It seems to me that Kalanick was often “aware” of things but conveniently avoids scrutiny. How is this? Uber did so many questionable things under his leadership. And he managed to totally dodge the Levandowski saga.
> It seems to me that Kalanick was often “aware” of things but conveniently avoids scrutiny. How is this?
Because the VC's funded Uber precisely because they knew that Kalanick was an asshole?
The people who gave him money did so with the expectation that he would pull out all the stops to become a mega-monopoly.
To top it off, Kalanick had been screwed by VC's before, so he made a particular point to structure stock ownership in such a way that he kept control. It's still not clear what deals were made to actually get him to go away.
Finally, I expect that Kalanick probably knows where all the bodies are buried. So, he probably knows even more shady things that were going on than have been exposed. So, he has leverage.
He is a savvy politician. You are definitely onto something here. The guy has a very carefully curated public image. It is genuinely impressive how opinion of him is higher than the company he runs.
Edit: I was convinced by the arguments. I was holding onto old idea of him. Clearly things have changed.
Is it higher? He resigned as CEO of Uber due to a flurry of scandals, including the Levandowski one. Do people really separate Uber’s shady business practices from his leadership? I’d be surprised if investors do, although they may just not care or view it as a good thing.
It is impressive that he’s avoided any criminal or civil suits. I don’t know that he’s guilty of anything, but with the number of scandals swirling around him it’s surprising that someone hasn’t at least tried to sue him.
Is he though? I thought he was pretty much considered a fratbro. The stories of the bro culture that permeated Uber HQ were pretty damning. There's also video of him drunkenly arguing with an Uber driver. The stories are plentiful. If that's the image he's curating, then it sounds like lots of politicians past and present, so maybe you're right.
Did we watch the same video, the one where he is in the Uber with two women? Because in the video I saw, he was politely disagreeing with the facts the driver was saying.
Neither person raised their voice or cursed, and I guess you can call it arguing but I did not see anything that was inappropriate behavior.
We are disagreeing right now, and maybe one of us has even been drinking -- does that mean that we are now ineligible to be CEOs?
I follow the tech news a bit more than the average person (but perhaps about average for the HN crowd), and my opinion of his leadership really couldn't be lower. Perhaps it's lower than Uber itself though as well because while I have little to no respect for the Uber culture, I generally agree that actions like theirs in the rideshare space, despite being heavy handed and pushy, spur innovation and put regulators on the defensive, which in turn forces regulators to adapt faster than they normally would--like a forest fire can lead to a stronger ecosystem.
Such a darwinistic approach to policy.
A failed business model artificially injected with tons of money wastes time and energy of the regulator which could be spent on actual real problems and not made up ones created by an agglomeration of dumb money with monopolistic long term goals (that are the only thing which can make this "ride-sharing" business feasible.)
This is not a forest fire, it's a nuclear reactor breach caused by greedy and irresponsible leaders.
