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| Travis Kalanick |
Following months of scandal at Uber and
pressure from investors, CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick has stepped down
from his position at the ridesharing company.
While he will no longer head the $70 billion firm, Kalanick will remain
on its board of directors. According to The New York Times, five of Uber’s
major shareholders, including VC
firm Benchmark’s partner Bill Gurley, demanded
that Kalanick throw in the towel, in a letter addressed and delivered to him in
Chicago.
The letter from these investors also called for two now board members
who should ideally be ‘truly independent directors’, as well as a new CEO and
an experienced CFO.
Uber’s boat has been rocked awfully hard over the past several months;
it started in February when a former female engineer published a blog post alleging sexist behavior among the company’s management, and
stories of numerous other scandals subsequently began to surface.
In just a few short months this year, the company parted ways with more
than a dozen top executives including president Jeff Jones, head of finance Gautam Gupta, senior
vice president for business Emil Michael, vice president of technology Anthony
Lewandroski, and APAC business president Eric Alexander. It also fired about 20 people in
connection with the investigation into the claims of sexism within its ranks.
Clearly, Uber has its work cut out for it in rebuilding its leadership
team. But hopefully, it can make changes for the better this time around. Many
of the problems plaguing the company are attributed to the ruthless growth-focused culture that Kalanick embodied and preached,
while other issues were addressed with a callous attitude.
In a statement, Kalanick said:
I love Uber more than
anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life I have
accepted the investors request to step aside so that Uber can go back to
building rather than be distracted with another fight.
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