卡兰尼克下台有何深远意义？

媒体正在密切关注Uber走向衰亡的故事，这是有原因的。他们不仅仅是在追求所谓的戏剧性。首席执行官特拉维斯·卡兰尼克辞职的消息，产生了真切且深远的影响。

Uber是这个时代最为庞大、最具价值、最全球化、最具颠覆性，以及最典型的硅谷成功故事。这家公司的遭遇将影响整个科技行业——公司、投资者、文化、监管和员工。

以下是我对上周专栏观点的进一步阐述：

·监管：采用强制手段的借口。许多人将Uber与法律惊心动魄的博弈进程，与其CEO的离职联系在一起，从而加强了任何监管机构寻求打击颠覆性硅谷初创公司的理由。其打击范围不仅仅是在Uber违反法律的特定领域（即劳动力和交通运输），还包括任何一家在法律灰色地带运营的初创公司。随着初创公司试图在诸如医疗保健、金融服务、保险和房地产这类受到高度监管的经济部门开展创新活动，它们几乎总是从一个必须被界定的法律灰色地带起步的。这些公司需要一定的监管善意，才能证明自身创意是可行的。

·员工：吓跑“成年人”。初创公司需要经验丰富的高管帮助它们从羽翼未丰的颠覆者过渡为合法的企业。这些高管越来越多地来自它们正在颠覆的“旧经济”产业。就在几年前，许多高管还认为，加入一家上市前(pre-IPO)热门初创公司是一种颇有吸引力的职业进展（更不用说这还蕴含着“一夜暴富”的机会）。现在，他们或许正在密切关注前塔吉特百货公司首席营销官杰夫·琼斯担任Uber总裁的六个月任期，并且得出结论：跳槽至初创公司无异于职业自杀。

·投资者：对创始人友好时代宣告终结？这个创始人友好型风险投资时代——其主要驱动力包括网络2.0、马克·扎克伯格、肖恩·帕克，以及电影《社交网络》——意味着创始人拥有董事会控制权，当工作要求超出其自身能力时，他们不会被迫离职。相反，他们只需要“聘请一位雪莉·桑德伯格”来处理所有管理事务。

现在，投资者可能会反思这一趋势。即使没有控制权，Uber董事会仍然能驱逐卡兰尼克，但在此前的一个月中，双方展开了一场动荡不堪，非常公开化的争斗。（值得注意的是，在Uber的早期融资轮中，卡兰尼克并未获得董事会控制权。他的控制权源自后来的几轮融资。早期的投资者别无选择，只能顺应现实。）

·企业：没有哪家公司拥有灾难免疫力。为《财富》1月刊撰写一篇关于硅谷道德的特写报道时，有几位受访者暗自揣测，Uber是否有可能成为下一个爆发足以摧毁公司的丑闻的初创企业。请注意，他们的推想发生在苏珊·福勒事件、旨在躲避监管的Greyball软件、Waymo公司诉讼案、强奸受害者的病历、韩国“性陪同”派对等一系列Uber丑闻爆发之前。

我注意到了这种暗示，但经过多次谈话之后，我最终摒弃了这种想法。每个人都说，是的，Uber面临一些问题，但这是一家过于庞大、财力极其雄厚、估值极高，并且拥有霸主地位的公司，它不会面临类似Theranos或Zenefits那样糟糕的惩罚。如今看来，这种想法大错特错，它已经促使我（和其他很多人）重新考虑我们的假设，即占据主导地位的科技巨头是无懈可击的。

·文化：“不计代价地增长”寿终正寝。当你将最具侵略性的商业实践带到其逻辑终点时，你就将获得这样的结论。正如我的同事亚当·拉辛斯基今天上午所写的那样：对于Uber来说，“蔑视惯例曾经是一种资产，但最终将成为可怕的负债。”那些遵循Uber剧本的初创公司，可能会重新评估与之相关的严重风险。同样，《财富》的克里斯汀·贝尔斯特罗姆今天上午指出，这些初创公司很可能会更加关注其工作场所的性别歧视。她写道：卡兰尼克的离职“传送了一个令人鼓舞的讯息，让人们意识到性别歧视对企业多么有害，一些公司开始严肃地对待这一事实。”

关于这则新闻的几个附加说明：

·投资者终于出手。标杆投资、首轮资本、Lowercase资本、门罗风投和富达投资等风投公司巩固了他们的权力——其合计投票权占到Uber董事会的40%——并要求卡兰尼克辞职。

·卡兰尼克在一封写给员工的电子邮件中表明，他对这一决定不满意：“我接收了一批投资者敦促我卸任的要求。”

·标杆投资的合伙人比尔·古利在Twitter上安慰卡兰尼克。他说，“很少有企业家对世界施加了如此持久的影响。”

·卡兰尼克仍然是Uber董事，并且拥有多数有表决权股份。这听起来似乎会导致Uber出现功能障碍，更不用说对任何一位潜在CEO产生威慑作用。对于任何一位即将接任他的CEO来说，唯一的慰藉或许是，在美国总检察长埃里克·霍尔德的详尽调查之后，Uber恐怕不会再出现什么“惊奇”了。

·一些人已经开始将这一事件与史蒂夫·乔布斯当年被逐出苹果公司相提并论。实际上，有朝一日，卡兰尼克或许会上演王者归来的戏码。但为什么要局限于如此陈腐的比较呢？这一事件最终也可能演化为类似马克·平卡斯与社交游戏开发商Zynga、罗布·卡琳与手工艺品交易网站Etsy，或者杰克·多尔西与Twitter那样的恩怨情仇！

