
Uber CEO Kalanick likely to take leave - pdelbarba
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-board-vote-idUSKBN1930AA
======
yladiz
I'm in no way a fan of Uber, and I have a hard stance on not taking it anymore
due to the company's actions in the past, but I really wish his possible leave
of absence wasn't spun as a result of the investigation done by Holder, at
least not majorly. I would imagine him taking a leave of absence may be much
more due to his parents boating accident where his mother died and his father
was seriously injured, and while the investigation may play a role in his
stress, from my understanding the board is in support of Travis and he has
major voting rights in the company anyway, so he can't just be forced to
leave.

~~~
redm
Considering how he got burned by at RedSwoosh by VC's pulling out early and by
investors at Scour, it's no surprise that he would have taken special care to
ensure he retained control. I would be surprised if he could be easily outed.

~~~
bsder
Interesting. Didn't know this history. Got some links?

I still think Kalanick is a jerk, but that kind of history would explain at
least some of it.

~~~
sbuccini
I would really recommend watching this talk[1] TK gave at Failcon back in
2011. It's a great insight into Travis's background and the mindset that he
imbued into Uber in the early days.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QrX5jsiico](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QrX5jsiico)

------
xbeta
For someone who recently lost a mother and still have a badly injured father.
This is totally understandable regardless whether he is a CEO of Uber. For a
regular employee, he could request for a sabbatical. But as a CEO, that's
difficult given there is no CFO, CMO, COO existed.

~~~
MikeTheGreat
What do you mean by 'sabbatical'? What is this, and how do regular, salaried
employees get this?

~~~
bastawhiz
Most companies in SV tend to have, in addition to paid maternal/paternal
leave, the option to take unpaid leave. I have many friends and colleagues who
have taken advantage of this for a variety of reasons. It's really not that
uncommon.

~~~
smileysteve
It's implicit that as long as your company is hiring your position you can
take unpaid leave; the outlier is paid sabbatical.

~~~
smileysteve
Oh, and you're at least on par with expected performance.

------
WisNorCan
Assuming this is actually true, this tweet [0] captures the unusual state of
Uber right now "Uber no longer has a COO, CBO, CFO, CMO or SVP of Eng and may
temporarily not have a CEO. From autonomous cars...to autonomous company." And
there have also been reports about the CTO being asked to leave [1].

[0]
[https://twitter.com/hemal/status/874300172330647552](https://twitter.com/hemal/status/874300172330647552)

[1] [https://www.recode.net/2017/5/16/15616024/uber-sexual-
harass...](https://www.recode.net/2017/5/16/15616024/uber-sexual-harassment-
work-hostility-investigation-executive-turnover)

~~~
rockarage
Good for Uber, because their leadership was overrated, Uber could be better
offer with new leadership

Here's why:

1.) Uber defeated much of their competition by burning cash in monetizing
schemes that are shady and unsustainable.

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/31/uberpool-sf-buzzfeed-
docum...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/31/uberpool-sf-buzzfeed-documents-
burn-rate/)

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/uber-true-cost-
uh...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/uber-true-cost-uh-oh)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/business/economy/uber-
dri...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/business/economy/uber-drivers-
tax.html)

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/01/19/ftc-
says...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2017/01/19/ftc-says-uber-
misled-drivers-company-to-pay-20m-settlement/#65ceefa31c78)

2.)Their other competitive advantage is branding, but that is not a moat-like
advantage, if Uber was to disappear tomorrow, there are competitors who will
quickly takeover & grow, this happened when Uber left Austin.

