Homepage / Technology / Uber's Travis Kalanick isn't the only one—why Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey and other founders were ousted
Amazon says this Prime Day was its biggest shopping event ever Kudlow says President Trump is 'so dissatisfied' with China trade talks that he is keeping the pressure on As stocks regain their footing, an ominous warning looms Goldman Sachs downgrades Clorox to sell, says valuation is 'unsustainably high' How Satya Nadella has spurred a tripling of Microsoft's stock price in just over four years Kudlow says economic growth could top 4% for 'a quarter or two,' more tax cuts could be coming The one chart that explains Netflix’s stunning comeback US housing starts plunge 12% in June to a nine-month low Aerospace titans Boeing and Airbus top $110 billion in orders at Farnborough Target uses Prime Day to its advantage, logging its 'biggest online shopping day' so far this year Billionaire Marc Lasry sees bitcoin reaching up to $40,000 as it becomes more mainstream and easier to trade These are the 10 US airports where you're most likely to be hacked Amazon shares slightly higher as investors await Prime Day results Wreck of Russian warship found, believed to hold gold worth $130 billion A bullish ‘phenomenon’ in bond market is weeks away from fading, top credit strategist says Stocks making the biggest moves premarket: MS, GOOGL, TXN, UAL, NFLX & more Twitter shares up 50% since late April means most upside priced in, analyst says in downgrade EU fines Google $5 billion over Android antitrust abuse Mortgage applications fall 2.5% as buyers struggle to find affordable homes America may not have the tools to counter the next financial crisis, warn Bernanke, Geithner and Paulson Investors are getting spooked as the risk of a no-deal Brexit rises EU expected to fine Google $5 billion over Android antitrust abuse Ex-FBI chief James Comey urges Americans to vote for Democrats in midterm elections Elon Musk apologizes to British cave diver following baseless 'pedo guy' claim Disney, Comcast and Fox: All you need to know about one of the biggest media battles ever Xiaomi shares notch new high after Hong Kong, mainland China stock exchanges reach agreement The trade war is complicating China's efforts to fix its economy European markets set for a strong open amid earnings; Google in focus Hedge fund billionaire Einhorn places sixth in major poker tournament The biggest spender of political ads on Facebook? President Trump Asian stocks poised to gain after Fed's Powell gives upbeat comments; dollar firmer Stocks are setting up to break to new highs Not all FAANG stocks are created equal EU ruling may be too little, too late to stop Google's mobile dominance Cramer explains how Netflix's stock managed to taper its drop after disappointing on earnings Airbnb condemns New York City's 'bellhop politics,' threatens legal retaliation Amazon sellers say they were unfairly suspended right before Prime Day, and now have two bad choices Investor explains why 'duller' tech stocks can have better returns than 'high-flying' tech names Elon Musk is 'thin-skinned and short-tempered,' says tech VC Texas Instruments CEO Brian Crutcher resigns for violating code of conduct Google Cloud Platform fixes issues that took down Spotify, Snapchat and other popular sites Uber exec: We want to become the 'one stop' transportation app 'What a dumb hearing,' says Democrat as Congress grills tech companies on conservative bias Amazon shares rebound, report says Prime Day sales jumped 89 percent in first 12 hours of the event How to put your medical history on your iPhone in less than 5 minutes Investment chief: Watch these two big events in 2018 Even with Netflix slowing, the market rally is likely not over Cramer: Netflix subscriber weakness debunks the 'sky's the limit' theory on the stock Netflix is looking at watch time as a new area of growth, but the competition is stiff Why Nobel laureate Richard Thaler follows Warren Buffett's advice to avoid bitcoin Rolls-Royce is developing tiny 'cockroach' robots to crawl in and fix airplane engines After Netflix plunge, Wall Street analysts forecast just tame returns ahead for the once high-flying FANG group Roku shares rise after analyst raises streaming video company's price target due to customer growth China is investing 9 times more into Europe than into North America, report reveals Amazon says US Prime Day sales 'so far bigger than ever' as glitch is resolved Netflix is on pace for its worst day in two years US lumber producers see huge opportunity, rush to expand San Francisco to consider tax on companies to help homeless Homebuilder sentiment, still high, stalls as tariffs, labor and land drive up costs Powell backs more rate hikes as economy growing 'considerably stronger' Netflix history is filled with big stock declines – like today – followed by bigger rebounds Intel shares get downgraded by Evercore ISI due to rising competition from Nvidia, AMD Petco aims to reinvent the pet store with something you can't buy online Genetic testing is coming of age, but for consumers it's buyer beware Tech 'FAANG' was the most-crowded trade in the world heading into the Netflix implosion, survey shows Netflix weak subscriber growth may indicate a 'maturity wall' that could whack the stock even more: Analyst This chart may be predicting the bull market's demise Wall Street says Netflix's stock plunge is a ‘compelling’ buying opportunity because the streaming giant ‘never misses twice’ Tesla sinks after Musk tweets, again Boeing announces new division devoted to flying taxis Stocks making the biggest move premarket: NFLX, UNH, GS, AMZN, WMT & more Deutsche Bank downgrades Netflix, but says big subscriber miss is not 'thesis changing' IBM is experimenting with a cryptocurrency that’s pegged to the US dollar North Korea and Zimbabwe: A friendship explained Virgin Galactic spinoff Orbit to launch rockets from the UK with space deal Artificial intelligence will create more jobs than it destroys? That’s what PwC says ‘Treasonous’ Trump and ‘Putin’s poodle:' Scathing headlines follow the Trump-Putin summit China’s fintech companies offer ‘enormous’ opportunity, investment manager says Trump's performance at summit with Putin was 'unprecedented,' experts say Walmart and Microsoft link up on cloud technology as they both battle Amazon European stocks seen mixed amid earnings; Fed’s Powell to address Congress How I knew I should quit my day job and run my start-up full-time: Viral website founder China's stocks have been trounced, but the trade war may ultimately be good news for those shares Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel bets on crypto start-up Block.one Asian shares subdued open after mixed close on Wall Street; energy stocks under pressure Amazon cloud hits snags after Amazon Prime Day downtime Netflix isn't doomed by one quarter unless people start questioning the long-term investor thesis Tech stocks set to sink on Tuesday after rough evening for ‘FANG’ Netflix plummets after missing big on subscriber growth This wristband lets humans control machines with their minds The U.S. has a rocky history convincing Russia to extradite computer criminals Amazon suffers glitches at the start of Prime Day Jeff Bezos is now the richest man in modern history 'The United States has been foolish': Read Trump and Putin's full exchange Goldman Sachs recommends these 5 highly profitable companies — including Nvidia — to combat rising inflation Goldman Sachs releases 'tactical' stock picks for this earnings season Three red flags for Netflix ahead of its earnings report The bond market may be raising recession fears, but don't expect one anytime soon Cramer: Banks are 'making fortunes' but are still as hated as they were during the financial crisis Putin told Trump at summit: Russia never meddled in US election

