Articles tagged “uber”

This week's digital news was off the charts: Expedia's CEO left for Uber and was replaced by Mark Okerstrom. On Thursday September 7, our expert journalists and researchers will break it down for you in a conference call. When you're done reading about the Expedia-Uber shakeup, we also analyzed Ctrip's earnings and Kayak's layoffs.

For all the chaos earlier this week, it seems like Barry Diller and the Expedia Inc. board of directors have ensured an orderly transition into a new era for the online travel giant.

Will Uber, under Khosrowshahi, continue to push even deeper into corporate travel as he attempts to turn the company around? Seems likely.

Suddenly former Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi walks away from substantial unvested compensation. Becoming CEO of Uber may have been a once in a lifetime opportunity for Khosrowshahi, but we expect that Uber had to compensate him for his treasure trove of unvested options to pry him away.

There is only one vote that mattered in Expedia's abbreviated CEO search — Barry Diller's. And he wholeheartedly wanted Okerstrom for the job. No need to mess around with an interim title or to conduct the dog and pony show of a CEO search. It was a done deal. Now Okerstrom has to step up to the challenge.

What would make Expedia obsolete and cause Khosrowshahi to leave? Expedia's apparently outgoing CEO answered that question for us last year and talked about big technology trends a few years in the offing. But is he bolting because he thinks Expedia's best days are behind it?

Khosrowshahi takes over a unicorn in Uber and will have the challenge of his life to get the ride-share company speeding along and toward an IPO with a trunk-full of controversies and problems. The choice of the next Expedia CEO to succeed him is indeed a critical one that will have far-reaching implications.

With a two-decade track record in online travel, Khosrowshahi has had his duck-and-cover as well as been-on-a-mountaintop moments. If Uber's looking for a steady hand, and a guy with experience who isn't afraid to take a U-turn when called for, then they could have done a helluva lot worse.

We can't blame Khosrowshahi for seizing a nearly once-in-a-lifetime challenge to right the trajectory of a unicorn, Uber, but this is also a very awkward time to leave Expedia. Now there will be two big-time CEOs under the gun: Priceline's new top guy, Glenn Fogel, and Khosrowshahi's successor at Expedia.

Khosrowshahi has been reflective and honest as CEO of Expedia, taking ownership of his failures along the way. At Uber, the company will have a leader who has overseen both explosive growth and clever repositioning.