Marissa Mayer defends Uber’s Travis Kalanick.
Former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has absorbed blistering criticism for the way he handled allegations of sexual misconduct at the San Francisco riding-hailing service.
But he can at least count on the support of one big name in Silicon Valley: former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.
Speaking at the annual Stanford Directors’ College Tuesday, Mayer defended Kalanick, suggesting that he was unaware of the toxic culture brewing at Uber because of the company’s rapid growth. Mayer’s name has come up in reports as a possible replacement for Kalanick at Uber, though there’s no indication the company has had talks with her.
“Scale is incredibly tricky,” Mayer said. “I count Travis as one of my friends. I think he’s a phenomenal leader; Uber is ridiculously interesting.”
“I just don’t think he knew,” she said. “When your company scales that quickly, it’s hard.”
Mayer then compared Uber’s situation to the early days of Google when it first brought in Eric Schmidt as CEO to help co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page manage the company.
Mayer’s defense of Kalanick might seem strange given her iconic status as the rare female chief executive in the male-dominated world of technology. But Mayer has said she does not consider herself a “feminist” and once described herself as “gender oblivious.” Prior to becoming CEO of Yahoo in 2012, Mayer was an engineer turned top executive at Google in Mountain View. She recently stepped down as Yahoo CEO after Verizon completed its $4.5 billion acquisition of the once formidable Sunnyvale Internet giant’s Web properties.
Kalanick, who cofounded Uber, recently resigned as CEO after months of scandal and turmoil. He remains on the board.
The beleaguered ridehailing company has said it will implement 47 sweeping recommendations from former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, whom it hired to investigate allegations of sexism, bullying, retaliation and other workplace issues.
Holder’s report acknowledged the catalyst: a blockbuster blog post from former engineer Susan Fowler in February detailing hostility toward women at Uber’s San Francisco headquarters — and her futile attempts to get managers to respond. Since then, Uber has been mired in other controversies: a trade-secrets lawsuit, a program to evade law enforcement, an engineer’s suicide and a video of its CEO berating a driver.