Technology

Uber's Travis Kalanick isn't the only one—why Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey and other founders were ousted

Travis Kalanick and his friend Garrett Camp first had the idea for what would become Uber on a cold night in Paris in late 2008. They started working on a prototype in March 2009, and Kalanick would go on to be the company’s CEO through one of the most fabled Silicon Valley start-up stories of all time. Uber has raised almost $9 billion from investors at values that ran up almost as high as $70 billion, though the current value of the company is down closer to $50 billion. The technology transportation company operates in more than 600 cities around the world.

But Uber now has big problems. It has become the poster-child of “bro-culture” run amok. And late Tuesday night, Kalanick resigned, reportedly forced out of the company he founded amid claims of sexual harassment and a generally toxic work environment.

As an ousted entrepreneur, Kalanick is not alone. Founders bring a passion that is unmatched, and there is some evidence that founder-run companies are more successful than their counterparts run by professional management teams. But they can also be bad managers, ill-equipped to manage the burgeoning needs of large companies.

Here are five startup founders that have been fired by their boards and investment teams.

The revered Silicon Valley icon was, famously, fired in 1985 from Apple, the company he and inventor Steve Wozniak co-founded in a garage. As Apple grew, they hired John Sculley to help run the company, and at first, things went well. But then “our visions of the future began to diverge” according to Jobs.

Apple’s board of directors sided with Sculley. “So at 30, I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating,” said Jobs in his 2005 commencement address at Stanford.

Jobs didn’t know what to do for a few months. “I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down — that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. … I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley.

“But something slowly began to dawn on me,” explained Jobs. “I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.”

Jobs went on to launch NeXT and Pixar. Apple bought NeXT and then Jobs returned to run Apple in 1997.

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life,” Jobs said.

“I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick.”

In October 2008, Jack Dorsey‘s Twitter co-founder, Ev Williams, fired him from the CEO role. That was a year and a half after Dorsey sent the first tweet on March 21, 2006, and less than a year after Twitter formally incorporated on April 19, 2007. The micro-blogging social media company was growing faster than anyone had expected and the company servers were crashing every day, says Ev Williams in a 2011 Vanity Fair article.

