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Two Executives to Leave Uber, Adding to Departures
- rattray 10y agoDoesn't seem like much of a real story: > Mr. McClendon is departing amicably from Uber and will be an adviser to the company. ... His exit has been in the works for some time
- israrkhan 10y agoThis news is only getting traction because of Jeff Jones departure. In addition there has been a few other high profile departures that were news worthy
- throwawaymaps 10y agoMm, perhaps. Brian Mc only joined Uber in June 2015 as part of their massive push into maps. Another senior maps exec, Marc Prioleau, joined in December 2015 and last month left for Mapbox. Two departures after a short time suggests something not right.
- ziszis 10y agoNow every departure is viewed with suspicion. With a 10,000 person company there is going to be exec departures, but even normal departures will have rumors attached to them (why did they really leave? Isn't the timing odd? Was something about to come out?) Every senior person leaving Uber now has to manage their image as they leave. And every journalist is digging to see if there is any dirt.
- wpietri 10y agoWith a 10,000-person company, there will be departures, but there still shouldn't be many executive departures if things are going well. Especially now, the CEO and the board should be doing absolutely everything they can to get good senior execs to stay. That they can't is an important sign.
- smallgovt 10y agoI'm surprised this comment is so low. In a 10,000 person company with 100 "senior executives", you'll naturally see 20 execs leave every year even if the company has a healthy 5-year retention. Sure, you'd expect to see this churn ramp and plateau over time, but something like 10 "senior execs" leaving every year doesn't strike me as out of the ordinary. I think it's important to note that stories like this will be reported whether or not it's based in truth because it's what certain people want to believe.
- swang 10y agowhere do you get your numbers from? saying 20% of senior executives leaving a company in a year seems to be a high figure. let's set that aside for a moment, because you're saying this is completely normal for a large company. but to me this seems like a pretty abnormal event worth reporting. we're talking about a pretty large number of senior executives leaving within a very small timeframe. this seems to be why it's making the tech news sites, since it's not just the normal churn of employees leaving.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- umeshunni 10y ago"In a statement, he said he was moving back to Kansas, where he is from, to explore politics. His exit has been in the works for some time, and his last day at Uber is March 28."
- Myrmornis 10y agoRight, major national-level news. Or possibly a newspaper who has identified an enemy it wishes to paint in a bad light wherever possible.
- MaxfordAndSons 10y agoMmm great just who we need to revitalize the Democratic party, former Uber execs /s.
- alphonsegaston 10y agoOn the story about Jeff Jones, someone commented that Kalanick has a stock arrangement that gives him control of the board. Does anyone know if this is true? I can't see how they can let this hemorrhaging continue when the problem is obviously Kalanick's leadership. But it shows no signs of stopping. The only other thing I could think of is that the board is complicit in something worse than what's been exposed, and is afraid Kalanick will blow things up if they move on him. EDIT: BBC is now reporting that two separate internal sources at Uber say Kalanick will step down when a new COO is in place. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39323828 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39323828
- kelukelugames 10y agoBlind says Kalanick is stepping down.
- rattray 10y agoWho is Blind?
- daegloe 10y ago@kelukelugames may be referring to the "anonymous work talk" app: https://us.teamblind.com https://us.teamblind.com Which, it's been reported, is widely used among Uber employees: https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/25/ubersecret/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/25/ubersecret/
- umeshunni 10y agohttps://twitter.com/anildash/status/843692126437302272 https://twitter.com/anildash/status/843692126437302272 "Two separate, well-placed sources at the company have told the BBC that Mr Kalanick will likely step down as chief executive soon after the new COO is in place."
- achow 10y agoBlind user is quoting the same BBC article.
- omarforgotpwd 10y agoFeels like Uber's next fundraising event may be a down round...
- abvdasker 10y agoA down round with Uber's losses means that the company will probably not survive.
- jbverschoor 10y agoUnter
- Axsuul 10y agoUnter is the German word for under while Über can mean above
- omginternets 10y agoThat's the joke.
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoI didn't get it. Thanks for explaining it!
