Uber CEO Travis Kalanick steps down following the company’s downfall.
After a half-dozen of Uber´s major investors demanded Kalanick´s resign as the chief executive, the co-founder announced his exit from the company he helped found in 2009.
Some of Uber´s biggest shareholders composed a letter to Travis Kalanick demanding his resign while he was in Chicago; this letter entitled “Moving Uber Forward”, according to The New York Times, explains that the company needs a change in leadership as it faces the possibility to embrace a new chapter. The time off Mr. Kalanick will take away from Uber has not been enough for big-time partners who have invested millions and seen a down-spiral and lethal blow to the corporation’s image because of recent accusations, so, changes are coming.
- This is what has happened at Uber building up to Mr. Travis Kalanicks step down from CEO Management:
Problems for Uber began early this year as its workplace culture was heavily hit by over 200 accusations of harassment, unprofessional behavior, bullying and physical insecurity. The constant emergence of complaints and re-opened cases caused internal investigations to flood the powerful car-business that became one of the most dominant app services and start-ups to really conquer and reign the market.
Tensions rose and was becoming out of hand when former Uber engineer, Susan Fowler, told publically in February to the media that she was experiencing sexual harassment by her supervisor, nevertheless, the human resource department ignored the case, which hurt even more the company´s reputation. The bad management and way the case was taken care of caused Jeff Jones, the president in turn, to resign in March of 2017, just after six months of taking charge of Uber.
The non-stop mistreatment cases finally imploded at Uber when Eric Alexander, who was working as the head of Asia-Pacific Operations, parted ways with the company along with 20 other employees who were linked to the harassment, discrimination and inappropriate behavior reports the public was presenting to the car-industry giant.
To add to problems, there is another lawsuit Uber is handling, and it is based on allegedly stealing design from Alphabets Waymo and their self-driving car unit. It is said that Anthony Levandowski, who had already come across the Google car, did not meet his dead-line to turn over information from an internal investigation as well as being found guilty for downloading highly confidential design servers and using it for Uber benefits. Reports also say that Mr. Alexander read, discussed and shared medical information on the case of a 26-year-old woman being raped in India during 2014 while she was riding an Uber, and although the main reasons for his departure were not publicly stated, misconduct and inappropriate practices in the workplace were linked to Mr. Alexanders operations.
- Looking at the future: What´s next?
Looking to ease the way the company deals with law enforcement and moral response, Travis Kalanick´s “suggested” resignation was seen as the best road Uber could take towards straightening their work-culture and re-locating it´s successful methods that earned them over 14 billion dollars since it´s foundation back in 2009.
Over the next 180 days, the company´s board will be looking to fill two out of three empty board seats with “truly independent” directors and a new chief executive with wide financial experience, all of this with the purpose of seeking improved oversight and better operations to enhance the already contaminated company.
Uber is desperate in acting, and immediate responses are the only way the company can build rapidly on confidence, knowing that the only way to go is up. The app service booked 20 billion in rides in 2016, but lost nearly 3 billion that same year due to the overwhelming issue that haunts them to the day and causes Kalanick´s exit.
With information from Business Insider, The New York Times, and The Business Times.
