the amazing advances
by Tesla) but a terrible waste of limited resources. It is acceptable to
outsource such projects. Or to make strategic alliances. Business is most
often a series of trade-offs. Startups more so.

~~~
mholmes680
I think he was right about the self-driving. He doesn't have a moat otherwise,
as explained in another comment above; specifically ts not hard for a city to
develop, deploy and advertise their own cab-hailing app and only a little
harder to then design partnerships with other cities to network and share
profits.

Uber's play was that they could subsidize that through private investors in
order to scale. But now they have to find, hire, and __compensate __basically
the whole tier of upper management, while still burning operating money. I 'm
not a business major, but that's probably REALLY not good.

I'm surprised I haven't read about it in another comment yet, but this is
screaming for a company with good management and a stash of solid
reputation/PR/marketing to come get a really good deal. Maybe Facebook because
the culture wouldn't clash as much as my next two: apple and Google? Apple has
the cash, and needs an entry into automotive while we wait for the apple car.
Google/Waymo+Uber immediately settles the lawsuit, puts uber back into moat
territory with self-driving, and gives google some people on the ground to
compete with Amazon in last-mile?

------
innopreneur
I wonder if it would have been difficult to get his (or convince him for)
resignation if he wouldn't have been in grieving phase, considering his
history of retaliation ?

------
korzun
Like it or not, the liability of diversifying just went up.

It's clear that the lynch mob of armchair activists will no longer be
satisfied when action is taken against the individuals who are directly at
fault; they tend to drag everybody they can into this mess and attempt to hold
them accountable.

Travis aside, you can't expect engineering managers to ignore what happened
and risk their career because somebody in H.R might screw up.

1\. You must get involved if you hear anything that could be remotely
questionable. Otherwise, you will be the guy who ignored all of the signs and
enabled the culture. 2\. If you get involved, and it turns out to be nothing,
you are now harassing a co-worker. It was just an office relationship, and
things went sour? It's your fault now. 3\. Don't get involved? You are an
enabler and must be punished.

I was reading a thread on Reddit last week (Things you can no longer do at
work, or something like that) and apparently some men are scared to close the
meeting room door if they are left alone with a woman these days.

Amazing world we live in today.

------
paul7986
Happy to see this as Uber allowed and per their PR laughed at it's users' back
accounts getting hacked/losing money.

I had 1k stolen from my bank account via Uber and after my research showed...

\- THey knew about these hacks happening ...about ten or more people a day

\- Their PR was it's the users fault for choosing a weak password vs. doing a
press release letting users know they need to change their passwords and
offering 2 way verification

\- You could not and probably still can not outright and quickly cancel your
UBer account. No you have to send a message and I waited days to severe all
any ties with them.

This happened to me and 1000s of others in 2015 per my search on Twitter then.
Then in 2017 you see just how horrible this organization is ... it does not
give at ratz ass about anyone who is not a KalaNick bro including employees,
customers, drivers.. basically all groups it needs to operate and succeed.

Still wanting it to go down in flames and my 1k back into my bank account!!!

------
forgottenacc57
He should've stayed. I don't recall bill gates being a good guy.

Being a good guy as requirement for being CEO is a 21st century thing.

~~~
santoshalper
Without support of his major investors, Uber would struggle to raise
additional capital and would probably go bankrupt in 2018-2019 with their burn
rate. They asked him to leave, but not nicely.

------
rock57
Travis Kalanick might be upset... All the way to the bank, as a holder of huge
equity and majority voting power (so he seems to have the capacity to
reinstall himself as a CEO when/if he finds it fit) who surely has negotiated
nice conditions for himself in any liquidity event.

------
alexandersingh
I don't know Kalanick, though I've read about how his brashness and "win at
all costs" attitude was forged through his past startup failures[1]

If this is true then he is his own worst enemy, and I find it very sad when
anyone - no matter how big a jerk you think they are - is trapped in a
repeating pattern of negative and destructive behavior.

To be clear: I am not absolving him of his behavior, I'm just observing that
the culture comes from the founder and his wounds run deep.

