Letter from Benchmark to Uber Employees [pdf]
drive.google.com
drive.google.com
One of the key things about organizations which isn't always apparent is that leadership isn't "given" it is earned. This is often used as a tool in story telling where the hero's actions inspire people to follow them and so even though someone else is the "boss" the people are following the "hero."
That they are complaining about Travis, who, AFAICT, does not even have an employee role at all in the company, continues to be "involved" in day to day operations, suggests that his lack of co-operation is the issue and Travis is, or continues to be depending on your point of view, the 'bad actor' in this situation.
Sometimes you have classes where they throw out a hypothetical question like "What if you fired the boss and he didn't leave?" If Travis is able to exert that level of control over the company then clearly he continues to have people loyal to him doing as he asks against the wishes of the board. I can imagine that this would make it extremely hard to manage a company in that situation.
It's normal that employees at all levels will still give him some leverage. It doesn't say anything about employee loyalty or Travis being the leader they want.
Is this what happens when a CEO has a large voting block of shares (b/c he's smart enough to learn from previous founders' experience with VCs), and a VC firm that finds they can't have it their way (like they've been used to), publicly shame him for "not doing what he promised (us)"?
Last I checked they ousted _him_ and now they want to play "victim" because they're finding it hard to find a replacement? Maybe none feels they're able to fill his shoes or do as good a job as he's done? Last I checked Uber was still a tremendous success regardless of all their bad press and missteps/deeds.
Sorry, I just find it hard to sympathize with these people.
Faustian deal indeed. The only way to read Faust is as the story of someone who is in over his head and screws up at every turn. Every thing that Faust touches turns to shit. There's nothing Faustian about Faust.
It has been obvious for years that Travis Kalanick will run Uber into the ground, unless controlled. This is not new. One of the reasons there isn't a CFO is so he doesn't have to justify his awful ideas.
It's good to see Benchmark is finally admitting that they (and the rest of the board) have failed to do their job; by failing to more adequately govern Uber.
Uber is a looming disaster for investors, and I pity employees there who think their options are going to make them rich. That will only be true for a very, very few, because Travis has made decisions that will leave most of them with basically nothing.
I'd say it's a stretch to call these jobs until they're proven sustainable without VC money subsidizing drivers.
How about: "he convinced billionaires to give generous subsidies to hundreds of thousands of working class drivers"? :)
Right now the company isn't worth $70B, and is hemorrhaging money. Which is why he agreed to step down. He's clearly been overmatched as CEO for a long while now.
http://venturehacks.com/articles/board-structure
as a side-note actually current Uber board doesn't reflect the ownership
Benchmark as ~13,5% and one board seat
Travis as ~10% and three board seats
Travis may not be a nice person, but he is good at playing this game and is beating the capitalists at their own game.
Why should I cry for benchmark?
Mobody is crying for Benchmark and this lawsuit looks ridiculous and it's going to affect their deal flow quality for many years to come.
I've served on a couple of boards (private companies) once as an independent director and once as a technical adviser and remember wondering once if the folks I was dealing with were just bored or if they really didn't care one way or the other.
That said, I've also worked with board members at companies that were very engaged and very involved with their companies and the companies involved benefited from their attention.
The only common thread was that generally the board members had a whole lot less to lose if the company failed than the executive staff did, and so they often assume that the executive staff is motivated to make things succeed, and seem disinclined to second guess the CEO and their team's tactics. Of course things get unpleasant when the tactics make them look bad as we've seen in Uber and Theranos as well.
There are various places that recruit people to serve on boards. Some people feel like it 'boosts' their executive street cred if they are on the boards of several companies. I'm not one of the people who is impressed by something like that but I recognize that some folks are and its part of the VC "game". (sort like having rare Magic the Gathering cards I guess, "I play Unicorn Startup on your Bootstrapped Lifestyle Business.") It would probably make for an interesting subplotline in Silicon Valley.
Sounds like a pretty big contradiction.
Kalanick is being accused of defaulting on an agreement "to modify the company’s voting agreement to ensure that the board was composed of independent, diverse, and well qualified directors" and acting "to deter candidates and create a power vacuum in which Travis could return."
