AS A teenager, Travis Kalanick's first job was to knock on strangers' doors and sell them knives. Now he is trying to dodge the daggers aimed at him and at Uber, a ride-hailing firm that is the world's most valuable startup. On March 19th Jeff Jones, the company's president, stepped down after six months, declaring that "the beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber." At least six key executives and high-ranking employees have left in the past nine weeks. They include Uber's head of mapping, a former head of self-driving car technology, and an artificial-intelligence (AI) expert who had been put in charge of the firm's AI research lab only three months ago.

优步（Uber）首席执行官（CEO）特拉维斯·卡兰尼克（Travis Kalanick）的第一份工作是敲开陌生人的门推销刀具。 如今，他却正试图躲避那些投向他和他的优步的"匕首"。优步是一家全球估值最高的创业公司。 3月19日，优步总裁杰夫·琼斯（Jeff Jones）在任职半年后辞职，宣称："引导我职业生涯的领导方式与信念与我在优步的所见所感存在冲突"。此外，在过去9周内，至少有6名主要高管和高级员工离职，其中包括优步的地图绘制部门负责人、自动驾驶汽车技术负责人以及一位人工智能（AI）专家。后者三个月前才刚刚接管优步的AI研究实验室。

Aggressive and unrelentingly ambitious, Mr Kalanick built his eight-year-old company into America's largest privately owned technology firm by treading on the toes of different groups, including traditional taxi drivers, other tech companies and regulators. He pushed into new markets abroad and raised an unprecedented amount of capital, to the tune of around $12.5bn, including debt. The firm has a valuation of close to $70bn (see chart).

卡兰尼克是一个积极进取、雄心勃勃的人。优步成立仅八年，在卡兰尼克的领导下，已然成为美国最大的民营科技公司。不过，优步在迅速成长的过程中，也得罪了不少人，包括传统出租车司机以及其他科技企业和监管机构。卡兰尼克在进军国外市场时，融资125亿美元左右——其中也包括债务，数额之巨前所未有。 目前，优步的估值接近700亿美元（见下表）。

Yet a remarkable run of bad news for Mr Kalanick, combined with some setbacks for Uber itself, threatens to halt the firm's momentum. "I have never seen someone have such a bad couple of months," commiserates the boss of a large, public tech firm. Politics struck first: in January Mr Kalanick was widely criticised for serving on Donald Trump's businessadvisory committee and for apparently intervening in a strike by taxi drivers opposed to Mr Trump's ban on refugees. A campaign, called #DeleteUber, took off, encouraging users to stop using the Uber app.

然而，对卡兰尼克而言，坏消息接踵而来，加上优步自身的问题，有可能威胁公司的发展势头。 一大型公共科技企业的领导人表达了自己对卡兰尼克的同情："这几个月对他来说真是太难熬了。"首先，政界开始发难：1月，对于加入特朗普的工商管理委员会，同时由于直接介入反对特朗普禁止难民进入的出租车司机的罢工行动，卡兰尼克饱受诽议。一个"卸载优步（DeleteUber）"抗议活动要求优步的用户停止使用优步应用。

Then worries about Uber's culture mounted. A former employee wrote a blog post on how Uber's human-resources department failed to act on her sexual-harassment complaint. Next, an Uber driver filmed Mr Kalanick arguing with him about fare cuts and uploaded the material, including the boss lamenting that "some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit". The latest embarrassment was the revelation that Uber had secretly designed and used a software feature, called Greyball, to evade city officials attempting sting operations to catch Uber drivers violating local regulations.

对优步文化的忧虑尘嚣其上。 一位优步前员工发表了一篇博文，讲述了优步人力资源部门在对她的性骚扰投诉无所作为。之后，一名优步司机拍下了卡兰尼克与他争论削减车费的谈话过程，并将其上传至网络，其中有卡兰尼克发牢骚时说的话："有些人拉完屎就等着别人给他擦屁股"。最近，优步还面临一个新的窘境：有人揭露优步曾秘密开发并使用一个名为"灰球（Greyball）"的软件程序，以逃避官方对了解违反当地法规的优步司机的信息。

Two questions face the company. One is whether Uber will continue prospering under Mr Kalanick's leadership. Silicon Valley and its denizens may celebrate his type, but his public words and actions have made people close to the firm squirm. Bill Gurley, a venture capitalist and early Uber backer who sits on the board, is helping direct a search for a chief operating officer to keep Mr Kalanick in check and bring experience and discipline to the firm. It is certainly hard to keep on top of the firm's growth: last year, its headcount doubled.