·对卡兰尼克继任者的猜测已经开始。一些局外人的名字开始浮现，其中包括刚刚获得自由身的前雅虎CEO玛丽莎·梅耶尔、前福特公司CEO马克·菲尔兹，或者前通用电气CEO杰夫·伊梅尔特，以及仍然在岗的Facebook首席运营官雪莉·桑德伯格。根据坊间传闻，Uber首席运营官的人选包括前华特迪士尼公司首席运营官托马斯·斯塔格斯、前沃尔玛公司首席信息官克伦恩·特雷尔、药品零售商CVS公司执行副总裁赫莲娜·福克斯、特纳广播系统公司CEO约翰·马丁、美国在线CEO蒂姆·阿姆斯壮，以及还没有被接触的首席运营官候选人尼科什·阿罗拉。（财富中文网）

译者：Kevin

There is a reason the media is closely following the story of Uber's demise, and it’s not just for the drama. This news of CEO Travis Kalanick's resignation has real ramifications.

Uber is the largest, most valuable, most global, most disruptive, most quintessential Silicon Valley success story of this era. What happens to this company affects the entire tech industry – the companies, the investors, the culture, the regulations, the employees.

To elaborate on what I wrote last week:

· Regulations: An excuse to be aggressive. The ability to connect Uber’s swashbuckling approach to the law and the ouster of its CEO bolsters the case of any regulator looking to crack down on disruptive Silicon Valley startups. And not just in the specific areas Uber ran afoul of the law – labor, transportation – but in any startup that operates in a legal gray area. As startups attempt to innovate in highly regulated sectors of the economy like healthcare, financial services, insurance, and real estate, they almost always start out in a legal gray area that must be defined. These companies need a bit of regulatory goodwill just to prove their idea is viable.

· Employees: Scaring away the “adults.” Startups need experienced executives, increasingly from the old-economy industries they’re disrupting, to help them transition from fledgling disrupters into legit businesses. A few years ago, many of those executives saw joining a hot pre-IPO tech startup as an attractive career move (not to mention, a way to get very rich, very fast). Now they are probably looking at former Target CMO Jeff Jones’ six month stint as Uber President and viewing the jump to startup-land as career suicide.

· Investors: The end of founder-friendly? This era of founder-friendly venture investing – driven by Web 2.0, Mark Zuckerberg, Sean Parker, and The Social Network -- means founders get board control and can’t be forced to step aside when the job outgrows them. (Instead they “hire a Sheryl Sandberg” to deal with all the management stuff.)

Now investors are likely rethinking that trend. Even without control, the board was able to oust Kalanick, but only after a month of very messy, very public fighting. (Notably, Kalanick did not secure his board control in Uber’s early rounds of funding – that came in later rounds. Early investors had no choice but to live with it.)

· Businesses: Nobody is immune. In reporting my story on Silicon Valley ethics from January, a number of people quietly wondered whether Uber might be the next startup to have a major, company-ruining scandal. This was before we learned about Susan Fowler, Greyball, the Waymo lawsuit, the rape victim’s medical records, the escort party in Korea.

I noted the suggestion but, after a number of conversations about it, ultimately dismissed it. Yes, Uber had some issues, everyone said, but it was too big, too well-funded, too valuable, too dominant to face a comeuppance as bad as that of Theranos or Zenefits. How wrong that was, and it’s led me (and plenty of others) to rethink our assumptions that tech’s dominant power players are invulnerable.

· Culture: Death to “growth at any costs.” This is what happens when you take Silicon Valley’s most aggressive business practices to their logical end. As my colleague Adam Lashinsky wrote this morning: For Uber, “flying in the face of convention was an asset, but ultimately a horrible liability.” Startups that followed Uber’s playbook are likely reevaluating the serious risks associated with it. Likewise, Fortune's Kristen Bellstrom noted this morning that they're likely paying much closer to attention to the sexism in their workplaces. Kalanick's departure "sends an encouraging message about just how bad sexism is for business—and how seriously some companies are beginning to take that fact," she wrote.

A few additional notes on the news:

· Investors did this. Benchmark, First Round Capital, Lowercase Capital, Menlo Ventures, and Fidelity Investments consolidated their power -- voting rights worth a combined 40% -- and demanded Kalanick resign.

· Kalanick’s email to employees made it clear that he isn’t happy about the decision: “I have accepted a group of investors’ request to step aside.”

· Benchmark’s Bill Gurley’s consolation to Kalanick was a tweet stating that “very few entrepreneurs have had such a lasting impact on the world.”

· Kalanick is still on the board. He owns a majority of the voting shares. That sounds like a recipe for dysfunction, let alone a deterrent to any potential CEO. The only solace to any incoming exec might be that there are no remaining “surprises” after the Holder investigation.

· Some are already comparing this situation to Steve Jobs’ ouster from Apple. And indeed, Kalanick could someday return in a blaze of glory. But why limit ourselves to such a clichéd comparison? This situation could also mirror Mark Pincus and Zynga. Or Rob Kalin and Etsy. Or Jack Dorsey and Twitter!

· The speculation begins for replacements. Outside names that have already come up include newly available ex-Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, ex-Ford CEO Mark Fields or ex-GE CEO Jeff Immelt, and the not-available Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. There are also the ones that were rumored for Uber's COO job – former Walt Disney COO Thomas Staggs, former Walmart CIO Karenann Terrell, CVS EVP Helena Foulkes, Turner head John Martin, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, as well as Nikesh Arora (who was not approached about the COO role).