Defaulting on agreements doesn't take particular skill. While installing a surrogate would have been a show of power, throwing a wrench into the search process in hopes that it convinces people to bring him back also signals that those same people don't think he should be back right now. It's a move that signals weakness, not strength.
This letter is a message to people who, while perhaps not coöperating with Travis, left him dark corners from which to throw around muck. Loudly and clearly, Benchmark is saying "the old king is dead."
Disclaimer: These is personal, casual commentary and does NOT constitute investment advice. Please do NOT buy or sell any securities based on my Internet comments.
Yeah, but; earned by whom???
The board? What if they are inept? What if you have X0,000?? employees - especially those who are 99.9% NEVER going to set foot in an office of, or the presence of "dear leader"?
Why/how shall they 'earn' the respect of said leader?
Not going to happen...
Leadership respect is earned by those in proximity to direct results that affect THEM...
Driver results from leader in Uber's case == "all gripes drivers have due to proximity to leader/leader's policies that affect their $$ line...."
Tell Zuck to be a line cook in the BBQ stand in MPK - for two months, and not having to go to his palo alto compound, attend his 'charity' events for new-parent-syndrome-billionaires, etc... the outcome will be diff...
He will never earn the respect of a line-cook, as JK will never earn the respect of an uberdriver doing their "side-hustle" (the recent uber commercial is advertising to young, black, urban females to "get a side-hustle"^ by being an uber driver.
^ -- Yes this is the actual quote from the commercial.
Oh look; they have the male trope going as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsbWt6FjlTk
So black science teachers who chill and play pool needa side hustle as well??
> Yeah, but; earned by whom???
One of the tougher places you can find yourself is when you're loyalty is to one leader, but you are being asked to follow a different leader. That is especially difficult if it is a different leader that you do not respect.
I've seen that situation occur when the leader is removed against their wishes and so they have made no effort to help the team transition to the new leader (or acting leader). That is hard on the new leader and unfair to the team, but I have seen it up close more than once.
Benchmark's letter makes me wonder about the full content of the Holder report. Their lawsuit listed scandals that were already public, but whatever was in the report seems to be what triggered their initial request for Travis to step away from the company.
I wonder how many of the "Travis loyalists" would reconsider their position if they were aware of the full extent of the risks the company was exposed to as a result of his management.
TBF to travis; that is how it should be, it would seem... but
* the actions of him at dinner in NYC and his comments there
* the claims against the corp from females
* claims by his GF
* THE FACT THAT 99% of his employees are not millenials employed at the SF HQ, vs the ~N K ppl employed as drivers...
Sure, as ChuckMcM said: "direct reports" how many is that? What about the N # of employees that his direct influence didnt positively effect?
Look; I love Uber as a service - as a company, Danny deVito would have been a better CEO from a cultural fit.
Now I'm curious. Can you give more detail here or at least some links?
If I learned anything from the last US election it's that many people will overlook all manner of moral failings if the person in question is powerful and "alpha" enough.
Travis legally has control of the company just like an owner would. Nobody can "force" him to leave on run his company as certain way. Benchmark is just whining because they can't get their way.
Benchmark agreed to let him have permanent control when they invested, if they didn't want that they shouldn't have signed the contract.
Invisibly stapled to every contract is the entire corpus of relevant law. Delaware, for instance, protects minority investors from certain categories of abuse. If the claims in this letter are true regarding Kalanick telling Uber's Board that he was going to sign certain voting rights agreements, and then he did not do that, it could be grounds for finding violations per those laws.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal nor investment advice.
Bull-fucking-shit. Don't condescend to us and pretend like you have the employees' interests at heart. I have no great love for Travis, but come on don't act like this isn't about getting your returns. The letter would have a lot more credibility if they just came out and admitted what is obvious to everyone.
Benchmark or Uber's employees who hold illiquid common stock?
At least that's according to this throwaway but highly upvoted comment [0] from some days ago.
