Uber CEO pick a Silicon Valley outsider
Expedia head will be tasked with fixing internal culture and building for the future
SAN FRANCISCO— Dara Khosrowshahi’s family immigrated to the United States from Iran in 1978, when their country was convulsed by revolution. They were not particularly welcomed in America and were broke.
“Every one of us cousins had a chip on our shoulders, having lost everything to the new Iranian government,” said Hadi Partovi, a cousin of Khosrowshahi’s. “We had a desire to build anew as entrepreneurs.”
Khosrowshahi, 48, is on the threshold of becoming one of the world’s most prominent executives. On Sunday night, he was selected to be CEO of Uber, the ride-hailing company that is the world’s most valuable startup. The deal is almost official, according to Expedia, which Khosrowshahi runs.
The news follows months of turmoil at Uber. Khosrowshahi will succeed Travis Kalanick, an Uber cofounder and the company’s driving force, who was forced to step down in June as the business was rocked by one scandal after another.
His task will be to repair the internal culture, which had moved beyond gung-ho startup to a company known for its divisiveness and tolerance for harassment. He will have to build Uber’s business while preparing it for a self-driving future that competitors hope to dominate themselves. Sooner or later, he will most likely take Uber public.
There is also the wild card of Kalanick, who might seize on any trouble to mount a comeback. And finally, he will have to manage all this under a much brighter spotlight than he has worked under before.
Khosrowshahi was the long-shot candidate whose name did not become public until he had the job. Expedia is based in Bellevue, Wash., which makes him a Silicon Valley outsider. He had not commented on his new job as of Monday afternoon.
His parents, Lili and Gary (short for Asghar) Khosrowshahi, were prosperous members of the Iranian elite in the 1960s and 1970s. Gary was an executive at an industrial conglomerate. They fled as the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi collapsed.
The family made it to Tarrytown, N.Y., and lived with relatives. “For the grown-ups, it was a difficult transition,” Dara Khosrowshahi told Bloomberg Businessweek this year. “The kids were able to party together, so it was fun.”
Four years later, Gary went back to Iran to take care of his ailing father, and he was detained for six years before he could return. Lili raised three children alone.
“His mom raised him to be direct with people,” Partovi said. “By far the biggest challenge he faced, which is what all of us faced, was having to come to a new country and assimilate. Being an Iranian in America in the 1980s was not pleasant. People were singing ‘Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.’ ”
But the tense environment also pushed them to succeed.
Partovi and his twin brother, Ali, were early investors in Facebook, Dropbox, Airbnb and, as it happens, Uber; Dara’s brother, Kaveh Khosrowshahi, is a managing director at the investment firm Allen & Co.; another cousin, Farzad Khosrowshahi, played a major role in the creation of Google Docs; yet another cousin, Amir Khosrowshahi, is an executive at Intel; and Avid Larizadeh Duggan, also a cousin, is a general partner at Google Ventures.
Uber, like Expedia a decade ago, has enormous promise but also faces enormous challenges. Khosrowshahi’s supporters believe he can fix the problems.
“He’s a global travel executive — he understands competitive dynamics, geopolitical challenges and the operating challenges of running a sprawling global travel company,” said Brad Gerstner, founder of Altimeter Capital, an investor in Uber as well as Expedia.
Under Kalanick, some Uber executives were considered untouchable, which contributed to a poisonous atmosphere. Shana Fisher, who worked with Khosrowshahi and is now a venture capitalist, said, “People don’t get an excuse with Dara. They have to be good and good. Good and good. He doesn’t have tolerance for less than that.”