[1] Scour filed for bankruptcy, Red Swoosh was acquired after enormous
struggles to keep the company afloat.

------
thedevil
I'm going to go against the crowd and say that Uber survives as a business for
now. They may scale back expansion and they might raise prices. They may even
get acquired at a lower valuation. But I bet they'll still be operating.

I think their burn rate is almost surely the result of subsidizing expanding
markets. I can't imagine established markets being anything but ludicrously
profitable.

Disclaimer: I don't necessarily like Uber, I've never even used them and I
know almost nothing about their (former) CEO outside of headlines.

------
bobjordan
There are a lot of lessons to be learned here but I think one of the biggest
to remember is - don't send any emails to anyone (even Mom) that you wouldn't
want to be published on the front page of the NYT. Let alone to thousands of
employees. For example, the yearly event emails that Travis sent from the
frat-boy CEO frame of view. The employees probably received it well ahead of
the event and likely even an uptick in morale, but in the long term, it is not
an email he is proud of sending.

------
michalu
In the letter, in addition to Mr. Kalanick’s immediate resignation, the five
shareholders asked for improved oversight of the company’s board by filling
two of three empty board seats with “truly independent directors.”

This seems like a narrative to cover their attempt to get more power in the
company... Clearly Kalanick has appointed directors on board that are on his
side, which is exactly what he should do and the point of shareholder's
appointing directors... Of course, investors want their people

------
ogezi
Well this comes as a big surprise. I just thought that he'd be taking a break.
I also think that he wasn't forced to resign as much as he thought it'd be the
best choice for the company (he probably has majority voter control). Kalanick
- because of his super competitive nature - was probably the best person to be
CEO during the time he was but maybe its now time for a more matured and
seasoned executive to take over. Just my thoughts.

~~~
michalu
More matured and seasoned executive? Kalanick is 40, has star experience like
almost nobody in tech business... I'm wondering who would be more matured for
highly unregulated, exploding industry that depends on innovation (solar,
self-driving cars)?

With a new seasoned exec, I predict Uber will stabilize, IPO at some point and
becomes the Yahoo of the industry. It won't be the next Google, Amazon or
Facebook (all led by founder CEOs), that's for sure.

------
andreasgonewild
A-holes take notice, the times are changing. The only name here that deserves
to be in history books is Susan J. Fowler's for having the courage to speak
up.

------
jorblumesea
No fan of Kalanick, but letting leadership fall to a 10 executive committee at
such a critical moment in Uber's history sounds like a complete disaster. Uber
needs to make serious bold moves and I don't think anyone is lined up to make
them. My guess is they'll try another funding round, fail at that, then
attempt to IPO at an uncertain share price.

------
dirtylowprofile
Here in Asia, Uber pricing is too much and our most popular rival is Grab. Now
that Jack Ma is planning on investing.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-15/jack-
ma-s...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-15/jack-ma-said-to-
explore-joining-1-5-billion-grab-fundraising-j3y5wu9k)

------
postITcareer
This guy may be a huge asshole.. but he is not anywhere close to why Uber has
been having problems.. though I hope his resignation helps the company.
Obviously his resignation followed immediately by their "180 days of change"
campaign, in app tipping etc.. was a well planned move to get some heat off
them

------
joshmn
Is there an available API/service that does the trip tracking part of Uber? Of
any technical challenge that would present a bunch of clones popping up, I can
see that being one of them. The rest is just generating an invoice and
accepting a credit card payment. Obviously, not to scale, but for small-
medium-sized locales, it could suffice.

~~~
smt88
There already are lots of Uber clones. You can buy Uber-clone code to start
your own.