It's an open secret that Kalanick is trying to regain control of the company, telling people that he plans to return as CEO; that he's "Steve Jobs-ing it." [1] That's what this lawsuit is trying to prevent.
I don't think Kalanick's return would be good for Uber, its employees, or its investors. Clearly Benchmark feels the same way.
[1] https://www.recode.net/2017/7/30/16066332/uber-ceo-search-tr...
I've worked at more than one where it turned to shit...
It just doesn't tend to be very public when it happens successfully.
(Which is not to say that Benchmark and employees' interests couldn't align in this case...)
also the Steve that returned to Apple was a complete different person.
As you say, it is obvious.
They are only arguing that both employees and investors have a shared interest in the long-term success of the company. Which sounds pretty reasonable.
Not sure what this letter is supposed to accomplish. Employees who were behind Benchmark already will continue to support them, and employees who were behind Travis will continue to support him, and if anything, the polarization will increase with this message.
Communicate why Benchmark acted in a manner they find to be reasonable? Assuming every single one of Uber's employees don't divide into neat pro-Benchmark and pro-Kalanick camps, this could help keep nervous minds put.
Disclaimer: This comment is NOT investment advice. Please do not buy or sell any securities based on it.
This letter or the lawsuit? The suit certainly communicated drama and uncertainty, though if the accusations in this letter are true, it might have been a calculated judgment that lots of drama now is better than a slow drip over years.
After filing the lawsuit, Benchmark could (a) stay silent, leaving everyone guessing (and letting the machinations they accuse Kalanick of orchestrating continue to work their rot) or (b) explain their actions. They chose (b).
I would guess just stirring the pot and keeping Uber in the news. If you believe that Benchmark is the source of some leaks, like the poor state of the leasing program, that's the goal. Make enough noise that some other investor is willing to buy them out to stop the noise.
But hasn't that already been proposed? There was a letter to Benchmark from 3 Uber investors earlier this week who have offered to buy a minimum 75% of Benchmark's share. Approximately $6 Billion, if I remember correctly.
Based on Travis' continued day-to-day meddling in Uber, it looks like he still has quite a bit of "soft power" within the company even though he's no longer an employee.
This isn't like the situation where Steve Jobs sold all his Apple stock and cut the ties after John Sculley and the Apple board fired him.
I'm guessing his soft power exists because you have a large faction of employees with stock options. For whatever reasons rational/irrational, they think the best way for the stock value to increase is with Travis instead of Benchmark's candidates. Maybe Benchmark thinks their letter can change some opinions on Travis or capture the undecideds.
(Yes, Steve Jobs coming back to Apple helped, but Jack Dorsey coming back to Twitter didn't. Therefore, don't get tunnel vision about Travis being the ultimate savior ... seems to be Benchmark's underlying message.)
Yes, Benchmark also has stock equity in Uber so the VC's protection of their capital should be perfectly aligned with the employees' desire for their stock to go up in value. The problem is that the employees have been "in the trenches" with Travis whose value to the business was demonstrated concretely whereas Benchmark is just an "investor" whose value to Uber is abstract.
To me it appears Benchmark is mostly aligned with employees; both want the company to grow and do well. So why do many have bad feelings about Benchmark's actions? What am I missing?
This can be very different from employees' interest in the case where Benchmark seeks to sell their stake via a private transaction (e.g. to Softbank).
I'd also add that Benchmark couldn't care less if the company 'grows'. They've already made enough money to return their fund many times over. Their strategy now is mainly to mitigate risk to the paper value of their holdings.
Benchmark is desperate to get out. Why do you think that is? Do you think they'd be all hands on deck trying to get out of a rocket ship investment? Of course not.
Uber's unit economics are garbage, and will remain garbage until self-driving technology becomes universal. That will not happen in a timeframe that Benchmark is comfortable with - or to put it another way, within the preferred close dates of their fund - and even if it did, they clearly have little confidence that the current leadership (or lack thereof) are the right operators, either now or in the future.
The ship is sinking. They want out. Softbank wants in - for reasons I can't understand other than they have the money and want to spray it around aimlessly - and this bit of messiness is surely throwing a wrench into the plans.
