Bill Gurley—Benchmark, led by Gurley, sued Travis Kalanick alleging he 'duped' investors into letting him pack Uber's board with allies
In August 2017, Benchmark Capital - the venture firm where Bill Gurley was the partner holding Uber's board seat - filed suit against Travis Kalanick in Delaware's Court of Chancery, alleging Kalanick had fraudulently induced Benchmark to expand the board and fill additional seats with his allies after he had already resigned as CEO but retained his own board seat. The suit sought to force Kalanick off the board entirely, alleging the maneuver amounted to a cover-up intended to preserve his control. Benchmark held a roughly 13% stake in Uber at the time. Shortly after Kalanick's earlier ouster, Gurley had also publicly tweeted that 'very few entrepreneurs have had such a lasting impact on the world,' a conciliatory public note that obscured Benchmark's private view that Kalanick's conduct amounted to deception.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate Governance | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| Undisclosed Conflicts | -against | secondary | +0.50 |
| Overall incident score = | +0.643 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.57)
Evidence (1 signal)
Bloomberg/Vox: Benchmark sues to remove Kalanick from Uber board, alleging board-packing fraud
Bloomberg and Vox reporting on Benchmark's Delaware Chancery Court lawsuit against Kalanick, including analysis of the founder-friendly voting structure (Kalanick held 16% of voting power from just 10% of preferred stock) that enabled the alleged board-packing.