Uber ex-CEO Kalanick likely to sell 29% of stake for $1.4 billion

Uber Technologies Inc co-founder Travis Kalanick, who was ousted as chief executive in June, will sell nearly a third of his shares in the ride-services company for about $1.4 billion, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

Kalanick's sale is part of a deal with a group of investors led by SoftBank Group Corp, which is taking a 17.5 percent stake in Uber, mostly by buying shares from early investors and employees. SoftBank last week secured agreements from shareholders who were willing to sell, and the deal will close early this year, Uber said.

Kalanick had offered to sell half of his total shares, but because there was a limit on how much SoftBank will buy, he will sell just 29 percent, according to the source. Other investors also did not get to unload as many shares as they had hoped because of such widespread interest to sell.

A spokesman for Kalanick declined to comment. SoftBank could not be reached for comment.

Kalanick's share sale will earn him about $1.4 billion, the source added. The former Uber CEO is still on the board of directors.

The SoftBank deal values Uber at $48 billion, about a 30 percent discount from its most recent valuation of $68 billion. However, the investor consortium is also making a $1.25 billion investment of fresh funding at the older, higher valuation.

Bloomberg first reported Kalanick's plans to sell part of his stake
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Uber paid hackers to delete data of 57 mn users, hid fact from public: CEO

Uber Technologies Inc failed to disclose a massive breach last year that exposed the data of some 57 million users of the ride-sharing service, the company's new chief executive officer said on Tuesday.

Discovery of the company's handling of the incident led to the departure of two employees who led Uber's response to the incident, said Dara Khosrowshahi, who was named CEO in August following the departure of founder Travis Kalanick.

Khosrowshahi said he had only recently learnt of the matter himself.

The company's admission that it failed to disclose the breach comes as Uber seeks to recover from a series of crises that culminated in the Kalanick's ouster in June.

"None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it," Khosrowshahi said in a blog post.

According to the company's account, two individuals downloaded data from a web-based server at another company that provided Uber with cloud-computing services.

The data contained names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers of some 57 million Uber users around the world. The hackers also downloaded names and driver's licence numbers of some 600,000 of the company's US drivers, Khosrowshahi said in a blog post.
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Uber investor gave Travis Kalanick a month before filing lawsuit

Venture capital firm Benchmark Capital said on Monday it gave Uber and its ousted chief executive, Travis Kalanick, a month to review its recommendations before filing a lawsuit last week to force him off the board and rescind his ability to fill three seats.

The lawsuit, filed last Thursday, also accused Kalanick of concealing a range of misdeeds from the board and scheming to retain power at Uber Technologies Inc even after he was forced to resign as CEO in late June.

"We know that many of you are asking why Benchmark filed a lawsuit against Travis last week. Perhaps the better question is why we didn't act sooner," Benchmark said in a letter to Uber employees on Monday. (http://bit.ly/2fFWmwK)

Kalanick was still involved in the day-to-day operations at Uber, which has created a sense of uncertainty and undermined the search for his replacement, Benchmark Capital said.

"Indeed, it has appeared at times as if the search was being manipulated to deter candidates and create a power vacuum in which Travis could return," Benchmark said in the letter.
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Former Google exec Nikesh Arora in the running to take Travis Kalanick's Uber job

Wanted: a seasoned executive to take the top position at a troubled technology start-up. Must be willing to fix a broken culture, deal with an aggressive predecessor, battle a risky lawsuit and prepare the company for an initial public offering. Self-starters preferred.

This is essentially the pitch that Uber is making to potential chief executive candidates after Travis Kalanick, the ride-hailing company’s co-founder, was ousted from the top spot last month. By some accounts, the job appears to be a thankless one at a company whose reputation is in the toilet. So who would want it?

Quite a few people, as it turns out.

Despite a series of scandals that have rocked Uber to its core this year, competition for the chief executive position is robust, according to people familiar with the search who asked to remain anonymous because the process is confidential. The company has received a flood of interest since Mr. Kalanick vacated his seat in June, and Uber’s board has interviewed multiple candidates.

For those applicants, the calculus is easy. Despite Uber’s problems, executives see an opportunity to shepherd the company — which operates in more than 80 countries and pulls in billions of dollars each quarter — through the most trying time in its eight-year history.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for someone who’s wired for problem solving and wants to make their mark by turning around the image of the company,” said Jason Hanold, managing partner at Hanold Associates, a boutique executive search firm. “Yes, they’re inheriting Uber’s entire toxic culture. But they’re also getting thousands of employees who are hungry to change it.”
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The big debate: Can Uber's Kalanick do a Steve Jobs and make a comeback?

At thirty, Steve Jobs had already revolutionized personal computing, and was a global celebrity. But in 1985, thanks to a power struggle in the boardroom, he got fired from the very company he had created. Fast forward to 2017, and Travis Kalanick has just faced the exact same fate after fundamentally disrupting the taxi industry. The point here is not that history is repeating itself in Silicon Valley, because many an icon have fallen in disgrace in the business world, and will probably continue to do so. The key questions are: How do these two exits compare, and will 40-year-old Kalanick be able to make the spectacular comeback that Jobs managed in 1997?

Jobs was passionate about Apple’s products, and had a burning desire to change the world. So great was his passion for perfection that he could not tolerate anything but the very best. As a result, he was impatient, impolite, and downright rude with people until in his mind he got the product just right. Once he did, he believed in it so much that he was willing to defy all odds to make it succeed, ignoring any feedback to the contrary.  This strategy worked until 1985 when the market did not well receive the new Macintosh Office. Jobs then went head on against CEO John Sculley, whom he had lured away from PepsiCo just two years earlier - demanding a drop-in pricing, and increasing advertising spend.  Sculley finally won the boardroom battle and removed Jobs as the head of the Mac division.

Kalanick too wants to change the world and has already done so.  But the main reason for his ouster was not his impatience to bring the best products to market. Sexual harassment, and creating an overall toxic corporate culture that is particularly harsh on women are among the charges against him.  Under Kalanick, the company is also accused of unethical and opportunistic business practices like the way-over-the-top surge pricing during a terror attack in Sydney.
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