Because they're trying to shape the battlespace of public debate to create the best possible conditions for a resolution of this standoff in a way that gives them liquidity for their investment at a valuation approaching Uber's last round.
Anecdotally, I have seen up close what it looks like when suit-and-tie MBA types start looking for the emergency exit, and this smells right.
BUT
What I don't know would fill volumes-- whaddya got?
[1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2955455
[2] https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/silicon-valleys-unicor...
Nowhere did I find reference to the economics of Uber justifying their valuation. I should clarify my point: I don't think Uber is worth what they think they're worth based on the fundamentals. Certainly a bunch of tricky contracts could exacerbate that, but I think everybody bought into Uber at a valuation they were never going to sustain, and the ship is slowly crashing back to earth.
Right, so the smart money is the money that agrees with you, and the investors willing to sink billions into Uber must just be stupid. It's so obvious, guys.
If this letter's claims are true, Kalanick agreed, in writing, "to modify the company’s voting agreement to ensure that the board was composed of independent, diverse, and well qualified directors." He then defaulted on that written agreement with Uber's Board.
That's a pretty serious mistake.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal nor investment advice.
Perhaps the mistake here is Benchmark's. If Kalanick agreed to do this in writing, and then didn't do it, that makes him look bad but it's unclear to me that Benchmark can do much about it. Maybe Travis has the last laugh.
It's unclear from the letter if this agreement was a contract or e.g. an email. If a contract, the answer is clear.
If something less formal, note that American courts tend to treat written communications between sophisticated parties as legally binding, particularly if it occurs around negotiating a contract [1].
There's the further distinction that these are written communications between a CEO and his Board. At the very least, Kalanick made untrue statements to his investors. If he did it intentionally, it could constitute fraud.
[1] https://www.law360.com/articles/950866/bank-bound-by-unsigne...
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal nor investment advice.
Even verbal agreements are binding in the US especially when dealing with parties such as these. If TK hopes to have any credibility moving forward, with the Board or in the courts, it would be in his best interest to keep commitments or he will be stuck in the "did you lie then or is this version a lie" mess.
If he wants to argue that he made the agreement under duress then he can argue that in court and the court may find the the agreement is not enforceable but duress can be a steep hill to climb without physical, or threat of physical, harm.
In order to liquidate their investment, Uber needs to IPO or Benchmark needs to find another investor to buy them out.
Travis is a staunch opponent to an IPO. And, replacing Travis as CEO is a likely pre-condition to finding another investor who will buy Benchmark out. Either way, discrediting and removing Travis and protecting their money is more or less one in the same.
And what I mean by that is this: they gave Uber money for shares. But they have not yet sold the shares to anybody, b/c no acquisition or IPO. Other investors buy more shares, but that's not a liquidity event, is it?
Benchmark has a whole boatload of paper profits that they can't return to their LPs, not yet at least.
Or am I crossed up here? Could they, or have they, done some kind of private sale? I kind of doubt it but could easily be wrong here. Is there some kind of financial instrument to cash out early I'm ignorant of?
If that's true, I'm scared.
FWIW, Uber is very far from the most important and promising company of our generation in my mind.
[edit: Payoff in a most spectacular fashion here means "exited at nearly the top of the valuation"]
Now there is an easy, cheap, fast, and reliable way to get anywhere in the city, any time I want, without planning ahead. That bar my friends are meeting at that was two busses away and not worth the hassle on a Tuesday? I'll be there in fifteen minutes for the price of my first beer. For those who drive: no more worrying about parking or how many drinks you had.
Ranking companies which had less impact on my life than Uber seems like a strange exercise.
Beyond that, Uber's usefulness really depends on locality. There are some places in the world that actually have functioning, acceptable taxi systems, like Seoul, where the prices are reasonable and the drivers are generally fair.
