After months of bad publicity and horrific lawsuits, Travis Kalanick, the co-founder of Uber has stepped down as CEO. Just last week, Kalanick took a leave of absence amidst a company-wide investigation of alleged sexual harassment at the workplace.
The New York Times reported that Kalanick has decided to step down as CEO due to pressures from investors who have poured over USD$11billion into the company. Even though Travis Kalanick will be stepping down from his CEO role, he will still remain on the board.
Early Tuesday, investors have pressured Kalanick to resign and after hours of discussions and consultation, he then decided to step down. He took a leave of absence last week citing reasons of wanting to reflect and also grieve for his mother who passed away in a boating accident.
This means that Uber is without any leadership and is currently run by a 14-man committee to manage day-to-day tasks. The board will be reviewing through new leadership hires as the company had undergone a company-wide firing spree as a result of the investigations into sexual harassment claims.
Travis Kalanick problems started earlier this year which started from claims of a former engineer who was sexually harassed while working at Uber. This opened up a plethora of investigations and other claims from female employees. On top of that, Uber had to deal with a lawsuit from Waymo over intellectual property infringement on the self-driving car technology and also a federal inquiry over the use of a software tool to deceive regulators and lawmakers.
