Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O. - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/technology/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> 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/)

<comment><USER3> 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.

<comment><USER4> 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?

<comment><USER5> 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.

<comment><USER6> 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

<comment><USER7> "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.

<comment><USER8> 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.

<comment><USER9> > _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?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 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.

<comment><USER11> 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.

<comment><USER12> 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.

<comment><USER11> 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.

<comment><USER13> > 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 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).

<comment><USER15> 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.

<comment><USER16> >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.

<comment><USER17> 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.

<comment><USER16> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 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.

<comment><USER19> 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.

<comment><USER18> 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.

<comment><USER20> 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.

<comment><USER21> So what you're saying is, in your "relevant" scenario, you would discriminate based on gender for a hiring decision.

<comment><USER20> 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.

<comment><USER22> Assuming other people aren't psychopaths is irrational optimism, while desperate defensive strategies like not hiring high-risk people are perfectly rational.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> 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.

<comment><USER24> 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.

<comment><USER25> 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.

<comment><USER26> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> 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.

<comment><USER28> 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.

<comment><USER29> But then he probably would have a hard time raising more money.

<comment><USER30> 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.

<comment><USER31> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> 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.

<comment><USER33> Lyft? That is just another corporate-controlled centralized system. I'd much prefer something along the lines of [http://libretaxi.org/](http://libretaxi.org/)

<comment><USER34> 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.

<comment><USER35> 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.

<comment><USER36> 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.

<comment><USER33> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> 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.

<comment><USER38> > 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?

<comment><USER39> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> >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.

<comment><USER41> 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.

<comment><USER42> 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.

<comment><USER43> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> 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)

<comment><USER45> 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.)

<comment><USER44> > 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> 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.

<comment><USER47> 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?

<comment><USER48> _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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> 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."

<comment><USER50> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> 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.

</comment><comment><USER52> 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.

</comment><comment><USER53> As the adage goes, sometimes the startup CEO for the first $70 billion, is not the same as for the next $70 billion.

<comment><USER54> Or as they say, "what got you here won't get you there"

<comment><USER42> Kalanick's brohaviour has nothing to do with economic success. You absolutely do not need to harass people sexually to be successful.

<comment><USER55> And he didn't sexually harass anybody. I don't see your point.

<comment><USER42> 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.

<comment><USER55> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> 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.

<comment><USER57> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> 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.

<comment><USER59> have you been to NYC? LA? Seattle?

<comment><USER58> 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).

<comment><USER60> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> 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.

<comment><USER62> 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...

<comment><USER61> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> 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.

<comment><USER64> 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)

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Susan Fowler is the giant killer of this century.

Salutation!

<comment><USER66> 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

<comment><USER67> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> 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)

</comment><comment><USER69> 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.

<comment><USER57> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> 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.

<comment><USER42> Let's just agree that there are very many, very good reasons not to support Kalanick in any way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> 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.

<comment><USER72> 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.

<comment><USER73> 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.

<comment><USER72> > 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.

<comment><USER73> 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.

<comment><USER72> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> 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.

</comment><comment><USER75> "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.

<comment><USER76> "The asset doesn't lose value by virtue of being marked down."

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

<comment><USER75> "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.

<comment><USER76> My point is that a given reduction in value can cause more reduction in value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> 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.

</comment><comment><USER77> 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)

<comment><USER78> 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.

<comment><USER77> 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.

<comment><USER79> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> As a former Uber employee (left 6 mo ago) this is shocking. Can't imagine who will step in...

<comment><USER81> What are your thoughts on Fowler's assessment of the company, the scandals, and Kalanick himself?

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> 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.

<comment><USER83> That's only if you confuse the business model/company with the image of its CEO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> 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...

<comment><USER42> None of Kalanick's kinks is helpful to Uber. Don't promote this idea that it's good business to sexually harass you employees.

<comment><USER85> Kalanick has sexually harassed his employees? Must have missed that part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> 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)

<comment><USER87> 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.

<comment><USER88> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> Wow! Looks like the investors really want their money back now and are pushing hard for an IPO.

</comment><comment><USER90> 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.

<comment><USER91> 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/)

<comment><USER90> 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!

<comment><USER91> 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

<comment><USER90> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> When any story about your company needs a tagline like 'embattled CEO blah blah blah' it might be time to step back

</comment><comment><USER93> 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.

<comment><USER94> Good chance of it being Arianna Huffington.

<comment><USER56> How about Eric Schmidt?

<comment><USER95> How about Elizabeth Holmes?

<comment><USER79> That would be hilarious

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> 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.

<comment><USER97> 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?

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> 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 ?

</comment><comment><USER99> 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.

</comment><comment><USER100> 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!!!

</comment><comment><USER101> 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.

<comment><USER34> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> 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.

</comment><comment><USER103> 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.

</comment><comment><USER104> 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.

</comment><comment><USER105> 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.

</comment><comment><USER106> 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

</comment><comment><USER107> 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.