Can you give an example of what you think should (???) be the most important company of a generation?
first, I would push back against the idea that Uber has vastly increased mobility. It's made mobility slightly less annoying in certain places for certain groups of people. But most parts of the world have had taxis for a long time. You've been able to schedule a taxi for decades, something which Uber just recently added. Prices are a bit better with Uber, but it's unclear if the VC subsidized pricing is sustainable. In places like Cuba and Cambodia the taxis and tuk-tuks have been excellent and painless methods of transportation for generations and often require zero wait and have zero barrier to entry other than the price of the transportation, that is; it requires to smart phone, no data plan, no credit card.
I don't perceive Uber as having done anything other than contribute a level of convenience to transportation. I don't feel as though it's provided mobility to anyone who didn't have it before, it hasn't decreased congestion or pollution. How many lives has it saved? How many people who desperately lacked needed resources has it helped? How much has it decreased dependency on non-renewable resources?
I think companies that provide life-saving resources to people or companies that increase equality are much more important. Creating the technology to get everyone access to clean water or drought resistant crops are some ideas that come to mind.
I can recall a number of times waiting on street corners trying to flag a cab for an hour, only to give up and walk home. Calling the taxi company on a busy night was a joke.
At least in this city, transportation was broken. Clean water and draught resistant crops are great in general, but on a personal level I'm still drinking and eating more or less like I was five or ten years ago.
Also, Bart allows bikes, San Francisco is always pretty pleasant riding weather, the busses are robust and have provisions for bikes, there's an assistance program for public transit in the bay. But damnit Bart why can't you have 24 hour trains.
I spent six months (Nov '16 - May '17) with my license yanked away after a seizure. Uber (and Lyft) changed my life at that time. The last time I was in a similar position I depended on friends' charity. There were taxis that you could call by phone, but around an hour away. I was in a large city then too (Atlanta).
Even at it's most absurdly promising, it's a relatively minor change in how we move and transport people and goods. Maybe fewer people required, maybe cheaper.
To compare that to "the internet" -- a technology that eliminated and created entire classes of industries, fundamentally changed the way we interact at almost every level, how society operates, how economies are built and run? No. Not even close. Not even in the same order of magnitude of significance.
Benchmark needs to limit any reputational damage that results from the ensuing battle. In order to do that, they need to justify their actions to the public.
Engaging with journalists directly is suboptimal because it lets the journalist control the narrative which will naturally paint them in a defensive light. Addressing the public via a "letter to employees" allows them to fully control the narrative, defend their actions while not seeming defensive, and paint the picture that they are looking out for the greater good.
Of course, we all know that Benchmark is self-interested. Their goals are:
- Liquidate their investment ASAP via a private transaction (e.g. Softbank) or IPO
- Protect the value of their investment until liquidation event occurs
- Limit any reputational damage to their firm
Everything they do can probably be explained by at least one of these objectives. And, it should be obvious that they don't genuinely care about Uber's employees -- only to the extent that it preserves the value of their investment (i.e. preventing substantial attrition).
That is a totally delusional statement. The current status of Uber's decline is a direct contradiction to this very line. Uber isn't anything special. A case could be made to say that Travis is special, an exceptional force that bulled his way through red tape and created a lot of value for shareholders and users of Uber, but Uber, as a company is nothing more than a very nice brand, which has now turned bad.
You can see this in every market they try to capture, fail and end up partnering with others in.
These kind of statements are why people take the piss out of the Silicon Valley thought bubble. Uber augments the middle class by providing convenience functions on their phone. That is not going to change the world. Not one bit.
in my opnion a very strong case, if you compare it to a proxy like Lyft, very competent funding team they preceded Uber by several years [1], add access to the same pools of capital and talent and probably are worth 10% of Uber and only have a regional impact on US not the rest of the world.
So what is special about Uber? Travis is.
------------------------------------
[1] The first company with the ability to get everyday cars with drivers was SideCar, Lyft copied SideCar, Uber copied SideCar.
Paul developed his concept for mobile ride-hailing over a wireless network, applied for a patent in 2000 and was granted U.S. patent 6356838 “System and method for determining an efficient transportation route” in 2002. Paul turned his idea into reality. He co-founded San Francisco startup Sidecar, which offers paid rides by private drivers in their own cars, summoned by passengers over a wireless network.