The hard part of cloning Uber as a company is building both sides of the
market. It's almost impossible to do without a clever strategy and tons of
cash.

~~~
ipsum2
That's simply not true. Places where Uber and Lyft aren't allowed have a
thriving alternative ride-sharing economy. In Austin, there are 3 different
Uber-clone apps that do a fine job: Ride Austin, Fasten, and Fare.

------
grappler
This story made me think "Maybe I want to finally sign up for an Uber account,
after years of avoiding them and using Lyft?"

But then I thought, well, Travis still controls a majority of the votes and
he's still on the board.

Others out there who have also been avoiding Uber because of all the bad
press, I'm curious how you are thinking about this.

------
jchien17
Wow, I thought he was just going to step away and take a break. Do we know who
might replace him?

It's also interesting that the five shareholders mentioned in the NYTimes
article want 2 "truly independent directors". What does that mean? Depending
on how many board seats there are, maybe two votes aren't enough?

~~~
akras14
I bet it will be a woman. Merrisa Mayer? lol

~~~
Cipater
Is there an issue if it's a woman?

Is Marissa Meyer the only woman y'all know?

~~~
akras14
I have no issues with women being CEOs. I do have an issue when people get
selected for political reasons, i.e. to keep the mob happy.

------
postITcareer
Travis was not anywhere close to being responsible for the amount of heat he
has taken lately... but this + their 180 days of change, in app tipping and
things is good for the company and hopefully will make the drivers a little
happier..

------
chatmasta
I can't wait to see the next company Travis builds. A few months from now I'm
sure he will be feeling the hunger again. And man, talk about carrying a chip
on your shoulder. I hope he finds further success in life and learns from his
mistakes.

------
notadoc
If this had happened two years ago, would Uber have avoided any of the later
negative press?

------
jaydub
Even if he's out as CEO he still will likely wield outsize influence due to
his 1) board seat 2) equity stake 3) majority of leadership are presumably his
people.

Will be interesting to see who replaces him and whether the company actually
changes.

------
tmcpro
If they were smart they would hire a diplomat like Condoleezza Rice (Dropbox).
They have a ton of experience dealing with crisis, external perceptions,
government relations, and lobbying on an international level.

------
webwanderings
So your business depends on me not uninstalling your app by a single click of
a button, while you don't even offer anything unique?

And you have crazy valuation which is threatened by your company's culture?

Ah, the modern times!

------
nodesocket
"The investors made their demand for Mr. Kalanick to step down in a letter
delivered to the chief executive while he was in Chicago..."

So brutal to be fired from the company you founded and built via a FedEx.

~~~
rrdharan
Better than via UberRUSH amirite?

------
jamisteven
UBER: Crowdfunding the development of autonomous vehicles by temporarily
giving people jobs and keeping all the data collected by the thousands of
drivers using its app.

~~~
Antrikshy
You make them sound so evil but all of this sounds perfectly legitimate to me.

------
jonwachob91
Does Uber buy lyft just to acquire a relevant management team?

------
peter_retief
For me its just really sad, I wish him well with new ventures

------
pishpash
The fact that Uber brought in tipping the day it got rid of Kalanick makes me
believe it is a money issue. Basically Uber raised prices by 10-20% to match
Lyft.

~~~
rlanday
The tip money only goes to the drivers, right? So it presumably will help to
retain drivers, but won't give Uber itself any extra money.

------
jonthepirate
For my own selfish interests, I was hoping they would keep him in there for as
long as possible. I exercised my Lyft shares and the value is shooting up the
moon.

------
postITcareer
PS I am an Uber/Lyft driver.. never thought I would be but an experiment in
hustling up a little extra cash ended up working out great for me

------
booleanbetrayal
I called a board ousting of Kalanick some 6 months ago. This move is just too
late to pull up from the current nosedive. RIP Uber.

------
CodeWriter23
I've not been a fan of Kalanick. But I do think he is going to do something
really great in the future. Much greater than Uber.

------
anigbrowl
This seemed inevitable. If the firm is stronger in 24 months then it will lead
to a substantial cultural change in the tech industry.

------
dreamdu5t
Wow turns if you give me a billion dollars and I burn it that's considered
business and entrepreneurship in 2017 America.

------
omarforgotpwd
Starting to look like Uber might not be worth $69B. (Tesla is valued at just
under $61B today). I wonder who the new CEO will be...

~~~
wellboy
Tesla should buy Uber, for $20B or so. They won't get a network for their
autonomous cars this cheap again.

