And just like that, Uber continues losing top executives. A day after Founder-CEO Travis Kalanick announced his departure from the firm, board member Bill Gurley is also calling it quits. Apart from being a board member at the ride hailing firm, Gurley is also one of the company’s earliest backers a representative of venture capital firm Benchmark.
Matt Cohler, another Benchmark partner will be replacing Gurley in the board. His departure comes at a time when Uber needed as many people experienced with the ways of the cab hailing firm as possible, to fill in the gaps left by the departure of its CEO and other top executives.
Gurley held a long, long association with the company and was one of its earliest investors — coming on-board merely two years after Uber first launched. While he was an staunch supporter of CEO Kalanick, reports suggest that he may have had a powerful role in arranging the latter’s ouster from the firm — which if true, would mark one of his last acts at the company.
Along with various other investors, Gurley’s firm Benchmark sent a letter to Kalanick on Tuesday, demanding his resignation. And that was what the former CEO did — to “avoid driving a knife” — though he was undoubtedly unhappy about it.
It is actually rather strange, and hard on Kalanick, that he was first asked to take a leave of absence, and asked to resign as soon as he had acceded to that particular demand. This also puts the company in a hard position considering that it has been subsidizing rides heavily out of its own pockets to strangle competition.
For instance, it lost over $2 Billion n 2016. However, with Kalanick and many other top executives gone, the responsibility of convincing investors to continue fueling Uber’s growth would fall to the new CEO — not a very enviable job. And let’s not forget the Waymo lawsuit, and the allegations of sexual misconduct the company has found itself involved into.
So who knows, Gurley could have been asked to become the CEO and maybe he panicked and resigned in the face of the responsibilities ahead. Jokes apart though, Uber with its $70 Billion valuation finds itself in a position where it can not afford any internal strife. The company needs to choose a new CEO and chose him or her quickly, to lead the company through the valley of trouble it currently finds itself stranded in.
