Uber: new stage

Travis Kalanick has announced his resignation as CEO of Uber following a rebellion by five major shareholders of the company, Benchmark Capital, First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, Menlo Ventures and Fidelity Investments, which jointly hold around 25% of the shares and 40% of votes. Shareholders addressed a letter to Kalanick, entitled “Moving Uber Forward,” which demanded immediate action and a change of leadership to avoid erosion to the value of the company.

Kalanick’s departure is a major event for the company he co-founded alongside Garrett Camp. His enormously aggressive leadership style has been a part of the company’s image at all levels, both for his statements against those who stood in the company’s way, and for the development of an anything goes culture that is no longer sustainable.

Under Kalanick there were accusations of discrimination and sexual harassment that the leadership simply dismissed and that finally led to mass layoffs, using the app’s “God mode” to spy on journalists, politicians and celebrities, favoritism toward public officials involved in decisions on mobility (greyballing), as well as the alleged theft of strategic information from competitors. In exchange for this troubling environment, the company was able to grow hyper-aggressively way to go from a company dedicated to transporting passengers in vehicles with a driver to a global brand loved and hated in equal measure. If anyone has any doubts about the importance of the period of Travis Kalanick at the head of Uber, just walk through any of the cities where it operates.

Travis Kalanick will remain on the board, but will take a break to be with his family, following an accident in which his mother died and his father was seriously injured. The departure of the person associated with an enormously aggressive company gives way to a second stage that is more likely to be calmer, one of greater maturity that will carry out an expansion plan at the center of which is autonomous driving technology that will reduce operating costs and make it a profitable company. The expansion of Uber has been supported by huge operating losses until Uber’s vehicles became self driving.

Along the way, and thanks to Travis Kalanick, we have seen an extremely ambitious innovation policy, constant reinvention of the product to adapt it to all markets and the restrictions inherent in each of them, absolute and undisputed leadership of an industry now practically defined by it, and behavior more in keeping with a technology company than a transport company. Against it, there have been constant fights, permanent litigation and enormous pressure on the regulators for legislative changes to allow new modes of transport capable of offering greater versatility. Without Kalanick, many of the changes we are experiencing today in relation to the transport of people in cities would not have taken place, or at least not as quickly.

Leaders like Travis Kalanick are and always will be controversial. He has taken Uber to where it is now: with a stratospheric valuation, a strategic but risky route map, and the possibility to lead a sector in which many have invested a lot of money and hope. The post-Kalanick Uber will be completely different, will have a more markedly more political approach, and will adapt to the needs of a steadier growth although it will still have to respond to the needs of shareholders who have invested huge sums in the company and who have very high expectations.

For Uber’s detractors, it is quite possible that the departure of Kalanick is bad news: his managerial style had clearly run out of fuel, there was loss of value due to successive scandals, and the situation was unsustainable. Like so many other cases of leaders running a company from its earliest days, Kalanick has driven the company forward to the point where he can no longer keep it together: the time has come for the next stage in Uber’s journey.

(En espa?ol, aquí)