------
petraeus
Uber is dead in 18 months. I was just in vegas last week and its still filled
with taxis, never saw a uber the whole week.

~~~
krisdol
Did you try calling one?

------
Fricken
Would filling Kalanick's shoes be regarded as the _best_ , or the _worst_ job
opening in Silicon Valley?

------
tareqak
hnrankings graph of this story:
[http://hnrankings.info/14600873/](http://hnrankings.info/14600873/) (I'm not
affiliated with them, but I think this ranking information is important).

------
danm07
Not to be wry but how often has kicking out the founder been the solution to
VC's problems?

------
innopreneur
seems like this became the highest rated and commented story in the history of
Hacker News...

------
nether
I hope this means the downfall of (fundamentally misogynist) brogrammer
culture.

------
Whatarethese
Is it really that hard to not sexually harass workers at your place of
business?

------
thrillgore
I can't say i'm not surprised, but nothing good will come of this.

------
eliangidoni
A good CEO knows when to resign ! cheers for him, very humble!

------
TheRealmccoy
Things in life needs to be taken in totality and not in silos. Whatever Uber
has managed to do is creditable, but at what cost?

Being a jerk company?

Thanks, but no thanks. I'd rather ride a bullock cart, than avail services of
such a company.

------
forgottenacc57
Finally John Scully will steer the ship in the right direction.

Wait, what?

~~~
matt4077
Kalanick is no Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs was an asshole at times, but that behaviour was always about
driving people hard to create what he considered a perfect product.

Kalanick's brohaviour has nothing to do with economic success. You absolutely
do not need to harass people sexually to be successful.

~~~
qb45
It wasn't Kalanick's who did it but his employees. And guess what, Apple had a
fair number of stories about toxic work culture and sexual harassment too.

------
ungerik
Resigned, or rather has been fired by his investors?

------
DelTaco
Action Jack Barker to step in? I think the only thing that can save Uber now
is the conjoined triangles of success.

------
futhey
There is another option: Perhaps Travis is just “going away for a while”, to
return when things have quieted down.

------
bsvalley
Travis, if you're looking for a new adventure - I'm looking for a co-founder.
Ping me ;)

------
jayess
You live by the sword, you die by the sword. But we still need people who live
by the sword.

------
nodesocket
Same day they fire Travis, they add tipping. No coincidence there.

------
cdevs
Like watching Silicon Valley

------
kaushalc
lets say this entire harassment thing hadnt blown up , then would Travis still
have been fired may be a few months from now?

------
iii_3candles
Crowdsourced shaming works.

------
kulu2002
What if Daimler thinks of buying Uber...

~~~
samstave
Jesus Chrysler, I'd rather put the brakes on that idea, although I'm sure
others would prefer to ford ahead.

------
pdog
RIP Uber, 2009–2017. It's been a good run.

------
myblake
Hell, its about time.

------
whytaka
What a useless website
[https://istravisstillceo.com](https://istravisstillceo.com) turned out to be.

~~~
kgdinesh
time to update that.

------
camelite
Should we believe men too when they're victimised by women, or is this a one
way deal? What if it's a man and a woman accusing each other, or two men or
two women. What if the dude is a historically oppressed minority?

~~~
kevinburke
Most people that report harassment are taking a big career risk (and if they
go public like Mrs. Fowler did, inviting abuse from Internet mobs) by doing
so, so yes, I'm going to default to believing people that report harassment
unless I can find credible evidence it didn't happen.

~~~
dixie_land
_I 'm going to default to believing people that report harassment unless I can
find credible evidence it didn't happen._

I hope to God you don't show up for jury duties.

~~~
odonnellryan
There are multiple ways to interpret the phrase "I believe you."

~~~
a_imho
Please elaborate, I'm not a native speaker and I don't see how it can be
interpreted differently in this context.

~~~
jamesrcole
I'm a native speaker and I don't think there are multiple interpretations.

~~~
odonnellryan
Really? US?

"I believe you" can mean you believe what the person is saying WITHOUT it
meaning you take it to be 100% factual.

In this circumstance, it can mean you believe them (as in, trust them) but
you're not "convicting" anyone of anything. But you ARE giving them the
comfort of "trust."

