Co-founder sells down Uber stake

Ousted Uber chief executive and co-founder Travis Kalanick was always filthy rich on paper. Now he’ll soon be swimming in greenbacks in reality.

Kalanick plans to sell 29 per cent of his Uber stock to the tune of US$1.4 billion (NZ$2 billion), according to a Bloomberg report.

The sale comes as Japanese investment firm SoftBank and a consortium of investors prepares later this month to buy a reported 15 per cent of Uber at a valuation of US$48b, or 30 per cent less than a long-cited valuation of US$69b.

Kalanick owns 10 per cent of Uber, now valued at US$4.8b, and offered to sell as much as half of that stake, the report said.

While the financial windfall may sound like a triumph, it cannot obscure the tremendous fall of one of Silicon Valley’s most highflying tech executives.

In early 2017, Uber was hit with accusations of harbouring a sexist work environment in a blog post by former engineer Susan Fowler.

The unravelling was swift and included not only Kalanick’s resignation in June at the urging of investors, but also revelations of a laundry list of legally questionable practices meant to deceive regulators and customers.

Uber also is being sued by Google’s self-driving car company, Waymo, which alleges that Uber stole its proprietary technology when it bought self-driving truck company Otto.

While rival Lyft has gained some ground in the past year, Uber remains the dominant ride-hailing option in the United States, and has operations in dozens of other countries. It was founded in 2009.

In late August, Uber announced that it was appointing former Expedia chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi to run the company. Since then, Kalanick’s once formidable influence has started to fade as new leadership – and soon new investors – take the reins of Uber. –USA Today