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Comment by loudin | Hacker News Reader

Serious question - why hasn't the Uber board replaced Kalanick yet? While it is indisputable he successfully brought Uber to where it is now, it doesn't seem like he has the good judgement to be leading Uber at this stage of the company's lifecycle. Wouldn't the best thing for the company at this point be a complete overhaul of leadership?

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Because kalanick and early investor control the class B stocks, which means they control the voting power. Additionally kalanick has been outspoken about running uber himself so its unlikely that he'll step down.

Im guessing if uber crashes and burns, it will make investors re-evaluate stock-but-no-control deals.

If only that were true. Lots of VC is simply FOMO at any cost.

If that is true, then I really need to drink my ethics out of my conscious, just grab that 'free' money, burn it on foosball tables, beanbag chairs, blow, trips to Goa, etc. and ride the late 'teens wave to a 'remorseful' book deal and the inevitable Scorsese film. Gosh, what is wrong with me?

Because the boards act in structural manner, rather than by spur of emotion.

The new CEO will most likely get some key performance objectives related to current problems as well as revenue (or margin) growth.

If there's a reason to believe TK can commit and be evaluated against the same indicators, the incumbent CEO is a better choice since no time is wasted on onboarding and getting familiar with the business. If he refuses to commit or commits and is then unable to execute, now that stipulates a much more productive board discussion on how the current CEO should step away to let a "more mature" or "more tenured" CEO that can execute against those objectives.

So if any resignation is imminent, expect it in 3-6 months, not now.

I agree with respect to the behavior of boards, but the public relations imbroglio could prompt a more rash action. Interim executives could perform his duties for 3-6 months. I believe that.

To me, that the perception of Uber as a toxic company has not abated indicates that, even if the board and investors have tried to ameliorate the situation, they have little control over Kalanick. I'd be fairly upset to see my return hang in the balance over something like that, but I suppose your return is always hanging in the balance over something.

If I were an investor in Uber I would be more concerned about the Waymo/Otto business. If some injunction comes down with that, a huge amount of the value of Uber could evaporate. If their self-driving business stays on course and they oust Kalanick, I'm reasonably certain that they can deliver on a large portion of their valuation.

Would be fun for the remaining bro culture if the board ousted Kalanick and installed Marissa Mayer.

Yeah, she might be able to finish destroying Uber quicker than Travis.

So she could bury the details of getting hacked? Again?

Seriously, if she is ever allowed to hold a paying job again, something is wrong with corporate culture.

Interesting...The FBI seems to be praising her for her actions in that space.

"Mayer exhibited 'great leadership and courage while under intense pressure from many entities,' FBI San Francisco Division Special Agent in Charge Jack Bennett said on Wednesday"

Yeah that'll be a great resume padder "Ignored and pretended not to know about one of the largest breaches in history, but it's ok because the FBI said I was a real trooper"

And we're supposed to take the FBI's praise at face value? Give me a break.

Why replace him? He's publicly unpopular but the company is worth more than ever, and the investors care most about money.

Why get rid of him when they're plenty of ways to spin the narrative. Like making unrelated but scandalous sounding press releases, and finding an occasional fall guy

Because when you have an unpopular leader making decisions that are unpopular with customers you lose those customers. I no longer use Uber and don't see myself using them again until he leaves.

More recently I've been considering closing my Amex card now that they've partnered with Uber.

I'm curious about what fraction of the #deleteUber participants reinstall the app within a week... I'm guessing around 60%?

A surprisingly large number of seemingly-unconnected people I know have switched to Lyft. The switching itself isn't the issue, it's that these people come from several different social groups and they are all surprisingly vocal about switching.

The fact that my friends still pile up at Chick-Fil-A makes me want to disagree. No matter how principled people claim to be, they always end up back with what they know and like, in this case Uber.

In this case though, there's a competitor that does exactly the same thing for similar prices.

> Similar prices

Not true, Uber can be 40-60% cheaper. I've stopped taking public transit in the Bay Area because of Uber, I don't think I could do that with Lyft alone. Is there another competitor with cheaper pricing?

I don't know about the US, but in India, Ola offers cheaper prices than Uber (about 30 - 60%) and people are switching to it. Uber hasn't been deleted, but it's losing customers (at least the ones using cab services regularly) to Ola.

I had no idea, that's awesome (for consumers, not uber haha)

I'd guess that a large fraction of people that deleted the Uber app and installed a competitor have not reinstalled. Once you've gone through that there isn't much point in reinstalling Uber. However, I don't know how many people did this vs just uninstalling Uber without a replacement or leaving it installed but not using the app. Those two groups probably had higher rates of people going back to Uber.

I disagree - I've had Uber and Lyft for years, and I check both to compare prices and ETA. For the past 6 months, I've noticed that Uber can be 40-60% cheaper than Lyft. I doubt former Uber users will forget what prices are like.

Uninstalling provides an additional barrier to returning. I mentioned that I expect users that didn't uninstall to return at a higher rate than users that did.

It's also not just about the price. A new benefit to having an Amex platinum card is $200 per year in Uber ride credits. I do not plan to return to Uber to use the credits. In fact, this is making me seriously consider not renewing that card when the annual fee comes up in a few months. I don't want Uber getting money from me, even indirectly.

That's a noble decision!

Call me a cynic, but I think you're in the minority, I doubt most people have the moral fortitude to forego $200 in free Uber credits...

How exactly do you perform this price comparison? In my experience you only find out what the ride cost after it's over. Or do you regularly travel the same routes often enough that you can run a personal A/B test?

UberPool and LyftLine tell you prices up front, before requesting the ride!

Ah, I see - I've never tried those services. Not even sure whether they exist in Seattle.

It probably depends on their alternatives, so cities are probably going to have more viable competitors to use than rural areas.

60% seems extremely high to me. I'm sure it's happening at some level, but it would have a significant impact on Uber's growth and it opens the door for the 2nd and 3rd place competitors to get traction.

Also, the rates will drop every time there's a new scandal, so there's a compounding effect to the waves of bad press they've had.

You say that -- and externally the place looks like a catastrophe -- but we don't know what's going on under the covers. If they saw him as a true risk he'd be gone by now.

The question is when does he become a liability for the IPO aka VC exit?

Do you really think the Uber board is going to risk bursting that bubble with an IPO? I'd expect them to keep doing funding rounds on the basis of "it's an XX billion dollar company and its valuation is growing at YY billion/year" and try to keep the Ponzi scheme running until they get their self-driving tech working (since that's their only realistic chance of actually becoming revenue-positive).

Sure, they'll keep that going as long as they can. The point is, though, that narrative is slipping away from them. They need to make a convincing case that it's real, and do so soon.

Not if he controls the company (which by all appearences, he does)

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