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Comment by rmason | Hacker News Reader

If actual fraud is not found what sort of message does this send to entrepreneurs that Benchmark is founder friendly?

Looks like a grudge match to me. Apparently unhappy with merely removing Travis from the CEO's chair they want to make certain he's never allowed to ever enter the building.

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There's way too much money at stake here for this to be driven by grudges, emotions, or even reputations.

Benchmark's stake in Uber is worth $9.1b -- many, many times the size of their fund. They will do anything they can to protect this investment.

They very likely believe that the best way to protect their investment is to keep Travis out, and this is part of the process. Decisions like this aren't made at an individual partner level. The entire partnership decided to file this lawsuit, and that means it's a calculated decision.

> There's way too much money at stake here for this to be driven by grudges, emotions, or even reputations.

But that's precisely what happens. It is human nature. Money makes people emotional, greedy, envious, and short-sided. It takes exceptional and very rare discipline (see Warren Buffett) to not be emotional in investing/business.

> Benchmark's stake in Uber is worth $9.1b -- many, many times the size of their fund.

I don't get it - their stake in Uber is part of their fund isn't it? So how can it be worth more than the whole fund?

I'm guessing funds are usually measured by invested capital, rather than how much they are currently worth.

For example, if their fund is $1B and they put $250M in Uber, then Uber's valuation goes 10x, so their portion is now worth $2.5B, more than the fund started with. (Numbers made up for example.)

I think it's more like Bill Gurley not fully looking out for the interests of Benchmark [0] while dealing with Travis when he held the board seat at Uber on their behalf.

Fun fact: Gurley has himself being sued by some founders of a startup (Epinions) in the past for misrepresenting material information [1] prior to a merger.

[0] "Mr. Gurley has remained one of Mr. Kalanick’s few trusted advisers, and the two communicate several times a week ... "

"Yet in many ways, Uber now epitomizes many of the excesses Mr. Gurley has publicly condemned, ..."

from

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/technology/bill-gurley...

[1] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2005/01/26/technology/founders-of...

Fwiw, Gurley is legally obligated to make board decisions on behalf of all shareholders not to look out just for benchmark's interests. I don't know that it is relevant in this case but just correcting the common misconception that a board member's job is to look out for his employer's interests.

If actual fraud is not found what sort of message does this send to entrepreneurs that Benchmark is founder friendly?

I don't think "The VC company will sue me if they suspect I've committed fraud" is something many founders need to be concerned about.

But that's not the point. In this case it is quite obvious that the lawsuit is being employed to gain power and control. I don't see a clear fraud.

I don't see a clear fraud

Your not being a party to the ongoing case, this doesn't surprise me. I don't think any of us knows enough to judge.

Furthermore, "weeding out fraud" could certainly be seen as "gain[ing] power and control," but it's not the most charitable interpretation.

Benchmark and especially Bill Gurley have never been friendly to common shareholders:

http://blog.ericgoldman.org/personal/archives/2005/02/ravika...

Best comment here.

Sueing their CEO for no real reason but just as powerplay to get back control feels like an act of pure desperation from a mediocre VC but not Benchmark.

Would love to know which partner at Benchmark triggered this. Then we have a name to this insanity (Gurley?).

Eh, Benchmark shafted most of the Epinions founders, who sued and settled.

> Apparently unhappy with merely removing Travis from the CEO's chair

Travis wasn't removed from CEO chair. He resigned temporarily due to passing of his late mother. He himself said multiple times once he is done greaving, he plans to come back.

"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."

is how the NYT put it.

I didnt get this news. First when it broke he and board explained its due to his morher passing. Now im confused as of what really transpired.

There was talk about leaving temporarily before the shareholder revolt kicked in.

Its disapotiing to keep being downvoted just because im wrong. would love to see all these people im sure they never been wrong in their life.

anyways Travis said himself he is leaving Uber because his mother just died, which was not a lie. And I believe when your mother dies you need time to grief and its perfectly fine to take time off.

This is true, but the board allegedly pressured him into resigning the week after. Here's the NYT article with details - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/technology/uber-ceo-travi... - although, given the lawsuit, it's not clear if the reporting was completely correct.

People will downvote a comment that is objectively incorrect. I wouldn't take it personally.

Enacting a coup while the king is absent from the castle is a common tactic.

You made a claim you didn't have the facts right on.

If someone without the relevant information reads it your comment could thus spread misinformation.

And so people downvote. The other replies that got downvoted after that I don't know about though.

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