Uber’s revenues are up at the end of the first quarter this year, $3.4 billion, which is a massive 18 percent bump up from the previous quarter. However, it’s still haemorrhaging money, as it lost $708 million in Q1.
The company will have stakeholders believe that it’s on the up and up moneywise, but it can’t deny the fact that its management is on shaky ground at the moment. Along with the major loss in cash, Uber told the Wall Street Journal it will also see its head of finance Gautam Gupta leave the business in July.
To be fair, Gupta is said to be moving on only because he’s found an opportunity at a startup in California that he wants to pursue. However, that leaves Uber in a precarious position. Not only does it not have anyone overseeing finances at a high level, it’s also lacking a president as Jeff Jones quit just six months after he joined the company.
What’s more, CEO Travis Kalanick said in early March that he was on the hunt for a COO to help him run Uber. We’re closing in on three months since that announcement and we’re yet to hear of a candidate to fill that role.
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As the WSJ notes, the company has lost about a dozen top execs in 2017 alone, a number of whom resigned or were fired after allegations of sexism came to light when a former female engineer blogged about her experience at Uber earlier this year. It also parted ways this week with Anthony Lewandroski, its vice president of technology who joined the company from Google and was tasked with building self-driving car technology.
Uber noted that its losses have narrowed since the previous quarter and that it’s bringing in more money than before – but with leadership so sorely lacking at this point, it’s hard to imagine investors feeling comfortable putting their eggs in this basket.
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