
Former GE CEO Jeff Immelt Close to Becoming Uber’s CEO - xyzzy_plugh
https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/19/former-ge-ceo-jeff-immelt-close-to-becoming-ubers-ceo/
======
ardit33
Seems like the story of apple again.

Jeff has no real tech credibility, he is a old school boys network business
guy with dodgy/bad performance rap.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2017/03/28/ge-
needs...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2017/03/28/ge-needs-a-new-
strategy-and-a-new-ceo/#82df5f34ad28)

"At this point, it is probably too late to save GE. By losing sight of the
need to grow, and instead focusing on optimizing the old business while
selling assets to raise cash for reorganizations, Immelt has destroyed what
was once a great innovation engine. Now that the activists have GE in their
sites it is unlikely they will let it ever return to the company it once was -
creating whole new markets by developing new technologies that people never
before imagined. The future looks a lot more like figuring out how to maximize
the value of each piece of meat as it's carved off the GE carcass."

Good luck to the folks that work at uber. You are going to need it.

~~~
valuearb
That article is a bit biased, especially given that it ignores that not only
has GE has paid out around $15 in dividends since Immelt took over, and that
GE stock was in a huge bubble at the time.

Uber doesn't need tech leadership, it needs adult leadership. It's wounds are
all entirely self inflicted.

~~~
origami777
To really dispute GP's claim you'd need to make a claim that GE has innovated
in new categories under Immelt. The fact it paid out $15 in dividends might
only support GP's (and the Forbes article) claim that Immelt has optimized for
better selling what currently exists.

This is the same thing that happened to MSFT under Ballmer. MSFT stocked
performed well, but they missed the biggest opportunity of the post-PC era
(mobile), were late to the cloud game, and probably missed some other
opportunities I can't think of.

~~~
valuearb
Every company doesn't need to innovate, sometimes just running the business
well is the best strategy. Warren Buffett's entire massive track record is
based on companies that do little innovation. And it's a strategy Uber
desperately needs.

~~~
origami777
There are certain industries and companies that you do really need to continue
to innovate. If your product is a technology innovation, it has a life span.
Eventually, something will replace it. History has proven this over and over
again.

At this point of time, Uber is an excellent example. There is an innovation on
the horizon that will completely change the taxi industry; autonomous
vehicles. It's not a secret either. It's an inevitable future. The date of
realization? No one knows, but we can see it's coming. Now, should Uber
optimize on it's current product set and optimize until they are profitable on
every ride? Or should they balance some part of that, with innovating on the
future of autonomous vehicles? Travis seems to be working towards the big
vision of driverless cars. What would Jeff do?

Fun stuff to think about :)

~~~
new299
"It's an inevitable future"?

I'm assuming you mean it's something that will happen within the next 50
years?

I just don't get how this isn't a super-hard social/political issue that we
haven't even begun to address as a society. Maybe spending significant
resources on this now, is not optimal.

~~~
fastball
How are driverless cars a huge social issue?

~~~
new299
* Who will be liable when a self-driving car hits someone.

* Will people, on mass, accept being driven around by a machines, on public roads.

* How will they deal with "trolley problem" type ethical scenarios? How will these decisions be made.

* How will self-driving cars cope with rural roads (where they are arguably MORE useful than in Urban settings better served by public transport)?

* How will they cope with signs/marking intentionally designed to fool machine vision systems. Who will be liable for accidents caused in these cases?

There are other issues too. However, overall, I think with some infrastructure
investment we could have had self-driving cars since the late 90s early 2000s
and there have been many prototypes. It's the ethical/social issues that are
the bigger barrier in my mind.

~~~
travisjungroth
> How will they cope with signs/marking intentionally designed to fool machine
> vision systems.

