11 August 2017, USA:
Things couldn’t get any worse for ex-CEO of Uber Travis Kalanick as one of the investors, Benchmark Capital is suing him for fraud. The suit names both Kalanick and Uber, but it seeks damages only from Kalanick himself.
In the suit filed in Delaware Chancery Court, the Menlo Park, Calif., venture capital firm alleges that Kalanick breached his fiduciary duty and contractual obligations by stacking the company’s board with allies. Benchmark seeks to remove Kalanick from Uber’s board of directors and bar him from interfering with Uber’s business affairs. It demands redress for the alleged “fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and breaches of contractual obligations” perpetrated by Kalanick, The Guardian reported.
Kalanick issued a statement calling the lawsuit “completely without merit and riddled with lies and false allegations.” The statement accused Benchmark of “acting in its own best interests contrary to the interests of Uber” and denounced the legal action as a “transparent attempt to deprive Travis Kalanick of his rights as a founder and shareholder.”
Benchmark, which was an early financial specialist in Uber and pulls up a chair on its governing body, claims that Kalanick’s ‘general goal’ is to pack the board with ‘faithful partners’ with an end goal to protect his earlier lead from examination and clear the way for his inevitable return as CEO — all to the disservice of Uber’s investors, workers, driver-accomplices, and clients.
Benchmark is looking for the June 2016 vote to be nullified, which would successfully wipe out the three board seats. On the off chance that the firm is fruitful, Kalanick would be commenced the governing body, which would likewise likely put a conclusion to his reputed come back to the organization he helped found as per the report by NY Times.
After 45-odd days of Kalanick’s resignation, Uber is unable to pin point to one person to lead the Uber out of the chaos and bring back on the path of success. The contenders to run Uber are Former Google Executive and SoftBank Group President, Nikesh Arora, Susan Wojcicki of YouTube, Adam Bain, Twitter’s former chief operating officer, David Cush, a former CEO at Virgin America and Thomas Staggs, an ex-COO at Disney. Uber’s search committee consists of five board members, including Kalanick; Nestlé SA executive Wan Ling Martello; venture capitalist Matt Cohler; media magnate Arianna Huffington and private-equity partner David Trujillo. (Image- NY Times, Getty Images)
Check this video of Travis speaking about startup culture back in 2011-