UBER BENCH PRESS
Kalanick slams VC
Travis Kalanick is not going quietly.
Uber’s deposed CEO fired back on Friday at the venturecapital firm demanding his ouster from the board, claiming in a court motion the investor had “threatened to launch a public campaign against him if he refused.”
Kalanick, the ride-hailing app’s founder who stepped down as CEO in June, also accused Benchmark Capital of demanding his resignation at “the most shameful of times.”
The growing civil war — pitting a large Uber investor against Kalanick, splitting the board and employees — is the talk of Silicon Valley. While each side is amping up the battle sure it will prevail, Uber’s reputation, already sullied, is getting damaged some more.
Kalanick’s broadside against Benchmark came in a request to toss the VC’s lawsuit.
In the past year alone, Kalanick has been accused of fostering a toxic work environment ridden with sex-harassment allegations, bleeding top talent and stealing trade secrets by hiring a Google executive to lead its driverless-car initiative.
The ex-CEO, who nonetheless transformed Uber from a startup in 2009 into a global powerhouse now valued at nearly $70 billion, has also confronted personal tragedy.
His mother was killed and his father critically injured in a May 27 boating accident.
Kalanick buried his mother on June 9, and citing grief, he informed the board on June 11 of plans to take a leave of absence.
Then, on June 20, Kalanick says Benchmark sent two executives to his Chicago hotel room.
They demanded and received his resignation — but Kalanick claims they did not dispute or complain about a 2016 agreement that gave him the sole right to tap three additional directors.
Benchmark, in its suit, beefed about the agreement, claiming Kalanick contrived the board expansion play to ensure “that he would continue to have an outsized role in Uber’s strategic direction even if forced to resign.”
Kalanick countered in court papers filed Thursday but made public on Friday that Benchmark’s claim he fraudulently finagled the expansion defies “common sense.”
“It is belied by the fact that Kalanick did not fill any of the new seats for a year, and only ever filled one of them (with himself) after resigning as CEO,” his motion declares.
The motion also isolates Benchmark as being irrationally opposed to Kalanick.
It notes that the VC firm’s initial Uber investment of $12 million is valued at more than $7 billion and that the six directors not involved in the Benchmark suit have expressed public disappointment in the litigation.
“Thus, contrary to Benchmark’s suggestion that its lawsuit is ‘in the best interests of Uber,’ every other member of the board disagrees,” the motion says.