3.) They were complacent with sexual harassment & discrimination in the
company. A business/startup should never allow harassment to be a thing, this
is failure at leadership 101.

~~~
frakkingcylons
Their branding and existing install base is a huge advantage.

Uber and Lyft returned to Austin last week after the Texas state legislature
passed a law that overturns Austin's regulations. The local competitors have
lost huge numbers of customers. Fare is shutting down, Fasten had to lower
their rates, and Ride Austin saw their trip volume decrease by 55% in the
first week [0]. I'd say it's pretty unlikely they will survive to the end of
this year.

[0]: [https://austinstartups.com/what-we-learned-from-the-first-
we...](https://austinstartups.com/what-we-learned-from-the-first-week-of-uber-
lyft-returning-to-austin-5451a34889e7)

~~~
rockarage
It is an advantage but it is not huge, it is not moat-like. They have more
money to spend marketing and subsidizing rides. Again you said:

"Fasten had to lower their rates"

It is a price war, it is not truly about innovation in the space. Their
software & services are not so innovative/defensive that it is hard to switch.

The argument for Uber's leadership is that they are special because they are
building something that other Entrepreneurs/Leaders could not, that is not
accurate if it is so easy to switch to a competitor. Not much hassle, loss of
service when switching, same drivers / same cars.

~~~
adventured
> It is a price war, it is not truly about innovation in the space.

Longer term it certainly is about innovation. The next leap for Uber and its
competitors, is going to be removing most the drivers from the business.
That's an extremely difficult and expensive path, Uber is among the few that
can afford to pursue it early. Their moat may end up being the vast data they
have to leverage to compete in autonomous. The winning Uber-type company in
the future is going to be the one that best utilizes the most
driving/use/traffic data. The company that does that, will have dramatically
greater margins (and potentially greater customer satisfaction) than any
upstart competitor can manage; that'll mostly be the end of new competition in
the Uber space. After the segment settles down, there will still be a rare
gimmick-based company (like Cuil), they'll all fail or be acquired however.
All tech spaces that produce a giant company, end with very little
competition, this will be no different. There are not going to be 47 Uber
clones succeeding in the US market, three or four would be pushing it.

~~~
madeofpalk
Why remove drivers?

...price.

------
nugget
If my mom had just died in an accident and there was a friend in place who I
trusted to take over and mind the store while I went and rebooted my soul for
a few months, I'd probably take leave too. Seems like it's likely a net
positive for Uber in the long run.

~~~
ASinclair
> a friend in place who I trusted to take over and mind the store

Who is that in this case? His "closest deputy" and SVP is out now too.

~~~
perceptor
Exactly. No love or hate for Kalanick, but this is a couldn't-come-at-a-worse-
time coup from his perspective.

~~~
bastawhiz
> couldn't-come-at-a-worse-time

It's been a couldn't-come-at-a-worse-time few months. I think everyone would
agree that had the accident happened any time between February and now, it
would have been a couldn't-come-at-a-worse-time scenario.

------
niuzeta
I'm no fan of Uber(Interesting how many of comments either start off with this
sentiment or include it at some point of time), but as a human being, I can't
help but feel sympathy for Kalanick for his situation.

Looking at some comments that treat this as a comeuppance of a sort is
disturbing[1]. We really shouldn't use anthropomorphization of a company to
justify inhumanity in us.

[1] and I'm seeing those comments being flagged. Very good.

~~~
dang
That's right. The difference between picking up any stick and stone to hurl at
the object of one's anger, versus pausing to consider what's right, is a test
of intellectual honesty. This comes from a level that has nothing to do with
Uber or whatever the surface topic is. We all have both levels inside us, so
it's good to remind each other which should be operational in this community.

It is also a good test for the kind of commenting we want on HN—we want
reflective comments, not reflexive ones—so yes, such comments should be
flagged.

------
redm
In general, I'm glad Uber is getting their comeuppance, with all the shady
things they've done, they are overdue.

On a personal note, having worked for a period with Travis at RedSwoosh, I
think he's getting the raw end of this deal. He's a really great entrepreneur
and a nice enough guy. He pushes hard but and plays to win; as the CEO, he's
getting an inordinate amount of fallout from these issues. I would say he's
not the root cause of the issues but he is the root cause of Uber's success.
Uber will not be the same without him.

~~~
s73ver
"I would say he's not the root cause of the issues but he is the root cause of
Uber's success."

I can't agree with that statement. He's responsible for both. He doesn't get
to take credit for the good and ignore the bad.