~~~
hueving
When it comes to an accusation, you can't simultaneously believe the victim
and clear the defendant of guilt.

~~~
DanBC
Of course you can. You can believe the victim while saying that the evidence
doesn't meet whatever bar you set - in criminal matters that would be "beyond
all reasonable doubt".

It's fine for people to say "I think he did it, but the prosecution didn't
prove it, and so I found him not guilty."

~~~
odonnellryan
100% on-point, but I'd caution about bringing judgement into these matters.

Believing a colleague when they come to you with ANY complaint does not mean
you're going to pass judgement, or you even have to. It means listening and
doing that in a way that does not discourage future complaints.

~~~
jamesrcole
> Believing a colleague when they come to you with ANY complaint does not mean
> you're going to pass judgement, or you even have to. It means listening and
> doing that in a way that does not discourage future complaints.

Your attitude towards them -- listening etc -- is a completely orthogonal
matter to whether you believe in the truth of their claims.

There seems to be this wishy-washy notion of "belief" that's causing confusion
in this thread, where "believing" is equated to "not being judgemental".

------
NumberCruncher
print "%s may or may not take over the world at some point, but it needs
another round of investment in the next 18 months just to survive." % ('any
Ponzi scheme')

~~~
jeroenjanssens
Python 2? Absolutely barbaric.

~~~
devdoomari
python2 has much better syntax than that...

print "{something} may or may not take over the world at some point, but it
needs another round of investment in the next 18 months just to
survive.".format(something='any Ponzi scheme')

python 2, 3 are nice... got loads of libs... just that they don't have enough
static typings to help me around :(

~~~
brianwawok
Look into mypy! Its a good start.

~~~
devdoomari
mypy is going in a nice direction! hope it would get scala or idris-level
typechecks :)

But... most library definitions are quite lacking... if only some big company
would volunteer to fill that huge gap... (hope MS gives some luv! just like
they did with Typescript + DefinitelyTyped)

------
good_vibes
.

~~~
MrBlue
Yes I've done several. Great overall experience but not to be taken casually.

------
rtx
This shows how important virtue signalling is today's America. We have well
loved CEO's of billion dollar companies using actual slave Labour. No one
write a about them. But here we have journalists like Sarah Lacy going on a
crusade against him. Though she always forgot to mention that she has taken
funding from VC supporting Uber's rival.

~~~
matt4077
"Virtue Signaling" is the most asinine, mean-spirited concept invented since
about the middle ages. Its only ever used as a blanket dismissal of others'
opinions, even going so far as to blatantly use the moral strength of an
argument as a weapon against that argument.

~~~
Inconel
_mean-spirited concept invented since about the middle ages._ I'm unsure if
this is hyperbole or not.

With regards to it's use, in my observation I don't think it's used so much as
a weapon against an argument as much as perhaps a weapon against the self
congratulatory and rather shallow nature of online protest. I didn't always
feel this way but it seems that whenever the term is brought up you have a
number of posters who feel it's incredibly important that it be known, to
complete strangers on an internet message board, that they are the good guys
and are sincere in their beliefs and actions.

In any case, I'm not very smart so I could be wrong in my observations.

------
pfarnsworth
lol what the fuck is going on with this company? Unbelievable amount of drama,
I don't know how any employees can do any work at this point.

------
ktamiola
Karma is a bitch.

------
m0sa
"Uberraschung"

------
halite
Good.

------
throwawaymanbot
He can now spend his time Masturbating over Ayn Rand books.

~~~
dang
We ban accounts that comment like this because they degrade the community and
we're hoping for something better here. Please don't do it again.

If you have a substantive point to make, please make it thoughtfully;
otherwise please don't comment until you do.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

~~~
throwawaymanbot
Dang... thats harsh.

In my defense, I felt at the time it was relevant, due to the fact that he
berated that cab driver one time. (Which was filmed) and mentioned Ayn Rand to
the 2 blonde's he was with in the cab. That was the reference.

