Uber Loses its CTO, COO and CPO
If there’s one business you don’t want to be in during a socially distanced lockdown, it’s car-sharing. The roads are quiet, no ones in a hurry, and that means it’s suddenly carnage at ride-hailing providers like Uber. The company has withdrawn guidance as American car bookings plunge by three-quarters, and now over twenty percent of staff could be laid off.
In spite of this, Thuan Pham, the company’s chief technology officer, said “I feel comfortable hanging up my hat at a time when the Uberc Engineering team is at peak productivity.” Those were his words yesterday, as he abruptly quit. There’s no safety up in the c-suite, it seems. He follows the chief operating offer and the chief product officer out the door.
It’s hard for the markets to work out if these bosses are choosing not to stay because they don’t want to be job executioners, if they’re plotting to start their own venture together, or whether they know something dark about Uber that the rest of us will soon discover.
The markets have chewed up ride-hailing shares and spat them out since lockdown began, but they’re finding a home in the Invstr community. We’re seeing some of the most bullish sentiment in months for the stock at 91%, the instrument gaining 58% of the time the community holds it. There’s a possible explanation, too.
Uber Eats is carrying the company on its shoulders. The restaurant industry needs to stay afloat by offering food delivery, and that’s played perfectly into the hands of the gig economy. It’s a smaller business, but more profitable and going through a boom, so are Invstrs on to something?