目前，优步面临两大问题。 一个是优步能否继续在卡兰尼克的领导下蓬勃发展。硅谷人可能会喜欢他这种性格的人，可是，他的言行会让与优步有关的人感到不自在。风险投资家比尔·格利（Bill Gurley）是优步早期投资人并且是优步的董事，目前正在协助优步找一名首席运营官，对卡拉尼克形成约束，提升经营经验和公司治理纪律性。当然，想继续保持优步的增长优势很困难：去年优步的职工数量增多了一倍。

If Mr Gurley and the rest of the board cannot find an experienced candidate willing to work with Mr Kalanick, calls for him to step down may grow louder. But that is his decision to take. Uber is a prominent example of founders' power at fast-growing tech firms. On its own, Uber's board does not have the clout to change the CEO, because of his super-voting shares and those of his co-founder, Garrett Camp: together they control a majority of the voting stock.

如果格利和董事会其他成员找不到有经验，愿意与卡兰尼克共事的人选，那么要求后者下台的声音可能会越来越大。 不，过最终的决定权还是在卡兰尼克手上。 优步是快速成长的科技企业中创始人权力突出的典型范例。 就企业本身而言，优步董事会无法更换CEO，因为卡兰尼克和他的联合创始人格瑞特·坎普（Garrett Camp）共同控制着公司的绝大多数投票权。

The second question concerns Uber's longer-term business prospects. One of the firm's early-stage investors says that recent events have been a series of "body blows", but he worries that there could be a "knockout blow" that would permanently damage Uber's momentum. So far, he says, it looks as if Uber is merely bruised.

第二个大问题涉及优步的长期业务前景。 优步的一位早期投资者认为，最近发生的一系列"打击"并不是他所担心的，他真正担心的是优步有可能会遭受一种"毁灭性打击"，会致使优步的发展势头造成永久性破坏。 到目前为止，这名投资者认为，优步看起来只是受了轻伤而已。

From the start of the year to the first week in March, Uber's market share in America has fallen from around 80% to 74%, according to 7Park Data, which tracks the industry. Lyft, a smaller ride-hailing firm, seems to have been the chief beneficiary. The dip in market share for Uber could reverse, though the firm is unlikely to grow as effortlessly as in the past. There is, at least, still plenty of room to expand at home. Only around 6% of American mobile-phone users hail a ride through Uber and Lyft once a month or more.

打车服务行业的数据分析机构7 Park Data称，从今年年初到3月份第一周，优步在美国的市场份额从80％左右下降到了74％，规模小很多的同行Lyft似乎是主要受益者。优步的市场份额不可能像过去一样轻松增长，但其下降趋势可能会有所扭转，至少在美国国内还有很大的上升空间。 目前，美国国内只有6%左右的手机用户每月至少使用一次优步和Lyft叫车。

Yet Uber's enormous valuation also depends on the firm pulling off a harder task: dominating most markets for ride-hailing around the world. Fortunately, there is little evidence that Mr Kalanick's antics have dented its prospects outside America. But the goal of worldwide dominion remains distant, even though no other private technology firm has ever spent so much money to gain a global foothold. It is competing against a strong competitor, Grab, in South-East Asia and was spending billions to compete against its Chinese rival, Didi, until it struck a deal last year to withdraw from the country in exchange for a 20% stake in that firm.

然而，优步的巨额估值还取决于它能否攻克另一艰巨任务——占据全球大多数打车市场。 幸运的是，卡兰尼克在美国国内的"小伎俩"似乎并没有影响到海外市场的发展前景。 不过，统治全球的目标仍很遥远。即使没有其他私人技术企业斥巨资谋求全球地位，优步仍然面临东南亚的劲敌Grab，同时优步曾花费数十亿美元与滴滴竞争——直到去年才达成协议，以滴滴公司20％股权的代价退出中国市场 。

Investors particularly want to see the ride-hailing giant reach profitability in developed markets. Its sales, of around $5.5bn in 2016, are growing rapidly, but it has to spend a lot in American cities where there are rival local firms such as Lyft and (smaller) ones such as Juno and Via. For every dollar that Lyft spends in subsidising fares, it costs Uber four times the amount to hold onto customers and drivers, because of its far larger size. Foreign expansion adds still more expense, and it is unclear whether the competition at home and abroad, which hurts Uber's chance of becoming profitable, will ever ease up.