However, its your house, and I respect the houses wishes, and will avoid
making CEO Masturbating jokes ever again.

Cheers!

------
sidcool
Should Google acquire Uber?

~~~
omarforgotpwd
no?

------
amaks
Somebody in Lyft must be opening a champaigne right now.

~~~
acjohnson55
That makes no sense. If anything, they're probably shitting themselves.
They've been able to brand themselves as the anti-Uber this whole time.

------
jbb67
I never understood why the tech press and sites like this one are obsessed
with Uber.

It's a taxi company with an app. That's it.

~~~
chapmindustries
Why does anyone care about Tesla? It's just another car company? Except that
in both the case of Tesla and Uber the two companies have the potential to
revolutionize transportation. Consequently, people are very interested by what
these companies are up to.

------
anothercomment
Did he sexual harass anybody, or what is the point of his resignation? Another
case of scapegoating?

~~~
santoshalper
The buck stops with the CEO, and it's clear that in the very least, he
condoned the asshole culture.

~~~
anothercomment
Is it? Were steps not taken to remove the harassers, once the incidents came
to light? How can the CEO watch over every social interaction?

~~~
exolymph
[https://www.recode.net/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-
indi...](https://www.recode.net/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-india-
assault-rape-medical-records)

~~~
anothercomment
It sounds as if people were fired, investigated and so on. I don't understand
the part about the medical records. Surely merely wanting to double check the
story isn't the issue? Illegally holding the record would, but it seems the
responsible person was also fired?

I mean, given their business practices, I am not surprised if their culture
turns out to be toxic. I just don't see the reasoning behind blaming him for
sexist men in the company, if he never supported such actions.

~~~
dullgiulio
Maybe you just need to be clarified the meaning of scrapegoat: you kill the
goat instead of your son, that's the biblical story. It means blaming someone
inferior (or, of inferior importance) instead of someone higher up. Blaming
the CEO cannot be scrapegoating by definition.

~~~
anothercomment
I didn't think the "someone inferior" was elementary to it - the point to me
always seemed to be to kill somebody innocent.

------
ganfortran
Amazing the internet can empower an individual blog post to force the
previously most formidable startup's CEO to resign.

Fear this inter connected world. Fear the power of language.

~~~
matt4077
Yeah. Also don't ask new employees for sex on their first day. Repeatedly.

------
balladeer
Let's assume Uber dies. One bad outcome from this could be that Lyft gets a
monopoly. I hope that doesn't happen.

Also, it will be awesome if instead of another Uber created there will be an
open pool of ridess/seats available and people can use the platform of their
choice. A la airline ticket booking model (of course the exact same approach
will/may not work) or the bus ticket booking approach. Also, airline industry
isn't hyperlocal.

~~~
tyingq
Didi, I assume, would fill some of that vacuum.

------
samstave
It will be interesting to see Uber's HQ corporate culture shift from the wild-
westworld crazy co to one who's cash cow is closely managed by the monied
interests who will surely own the company from this point forward to ensure
all future scandals are either quashed or kept under wraps...

With that said, who should lead Uber?

~~~
imron
> to one who's cash cow is closely managed by the monied interests

Not sure I'd use 'cash cow' to describe something that bleeds cash to the tune
of billions of dollars a year.

~~~
samstave
I'm sure there is a lot of cost gutting that could be done and the money they
pull in is no laughing matter.

Some deep cuts wil likely occur to make the company "more efficient" and
"focused on core competency" etc...

~~~
Marazan
Given their main cost is 'running a mini cab service' it is hard to see what
they can cut and still exist.

~~~
samstave
While your comment puts the high level business model in rather simplistic
terms, which I agree with, how is it that "running a mini cab system" costs
them 700 million per [time period] and why does said system require 6700
employees as of April 2016 (according to quora)

Laura's post from feb stated that on the ops/sre/infra team alone they had
~126 engineers, though I don't know if that includes managers... but it made
it sound like there were many layers of managers, thus all the infighting

So can't they cut some of this?

