Bill Gurley Is Leaving Uber’s Board

I can't imagine Uber doesn't start raising prices and drop out of markets they aren't profitable in.

No way they can bring in more investments (although maybe they could get a loan). Given the changes and their runway, I honestly see Lyft managing to outpace Uber in the next 12 months.

Doesn't Uber operate in a ton of countries? Lyft operates only in the US, right? And even then, isn't Uber in more cities?

Lyft has no choice but to subsidize itself into extinction. If Uber pulled back entirely into the US alone then Lyft would be truly doomed. Only by spreading themselves thin does Lyft have a fair fight.

Why do you think they can't get more investments? They just completed this report and now Travis is out; unless you have proof you can't say they didn't fix their issues. So not only have they shown concern to solving a major PR and culture issue but they're absolutely HUGE. If they IPO it could be an incredible exit.

Am I missing something? They seem far, far more investable now.

I'm no expert, but I have to believe that the next step has to be stabilize the patient.

- Cut back on actions and strategies that only make sense in the context of massive continued growth.

- Set prices to sustainable levels even though that means the buy-on-price segment of your customer base goes away. That's an ultimately unprofitable race-to-the-bottom segment you don't want anyway.

- At that point, potentially pull out of places where you don't have the critical mass to operate--especially in non-US markets where there are probably fixed costs to operate.

- Autonomous vehicles? That's going to happen over a decade or three timeframe that's utterly irrelevant to Uber even if a first mover advantage was defensible.

- And, yeah, the company is now far less valued to investors but it can potentially at least stay intact as a viable business.

They have three lawsuits that can sink the company, given their runway.

They now have next to no leadership, and they still have no clear path to making money.

Their board is up in arms, their CEO stepped down, but still has full control.

If they want investment, it's going to be a down round. And their CEO will have to give up a significant chunk of the business. Even then, idk who else is left with the capital they'd need.

All this shakeup at the top, but will it affect anything on the ground? I'm still going to take an Uber this weekend and no one not in tech that I know will even hear about any of this, let alone know who the CEO is.

Sounds like they are trying to cleanup their image, then will get back to expanding their already massive reach they have in their cities they are already in around the world.

Travis' resignation was the lead story on Nytimes.com and on the front page of the Washington Post. This isn't just a niche story anymore.

Yes, you're missing that this is all wish fulfillment doomsdayism. People are nursing some recreational outrage because of the revelations regarding Uber's culture. So now they all have a pet theory that Uber will fail. They're working backwards from what they _want_ to happen though, so their "theory" can explain anything: "Kalanick is a loose cannon who's going to run the company into the ground" Kalanick steps down "They have no leadership, they'll close their doors in a week" etc.

Sure, but is the company going to implode from this? I wouldn't think so. They are already massive and seem to be just cleaning house at the top to try and shed their lawbreaking image, and now move into phase two: become legitimate and grow even further while being more mindful and cooperative with city regulations, where it benefits them.

>I honestly see Lyft managing to outpace Uber in the next 12 months.

Perhaps in the US. But Uber has a large presence in a number of other countries, while Lyft has none, AFAIK.

Second this,, why would any who uses Uber take into account the internal turmoil happening within the company when they decide to use the app or not?

The costs of Uber going up or decrease in availability of drivers should matter more.

Drivers only care about their bottom line which is rate per mile/time and frequency of riders.

you're acting like this is the start of the idea that perhaps the entire taxi industry is not worth what Uber is claiming, or that having a bunch of autonomous vehicles is probably hard for an iOS app company to manage, or that they ultimately have never proven they can keep drivers happy without subsidizing prices, or that they might not get huge backlash from legal action around driver status, or .....

There's an argument for Uber's eventual success, but there's a lot of stuff against it too. It's not an absurd theory.

On the other hand, if they didn't spread themselves thin (and often into countries which don't actually need Uber), they likely wouldn't have received the amount of funding they have, and they'd be a more reasonably-sized competitor to Lyft.