
Uber’s board wants Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi to be its next CEO - danso
https://www.recode.net/2017/8/27/16212552/uber-board-ceo-decision-staff
======
tmh79
CEOs often lead on partnerships and strategy. I wonder what connections in
travel this new CEO is going to leverage and how that will affect the uber
operations in the short term, and the ridesharing product itself in the long
term.

airline points on uber? (these are surprisingly sticky with consumers)

uber exclusivity deals or packages at hotels?

I expect to see more bundles of things with uber involved.

~~~
zangiku
They should start a credit card business. Rakuten did this to great effect in
Japan. Use the credit card, get points you can use for Uber. Customer
acquisition is as cheap as putting a signup form in the back of each car and
incentivizing drivers to mention it.

~~~
rodgerd
An ubercoin and ICO would be more buzzword compliant.

~~~
quickthrower2
We need an ICO jar. One Bitcoin in the jar everytime an ICO is mentioned in
jest.

~~~
eric_h
Given the current value of bitcoin, I think we'd need to put a satoshi in the
jar (I'm personally not swimming in bitcoin)

------
omurphy27
While Expedia's website is fast and works well (and I've used them a lot for
finding cheap flights), their customer service is probably the worst that I've
ever experienced.

Trying to do something like getting the return leg of a ticket changed,
resulted in multiple dropped calls, talking to people with poor English skills
(all their support is outsourced) and even getting told that all their
computers crashed so they can't do anything. Then when I finally did get
through to someone, I was quoted $2,500 to change the date of a $400 ticket.

A simple Google search of Expedia customer service complaints reveals that I'm
not even close to being alone.

I suppose their CEO calculated that the savings from having dirt cheap
customer service exceeds the losses they suffer from alienating customers with
miserable support. That might be true, but I still don't think it's a good way
to run a company. We'll see what it entails for Uber.

~~~
dylz
The hotel subreddit has hilarious tales about Expedia CSRs:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk/search?q=expe...](https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk/search?q=expedia&restrict_sr=on)

------
kiyanforoughi
This is the guy who made a huge tactical mistake when Booking.com was
challenging Expedia by choosing to stick to merchant model (i.e., buying
inventory) as Booking went for the agency model (i.e., lead gen).

Expedia has moved to an agency model since but the damage was done. Booking
managed to get far more inventory, capitalise on more search/PPC traffic and
blow past Expedia.

Wonder if he's going to make a similar kind of mistake and misread the
transportation market.

Props to a fellow originally Iranian though :-)

~~~
indescions_2017
Pretty sure even my grandma knows where the transportation sector is headed:
electric, autonomous, sharing, services based, etc ;)

I think this is more about $UBER IPO. Stabilize the ship, smooth relations
with investors, and start shopping to underwriters. Expect to see road show by
Q2 2018.

~~~
askafriend
This is spot-on, in my opinion. All they need is someone who is demonstrably
competent and experienced to stabilize the ship and steer it towards an IPO.

There's no need for the candidate to be a visionary or meddle drastically with
something that's already working extraordinarily well. That part is largely
done - the Uber machine is mature and chugging along.

A seasoned operator needs to come in to provide PR cover, put in some basic
organizational guardrails and rebuild the executive ranks to get the company
IPO ready. Hiring a CFO is probably top priority as well as getting PR back on
track. Those two moves alone would suppress external distractions and start
the IPO process by having someone working on it full-time (CFO).

Let's see if Dara can pull this off.

~~~
sillysaurus3
I think this is exactly how Uber will fade into irrelevance. Think about it:
We're bringing in a money guy to "stabilize the ship."

When the opposite of "rock the boat" is in power, don't be surprised if you
get an irrelevant cruise ship. They run out of money soon, and nothing will
change that short of a mass layoff or raising their prices above taxis. Then
what?

They needed that autonomous driving tech. And I don't see a money guy pulling
that off.

Remember how Marissa Meyer turned out? People ended up saying "Well, nothing
could've saved Yahoo." But you could've said the same thing about Apple at its
nadir. Same with Uber.

