Where will Uber go in the future without Kalanick at the helm?

According to foreign media reports, Uber's investors have used facts to say no to Kalanick's leadership. But without this founder, where will Uber go?

Ultimately, capital determines everything. Although Travis Kalanick announced last week that he would take an indefinite leave of absence, Uber's investors believe that this is not enough.

Now he had to go.

The New York Times reporter Mike Isaac first reported Kalanick's overnight change, calling it a "straight rebellion" by shareholders. On the one hand, everything seemed to happen quickly: Investors sent a letter to Kalanick on Tuesday while he was still in Chicago, insisting that he resign. According to the British Times, Kalanick then negotiated with investors and communicated with at least one Uber board member, but ultimately agreed to resign.

But on the other hand, Kalanick's departure is also quite long. Uber has been plagued by a series of scandals in the past year, including a user boycott of Uber, sexual harassment and accusations against Uber by a former Uber engineer, a video of Kalanick arguing with an Uber driver, and a federal lawsuit accusing Uber of stealing a competitor's self-driving car trade secrets. Endless public opinion crises have become commonplace for Uber, and even before the negative news has subsided, another scandal has surfaced.

To outside observers, Uber’s troubles have become so obvious that they sometimes seem like dark humor. In recent weeks, many of Uber’s senior leaders have resigned or been fired, as one point was made on Twitter that a company focused on self-driving cars is now driving itself.

But serious questions always came down to Kalanick as a leader. There seemed to be no breaking point. How long could one person continue to lead a company that seemed to be doing so poorly? And crucially, what to do about the public relations quagmire associated with Uber's $70 billion valuation?

Kalanick's ouster and the seemingly sudden conflicts at Uber also reflect the forces that run Silicon Valley. At its core, it's still capital. More capital.

This is also the bottom line that ultimately forced Kalanick to resign, not Uber's alleged toxic culture, nor Kalanick's signature arrogance, or explosive allegations of sexual harassment, or Uber's theft of trade secrets. It was also capital that made Kalanick give up the CEO position. He will still be on Uber's board of directors, and he will retain control of shares with voting rights on most resolutions of Uber.

That means that even without Kalanick at the helm, aside from the small changes Uber has promised to make, the company is still Kalanick's creation. In the meantime, you can be sure that Uber employees are watching to see who will replace Kalanick, and what that replacement might say about Uber's seriousness in taking employee complaints and its commitment to improving diversity. That remains an open question: Uber's recent internal survey results, for example, cast doubt on the company's attempts to change its culture, like renaming the company's "war room" the "peace room" and requiring everyone who attends company meetings to hug each other.

Now that Kalanick's indefinite leave has become clear, Uber will also find itself at a crossroads. Uber without its founder as CEO is no longer the Uber that focuses on rapid growth, maybe for better or worse. Uber has recently tried to emphasize some descriptive words of long-term development as its core competitiveness, such as "powerful", "overcoming difficulties", "step by step", etc., and even announced this week that it would reverse the controversial policy for drivers.

Neither Kalanick's departure nor the changes Uber has made are likely to end the company's troubles. Uber's biggest problem right now is its ongoing legal dispute with Waymo, the self-driving car company spun off from Google, which claims Uber stole its trade secrets.

Ultimately, it was investors who answered the question of whether Uber could thrive with Kalanick as CEO. Their answer was no. Next, they will find out whether the company can survive without Kalanick.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.