Major investors from Saudi Arabia and Japan are not pushing Uber to go public — but it’s the right thing for the company to IPO by 2019.

That’s what Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on Thursday in his first high-profile appearance since he took the CEO role.

“We have all of the disadvantages of being a public company, as far the spotlight, on us without any of the advantages,” he said. “So Travis [Kalanick] and the whole board now agree we should just go public. The numbers support it.”

Khosrowshahi spoke in the New York Times DealBook Conference at the Time Warner Center in New York City, hosted by Times columnist and CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin. The remarks are an about-face from the last Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick, who said Uber would go public “as late as humanly possible.”

The IPO deadline of 2019 is not due to pressure from potential investor SoftBank, the ultimate long-term investor, Khosrowshahi said.

Khosrowshahi has already made waves since officially joining Uber at the end of August. When Uber’s license to operate in London was canceled, Khosrowshahi did something that’s stereotypically un-Uber: Apologized.

“I think we were generally immature about how we dealt with regulators,” Khosrowshahi said.

He’s also reformulated the company’s cultural code from the bottom up as the massive start-up prepares to go public.

While Uber is unprofitable, Khosrowshahi said the “math is working” in certain geographies, and the company is simply subsidizing other investments. The U.S. won’t be profitable for about the next six months, depending on how rival Lyft performs, he said.

He did not inherit an easy company to manage. When he took over, Uber was reeling from regulatory investigations and a workplace culture investigation that resulted in the exodus of key staffers.

Khosrowshahi said he has read some of the allegations of sexual harassment at Uber, but he did not ask to see the workplace culture report before taking the job. He said he thought about making it public once he joined the company.

“When I got into this role, I didn’t want to take sides. And I wasn’t interested …. in what happened in the past. I’m interested in the company, and the employees, and the brand, and how we move forward. Don’t tell me what happened, tell me what we’re going to do,” Khosrowshahi said.

On top of that, the co-founder, Travis Kalanick, was sparring with top investors, dividing the board of directors.

“Over a period of time, I would be foolish not to use Travis’ …incredible knowledge. Some weeks we won’t talk, some weeks we talk 10 times,” Khosrowshahi said. “I think he understands the ‘why,’ which is that early on I need my space …. He’s been very plain with me that he wants to be involved in the company.”

Major investors — like SoftBank — and potential foes — like Alphabet’s Waymo — were circling.

“I was really worried about the leaks, etcetera, that were going on, and really happy that my name did not leak until the very end,” Khosrowshahi said. “Things are never as bad as the press makes them out to be.

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