Travis Kalanick May be Prepping for a Shareholder Battle at Uber (Aug 7, 2017)

Another week, another story about erstwhile Uber CEO refusing to go gently into that good night. The Information is reporting that Travis Kalanick has been quietly building up a bloc of shareholders who will back him in a potential fight over the course of several years, while also sounding out employees recently on whether they would support him in that eventuality. Though the details here are new, the broad thrust is similar to the reporting last week that Kalanick was hoping to be able to get back into an operational role at Uber sooner rather than later, something many in leadership at Uber don’t want, and also a situation that’s likely to put off potential new CEOs, which is presumably part of Kalanick’s motivation here. That he still doesn’t see how central his behavior has been to Uber’s struggles, and how badly it needs to operate for at least some time without him, is the biggest possible sign that Kalanick hasn’t actually changed and isn’t actually sorry for any of what he’s done, which is in turn the best possible signal that he shouldn’t come back. But it seems he has enough supporters left at Uber that he’s convinced himself it’s worth trying anyway. Update: later in the day, an internal email from Uber co-founder and board member Garrett Camp was leaked, in which he said Kalanick would not be returning as CEO, apparently attempting to defuse some of this speculation and even the push to get him back.

via The Information

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• Uber

• Culture
• Executives

• Uber's Culture is Toxic

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