<comment><USER106> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> 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.

</comment><comment><USER109> 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.

</comment><comment><USER110> 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)

</comment><comment><USER111> 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

</comment><comment><USER112> 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.

<comment><USER81> 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.

<comment><USER113> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER114> 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.

</comment><comment><USER115> 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?

<comment><USER116> I bet it will be a woman. Merrisa Mayer? lol

<comment><USER117> Is there an issue if it's a woman?

Is Marissa Meyer the only woman y'all know?

<comment><USER116> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER111> 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..

</comment><comment><USER118> 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.

</comment><comment><USER119> If this had happened two years ago, would Uber have avoided any of the later negative press?

</comment><comment><USER120> 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.

</comment><comment><USER121> 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.

</comment><comment><USER122> 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!

</comment><comment><USER123> "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.

<comment><USER124> Better than via UberRUSH amirite?

</comment></comment><comment><USER125> 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.

<comment><USER126> You make them sound so evil but all of this sounds perfectly legitimate to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER127> Does Uber buy lyft just to acquire a relevant management team?

</comment><comment><USER128> For me its just really sad, I wish him well with new ventures

</comment><comment><USER74> 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.

<comment><USER129> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER130> 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.

</comment><comment><USER111> 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

</comment><comment><USER131> 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.

</comment><comment><USER132> 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.

</comment><comment><USER79> This seemed inevitable. If the firm is stronger in 24 months then it will lead to a substantial cultural change in the tech industry.

</comment><comment><USER133> Wow turns if you give me a billion dollars and I burn it that's considered business and entrepreneurship in 2017 America.

</comment><comment><USER134> 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...

<comment><USER135> Tesla should buy Uber, for $20B or so. They won't get a network for their autonomous cars this cheap again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER136> 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.

<comment><USER137> Did you try calling one?

</comment></comment><comment><USER138> Would filling Kalanick's shoes be regarded as the _best_ , or the _worst_ job opening in Silicon Valley?

</comment><comment><USER139> 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).

</comment><comment><USER140> Not to be wry but how often has kicking out the founder been the solution to VC's problems?

</comment><comment><USER98> seems like this became the highest rated and commented story in the history of Hacker News...

</comment><comment><USER141> I hope this means the downfall of (fundamentally misogynist) brogrammer culture.

</comment><comment><USER142> Is it really that hard to not sexually harass workers at your place of business?

</comment><comment><USER143> I can't say i'm not surprised, but nothing good will come of this.

</comment><comment><USER144> A good CEO knows when to resign ! cheers for him, very humble!

</comment><comment><USER65> 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.

</comment><comment><USER101> Finally John Scully will steer the ship in the right direction.

Wait, what?

<comment><USER42> 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.

<comment><USER145> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER146> Resigned, or rather has been fired by his investors?

</comment><comment><USER147> Action Jack Barker to step in? I think the only thing that can save Uber now is the conjoined triangles of success.

</comment><comment><USER148> There is another option: Perhaps Travis is just "going away for a while", to return when things have quieted down.

</comment><comment><USER149> Travis, if you're looking for a new adventure - I'm looking for a co-founder. Ping me ;)

</comment><comment><USER150> You live by the sword, you die by the sword. But we still need people who live by the sword.

</comment><comment><USER123> Same day they fire Travis, they add tipping. No coincidence there.

</comment><comment><USER151> Like watching Silicon Valley

</comment><comment><USER152> lets say this entire harassment thing hadnt blown up , then would Travis still have been fired may be a few months from now?

</comment><comment><USER153> Crowdsourced shaming works.

</comment><comment><USER154> What if Daimler thinks of buying Uber...

<comment><USER155> Jesus Chrysler, I'd rather put the brakes on that idea, although I'm sure others would prefer to ford ahead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER156> RIP Uber, 2009–2017. It's been a good run.

</comment><comment><USER157> Hell, its about time.

</comment><comment><USER158> What a useless website [https://istravisstillceo.com](https://istravisstillceo.com) turned out to be.

<comment><USER159> time to update that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER160> 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?

<comment><USER18> 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.

<comment><USER161> _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.

<comment><USER162> There are multiple ways to interpret the phrase "I believe you."

<comment><USER163> Please elaborate, I'm not a native speaker and I don't see how it can be interpreted differently in this context.

<comment><USER164> I'm a native speaker and I don't think there are multiple interpretations.

<comment><USER162> 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."

<comment><USER15> When it comes to an accusation, you can't simultaneously believe the victim and clear the defendant of guilt.

<comment><USER165> 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."

<comment><USER162> 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.

<comment><USER164> > 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".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER166> 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')

<comment><USER167> Python 2? Absolutely barbaric.

<comment><USER168> 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 :(

<comment><USER169> Look into mypy! Its a good start.

<comment><USER168> 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)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER170> .

