Briefly Taking Stock Of The Uber Shakeup

I think about Uber a lot, before this week, to the point where I committed to write a book about the company (back in October) and its effect on the world. As a disclaimer, I’m a fan of the company. I do not own shares in the company (but I wish I did) and will likely buy shares as a civilian when the company goes public. Yet, despite this, like many others feel, it’s disappointing to see a company with so much potential and the future in their hands fall on their face — not for taking product risk, or launching new features — but for not being smart about how powerful they are and will be. Power requires awareness, and everyone in technology now plays for Yankees.

I’ve been contacted by countless media outlets (CNBC, Bloomberg, and more coming) about my own views on this week’s news given I’ve written about Uber and the space they’ve opened up for years now. Here’s what I’ve told everyone, see below. I copied this from an email I sent to a reporter, modified slightly:

Michael: I have to believe they’re making preparations to part ways. I don’t see how he will be effective in his role as inking BD partnerships when his name is plastered across the web in such a manner. However, there is a case to be made that keeping the team intact at this time is best for the company, however painful it is, so we will have to wait and see.

Kalanick: I have to believe he’s waiting to make a statement and give an interview. Maybe at tomorrow’s Goldman Sachs keynote in Vegas. He has to because if not, he’ll be asked this even more and more. (This is the #5 ranked post on my blog by total page views, it’s about Travis’s entrepreneurial journey.)

Impact On Fundraising: Uber has been rumored to been soliciting inbound offers to invest for months. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already done (before this all happened), and I wouldn’t be surprised if the valuation number is much higher than is reported. If and when that happens, expect Twitter to break again.

Role Of Investors: Lots of people seem to want the investors to “reign in” the company execs. I’m not sure that’s possible. They also want them to speak up, but I can’t imagine any of them saying anything before Travis does. The CEO leads the way. (I also have to imagine the larger investors are discussing this with management privately — and a lot.)

Impact On Brand: Uber had a complicated brand before, but this kind of narrative is one of the rare examples of truly bad PR. Like many of you, I believe it will stick and it’s on the company to earn back respect from those they have spurned.

Impact On Company: I have some friends who are early employees of Uber. I haven’t talked to them, but I imagine they’re pissed because all of their good work is taken out of the spotlight for a series of bad decisions. I don’t know enough about Uber on the inside to know what it’s like, but my hope is that this all moves the leadership to examine within and hopefully get better.

The Role Of The Crowd: I will admit being naive, I was surprised at how many people actively dislike Uber. I underestimated the intensity of that. I like Uber (the product) but certainly don’t condone what happened this week. My hope is all of this unfortunate news forces the company to not repeat history, lest they want this kind of congressional attention. About five years ago, Zuckerberg was under an intense microscope, was dubbed to have had a “Nixon Moment” at D8 by AllThingsD, and received congressional inquiries from the Federal Trade Commission. Facebook built an unstoppable network of IDs on top of the Internet, and that translates to power; Uber has built a network on top of mobile operating systems, it too getting into the unstoppable territory, and therefore, the masses are just starting to learn just how much power Uber has accumulated.