The week started with news of a senior executive’s departure from the ride-hailing company, and more changes are expected.
Remember when we said there would be more headlines about Uber this week? Well, they have started.
On Monday, one of Uber’s top executives, Emil Michael, who was a close ally of the ride-hailing company’s chief executive, Travis Kalanick, said he had left the company. This followed a recommendation from a law firm, which had been retained by Uber to look into the company’s culture, that Mr. Michael should leave.
Mr. Michael was part of a longtime group at Uber called the “A-Team, ” writes Mike Isaac, a technology reporter at The New York Times. That team is now being dismantled, in a sign of how Uber is having to change.
Yet the control that Mr. Kalanick exerts over Uber remains in full force, writes Katie Benner, a technology reporter at The Times. He has been gaining voting rights in the company through an employee stock share buyback program. Uber staffers who sell even a portion of their shares back to the company have to give up 100 percent of their voting rights to Mr. Kalanick.
More news is coming Tuesday, when at least parts of a report on Uber’s culture is expected to be made public. The findings are set to trigger another wave of changes at the company — and definitely more headlines.