They won't, but neither can humans. Signs aren't secure. Anyone with a wrench
can take down a stop sign or put up a fake speed limit.

~~~
uniformlyrandom
[http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-
think/transportation/sens...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-
think/transportation/sensors/slight-street-sign-modifications-can-fool-
machine-learning-algorithms)

------
viknod
I worked 13 years under Immelts mediocre reign. Jeff tried to push rope,
desperate knee-jerk reactions to stock analysts opinions, superficial
restructuring with no real change to the company. GE leadership/management was
vastly overvalued. Tech, and technical talent was a completely unvalued
commodity, outsource to the lowest bidder in India. When he understood that
software eats the world(via some SV guru whisperer) he tried to coin some
"industrial internet" mumbo jumbo that was going to be a trillion dollar
business. Out of touch like an unfrozen Dr. Evil.

~~~
tedmiston
Not sure how it's played out in practice but I've heard a lot about GE Predix.
It's something like an IoT PaaS "Heroku for factories".

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predix_(software)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predix_\(software\))

------
thesausageking
As someone who hasn't followed GE closely, why is Immelt considered a good
CEO?

Looking at the numbers, over his tenure, GE's stock is down ~38% while the S&P
500 is up 123%. He did take over during some rocky times, but in the last 10
years, it's the same picture. If you put $100 into GE at the start of 2007,
today you'd now have ~$105. For the S&P, you'd have $210. For a basket
industrial stocks, you'd have $205.

[http://performance.morningstar.com/stock/performance-
return....](http://performance.morningstar.com/stock/performance-
return.action?t=GE&region=usa&culture=en-US)

How can the CEO who delivered this be considered good at his job?

~~~
Spooky23
Welch left that company in a sorry state, and a lot of the financial
machinations that pumped up that stock were played out (and worse became
liabilities) by the time Immelt arrived. (Welch turned GE into a leveraged
bank that happened to make generators and plastic)

GE's stock performance imo is more about how the market no longer favors
conglomerates and relatively boring industries.

~~~
thesausageking
If you assume Immelt was a great CEO and was just victim to Welch leaving GE
in a very over-valued state, you'd expect the stock's performance to start off
lousy and be better as Immelt's 16 year tenure went on. But that's not what we
see. If you only take the last 10 or 5 years, GE has greatly underperformed
both the market and similar industrial stocks.

Total return for 5 and 10 years:

    
    
        GE                      6.6% -1.6%
        S&P 500                 13.7% 7.6% 
        Diversified Industrials 13.0% 6.4%

~~~
Spooky23
Frankly I don't know enough to say the Immelt was good or bad.

However... based on the experience of friends and colleagues who worked for
different divisions of the company, I think that Welch's glory was a little
overstated and not well understood at the time.

------
blakewatters
Uber's valuation is entirely driven off the idea that they will reap monopoly
profits in a market that is exploding. Like PayPal, Google and Facebook before
them the wager is that they are going to be dominant and collect all the
profits while all competitors are scraping up nickels and dimes.

I think that there is good reason to doubt that premise. Driving people around
has a very different cost structure from a SaaS business that can throw off
85% margin if you get to product / market fit. Uber is a commodity and is
trying to create margin by sucking all the air out of the room for
competitors. A key strategy has been weaponized fund-raising. But even if you
snuff out Lyft the barrier to entry for any player with a platform and scale
is very low.

Then let's think about the tech. There's an implicit assumption that Uber is
going to be a force in the self driving car market. Even if you set aside the
Otto mess, why does anybody think that a 6 year old company that drew a car on
Google Maps and did a payment integration is going to dominate the driverless
car game? GM, Tesla, Volkswagen, Google have been thinking about this shit for
decades. Why is Uber going to win? They can't run HR yet -- how are they going
to own what happens next?

It's a monster business and they should be super happy with where they are.
But I just don't see how they win in the shift that is coming. Car ownership
is dying. It's becoming about transit experience

~~~
Systemic33
Uber has essentially become too-big-to-fail startup for all the involved
investors, so at this point it's game of how you can get it into a stable
state where the involved investors can withdraw without making the whole
cardhouse fall down.

------
Powerofmene
Should Immelt become CEO this would be a huge culture shock not only to UBER
employees but also drivers given the button downed culture Immelt originates
from. He is also very financially focused so not sure we would continue to see
pricing that we are accustomed to in the long-term. On the plus side, he comes
with a reputation of integrity and professionalism which may help Uber gain
entrance to cities and other areas that have previously been inaccessible.