~~~
jpttsn
Are you saying it's _impossible_? Or just not fair?

~~~
weej
Good or bad, you reap what you sow.

~~~
jpttsn
You _do_ reap what you sow? Or you _ought to_ reap what you sow?

------
blacksqr
In all this brouhaha, will Uber ever bother either to confirm or disprove
Susan Fowler's original anecdotes?

Validating her word and her integrity would go a long way toward showing Uber
is serious about reform. Otherwise, it seems like they are simply taking
another very roundabout path to silencing a woman.

~~~
ivraatiems
I wouldn't hold your breath. These problems don't start or end with Fowler
(though her story is one of the best examples of them), and per her remarks
just today, she has no reason to expect them to genuinely change or to
apologize.[1]

[1]
[https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/874684029949235200](https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/874684029949235200)

------
ProfessorLayton
I'm curious to see what'll happen to Uber's governance structure when they
finally burn through their cash hoard. At their current burn rate, they'll
have completely exhausted their cash hoard within 10 quarters [1].

Due to TK and his buddy's supervoting shares, he may be able to withstand his
oust, but only while there's still money in the bank.

I can't see them being able to raise money on founder-friendly terms again
after all this turmoil. Indeed this may be the only way to remove TK's grip on
the company, or even altogether.

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/31/ubers-head-of-finance-
is-o...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/31/ubers-head-of-finance-is-out/)

~~~
jacquesm
> I can't see them being able to raise money on founder-friendly terms again
> after all this turmoil. Indeed this may be the only way to remove TK's grip
> on the company, or even altogether.

Uber has something working for them though: sunk cost. Even if normally they
would not be able to raise money on founder friendly terms - or maybe not even
at all - in this case they just might because the investors would not want to
write off their huge investment to date. If the alternative is to let the ship
go down they will fund it some more.

------
naturalgradient
Regardless of what specific reasons he has or hasn't for accepting this move,
this is fascinating from an organisational perspective.

With a significant part of senior leadership replaced, what will happen to
Uber's work place culture? As in, can culture in such a large organisation be
changed top down? Are there any examples where an organisation has changed on
a short time scale?

I am thinking of the Ballmer/Nadella transition but in my (outsider)
perception it took years for Microsoft to be viewed differently as a company.
There is also an aspect of bringing in an outsider versus letting an insider
take over.

~~~
nostrademons
Culture always changes when the CEO is replaced. The culture of Google changed
noticeably when Eric Schmidt stepped aside for Larry Page, and I've heard it's
changed again now that Sundar is CEO (ironically, it seems closer to the
Schmidt era now, but without the perks & engineering freedom). The culture of
YCombinator changed when Paul Graham stepped aside for Sam Altman.

It does take a couple years to take hold though. I remember that when Larry
took over Google in 2011, it was largely business as usual at first, but there
was a noticeable shift by the time I left in 2014.