Uber is a real opportunity. Kalanick is unpopular, but he got Uber to where it
is. So how certain are you that it was a good idea to kick the founder in
exchange for a money guy? Given those options, I'd bet on the unpopular
founder every time.

~~~
geofft
> _Uber is a real opportunity. Kalanick is unpopular, but he got Uber to where
> it is._

And Lyft got to where it is with no Kalanick. (... actually, does anyone know
off the top of their heads, besides Lyft and maybe Uber employees, who founded
Lyft and whether they're still in charge?)

The myth of the founder-hero who is the only person who can run a company
usually has little evidence in its favor, but in this case it has explicit
evidence _against_ it. Lyft as a service is basically indistinguishable from
Uber in markets where it serves both, possibly slightly better. And if Lyft
acquires Uber, the two services get to stop competing on price, buying them
plenty of time to figure out the self-driving tech (which, I agree, they
need), and the combined company will succeed easily, no Kalanick needed.

(Also, I think "unpopular" is a pretty low-information description of why
Kalanick got forced out. It could mean anything from "people on the internet
don't like them" to "regulators don't like them" to "investors don't like
them" to "employees don't like them," each of which have very different
impacts on the company, and comparing an unpopular founder in one sense to
another company's unpopular founder in another sense may not be meaningful.)

~~~
stephenhck
I think you're overlooking a huge difference in your argument against "the
myth of the founder-hero": Lyft benefited tremendously from Uber pushing into
new markets / cities first. Uber and tk had a huge impact on making ride share
legal, and Lyft never had to deal with that (or not nearly as much).

Also, how would Lyft ever buy Uber? Even if Uber and Lyft get 50/50 market
share, which I think is impossible, you need to be way larger to buy out
another company.

~~~
sah2ed
In the tech industry, the pioneers are usually the ones with arrows in their
backs.

You are absolutely right that the TK/Uber combo going head-on against existing
laws is what made ride hailing a reality for millions of consumers, but unless
the pioneer has an air tight _go-to market strategy_ to create and maintain
dominance of the market, historically, the odds tilt strongly in favor of the
second mover, third mover, nth mover (i.e. fast followers) achieving market
dominance.

Facebook, the market leader was launched in 2004, MySpace in 2003 and there
was Friendster in 2002 founded by Jonathan Abrams.

Zuckerberg learnt _how not_ to run a social network from watching the mistakes
of Friendster and MySpace before him.

------
thesausageking
I wonder how much Uber will have to give him. He's already running a $22b
company and was granted $90m in options less than two years ago. My guess:
$500m minimum at a ~$30b valuation.

~~~
corporateslave3
1/60 of the company value? That is insane

~~~
jedberg
That's pretty typical for a new CEO. 2-3%. In fact, that's a bit low.

~~~
0xB31B1B
This isn't a series B/C/D company. Expedia is losing a CEO and the new one
isn't going to be paid 400m (2% of Expedia by market cap).

------
jpelecanos
Based on his bio [0], Khosrowshahi seems like a more apt CEO pick for Airbnb
instead of Uber. Thus, I think that someone with a more extensive experience
in the transportation industry such as Kathryn Marinello (CEO of The Hertz
Corporation) [1] or David Abney (CEO of UPS) [2] is more suitable for the job.

[0] [http://www.expediainc.com/brands/dara-
khosrowshahi/](http://www.expediainc.com/brands/dara-khosrowshahi/)

[1] [http://ir.hertz.com/executive-
officers?item=108](http://ir.hertz.com/executive-officers?item=108)

[2]
[https://pressroom.ups.com/pressroom/ContentDetailsViewer.pag...](https://pressroom.ups.com/pressroom/ContentDetailsViewer.page?ConceptType=Biographies&id=1426319280274-279)

~~~
cylinder
Those are massive fleet and supply chain owners. Uber is a booking platform
that doesn't own a single vehicle or employ a single driver.

That said, I don't think same industry experience is that critical.

------
jklein11
Seems like a pretty good fit. Khosrowshahi was brought in to take Expedia
public and Expedia and Uber's business models are close-ish.

~~~
sjbase
It seems unlikely that he was brought in to take Expedia public, since he
joined 6 years after their IPO.

Expedia went public in 1999 [1], when Dara Khosrowshahi was working for an
Expedia competitor: IAC. He didn't join Expedia until 2005, when IAC acquired
Expedia [2].

Maybe I'm missing something?