I realize Immelt fits the picture that the Board is looking for (professional,
intelligent, organizational, experienced, etc) but given SV's tendency towards
men under 40, Immelt does not fit that bill at all. Would be interesting to
see how well he would be accepted at all the tech conferences, events etc.

~~~
blackguardx
To my eye, SV has a preference for founders to be under 40. I'm not sure many
care about the age of the CEO once the company has hit its stride. Uber has
hit its stride, right?

~~~
mc32
Google with Eric Schmidt, for example. Coming from Novell, I thought he would
not be a good fit...

~~~
k__
But they replaced him

~~~
freyir
After ten years

------
pgodzin
Any insight on why his failures innovating at GE that caused him to resign
aren't a red flag for an innovative company like Uber? Just because they're
looking for a grown up?

~~~
tootie
Uber is an international brand for taxis. I'm not even sure why they are
considered a tech company.

~~~
Lazare
It's a mystery. They do have a nice app for hailing their taxis, but so does
my local "legacy" taxi company.

Similarly: Why is Blue Apron a tech company? Their business model is putting
food in a box, and then shipping it to people. That's great, but my local
grocery chain does that too?

And then there's Juicero, who's only claim to being a tech company seems to be
they printed QR codes on the packaging, despite the QR codes being entirely
unnecessary to their core business. If Kraft puts a QR code on a box of mac
and cheese so you can scan it and get a cooking instruction video on your
phone, do they become a tech company too?

It's just branding.

~~~
fma
My guess is that it's "cool" to be a tech company. It gives an excuse to not
be profitable. Get wider range of talent.

My current and my previous company is a traditional business, both more than
20 years old. They sell a product or service that has existed for decades. But
damn they both tried to say we are a startup, we are a tech company, etc etc.

------
buddapalm
They need to be in the self driving car game or the company has maybe a 7-10
year life span. Managing that innovation is necessary, and it's unclear they
are optimizing around that.

The other interpretation is this decision is entirely about managing short
term to get to an IPO, so investors who have lost faith can cash out. The
candidate they are considering fits that bill more closely.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
As valuearb has pointed out in other comments, it's not at all clear that Uber
needs to be in the self-driving car game to the point of _making self-driving
car technology,_ any more than they need to be in the human-driven taxi game
they're in now to the point of buying an automobile manufacturer.

It's not at all unreasonable to think that the way to save Uber is to
ruthlessly cut costs and focus on the business of fleet and driver management,
_without_ banking on the assumption that the drivers are all going to go away
within a decade. They should certainly still be watching autonomous cars, and
perhaps find someone to partner with the way Lyft has with Google/Waymo, but
I'm not at all convinced that's a business they should actually be in.

(I also suspect that the belief that we're going to have "level five"
autonomous cars within the decade is far too optimistic. Also, an awful lot of
discussions apparently assume the vast majority of consumers will, as soon as
it becomes practical, stop buying cars and switch to autonomous taxis for all
transportation needs. At least among American consumers, I'm going to stamp
that with "[citation needed]" until further notice.)

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
Why would anyone who is working on their own products partner with Uber (or
Lyft etc.)? It's pretty clear that a genuine self-driving product would
demolish the human driving equivalent. Forget network effect, it's going to be
way cheaper.

~~~
ghaff
Because, if they're still in business long-term, 1.) they're potentially a
very big customer and 2.) They can be a great source of data and broader
insights about exactly how people use/want to use taxis in different
locations. What are the patterns? Pickup and dropoff points. Etc.

------
WisNorCan
The question is whether to focus on tech leadership or adult leadership. In
Meg, they had a candidate that had both experience scaling a tech company and
maturity in building a real organization.

But TK and his buddies ruined that by leaking her name to the press and
putting her in an impossible position. Given how leaky the board is - they can
only go after candidates that are between jobs.

------
bedhead
Well, if Uber needs some serious earnings manipulation, errr, management,
Immelt is certainly the guy. And boy do they need it. Guy made something like
$300-400 million during his tenure - GE stock did nothing.

------
mschuster91
I don't get why anyone would associate themselves with Uber at this point.