~~~
amyjess
Can you go into detail about how the culture changed? I'm curious.

~~~
nostrademons
From Eric -> Larry:

\- "More wood behind fewer arrows". This was actually a Steve Jobs principle
that Larry adopted: kill off all your insignificant products to focus on just
a few key areas.

\- More willingness to take on moonshots; less tolerance for projects that
might be good for a small segment of the userbase, but don't appreciably move
the needle.

\- Seemingly less collegial atmosphere. Eric tolerated a lot of "You'll do
your thing, I'll do mine, and it's okay if Google has half a dozen products
that all do slight variations of each other." Larry insisted on more product
discipline, but that often meant more of a scarcity mentality among execs,
which led to more turf wars and infighting.

\- More top-down culture. Eric had few opinions on _what_ Google should be
doing, he just wanted to make sure we were doing it _well_. Larry had very
definite opinions on what Google should be doing, and if you didn't share
them, go start your own company.

\- More chaotic management style. I got the sense that Larry didn't actually
know what was going on with the company, on an individual-contributor level,
and so when he made decisions, they often made no sense to the rest of the
company. Eric didn't know what was going on with the company either, but he
was okay with that, as long as the money kept coming in and we didn't do
anything illegal, so he made fewer decisions that weren't a direct reaction to
an issue that was brought to him.

From Larry -> Sundar. Keep in mind that I left before Sundar became CEO, so
this is all second-hand:

\- Hierarchy and top-down culture has persisted.

\- Collegiality seems to have returned. Just my perception, but Google seems a
nicer place to work now than when G+ was seemingly taking over the company in
2012.

\- Sundar is generally more informed and, well, sane, as perceived by the
employees.

\- Sundar is a caretaker: the core areas of Google are explicitly designed
_not_ to require massive company-changing innovation, instead relying on
incremental improvement to existing products that can be driven by middle-
management, and all the innovation is shunted off to the rest of Alphabet
where Larry & Sergey have a more direct role in shepherding it.

I think all 3 CEOs were strong in their own way, but the CEO transition made
me appreciate how oftentimes a leader's biggest strengths are often also their
biggest weaknesses. Larry is insane, for instance; IMHO he's insane in a good
way, because we outright _wouldn 't have Google_ otherwise, but that same
oddness of perception made him a maddening CEO to work under. Similarly, Eric
was a great peacemaker and good at quickly making decisions that pleased as
many people as possible, but that same ability to compromise made him a poor
innovator and unlikely to have the moral courage to bet the company on crazy
ideas.

It also convinced me that Paul Graham's thesis, that big companies are
constitutionally incapable of innovating, was correct. The reason is precisely
that duality above; in order to innovate, you need someone whose personality
is insane, but who then has to directly butt up against reality, and
experience that resistance first-hand. It doesn't work for someone insane to
direct lots of not-insane employees who get paid to build the product, because
the type of creative insights that come from facing contradiction directly
can't survive outside of a single mind. The innovator has to do the work
directly.

~~~
DonHopkins
The old expression "all our wood behind one arrow" was actually "one of
President and CEO Scott McNealy's favorite quotes", which Sun used as a
marketing campaign slogan and in presskits around 1990.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20080515194354/http://www.sun.co...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080515194354/http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/presskits/25years/sunpranks.html)

Sun even produced a TV commercial in which an arrow that presumably had all of
Sun's wood behind it whooshed through the air and hit the bull's eye of a
target. (Nobody at Sun ever knew what the target was, but by golly they all
knew which arrow to put their wood behind.)

Photo of Scott McNealy in his office at Sun with a huge Cupid's Span style
wooden arrow through his window, and a small Steve Martin style wooden arrow
through his head:

[https://findery.com/johnfox/notes/all-the-wood-behind-one-
ar...](https://findery.com/johnfox/notes/all-the-wood-behind-one-arrow)

Sun's Workstations Still Shine, But Rivals Cloud The Outlook

Daily Gazette - Nov 10, 1991

Associated Press (Google News Archive)

Sun touts an "all the wood behind one arrow" slogan, meant to describe a
company focused on one goal - workstations. As an April Fool's joke in 1990,
Sun employees built a 60-foot-long arrow in McNealy's office with the point
going out the window.

------
flinty
Its sad how very few if any news orgs will mention his recent loss of his
mother and serious injuries to his father in a boat accident as a potential
cause for taking a leave of absence.

~~~
abawany
I became aware of that tragedy since NYT sent me a news alert about it on a
Sunday morning. I recall follow-up NYT articles where this was mentioned as a
potential cause as well. However, most other news sources that I have read
have not mentioned this aspect.

------
williamle8300
Note the article: Kalanick has "super voting powers." The board didn't put him
on an involuntary vacation. He put himself on a vacation to avoid the fallout
from the leaked email[1]

1\. [https://www.recode.net/2017/6/8/15765514/2013-miami-
letter-u...](https://www.recode.net/2017/6/8/15765514/2013-miami-letter-uber-
ceo-kalanick-employees-sex-rules-company-celebration)

~~~
ElEmEnOhP
That e-mail seems reasonable to me. I'm going to guess it has more to do with
a death in the family than telling people not to vomit and to not get sexually
involved with someone in their chain of command.