If we rewind the clock to 2012, Lyft launched a peer-to-peer ridesharing service and Uber was a black car marketplace. Lyft and Sidecar’s P2P taxis were a bigger idea in a bigger space. And like most marketplaces, it was a winner-take-all opportunity, or at least a winner-take-most. At the time, all three companies were only in SF and everyone was racing towards liquidity, with sights to have a right of first refusal on every other city in the country thereafter. Lyft had a big head start, but Uber was trailing right behind.
Uber began to aggressively put its war chest to work to achieve liquidity as fast as possible. This meant enabling ~5 minute pickups for riders and ~$25 hourly earnings for drivers. First, it guaranteed drivers hourly rates and spent money to acquire drivers. With drivers on the road, Uber focused on filling their cars through paid channels and incentivizing referrals. In a nutshell, the company subsidized fares and gave away free rides until there was enough demand and drivers could earn enough on their own. City by city, Uber implemented this playbook — buying drivers, buying passengers, subsidizing rides — to shave minutes off the pickup SLA and increase driver earnings, propelling Uber to liquidity.
In short, Uber burned cash to get more drivers and more customers on the road. As availability went up and the marketplace became stable, Uber got closer to profitability and could scale faster.
-----------------
Sidecar: ‘We failed because Uber is willing to win at any cost’ (2016)
https://venturebeat.com/2016/01/20/sidecar-we-failed-because...
Last time I checked, Benchmark has one board seat? A bit bizarre for them to assert themselves (note the plural) as a benevolent agent for employees. I know 'corporations are people too', but how are employees supposed to respond to this letter? They're not. This is a PR release. Good thing "this isn’t about Benchmark versus Travis."
The CFO inclusion screams IPO, which, consequently, is all this comes down to: money. Benchmark wants to cash out.
Entrepreneurs will still work with Benchmark. Yes, they'll push you out a la Twitter and Uber style, but, at the very least, you'll be a billionaire by the time they do.
Give me a break. Are you curing cancer? Are you solving hunger? Are you fixing climate issues?
I hate when employers talk like salesmen to their employees.
Most cities would have no ride sharing industry to speak of had it not been for Uber de-fanging the taxi industry.
[1]: https://www.car2go.com/CA/en/ [2]: https://evo.ca [3]: http://www.zipcar.ca/vancouver [4]: http://modo.coop
(Also why Uber went on a sustained binge of offering 5$ rides in Boston; they didn't have anything else to compete with BMC on).
There are enough cars in Vancouver that you'll find one within a few blocks 90% of the time, so the argument of "not bringing a car with a driver" is moot unless you don't know how to drive. There's also no surge pricing. It's always the same flat rate.
I roll my eyes at this sentiment, which has become an increasingly common criticism of Silicon Valley. If Facebook improves ad targeting, and it helps millions of businesses and individuals reach potential users more effectively at a lower cost that is still good for the world, even if the effort was primarily profit-driven.
Maybe we don't have to applaud it as heroism, but there's no doubt in my mind that ride sharing as a concept is a good thing for many people and a good thing for the world.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around what the legal difference is between "agreeing in writing to sign something" and "signing something". Anyone familiar with contract law want to chime in?
In this case, the first agreement definitely isn't enough to modify the company's articles of incorporation.
If you and I sign a document that says umanwizard sells me a umanchesterwizard with all the little deets like price and timing of delivery and such, then we've reached an agreement.
If you and I sign a document that says we will put together a purchase in the future, however, we explicitly are acknowledging that we haven't signed the aforementioned document yet.
Depending on the facts and jurisdiction, some places deal with these situations differently, but in common law generally an agreement to agree is not the agreement, and is a non-binding promise. That said, this is very general and you should speak with a lawyer (because i am not yours) if you want a fast and firm answer in a specific situation.
FWIW, the jurisdiction in this case seems to be Delaware. Nobody can know what the facts are until a court or jury determines them...
And so who precisely is Uber's "excellent executive leadership team" comprised of? No COO, CFO, and CEO...