“I let myself be in a weird position because it always felt like Ev’s company. He funded it. He was the chairman. And I was this new guy who was a programmer, who had a good idea. I would not be strong in my convictions, basically, because he was the older, wiser one,” says Dorsey in the same Vanity Fair feature.

It was a blow, he says. “It was like being punched in the stomach.”

But Dorsey didn’t let being fired slow him down. In 2009, Dorsey went on to found Square, a mobile-payments platform, which, in the most recent financial quarter processed $13.6 billion in payments. In 2015, he was brought back on as the CEO of Twitter to replace then CEO Dick Costello. Twitter had stopped acquiring new users and the stock had been lagging for a year and a half. He’s now running both Twitter and Square.

“I want people to wake up every day and the first thing they check is Twitter in order to see what’s happening in the world,” says in the 2016 Vanity Fair feature. “It’s a metaphor for checking the weather. Twitter has a similar potential.”

Founded in 2013, after just two years, the cloud-based human resources service company Zenefits had raised hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital funding at a valuation of $4 billion. But with its explosive growth came issues.

In the San Francisco-based start-up’s aggressive efforts to expand, Zenefits reportedly created a software allowing brokers cheat on the licensing process and was under investigation by regulators in California and Washington state for not complying with regulation.

Additionally, the culture at the company had allegedly turned into a “Wolf of Wall Street”-esque free for all. A 2016 Wall Street Journal article revealed an email from Emily Agin, the Zenefit’s director of real estate and workplace services, that chastised, among other things, “Do not use the stairwells to smoke, drink, eat, or have sex.”

Faced with an out of control company culture and legal woes, the Board of Directors pushed out founder and CEO Parker Conrad in Feb. 2016.

Now, Conrad has started a new business, Rippling, which received $7 million in funding earlier this year, according to Crunchbase. The Zenefits experience taught Parker what to do differently. He appears to be taking a “more calculated approach after the mayhem of Zenefits,” says TechCrunch.

“It’s understanding the sort of complexities of growing a business and what’s around the corner as you grow and the challenges that emerge,” Conrad tells TechCrunch.

In February 2013, Andrew Mason was pushed out of daily deals site that he founded, Groupon because the company was missing financial goals.

Mason wrote a heartfelt letter to employees when he left.

“After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I’ve decided that I’d like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding — I was fired today,” Mason says in the note.

He took responsibility for poor financials and a crashing stock price, among other problems, saying, “As CEO, I am accountable. … Groupon and you deserve the outside world to give you a second chance. I’m getting in the way of that. A fresh CEO earns you that chance.”

For Mason, it was an exercise in resilience, which, according to New York Times best-selling author Adam Grant is the most critical trait for being successful.

“I’m OK with having failed at this part of the journey,” says Mason. “I’ll now take some time to decompress … and then maybe I’ll figure out how to channel this experience into something productive.”

That July, Mason released a seven-track music album, “Hardly Workin.'”

Jerry Yang and David Filo launched a directory for the Internet from Stanford in 1994, “Jerry and David’s guide to the World Wide Web.” By 1995, they had changed the platform’s name to “Yahoo!” The Internet search engine’s stock surged in the dotcom bubble and plummeted in the bust. It tried, and failed, to develop a search technology to compete with Google and by 2008 was struggling, laying off large numbers of employees.

At that time, even as the company was struggling to find its footing, Yang, then CEO, turned down a $45 billion buyout offer from Microsoft. Yang believed the bid undervalued Yahoo.

Jerry Yang in 1996. Photo by Frederic REGLAIN.

Largely criticized for rejecting the offer and amid shareholder skepticism about his leadership, Yang was pressured to step down as CEO and took on a more visionary role. “I think they had an opportunity to get something done in the palm of their hand, and they bungled it,” said Eric Jackson, a significant shareholder, to the New York Times in 2008. In 2012, Yang completely removed himself from the company.

Yang has moved on. He sits on the Board of Alibaba, which in 2014 raised $25 billion in the biggest IPO in U.S. history. He also now has his own venture capital firm, AME Cloud Ventures, of which Yang says in a 2014 Forbes article: “I feel like this is a place to look forward and not look back too much.”

See also:

Uber’s CEO is out: Here’s everything that went wrong with Uber this year

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is quitting. His successor will face big challenges.

Elon Musk’s 3 best pieces of advice for how to be a great leader

Source: Tech CNBC
Uber's Travis Kalanick isn't the only one—why Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey and other founders were ousted

Comments are closed.