There is no fix for the "bro culture" at Uber except firing everyone and
rebuilding the company from the ashes. Also, regulators are starting to apply
pressure to all this "sharing economy" crap (Uber, Lyft, AirBnB, Foodora and
friends) which is basically just exploitation of workers combined with open
ignorance of laws and regulations... which means that there is no way Uber can
justify its valuation except they manage to roll out fully autonomous driving
in 2 years.

~~~
wenttomarket
We've been fixing "bro culture" given that it's largely a myth propogated by a
select group of SV tech writers via cherry picking a small group of bad apples
that are in no way representative of the majority of folks at the company.

You associate with Uber if you want the chance to solve big problems with
incredible teams to continually improve a product that you and millions of
others rely on as a matter of necessity.

The "Uber exploiting workers" meme is a classic, and holds little water given
the fact that everyone on the platform consents to be there and can leave at
any time. If anything, the flexible earnings opportunity Uber provides is
transformational to a group of people who have historically had to make
insidious trade offs (money over family time) to keep the lights on.

------
kchoudhu
This is great news for Lyft.

~~~
godzillabrennus
And Apple, and Tesla, and Google, and GM, and Ford, and Toyota, and Honda, and
Kia, and every other group out there working on a self driving car.

------
perseusprime11
Oh wow. When did Immelt become former GE CEO? With so much political news, I
did not even notice he got fired recently. He will take Uber to the ground
with his excellent non technical chops.

------
surfmike
I think a visionary tech leader, like Robin Chase (zipcar co-founder), would
still be better as CEO, and hire someone with experience running a big company
like Immelt as a COO.

------
united893
Historically speaking, putting blue chip CEOs in charge of tech companies, had
worked out disasterously. The skill set, management style and risk profile is
completely different.

~~~
nebabyte
Uber's been at war on several fronts for a while now, imo they were on a
course for disaster already. I don't see how money managers in charge might
help but if ever there were a time for hail marys for them, this is it.

I doubt it'll help but hey.

~~~
thebiglebrewski
Hi

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dredmorbius
Among the more interesting speculation I'd seen was that Marissa Meyer might
be considered. Putting a woman in charge would send a clear and strong signal.

I'm not sure I'd want to inherit that particular mess, though, particularly
not after Yahoo.

------
alistproducer2
The culture change would be huge. I'm curious how the rank and file would
respond.

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victor106
Lyft would love this.

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fstuff
Hey this guy and Travis were both on Trumps business panel. At least Travis
quit months ago, this guy waited until till the bitter end. Probably the
biggest reason Travis quit outside of the public was because his employees
asked him to. I wonder how the employees will react to this new guy support of
Trump

~~~
chrischen
Being on the oanel does not imply support.

Apple CEO is pretty anti Trump but still sits on panels.

Ignoring the president just creates divide and conflict. If you sit on the
panel you get Trump’s ear and don’t really have to give anything in return.

~~~
cowsandmilk
Just to correct, the Apple CEO, Tim Cook, has attended meetings with Trump,
but never sat on any formally organized council.

Jeff Immelt and Travis Kalannick sat on the "American Manufacturing Council"
and "Strategic and Policy Forum" respectively, which had memberships and were
regularly consulted.

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cylinder
Wow, this is going to be bad.

~~~
valuearb
Why? He can't be anywhere near as bad as Kalanick.

~~~
wpietri
There are different kinds of bad. Immelt has been at GE since 1982, which was
about the time the early SMTP RFCs were written. That's a long time. Will the
skills and behaviors that worked for him there be what Uber needs?

Personally, I'd be surprised if they were. Of course, it's not clear anybody
has what Uber needs.

~~~
valuearb
There are many skills in managing a business and people that never change.
Uber needs basic blocking and tackling, not some new age management
wonderkind. They absolutely don't need a technology person.

~~~
dilemma
>Uber needs basic blocking and tackling

Can you explain these terms?

~~~
valuearb
It's a term from American Football. It means that games are won not by
superstars doing extraordinary things, but because unsung employees and
managers are coached to do their jobs well.

------
SoMisanthrope
Yeah, since he's did such a great job with GE's stock...

