Bill Gurley—Bill Gurley led Benchmark's campaign that forced Travis Kalanick's resignation as Uber CEO amid governance and misconduct crisis
As the Benchmark partner holding Uber's board seat, Bill Gurley led a multi-week, behind-the-scenes campaign in June 2017 to remove Travis Kalanick as Uber's CEO following a string of corporate governance and workplace-culture scandals at the company. Fellow Benchmark partners Matt Cohler and Peter Fenton hand-delivered a resignation letter to Kalanick while he was traveling in Chicago. The letter was signed by investors representing roughly 40% of shareholder voting power. Kalanick resigned as CEO as a result, though he retained his board seat.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate Governance | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | +0.858 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.57)
Evidence (1 signal)
Bloomberg: Kalanick's ouster as Uber CEO began with a hand-delivered letter organized by Benchmark's Gurley
Bloomberg reporting on how Bill Gurley and fellow Benchmark partners Matt Cohler and Peter Fenton organized the investor letter, signed by holders of ~40% of voting shares, that forced Kalanick's resignation as Uber CEO.