Last week, we reported that Travis Kalanick, the co-founder of Uber, announced he was taking a leave of absance from his role with the company. Today it has been reported that he has resigned from the post of Chief Executive Officer after a very difficult last 6 months. He started the company in 2009, and he was one of the main reasons behind the success of the Uber. But he is being forced to resign because of pressure from the top.
The trouble started in February when an Uber ex-employee complained in a blog post that gender discrimination and sexual harassment is prevalent in the company. Bill Gurley, one of the biggest investors in Uber along with four other major shareholders asked Kalanick to resign.
“I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life I have accepted the investors request to step aside so that Uber can go back to building rather than be distracted with another fight,” Kalanick said in a statement.
They sent him a letter informing that a change in leadership at the top was necessary for the company to progress further. After holding discussions with some of the board members, he finally decided to resign. He mentioned in his post-resignation speech that he has accepted the investor’s request and wished them success for the future.
On Monday June 12th, Reuters reported that Travis Kalanick, who built Uber from scratch into a company which is estimated to be worth 70 billion dollars, would be going on a three months leave of absence. This is presumably due to allegations that Mr. Travis Kalanick’s negligently ignored allegations concerning sexual harassment and other corporate misbehavior.
Uber has also been dealing with an intellectual property lawsuit from Waymo which is the self-driving car business that operates under Google’s parent company.
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