On the one hand, Sarah Lacy's reporting on Uber has been the gold standard in terms of her paying attention to specific events and their significance, and explaining it all to readers -- especially with regard to ongoing litigation.<p>On the other, it seems like she has developed a persecution complex with regard to Uber; since Nov 2014, every article I've read of hers that covers Uber (I'm a Pando subscriber) has at least partially been about her and her relationship with the company. Yes, the fact that Emil Michael casually floated the idea of doing oppo research on her / her family <i>to her face</i> is really fucked up. However, to say she's taken that ball and run with it would be an understatement. I do hope that this is actually her last Kalanick-related story (doubt that will turn out to be the case), because she's a great journalist who is tremendously good at sniffing out what's really going on, and she should be training her sights on a more diverse target set.
"By my math, Uber’s true value puts it as number four in the global market, behind Didi Chuxing, Waymo, and Tesla, who will become a future competitor should Uber make it to the autonomous future."<p>Somehow I lost my interest to read further after this phrase. To me the comparison mostly doesn't make sense. I've been Uber customer for couple of years now, and I have to say for some parts Uber, as a service, has tremendously improved my life. These other companies seem to offer quite different products/services or are in whole different markets (Didi is only China AFAIK, while Uber works globally).
<i>>If I were Uber’s new CEO, I would embrace this reality. I would do a round that recaps the company immediately. Issue new stock to employees. Start at a clean and reasonable slate. Reset expectations and redefine what a successful IPO would be. Take the hit now, rather than having it continue to hang over this company until the end of time.</i><p>The new CEO presumably won't be a co-founder with significant voting power like Garrett Camp. He/she will more likely be a "hired gun." Therefore, the next chief won't have the power to issue new stock and force every investor to suffer an early haircut. Even if the board of directors (Kalinick, Camp, TPG, Huffington, etc) agree to award some equity (1%?) as incentive to attract a new CEO, he/she still won't control enough of the company to make those decisions.<p>If we argue that a good CEO would convince those investors/BofD to take the financial hit, then we're still back to the decision the next CEO doesn't control: why would the BofD hire a CEO that tells them to immediately reduce their financial stake instead of concentrating on cleaning up Uber and growing the value so they never had to consider haircuts in the first place?
The article is somewhat long-winded and covers a number of issues, but I couldn't agree more in its conclusion as to what kind of CEO Uber now needs, and what kind of hurdle he is facing:<p><i>A boring, operations wizard. Uber is a logistics company that needs an operational wizard, not a product visionary. The bad news for Uber investors is that losing Kalanick creates a massive vacuum of power and resetting this toxic culture will be all but impossible for anyone. [...]</i><p><i>Uber does not need a product visionary. (Guarantee no other Valley insider will have that hot take…) It needs an operational, logistical genius. It needs a brand person. It needs a showman.</i>
I generally agree with the sentiment - except where it calls Arianna Huffington 'Travis-lite'
-<a href="https://github.com/henrikhodne/travis-lite" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/henrikhodne/travis-lite</a>