On Tuesday, Uber cofounder and CEO Travis Kalanick made a surprising admission that he needed to “fundamentally change as a leader and grow up.”
Kalanick was responding to Uber’s latest homegrown scandal, in which the 40-year-old CEO was caught on camera arguing with one of his company’s drivers.
Kalanick, who is worth more than $6 billion, said in an email to employees that “this is the first time I’ve been willing to admit that I need leadership help and I intend to get it.”
“Leadership help” could mean a lot of things, from executive coaching to a new c-suite level hire.
But Uber may need more: after an unending stream of terrible news in 2017, the company should consider replacing Kalanick with an experienced, professional CEO.
To be clear, Kalanick has done an great job at growing Uber from a simple black car service in San Francisco to a global transportation behemoth that facilitates tens of millions of rides each month in more than 450 cities and 73 countries.
Kalanick’s aggressive personality drove the company to raise more money than any other startup and fight in each market against other venture-backed competitors, entrenched taxi lobbying interests, and even local governments.
Uber still may be moving fast, but it can’t afford to keep breaking things.
With a $68 billion valuation and $16 billion in equity and debt financing, Uber would be a massive public company if it only had a stock ticker (it’s currently worth more than GM and Ford).
Uber is also becoming ubiquitous in its more established markets, a key piece of many cities’ transit infrastructure.
Trying to continue along the same path will only hurt Uber’s chances of solving its biggest upcoming challenges.
Today’s Uber needs to be able to partner with car manufacturers and with city, state, and federal regulators to pioneer safe autonomous vehicles.
It needs to build a mature business that generates profit in its oldest markets to fund expansion overseas and into new ventures like food delivery.
It needs to attract talent and create a positive work environment for those employees.
These are not the same skills as those needed to start a business from scratch or scale it rapidly.
Uber’s culture starts at the top, and it currently causes more problems than it solves.
The stories of sexism and harassment shared by female ex-Uber employees such as Susan Fowler are horrendous, but are they surprising when Kalanick has called the service, “Boob-er”?
Kalanick just had to fire Amit Singhal, a newly-hired SVP of engineering, after it emerged that Singhal left Google due to sexual harassment allegations of his own.
Insiders describe a cutthroat workplace where Uber sets its employees against each other to compete for attention and financial rewards.
The role model: executives who are rewarded after threatening journalists.
Drivers, who are not employees, are treated like second-class citizens, even by CEO himself.
It’s no surprise that users were quick to turn on the company when protests against President Trump’s immigration ban quickly turned into the #DeleteUber movement.
Meanwhile, Uber's prized self-driving car operation has suffered from a series of self-inflicted wounds.
Last summer, Uber spent $680 million on startup Otto and promoted its leader, ex-Google engineer Anthony Levandowski.
Levandowski operated in the Uber way: he ignored warnings from the California DMV and refused to register Uber's self-driving vehicles with the state, even after launching them on the streets of San Francisco.
Uber also lied to the public when one of those cars was caught on camera going through a red light.
Now, Google's self-driving operation Waymo is suing Uber, alleging that Levandowski stole IP and used it to form the critical technology behind Uber's autonomous system.
Silicon Valley worships the founder-CEO, and in a world where 26-year-old Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel is taking his company public at some point in the coming weeks, Kalanick seems like an old hand.
But perhaps he isn’t the right person, with the right expertise—or, frankly, the right public persona—to lead Uber into its next chapter.
Steering a rocket ship like Uber is one of the most attractive CEO jobs in the country, and Uber should have its pick of executive talent if it conducted a thorough search.
There are plenty of people in Silicon Valley who would be worthy of consideration.
Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg is an obvious name, especially now that she has no immediate opportunity in government.
Eddy Cue at Apple built a robust services business with great products and partnerships.
Longtime Google executive and current YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is more than capable.
Is it too ambitious of Uber to recruit current CEOs?
Given the company’s trajectory, might a Meg Whitman, Bob Iger, or Jeff Immelt consider the job?
If Uber wanted to maintain its finance-like workplace environment, it could go after a Jamie Dimon-type from Wall Street.
Or perhaps it could woo a veteran away from retirement.
John Chambers steered Cisco for 20 years before stepping back to the chairman role in 2015.
Former Ford CEO Alan Mulally was rumored to be up for the top job at Microsoft, and Uber is a closer industry fit with his experience anyway.
At the very least, Uber is in desperate need of some stronger independent board members.
As of last year, the Uber board of directors had only seven voting members, including just one woman.
Kalanick sits on the board with cofounder Garrett Camp, Uber’s first employee Ryan Graves, investors Bill Gurley, David Bonderman, and Yasir Al Rumayyan (of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund).
Arianna Huffington joined the board last year, but previously was accused of many similar workplace complaints during her time at the Huffington Post.
The only investors to speak out against the company so far have been from way back in Uber's seed round: Mitch and Freada Kapor.
Someone needs to reform Uber from the inside, and if Kalanick is only just now realizing he needs to “grow up,” it may be too late for him to do it.
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