------
jimjimjim
Terrible company. but the money people will have too much invested to just let
it die.

So this will probably happen:

Clear the decks

Put someone boring in charge

Lie low for a while + submarine mode

Resurface

Announce some new interesting thing

Charm offensive

Carry on.

I say the taint is still there, drive the stake in and add holy water.

------
kafkaesq
_Chief Executive Travis Kalanick is likely to take a leave of absence from the
troubled ride-hailing company, but no final decision has yet been made,
according to a source familiar with the outcome of a Sunday board meeting._

Where "is likely to take a leave of absence", in this context, is shorthand
for "has grudgingly agreed to resign as soon as we can find a replacement --
which, believe us, we intend to do as soon as humanly possible. But we'll in
the interim call it 'taking leave' to soften the overall business impact --
and of course to at least attempt to staunch the exodus of the best and
brightest of our employees, no doubt already in progress."

~~~
smacktoward
And to let whoever hands him the inevitable plush consolation gig as a
advisor/VC/"entrepreneur-in-residence"/whatever do so with the minimum
possible amount of embarrassment.

------
adventured
Reading this thread, and the hundred other threads on HN about Uber over the
years, I can hardly believe how many people don't understand basic business
concepts that are preventing other companies from easily taking Uber's crown.

If it can be done as easily as so many in this thread are claiming, then why
aren't you a billionaire? (oh I know, you just don't want to be)

It's a repetition of the same things I read on HN when it became obvious that
Facebook was going to be a social monopoly. Fantasy: it's easy to clone
Facebook, it's really not even that complex, someone should build an open
competitor that the public will reject in every way and never want to use. The
same was frequently said about Twitter as well, countless clones were
attempted, zero succeeded. And it's dramatically harder to successfully
replicate & compete with Uber than Twitter.

There are in fact numerous switching costs and extreme barriers to entry, that
prevent competitors from just rising up and taking Uber's position as king.
Otherwise there would be a dozen Ubers in the US, all vying to be multi-
billion dollar companies, making their founders billionaires, and yielding
huge returns for VCs.

------
losteverything
Imo there has not been enough time for a thorough report (since Feb).
Investigations of an entire company take a long time, especially if sexual
harassment is investigated. I wonder how deep into the organization the
investigators solicited input? Did Joanne and Joe Schmo get interviewed?

How about any customers or contracted employees?

But- uber hired the advice, a point I need to remember

------
amyjess
Previous discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14538875](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14538875)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14533593](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14533593)

------
trhway
giving a bunch of people departing - involuntarily or supposedly not - right
now, what happens with their options, ie. do they get a [sweet] deal on it
(one can see how loosing potential multiple [tens/hundreds] millions may
possibly put them into litigious and/or talking mode otherwise)? If i remember
Uber didn't allow for secondary market transactions, and given the valuation i
don't think anybody would be able to afford (or believe in Uber's current
valuation strong enough) to pay that size of AMT on their own. On the other
side, giving deal to the ones who is supposedly being punished for bad
behavior - that wouldn't send a good signal either.

------
baq
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor
politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is
right.”

------
rtx
How to lose $70 billion.

------
mifreewil
This is why you don't wait to go public.

------
mabbo
He might be a good guy, but he's running a company like a sociopath and
breeding a toxic environment. A company's culture and reputation are a
reflection of the person or people at the top.

He either needs to legitimately fix the problems or stand aside and let a
better leader do it.

Edit: For the record, I'd much prefer to see him do the former than the
latter.

