
Jeff Immelt Pulls Out of Running for Uber CEO - tim_sw
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-27/ge-s-immelt-pulls-self-out-of-running-to-become-ceo-of-uber
======
jedberg
> Another finalist is Meg Whitman, the chief executive of Hewlett Packard
> Enterprise. While Whitman has previously said in the media she has no
> interest in the job and plans to stay at HPE, sources say she is very much
> still in the running.

I worked for Ms. Whitman at eBay. She is exceptionally smart and very good at
being a leader. I met her a few times, and after the first time, she
remembered who I was and what I did at the company every time after, even
though I was inconsequential to her.

This skill however was also her downfall. I was at eBay when it grew from
3,000 to 13,000 employees. As it got bigger, she could no longer know what was
happening everywhere.

Her leadership success comes from knowing everything that is happening and
being able to make sure the right people are doing the right things and
talking to the right people. But it breaks down when she can no longer have
total knowledge of all happenings.

I think she'll make a good leader at Uber, but given that they are already at
12K+ employees, I wonder if she's learned to delegate better since I last
worked for her. I hope she has, because it was really her only weakness.

~~~
lordnacho
Isn't that the opposite of great leadership? Leadership is a nebulous term
that roughly -you need an essay to define it even roughly- means getting
people on board with your mission.

If you can only micromanage a bunch of people, and you grow beyond where you
can do that, and the mission fails because people no longer know what you
want, then surely you've not provided leadership?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Isn 't that the opposite of great leadership?_

What is great leadership? An ability to excel in well-parametrised
circumstances? Or doing well enough in a broad set of situations?

Steve Jobs was a great leader. He only worked well in specific circumstances,
circumstances he sought to produce and maintain. The failure in the Whitman
anecdote above is not in the scaling limit to her leadership. It is that she
failed to detect it before she passed it. Presumably, she has learned her
lesson.

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

~~~
Overtonwindow
A question that has been raised elsewhere and I think worth revisiting is:
Does Uber need a CEO from a certain industry, or does industry not matter?
Transportation industry vs software, etc.

~~~
aphextron
I think the real question should be why do companies feel the need to hire a
"Professional CEO"? Is there some intangible skillset which only previous CEOs
posess which is required to lead a company?

Plenty of startups have been lead to success by founders with zero business
accumen. Why not look internally for someone who knows the product inside and
out, and actually still _cares_ about the company rather than showing up for a
payday?

~~~
lordnacho
> I think the real question should be why do companies feel the need to hire a
> "Professional CEO"?

I think it's Tyler Cowen or someone from his blog who has the answer to this.
It's the star system. It's relevant for sports, entertainment, CEOs, and
anything else where the premium for an established player is significant.

Hire a new guy to do a star job, and you take a risk. Hire a guy someone else
already hired, and you're just doing what's normal. New guy may be cheaper,
but once he's elevated to stardom, his pricetag will as well. So no great win
there. New guy may fail though, and they you will look stupid. Why'd you hire
an untested guy? Maybe you should be replaced, too!

Established guy may fail, but many things can cause failure. You just got
unlucky. OTOH if he does well, he's worth every penny.

New guy may do well, in which case you're fortunate for seeing what anyone
would have seen.

If you've ever thought it was somewhat hard to explain why some people seem to
be elevated while others with seemingly similar skill are left on the shelf,
this is one mechanism. Add in actual skill difference and it starts to get
interesting.

Wrt to Uber, there probably are a bunch of execs who've been there a while and
know the place. They could probably do an ok job of it, but because the board
are in a position where Uber really needs to be turned around properly, the
people who could that best won't get the chance.

~~~
heymijo
Ben Horowitz described this particularly well. See his social credit matrix
for decisions:

[https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/screen-
sho...](https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/screen-
shot-2011-08-05-at-9-25-46-am1.png)

------
virtuabhi
I think the perfect CEO for Uber is Vishal Sikka. PhD in AI (cars!) from
Stanford - Startup founder - Revitalized SAP with in-memory HANA database -
Managed Infosys with 200k employees.

Vishal Sikka has both exceptional techincal skills and management experience.
And he is available for a new job!

Like Travis, Sikka is very bullish and calls himself a "kshatriya warrior". I
think that Sikka and Travis would be quite compatible with each other.

~~~
jedberg
> I think that Sikka and Travis would be quite compatible with each other.

I think that's what they board is trying to avoid. They shoved Travis out
because they didn't like his style. I don't think they want someone else with
his style.

~~~
virtuabhi
Yes, but given that Travis & his supporters have board seats + many full-time
employees are fans of Travis, a new CEO who is in sync with Travis for
aggressive business decisions while at the same is grounded, displays "CEO-
style" behavior in public, would be a perfect fit.

------
mandeepj
It is worth noting that "Benchmark, meanwhile, is reportedly still pushing for
Whitman to get the job."

source - [http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/27/technology/jeff-immelt-
uber/...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/27/technology/jeff-immelt-
uber/index.html)

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

------
rmason
Meg Whitman has told the Wall Street Journal for a second time that she
doesn't want the Uber CEO job. So who does that leave?

[https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/meg-whitman-stands-by-
state...](https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/meg-whitman-stands-by-statement-
she-wont-be-uber-ceo-1503524245)

~~~
lsh123
I bet Marisa Mayer is on the list

~~~
perseusprime11
She is the one list of CEOs to take the company to ground.

------
Overtonwindow
Is Carol Bartz available?

~~~
CalChris
I'm a Bartz fan based on Autodesk; she's the operational definition of adult
supervision. But at 68, I think Uber wouldn't be the right choice for them or
her. And after Yahoo, she wouldn't touch Uber with the board situation it has.

~~~
rdiddly
Maybe you could explain what it is specifically about running Uber that would
preclude a 68-year-old from doing it?

Edit: Just to be clear, if it's not already: Part of why I ask is because I
think Carol Bartz would be a fine candidate to give Uber the reality check it
seems to need. She's a bullshit-eliminator. But there's a question as to
whether Uber is merely a place _where there is a lot of bullshit_ (this I
think most people agree on) or whether it's a place _constructed of bullshit_.
If the latter then there's not really much hope for a Bartz type figure to
succeed.

~~~
CalChris
Uber is world scale and frankly, it's a mess with a drama laden founder still
on the board. I just don't think she'd have the stamina to deal with that; I'm
not sure who would. Happy to be surprised and as I've said, I'm a Bartz fan.

I don't think Uber is constructed of bullshit but do they ever need a Bartz.
Unfortunately, Kalanick has constructed an _après moi, le déluge_ situation.

------
Overtonwindow
There's a discussion already on this here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15111937](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15111937)

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

------
rmason
Had to pass this one along about the two candidates for Uber CEO still in the
running ;<).

[https://twitter.com/sokane1/status/901841886306021377](https://twitter.com/sokane1/status/901841886306021377)

------
EternalData
getting to the point where you really wonder who is next at this point lol

"Donald Trump no longer pursuing Uber CEO job"

