>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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
To be honest, from what I've read, the two men don't seem to be similar at all except in the fact that they both founded spectacularly successful/revolutionary startups. Jobs might have been incredibly rude but he did not promote a culture of sexual harassment...that is just a different kind of aggressive culture. He was more about pushing people to unreasonable limits, not giving due acknowledgements etc.... all of which are reprehensible, but nowhere near as terrible as sexual harassment.
Like you mention, it seems EXACTLY the result of an insecure man trying to make himself irreplaceable rather than an adult understanding the reality of the situation and the actions required to save his baby (Uber).
>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.