~~~
tptacek
Do you say he's running Uber like a sociopath from personal experience, or are
you working from the same thirdhand sources that all the rest of us are? If
the latter, maybe there's a better, less strident way to make this point, if
it needs to be made.

~~~
r00fus
Why does it take "personal experience" to make this call? The facts speak for
themselves.

~~~
tptacek
No. You might say the facts speak clearly that Uber was mismanaged or even
toxic --- I would lean towards agreeing with you, though my epistemic
certitude is no doubt lower than yours.

LOTS of people disagree with us. So it's a stretch to say the assertion is
self-evident.

But unless you know something we don't, you are nowhere close to calling
Kalanick "sociopathic". Hence the question.

We should all try to be more careful about how we talk about people.

------
overcast
It's been an incredible journey!

~~~
dang
Would you please not post unsubstantive comments here?

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14539532](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14539532)
and marked it off-topic.

------
Myrmornis
Without claiming expertise regarding the company, I disagree fairly strongly
with the attitudes commonly expressed towards Uber in the media (I read the
Guardian and NYT mostly), on Hacker News, and elsewhere in the mostly liberal
sources I am exposed to. Here are my reasons:

1\. The Susan Fowler workplace sexual harassment claims were horrific and
sounded true. So it does sound like there are some complete dicks working
there. If the CEO was party to this stuff then I'm wrong, but I assume he
wasn't.

2\. The hatred for the CEO is surely exaggerated. The video of him in the cab
with a customer was fine, it was a good robust conversation -- towards the end
both parties became annoyed. Perfectly normal behavior. He sounds nice enough
to me from the words of his that I've read. Obviously you don't take CEOs that
seriously; they're entire job is to place inane positive spin on their company
every day that they wake up.

3\. The Guardian and NYT so obviously have the knives out for the company that
it's become laughable reading their coverage.

4\. His mum just died in a tragic accident and people are not even mentioning
that in stories about him taking time off.

5\. It's become common for people to say stuff like "they're not contributing
anything novel", and otherwise completely underestimate the wonderful
transformation that they have effected in personal travel and efficient usage
of cars.

6\. Young American liberals have become so annoying about political
correctness causes such as workplace sexual politics that I have really come
to hate that aspect of working in America and I am inclined to support Uber
just to annoy them (being honest here, I didn't claim my post would be
appreciated).

7\. The sight of Bernie Sanders-supporting liberals earnestly trying to
improve the world by choosing one silicon valley start-up over another would
be funny, if the failures of the left weren't so depressing at this time when
we need a grown-up left more than ever.

~~~
DonHopkins
"6\. Young American liberals have become so annoying about political
correctness causes such as workplace sexual politics that I have really come
to hate that aspect of working in America and I am inclined to support Uber
just to annoy them (being honest here, I didn't claim my post would be
appreciated)."

I've frequently observed people taking untenable positions that they know are
wrong, they don't actually believe in, and they can't justify or defend, just
to be a dick, in order to punish somebody who hurt their feelings but was
right. But you're the first person I've ever seen actually come out and admit
that is what they do.

Kudos on your honesty, if for nothing else. There are a whole lot of people
who behave like you but don't admit it. It's not an original, ethical,
constructive or intelligent behavior, but you're just the first person I've
seen openly admit that's how they operate.

You'll tolerate sexual harassment, but only because somebody who was against
it annoyed you, and you wanted to annoy them back. Was it more annoying for
you to experience someone who is annoyingly intolerant of sexual harassment,
than it is annoying to actually be sexually harassed?

The Paradox of Annoyance sound like the evil corollary to the Paradox of
Tolerance.

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

~~~
Myrmornis
Not sure, but I appreciate your post. Yes, the current state of progressive
left politics is driving me away from stances that I would like to hold.
People like Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris talk sense and are
somewhere on the left, but the chanting hordes of diversity-obsessed political
correctness warriors are so, so depressing and so, so far from the grown-up,
scientifically literate, rationalist, anti-religious, technological, humane,
liberal movement that we need to counter the opposing forces of cynical
conservatives, racists, gun- and bible-nuts etc