[1]: [http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/company/expedia-
inc-1567-...](http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/company/expedia-
inc-1567-2927)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dara_Khosrowshahi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dara_Khosrowshahi)

~~~
jklein11
That's odd, crunchbase says their IPO was in July of 2005.[1] According to
Expedia's website, IAC acquired Expedia in August of 2003[2]. It looks like
between 2000 & 2005 Expedia/IAC had acquired a number of online travel
companies. My thought is that when IAC purchased Expedia it was no longer
being traded publicly. In 2005 IAC rolled in the additional travel companies
and put Expedia back on the public markets. [1]
[https://www.crunchbase.com/ipo/7451f106bd9bae69f9eb02a69f8c4...](https://www.crunchbase.com/ipo/7451f106bd9bae69f9eb02a69f8c4985)
[2]
[http://www.expediainc.com/about/history/](http://www.expediainc.com/about/history/)

------
nodesocket
Wish him luck, but all the controversy and outrage are a huge distraction to
the business.

~~~
adamnemecek
I feel like most of the world outside sv is actually somewhat unaware.

~~~
adventured
It occasionally shows up in the local syndicated media outside of SV and major
urban centers, however in my opinion you're correct, most of the US could
hardly care less. Most people are properly too busy leading their own lives to
obsess over the latest vapid drama coming out of a tech company.

Americans in general likely care as much about who is running Uber, as they do
about who is running Expedia or Priceline. Which is to say, it simply does not
matter to 99.9% of people and it never will.

~~~
Powerofmene
And even if they are aware of the tech shenanigans at Uber, they will forgive
and forget as long as they can get a subsidized ride with their local Uber
drivers. People care more about their own bottom line than what is going on
out in SV. In general, it simply does not affect their world.

------
danso
Looks like Recode has only had time to update the title to reflect the Expedia
decision. The story was previously about how "Uber's board says it voted, but
will not divulge its new CEO until employees know".

[https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/901963504541810688](https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/901963504541810688)

------
arihant
This probably has something to do with their desire for IPO. However I don't
even know how it will look like when Uber finally opens up their books. I'm
only one data point but I get over half the invoices wrongly calculated by
Uber since flat fare system started (down to the tax calculation), mostly in
my favour, but still.

Again, I'm only one data point, but my usage of Expedia has exponentially
fallen since the aforementioned CEO took over. This obviously not a decision
to make Uber a better service. This is a bid to sell Uber to a bigger fool on
the wall street.

I have no confidence in Travis-less Uber. The war with private car ownership
is over. Private cars won.

~~~
ricardobeat
Private cars won? I'm guessing you live in one of the US's urban sprawls? In
the Netherlands, in London, in Brazil, ride sharing is taking over and
competitors are enjoying the path cleared by Uber to take over with better
service and fares.

------
tmh79
Side note:

This new guy is an outspoken trump critic.

Meg is a republican, and ran as one for california governor

#deleteUber was started and accelerated partially by assumed associations
between Uber and Trump

I wonder if the politics had any influence in the decision to pick him over
meg.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I doubt it. Whitman was probably the most outspoken Republican _against_
Trump, called him a "demagogue", and stated publicly "I will vote for Hillary,
I will talk to my Republican friends about helping her, and I will donate to
her campaign and try to raise money for her."

Plus, given Uber's issues, being a woman had to be a big plus for Whitman.

~~~
Kluny
> Plus, given Uber's issues, being a woman had to be a big plus for Whitman.

Seems to me that if she had been offered the job, she'd be set up for failure.
I'm glad they went with the other one.

------
georgeott
Expedia? The #1 Dark Patterns? Wow, this should end well.

~~~
ljk
linnkedin is #1 for dark pattern

~~~
oakesm9
You've clearly never booked a flight with Ryanair ;-)

~~~
icebraining
Can't say I agree. They upsell heavily, but it's not that confusing to
navigate and avoid the extras.

~~~
lucaspiller
Just don't try and change anything on the flight after booking. I had to
cancel a flight and although Ryanair won't refund you the ticket price, they
will refund the taxes. However interestingly their administration fee for the
refund was exactly the same as the amount of taxes I was due to be refunded,
so I got nothing.

------
perseusprime11
Based on his Twitter profile, he seems like a cool guy to run Uber. Good luck!

------
gragas
From Wikipedia on the Expedia CEO:

>Ten years later, in 2015, Expedia awarded him $90 million worth of stock
options as part of a long-term employment agreement, stating he would stay
until 2020.

~~~
rattray
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dara_Khosrowshahi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dara_Khosrowshahi)

------
lawrenceyan
No one thinks Travis has a chance at gaining back control?

