As of right now, Uber is a $60 billion company with no CEO, no CFO, and no chief operating officer. Ryan Graves, Uber’s first employee who has served as the company’s senior vice president of global operations, has stepped down from his role. Uber has had no COO for years, which has left Graves to take on much of the workload that the C-suite exec would normally handle.
In a letter to employees, Graves said “I’ll be embracing another big change on my journey with Uber and will transition out of a full-time operating role to focus on my role as a Board Director.” Graves was known to be one of former CEO Travis Kalanick’s most loyal supporters, which may explain his move away from Uber’s executive team.
Over the past few months, a scandal-ridden Uber has seen a mass exodus of members of its senior management team. Founder and CEO Travis Kalanick was the most high-profile departure, but a who’s who of Uber’s other senior members have also jumped ship recently. Since the beginning of the year, the following Uber execs have left the company:
- Travis Kalanick, founder and CEO
- Emil Michael, SVP of business
- Jeff Jones, President of the company
- Gautum Gupta, head of finance
- David Bonderman, a member of the board
- Ed Baker, VP of product and growth
- Amit Singhal, SVP of engineering
- Rachel Whetstone, head of communications
- Brian McClendon, head of mapping
- Raffi Krikorian, senior director of engineering for Uber’s R&D lab
- Gary Marcus, head of Uber’s AI lab
- Anthony Levandowski, the lead self-driving car engineer who is accused of stealing Google’s intellectual property
Uber is currently searching hard for a CEO to replace Kalanick, but that person is going to have a massive job to do when they start. Even if all those roles are filled in the interim from within, that’s a serious amount of talent to leave the company in just a few months. Reports have already said that the recent brace of scandals and rumors about Uber’s culture has made it difficult to hire talent, which will make it even more challenging to fill those roles.
