Uber's Travis Kalanick punches back against the Benchmark lawsuit targeting him
latimes.com
latimes.com
I've seen the inside of a court room a few times, it's really not my favourite past time. Maybe civil is more fun than criminal.
What I'm getting at is, wouldn't you rather go skiing, or hiking, or hanging out with friends or family. Or whatever your thing is.
Wouldn't you, at some point, just think "righteo, this ain't that fun, let's just agree to something already"? Or do these things take on a life of their own and sweep you away with them? Or are people really just that keen to prove how right they are?
Do you think anyone, on their death bed thinks "I wish I'd spent more time sueing the pants off everyone."
1) using the term "sunk cost" is not quite correct here - sunk cost implies that the future value doesn't justify continued investment. in this case, it's likely that further investment (in time and cost of this court case) results in billions of dollars in value to one or both of the litigants. it's in fact very rational to pursue this litigation because there is real monetary gain at stake (and not simply the face-saving variety).
2) there's a fairness issue at play: "i did the work so i should get the reward.", or "i provided the money, so i should get the reward." you have to balance these two impulses fairly, not just for this case, but for future iterations of the game (in the game theory sense). for future iterations, it is "worth" applying a punishment now (in the form of an expensive court case) so that future rewards are meted out fairly as well.
"sunk cost" just means that a cost has been paid, and it's non-recoverable. When it comes up, it's usually to point out that only the future cost and benefits matter when making a decision.
That is what the opposition is hoping you do. Seems to me that a large number of legal cases amount to little more than a siege. First party to cry uncle loses.
There's some selection bias at work here. Someone who would answer "Yes" to that question isn't going to grow up to run Uber.
He probably is the guy to run a business like Uber. In an industry rife with corruption that often resorts to bully tactics, you need someone who will not bend on vision and principles because of personal threats.
He could have sat back and avoided a public smear capaign and retire to nice life as a billionaire. Instead he choose to fight for what he believes is right.
One has to believe that given the options for him, the choice to resist is not about money for him. It maybe about ego and his desire to change the course of history, but the latter is probably good for Uber if he gets to stay on.
There is a mountain of poor decisions that put Kalanick in the dog house. The culture he created at Uber is notoriously toxic, senior management has been either leaving in disgust or forced out over malfeasance.
Kalanick should gain some humility and leave it to the adults on his board to find someone who can run Uber responsibly.
So you like him for fighting corruption with more corruption and ignoring laws left and right?
It's very reminiscent of how companies successfully smeared unions.
I see a couple of possibilities. One is that the corruption in cab companies is similar to that in other industries, which people also smear (e.g. finance), and ridesharing PR plays that up. Another thought is that their "local" sketchiness (unclean cars, shady drivers) gives a sort of halo effect, so people are more willing to believe stories of in deeper corruption.
I guess they also tend to be (at least marginally) involved in local politics (to the extent that any local business is going to lobby local politics), and local politics tends to be more corrupt.
Travis had a deep empathy for the challenges of building successful products, and would offer tremendous grace and thoughtful advice to his team solving problems in the trenches. When projects went sideways, and we presented numbers that were less than stellar, Travis was both empathetic and optimistic while offering actionable guidance and a path forward. "Bro culture" is a loaded term and the wrong one to describe the environment Travis cultivated. He had tremendous focus on the problems at hand and pushed his team to operate with a sense of urgency to solve them. If anything I think he cared too much about each individual problem, which propelled his teams forward but sometimes left him too deep in the details of his business rather than focusing on the big picture.