~~~
mabbo
No, I don't think that can happen.

He's far too controversial. To say the company isn't profitable is
understating things: it's a money fire. If you brought back Travis now, the
VCs would walk away and stop putting money into the fire. New VCs might show
up, but the terms for getting more money would start to get exorbitant, and
Uber's spiral to bankruptcy would be a slightly shorter one.

------
curiousDog
Any guesses on how long it would take Uber to IPO from this point on?

------
posharma
Has he even accepted the offer?

------
supergirl
why are all recode articles written in bro english?

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
It's Kara Swisher's style. She's a sufficiently well-known journalist to get
away with it, though I agree it can grate a little.

~~~
wavefunction
It's not much of a style. I have to guess her audience has low exposure to
literature.

------
rdxm
yawn...

# of f __ __to give == 0

~~~
dang
You've been posting a lot of unsubstantive comments to HN. Would you please
(re-)read
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and stop doing that? We're hoping for a higher quality of discussion here. In
vain, perhaps; but still hoping.

~~~
rdxm
i'll grant that i can exude a somewhat negative outlook. but seriously, are
you even remotely surprised about a comment like this related to uber?

If we're being honest uber represents pretty much everything negative comeing
out of SV at this point....

Frankly I expect more from the valley (and from YC) in general..#justsayin...

~~~
dang
I wasn't replying about Uber but to your entire comment history, which falls
short of what we're hoping to see here. Also, the issue isn't primarily about
being negative, it's about lowering the signal/noise ratio of the forum. We
all have to be careful not to do that, because if we lower it a little bit
enough times in a row, the whole thing will one day fall off a cliff. The
basic idea of HN is stave that day off for as long as possible. In my
experience, most people who get that idea are willing to help. We'd appreciate
it if you'd help too.

------
gexla
This picture looks like a postal worker in uniform ready to walk into a
Breaking Bad look-alike convention, he even has the badge ready to go.

I couldn't imagine how all-consuming a gig like this must be. If I were to
hear the news, I think I would spend the entire day in bed... just one last
time.

If this guy doesn't accept, they should try to lure Bill Belichick and Tom
Brady from the NFL. I don't think you could find two people who win as much as
they guys do.

I think I'll throw in my resume, just in case.

------
miheermunjal
But... Uber isn't travel. It's logistics. Expedia isn't logistics.

I mean, seems like a good CEO overall (in the vein of the "any CEO for Uber is
better than none"), but I can't see what he specifically brings to the table
to uniquely bring them to market. That said, it's not like Kalanick had
something special either, it's just as the founder he has different cache.

------
rattray
I like to try to watch a few videos of a prominent individual when sizing them
up. Here are a few I found:

\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsiiqlodKvU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsiiqlodKvU)

\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PNT2I2Xsxc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PNT2I2Xsxc)

Overall I'm not impressed, but I'm curious what others' thoughts might be.

~~~
luckydude
I watched those two and I wouldn't work for that guy.

I know nothing about expedia but it sounds like airbnb ate their lunch. That
and google.com/flights.

But that's just a few minutes. Hacker News tends to have smart people with
domain specific knowledge. Any of those around who know this guy? What's your
take?

~~~
tmh79
expedia stock up 5x since 2012, market cap 22b, their lunch has not been
eaten.

~~~
jen20
Not to mention that they also own hotels.com...

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
And a ton of other travel brands you're probably familiar with:
[http://www.expediainc.com/expedia-brands/](http://www.expediainc.com/expedia-
brands/)

------
cft
Uber story is interesting: it's a fall of an American business not due to
underlying business reasons, but due to politics and the board virtue
signaling to the customer base. More similar cases to come, until the entire
economy folds in 25-30 years (I budgeted ~5-7 downvotes on this: to me these
downvotes only confirm the new growing anti business virtue signaling
"consensus" that is toppling down the economy)

~~~
emodendroket
The fact that they're not profitable and have no obvious path to profitability
seems like an "underlying business reason" to me.

~~~
cft
Bezos should have been out too by 2003 then

~~~
Marazan
Amazon always had a route to profitability, raise prices _a bit_.

Uber's route is to raise prices _a lot_.

~~~
cft
Except that apart from AWS Amazon is still not profitable

