Your comment is predicated on the fallacy that Uber's success is merely a function of runway / the ability to find new investors.
Bear in mind that the company's growth has been driven by its ability to run a very, very highly-performant backend -- and that's in turn a matter of getting the very best engineering talent on board.
Some, perhaps most of that talent is already pissed off about the fratty work environment and questionable leadership decisions. Recently, their options exercise window changed from 30 days to 7 years[0].
Angry employees + management turnover/uncertainty + limited runway + new rule that basically you don't lose your options when you quit = I'm officially an U-Bear.
On a related topic, I think people's schadenfreude for Travis is getting out of control and he's becoming a bit of a totem for everything that's wrong with SV....while his issues are largely self-inflicted ("boob-er" / treating drivers like crap on camera / etc), all the hatred directed toward him seems excessive in context. The guy just lost his mother, maybe cut him some slack?
It practically eliminates the opportunity-cost of leaving. Having seven years to be able to come up with the liquidity to pay the strike/taxes -- plus, critically, being able to wait several years to get a better understanding of whether the options have value before striking -- completely changes the calculus of whether to depart a company, whether because you're unhappy or because you've found something better elsewhere.
Agree this is good for Uber employees and I'm happy they have significantly less of an impediment to leaving than most other workers at pre-exit startups.
Uber is evil. They always have been. I've been trying to talk my friends into boycotting them for years because of their corrupt practices, and the various scams they've run on their drivers. Their highly-performant backend was used to place "ghost cars" and avoid government officials. The timing on this is, yes, frustratingly arbitrary, but this really is the whirlwind they have sown.
Bear in mind that the company's growth has been driven by its ability to run a very, very highly-performant backend -- and that's in turn a matter of getting the very best engineering talent on board.
Some, perhaps most of that talent is already pissed off about the fratty work environment and questionable leadership decisions. Recently, their options exercise window changed from 30 days to 7 years[0].
Angry employees + management turnover/uncertainty + limited runway + new rule that basically you don't lose your options when you quit = I'm officially an U-Bear.
On a related topic, I think people's schadenfreude for Travis is getting out of control and he's becoming a bit of a totem for everything that's wrong with SV....while his issues are largely self-inflicted ("boob-er" / treating drivers like crap on camera / etc), all the hatred directed toward him seems excessive in context. The guy just lost his mother, maybe cut him some slack?
[0]: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2017/05/16/uber...