'It's not Benchmark vs Travis.' BS.
Basically, they try to involve the employees and bring them up against Travis.
Travis should fight back, and hit Benchmark as hard as possible, so Benchmark looses all their reputation forever.
All I'm seeing is an unsigned PDF, stored in google drive, purporting to be from Benchmark.
I do wonder if Travis is miffed at his ousting. Probably. But is he willing to burn the company to the ground in response? He must be a significant shareholder in Uber and obviously is still a board member.
The lawsuit by Benchmark alleging fraud was one level of desperation. I mean Becnhmark gave Travis the power to fill those board seats and now they have buyer's remorse? You get no sympathy from me.
This does raise obvious questions about what the lawsuit will reveal.
I'm not advocating for one side or the other but there is a lot of money involved and when that happens you have to be very vigilant of who is espousing for what.
>It was at the same time that Travis agreed in writing to modify the company’s voting agreement to ensure that the board was composed of independent, diverse, and well qualified directors. Despite agreeing in writing to sign these amendments, he has still not done so.
then
>A number of people have asked why we took legal action before giving Travis the chance to sign these amendments.
It doesn't sound like he agreed in writing yet based on their own words. Maybe that's just bad wording though.
They also fail to point to any actual actions taken on his part, just references to vague statements or inferences of inaction.
Not to say I'm on Travis's side of this, but from what I've read its much more likely Benchmark is trying to stabilize leadership under someone who will focus on shareholder value (not company growth/stability) as they need to divest themselves within the next year or two. This obviously stands contrary to what Travis supposedly wants (and has failed to accomplish), and probably much of the rest of the board.
So basically Benchmark's people on the board are incompetent.
I visited Uber and I felt that place was more of bar with the light settings in the lunch room. So many hastags outside the conference rooms e.g. #pumpedup.. pure sh.
Suggests that it is addressed to employees creating jobs, which would be the full time employees.
I think 'the umpire has spoken' and that Benchmark know that this well crafted letter will carry enough weight to be heard by everyone. I think it is a masterstroke by them to write like this.
Question to Uber employees: Does Travis still come into the office everyday?
If Uber is the best our generation has to offer, the future is doomed.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-t...
Worked: SocialCam
Failed: Uber HomeJoy Sprig Etc...
If I was working at Uber I would be like "Who are you to suddenly show up and act like mom?"
THen fuck you.
Why wasn't, mr. VC, "taxi companies and their rates and availability and regulations and customer dissatisfaction the most important and disuptional problem of our generation" of the past?
"oh look - people want this! Arent we innovative. Oh shoot! look people are pissed when the company still acts like douchebags! Why would they act like that?"
--
I love the uber product, hate the player and all that...
b ut give me a fucking break - uber is a taxi, as taxi's should be and self-driving cars are the next inCARnation of said service - but stop patting yourself where you can see that they acted like many disruptors who come into big money do... it is not a surprise.
Uber is a very interesting litmus to the state of things - the confluence of big money, big problems is amazing:
* 1. female engineering drama
* 2. ceo drama
* 3. legal drama
* 4. funding/VC drama
* 5. employees love/hating drama (tech issues are cool and all - but fuck this place)
* 6. user drama
* 7. data drama
* 8. driver drama
---
1. sexist blah - we know this one
2. sexist blah, douchebaggery blah -- now the ousting...
3. cities/states/countries banning them
4. raised how much for what? uber car leasing/VC battles, waymo, etc
5. employees love the eng - hate the grind/sexism/bro-bullshit
6. many complaints, new complaints, better than those on Richess. What about the lame "party button" that I already wrote about - lamest contest mode ever "compete for a spot to exclusive lame party - we will pick you up and drop you off to a specific location... OH, You want a ride home from said undisclosed location; FUCK YOU - stand at the corner and cal a surge uber like every other pleb, you moron"
7. No access to any recent data - but we will use it against all our drivers.
8. Here, hold my hammer in your skull for a sec.
go act superior [OVER THERE]
This is not a free for all.