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The New York Times reports:
Travis Kalanick stepped down Tuesday as chief executive of Uber, the ride-hailing service that he helped found in 2009 and built into a transportation colossus, after a shareholder revolt made it untenable for him to stay on at the company.
Mr. Kalanick's exit came under pressure after hours of drama involving Uber's investors, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, who asked to remain anonymous because the details were confidential.
Earlier on Tuesday, five of Uber's major investors demanded that the chief executive resign immediately. The investors included one of Uber's biggest shareholders, the venture capital firm Benchmark, which has one of its partners, Bill Gurley, on Uber's board. The investors made their demand for Mr. Kalanick to step down in a letter delivered to the chief executive while he was in Chicago, said the people with knowledge of the situation.
[...] Mr. Kalanick's troubles began earlier this year after a former Uber engineer detailed what she said was sexual harassment at the company, opening the floodgates for more complaints and spurring internal investigations. In addition, Uber has been dealing with an intellectual property lawsuit from Waymo, the self-driving car business that operates under Google's parent company, and a federal inquiry into a software tool that Uber used to sidestep some law enforcement.
Uber has been trying to move past its difficult history, which has grown inextricably tied to Mr. Kalanick. In recent months, Uber has fired more than 20 employees after an investigation into the company's culture, embarked on major changes to professionalize its workplace, and is searching for new executives including a chief operating officer.
According to The Register:
Kalanick led Uber into fights on many fronts. The company had a strategy of entering markets without regard to regulation, earning it lawsuits all over the world. During one such lawsuit, Uber breached privacy laws. The company also stands accused of stealing self-driving car technology and deliberately targeting government officials who sought to investigate it.
The BBC notes:
Surely the most dramatic fall from grace the start-up world has ever seen, a scalp so big it will have chief executives across this city sitting bolt upright, and thinking: "If Travis can get booted out of Uber... no-one is safe."
What started out as a PR inconvenience has left the company without, to name just a few, a chief executive officer, chief operating officer, chief technology officer and chief financial officer. Uber is in tatters, engulfed by its own aggression.
Mr Kalanick embodied his company's prevailing attitude: success at all costs. It saw Uber dominate the ride-sharing world, his chutzpah enabling the company to attract investment so effectively that last year Uber alone raised more money than the entire UK start-up scene.
But in doing so he didn't play fair. He created a company that deceived local regulators, neglected the well-being of employees, wound-up drivers, troubled investors, obtained a rape victim's medical records and allegedly stole trade secrets from a rival.
See also: c|net
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 21 2017, @05:06PM (3 children)
Travis is a dick, but to be fair I haven't heard anything about him personally sexually harassing anyone. The problem was that the company's internal culture was full of this, with middle managers being quite guilty of it, and top management did nothing about it, and the HR department actively defending abusers because "they're too valuable". It's a toxic corporate culture, and the CEO takes the blame for that because the buck stops with him.
Remember, the CEO is the public "face" of a company, and has the ultimate responsibility for managing the organization. If the organization is obviously mismanaged, it's the CEO's fault for either doing the wrong thing, or not doing the right thing (action vs. inaction). Travis seems to be a failure by inaction with regard to the sexual harassment problems.
As for "inappropriate" comments, that's not what happened: managers were actively soliciting sex from their subordinates. Not only is that horribly creepy and unethical, it's downright illegal. Yet Uber HR refused to act on these allegations because the accused managers were deemed "too valuable". HR reports to the CEO, hence the CEO is to blame.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21 2017, @06:42PM
travis kalanick touched my junk liberally. he strapped me in to his uber mobile and he couldnt keep his offensive hands off of me. he was performing many red flag touches. i couldnt believe what the fuck was going on. i told travis the city would not approve of a billionaire touching an underage kid for free.
can you believe it? travis kalanick did all this. he picked me off the street, strapped my arms and legs down in the uber mobile's passenger seat, and just wouldn't stop fondling my cock'n'balls.
they definately were red flag touches. the goddamn referee he had in the back seat kept on raising up this red flag every time he touched my junk but did travis care? NO WAY! he just kept on doing it. I couldn't believe what the fuck was going on, indeed. I pleaded with travis but to no avail. I told him the city would not approve of such a wealthy man touching an underage kid like me (at the time I was 13) without at least compensating me for the trauma and the use of my body as his own personal plaything.
this got to him, worrying about his image. he continued to fondle me, all the while ignoring the referee's red flags. then he drove the ubermobile to my house and ejected the seat i was in! it was amazing. but surprisingly, after I woke up the next morning, my uber account had $150k in it!!! Can you believe it?????????????????????????
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Wednesday June 21 2017, @07:21PM
One of my professors once said to us, "Corruption comes from the top." I've since extended that to "Corporate culture comes from the top." So while the buck stops with him, I proffer (?) that it also starts there.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 22 2017, @12:41AM
Ah-ha. Sometimes, it pays to come back and re-read a post. Guess I had other things on my mind the first time, and I missed your real point.
"actively defending abusers because "they're too valuable"."
I can see that. If one or more bad actors have the boss' blessing to act bad, that makes the boss guilty. The message is, "I'll sacrifice all of you to keep my buddy happy!" Time to re-read 'The Jungle'?