Uber, the ride-hailing app, was valued between 60 and 70 billion dollars
at the beginning of 2017
with CEO Travis Kalanick's position at the firm seemingly secure.
Now after reports of sexual harassment
and unethical business practice inside Uber,
Kalanick is out and 10 billion dollars
has been wiped off the value of the privately owned company.
But as start-ups go, Uber is still arguably the most successful of all time.
Before 2011, if you wanted a cab, you did it the old way.
Now for 50 million Uber users in 450 cities around the world,
taxi transportation is determined by GPS and automated payments,
all linked through smartphones.
So, as the users increased, so did investors.
Jay Z and Jeff Bezos were just two of the notable backers
who poured money into Uber,
helping it grow and further disrupt the taxi industry.
It wasn't all smooth sailing through.
Uber's expensive push into China came to an abrupt end in 2016,
when its domestic rival Didi Chuxing announced it had acquired Uber China.
And more recently, Uber merged with Yandex,
marking its exit from another major international market, Russia.
Governments, drivers and passengers launched
a seemingly endless stream of lawsuits,
and taxi firms organized protests in Europe and South America
as they recognized their businesses were under threat.
Uber's legal and ethical conduct was put under further scrutiny
when their drivers argued they were being exploited
as part of the sharing economy.
Despite this, Uber continued to transform itself from a black-car service
into an extensive logistics company driving towards a future of autonomous vehicles.
2017 however, has put the brakes on Uber's and Kalanick's rise.
Real trouble began in January, when an online campaign,
protesting the company's connection to President Trump,
lost them 200,000 customers in just one weekend.
Uber's reputation took a bigger hit a month later
when it was forced to launch an investigation
into sexual harassment
and gender bias within the company.
215 complaints were registered
by the beginning of June
and 20 employees were fired as a result.
But that investigation, at least, was internal.
Waymo, a rival in autonomous car development,
is suing Uber for intellectual property theft.
At the same time, the company faces a criminal investigation
into its use of the tool “Greyball,”
which was reportedly used to evade authorities and city regulations.
By June, 12 high-level Uber execs had left the company.
For Kalanick, viral dashcam footage of a heated dispute
with a company driver and the leak of his now-infamous
‘Miami Letter' in which he issued sex guidelines to employees
attending a company party in 2013
resulted in him taking a temporary leave of absence.
But seven days later that temporary leave turned into a permanent resignation.
So what was the final straw?
Another lawsuit.
It was filed on behalf of a woman in India
who was sexually assaulted by her Uber driver.
Despite the guilty verdict,
Kalanick and his team allegedly dug into her private medical records
in an effort to discredit her.
This was the final nail in the coffin.
Days later, five powerful Silicon Valley investors
penned a letter demanding Kalanick's resignation.
Uber now has a number of high-ranking positions it needs to fill.
In addition to a new CEO, it also needs a Chief Operating Officer,
General Counsel, Senior Vice President of Engineering,
Chief Marketing Officer and board Chair.
And Uber needs to act quickly too.
In the first financial quarter this year the company lost 700 million dollars.
The polarizing figure of Kalanick now joins a select group of former CEOs,
including Steve Jobs and Jack Dorsey, who founded their own companies
to then be unceremoniously ousted.
But Kalanick will remain on the Uber board of directors and still has veto power.
Many believe that as long as he has one hand on the steering wheel,
a return to the driver's seat is still possible.