Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.
Travis
Kalanick stepped down Tuesday as chief executive of Uber, the ride-hailing
service that he helped found in 2009 and that he built into a transportation
colossus, after a shareholder revolt made it untenable for him to stay on at
the company.
Mr.
Kalanick’s exit came under pressure after hours of drama involving Uber’s
investors, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, who asked
to remain anonymous because the details are confidential.
Earlier on Tuesday, five of Uber’s major investors demanded that the chief executive resign immediately. The investors included one of Uber’s biggest shareholders, the venture capital firm Benchmark, which has one of its partners, Bill Gurley, on Uber’s board. The investors made their demand for Mr. Kalanick to step down in a letter delivered to the chief executive while he was in Chicago, said the people with knowledge of the situation.
In the
letter, titled “Moving Uber Forward” and obtained by The New York Times, the
investors wrote to Mr. Kalanick that he must immediately leave and that the
company needed a change in leadership. Mr. Kalanick, 40, consulted with at
least one Uber board member and after long discussions with some of the
investors, he agreed to step down. He will remain on Uber’s board of directors.
“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,” Mr.
Kalanick said in a statement.
Uber’s
board said in a statement that Mr. Kalanick had “always put Uber first” and
that his stepping down as chief executive would give the company “room to fully
embrace this new chapter in Uber’s history.” An Uber spokesman declined to
comment further.
The
move caps months of questions over the leadership of Uber, which has become a
prime example of Silicon Valley start-up culture gone awry. The company has
been exposed this year as having a workplace
culture that is rife with sexual harassment and discrimination, and
has pushed the envelope in dealing
with law enforcement and even partners. That tone was set by Mr.
Kalanick, who has aggressively turned the company into the world’s dominant
ride-hailing service and upended the transportation industry around the globe.
Mr.
Kalanick’s troubles began earlier this year after a former Uber engineer
detailed what she said was sexual
harassment at the company, opening the floodgates for more complaints and
spurring internal investigations. In addition, Uber has been dealing with an
intellectual property lawsuit
from Waymo, the self-driving car business that operates under Google’s
parent company, and a
federal inquiry into a software tool that Uber used to sidestep some
law enforcement.
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