<comment><USER171> Yes I've done several. Great overall experience but not to be taken casually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER172> 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.

<comment><USER42> "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.

<comment><USER173> _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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER174> 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.

</comment><comment><USER175> Karma is a bitch.

</comment><comment><USER176> "Uberraschung"

</comment><comment><USER177> Good.

</comment><comment><USER178> He can now spend his time Masturbating over Ayn Rand books.

<comment><USER179> 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)

<comment><USER178> 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!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Should Google acquire Uber?

<comment><USER134> no?

</comment></comment><comment><USER180> Somebody in Lyft must be opening a champaigne right now.

<comment><USER37> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER181> 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.

<comment><USER182> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER183> Did he sexual harass anybody, or what is the point of his resignation? Another case of scapegoating?

<comment><USER34> The buck stops with the CEO, and it's clear that in the very least, he condoned the asshole culture.

<comment><USER183> 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?

<comment><USER184> [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)

<comment><USER183> 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.

<comment><USER185> 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.

<comment><USER183> I didn't think the "someone inferior" was elementary to it - the point to me always seemed to be to kill somebody innocent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER186> 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.

<comment><USER42> Yeah. Also don't ask new employees for sex on their first day. Repeatedly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER187> 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.

<comment><USER188> Didi, I assume, would fill some of that vacuum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER155> 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?

<comment><USER189> > 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.

<comment><USER155> 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...

<comment><USER190> Given their main cost is 'running a mini cab service' it is hard to see what they can cut and still exist.

<comment><USER155> 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?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The radical legacy of critical theory - <AUTHOR> http://bostonreview.net/philosophy-religion/seyla-benhabib-below-asphalt-lies-beach <comment><USER2> The problem with the radical left is that they don't appreciate the fragility of civilization, and they don't understand just how horrific things can get if we get carried away with some utopian program and accidentally cause the whole thing to unravel. My suspicion is that it's caused by a selfish desire to personally witness the true "end of history".

I oppose them because—to paraphrase a well-known movie quote—some men just _don't_ want to watch the world burn.</comment>


Ask HN: Simple, affordable support software for bootstraps? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,<p>I'm bootstrapping a web service and have been looking for simple user support software, but all the services I've looked into are either bloated, too expensive, or lacking. I'm really just looking for something minimalistic with a faq and user feedback. I'm thinking of just using my own solution if I don't find anything suitable. Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> Maybe you can find something in this nice thread... <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5235137>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll give it a read through.</comment></comment>


Idiomatic Django Deployment: The Complete Guide - <AUTHOR> http://rogueleaderr.com/post/65157477648/the-idiomatic-guide-to-deploying-django-in-production

<comment><USER2> Don't get me wrong, Python is my favorite scripting language but this all seems incredibly complicated compared to say deploying a Java webapp.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure it's really that different. Say you have a .war running in Tomcat. You still have 1) provision your server, 2) make sure any dependencies or local services are installed, 3) deploy/redeploy your code. That's really all this does. The guide is just a bit long because it employs a lot of automation and I wanted to give background on how all that automation works.

If you strip it to just the code samples it's only like ~8 commands and you're running.</comment></comment>


Admitting that functional programming can be awkward - <AUTHOR> http://prog21.dadgum.com/3.html <comment><USER2> I cannot cite the article, because I read it a long time go, but the author made a point which immediately reflected my experiences with pure FP:

FP is all about the glue.

What I think will be interesting is using FP (or at least FP style) to glue together solutions to problem which are best expressed using non-pure methods. I think about that whenever I use Monads in Haskell, though they're still awkward.

I think FP will teach programmers the potential advantages of making things pure, perhaps even at great effort. It's not always what we're after, but when you can manage that level of simplicity, FP is exploring what kinds of payoff you can make.

</comment><comment><USER3> I certainly find it awkward, perhaps because it requires more upfront design.</comment>


Foursquare CEO says revenues grew 500% in Q1 2014, 600% In 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/05/foursquare-revenues/

<comment><USER2> If Dennis Crowley spent half as much time trying to grow his biz as he does courting the media, foursquare would not be the cautionary tale that it is today.</comment>


Ask HN: Do YC startups hire non US / remote interns?  - <AUTHOR>

I live in Kathmandu. For the full time hiring, I stopped looking at the jobs section of HN far-far ago, they never responded any queries. Is it know whether YC startups accept non US / remote interns? <comment><USER2> 1\. If you are Exceptionally talented, companies sponsor H1B and relocate you as well. 2\. Try Interviewstreet. Most of them are YC funded companies.</comment>


Inside GCHQ: the art of spying in the digital age - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/ccc68ffc-7c1e-11e9-81d2-f785092ab560#comments-anchor <comment><USER2> The article is paywalled

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the note. This may help: please click on the button 'web', which is below the title of this thread. This will open a Google search result and the first result should be this FT piece and hopefully, when you click on that, it's accessible.</comment></comment>