- thomask0 10y agoWell what's happening with all the rats leaving the ship it feels more like the "Der Ubergang" For non-German speakers, its a pun on the German name of the the movie Downfall (Untergang), infamous for it's Hitler in the bunker clip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall_(2004_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downfall_(2004_film)
- hueving 10y ago>infamous for it's Hitler in the bunker clip. Interesting side-node about 'infamous'. Just because a movie depicts a terrible event or subject (Hitler in this case), it doesn't mean the move itself is 'infamous'. The movie (i.e. the artists) didn't do a terrible deed (e.g. completely misrepresent Hitler as innocent), so in this case the movie is simply "famous for it's Hitler in the bunker clip".
- jpatokal 10y agoIn case the name doesn't ring a bell, Brian was one of the creators of what became Google Earth and spent over 10 years at Google before jumping ship to Uber in 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_McClendon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_McClendon
- jlebrech 10y agothere should be a ride sharing app that gets it's money from the city's congestion budget and reward those that pick each other up.
- DigitalSea 10y agoTravis is destroying Uber and his ego is so big, he won't step down which would save the image of Uber somewhat. What a trainwreck, I deleted the app and quite a few of my friends did as well. What a disgusting company and the way it's being run is just gross negligence.
- rjbwork 10y agoApparently my phone summoned an uber while it was in my pocket for a straight hour while I was at lunch the other day, and I was charged 6 dollars and refused a refund. Permanently deleted, without regret.
- stagbeetle 10y agoThis seems like an overreaction for a measly $6.
- rjbwork 10y agoPerhaps. It's more the principal of the matter. Why accept it if it's 6 dollars vs 100?
- stagbeetle 10y agoEffort put in and results put out. If someone steps on the back of your shoes, is reacting the same way as if they had stolen them not counterproductive?
- simondw 10y agoMore like, if someone steals $6 out of your pocket, would you trust them to keep walking behind you?
- stagbeetle 10y agoNo. But, I don't think this is parallel to butt-dialing Uber. Maybe if you had $6 hanging out of your back pocket, they flew out, someone picked them up, and when confronted said that they didn't do it.
- alistproducer2 10y agoAll the speculation around the turmoil over seems to be missing one key component. I think a bigger driving force then this sexual harassment and CEO antics is the waymo lawsuit. Uber itself has acknowledged that without self-driving capabilities the company will most likely not find profitability. From reporting I've read, it appears the waymo lawsuit has a high probability of success. If the waymo lawsuit essentially forces Uber to start its self driving program back from scratch then the path to self-driving viability has essentially been scrapped. To me, this is a better explanation of the recent spat of high-level exits from the company.
- teekert 10y agoMaybe I'm being naive but how can a company that replaces a whole layer of management and overhead of traditional Taxi companies by an App not reach profitability? Is maintaining an app that expensive? I can't imagine.
- pyvpx 10y agobecause they subsidize every ride. significantly. traditional taxis are actually profitable with what they charge. uber is not.
- hueving 10y ago>because they subsidize every ride. significantly I don't believe this is true in all markets. IIRC the heavy subsidizing behavior causing severe losses is in new markets like China.
- mandevil 10y agoNope, worse than that. Uber did have its butt kicked in China and surrendered last summer, having it's China operations purchased by Didi (the company that applied the foot to Uber's posterior). But the problem was everywhere: Uber lost 800 million in 3Q 2016 ex-China, 2.2 billion for the year. "Even in the U.S., Uber's home market, the company continues to lose money." They did manage to turn a profit in the US in 1Q2016 but lost 100 million in 2Q and the losses "increased" in 3Q, looking only at the US. Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/uber-s-loss-exceeds-800-million-in-third-quarter-on-1-7-billion-in-net-revenue https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/uber-s-lo...
- tyingq 10y agoIf you're getting the paywall, as I did, another story on the same topic: http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-vp-of-maps-brian-mcclendon-is-leaving-2017-3 http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-vp-of-maps-brian-mcclend... Includes a list of other recent Uber departures.
- brightball 10y agoIt's because they switched to MySQL isn't it?