投资者尤其希望看到这家打车软件巨头在发达市场盈利。在2016年，优步的销售额约为55亿美元，目前还在快速增长，不过，在美国一些城市，优步必须投入不少资金和Lyft以及规模更小的Juno和Via等打车应用竞争。如果Lyft提供的补贴为1美元，规模更大的优步则要向客户和司机提供4美元。同时，向国外市场进军也增加了优步的支出，目前尚不清楚由国内外竞争引发的优步盈利的可能性下降问题是否将会缓解。

There are other threats to watch out for. Uber's performance depends on its software working smoothly and not being hit by outages, and this could suffer if more executives on the technical side leave. It may also struggle to hire talented engineers during this rough patch.

49 30760 49 15289 0 0 4285 0 0:00:07 0:00:03 0:00:04 4285此外，优步还需要提防其它威胁。优步的业绩取决于应用运行流畅。如果有更多技术高管离职，优步的业绩可能会受影响。 在这个困难时期，聘请有才华的工程师也不是易事。

Another looming problem is regulation. Later this year the European Court of Justice, the European Union's highest court, will decide on whether Uber is a transport company or just a digital service; if it is judged to be the former, it will need to comply with stricter licensing, insurance and safety rules, lifting its costs significantly in Europe. Last week an American court upheld a law from Seattle allowing Uber drivers a vote to unionise. Other cities are expected to follow suit. A British court will soon need to rule on whether Uber has to pay value-added tax.

另一个潜在问题是监管问题。今年晚些时候，欧洲法院欧盟最高法院将决定优步到底属于运输公司还是仅属于数字服务企业。如果判定为前者，优步将需要遵守更为严格的许可证、保险和安全规定，这将增加其在欧洲的运营成本。上周，美国法院维持了西雅图的法律规定，允许优步司机有权组织工会。 预计其它城市也会随之效仿。 英国法院将很快会发布法令，裁定优步是否必须缴纳增值税。

As for Uber's race to move away from human drivers to autonomous driving, obstacles lie ahead. In February Waymo, a self-driving car unit that is owned by Google's parent company, sued Uber, claiming that former employees of Google had stolen some of Waymo's proprietary technology when they set up their own autonomous-driving startup, Otto. Last year Uber bought Otto, which makes self-driving kit for lorries, for around $700m.

优步从传统驾驶员驾驶转向自动驾驶的征途上也有诸多障碍需要克服。 2月，谷歌母公司旗下的自动驾驶公司Waymo起诉优步，称谷歌的前雇员在成立自己的自动驾驶创业企业Otto前，窃取了Waymo的一些专利技术，而去年优步以7亿多美元收购Otto，为货车提供自驾软件。

Patent disputes are common in the tech industry and can take years to play out, but Waymo is being particularly aggressive. It has asked a judge to ban Uber's use of its lidar technology, which uses lasers to scan a vehicle's surroundings and is employed in self-driving cars. Uber may settle for a large sum, but the affair adds uncertainty.

专利纠纷在技术行业很普遍，可能需要几年才能彻底解决。不过，Waymo却很强势，要求法官禁止优步使用其激光雷达技术，即通过激光扫描车辆的周围环境，并用于自驾车。优步可能可以通过花一大笔钱解决这个事情，但此事会增加不确定性。

Some people close to Uber ask whether all the difficulties will force Mr Kalanick, who has said he never wants to take the firm public, to consider doing just that. It will now be far harder to raise money in the private markets at Uber's stratospheric valuation. But it is possible to argue the opposite: Mr Kalanick will need the clouds of controversy to clear before going public.

接近优步的人想知道这些困难能不能够迫使卡兰尼克同意优步上市，而他此前曾说绝不想优步上市。不过，从优步的最高估值看，在私人市场上融资将会更为困难。不过，还有一种可能，也许目前的这些争议和问题可以让卡兰尼克清醒，同意优步上市。

His company's problems could occur at many startups, but the fact that they have all struck at once suggests its immaturity and a lack of professional management. Given the sums at stake and the blow to the prestige of many in Silicon Valley if Uber failed, there will be no shortage of pressure on Mr Kalanick to prove that he is the right person to stay at the wheel.

优步所面临的问题可能会在许多初创企业身上出现，但是，所有问题在顷刻间一起降临这一事实说明优步自身的不成熟，缺乏专业管理经验。 如果优步失败，来自硅谷的大量投资以及许多硅谷人的声望都会受到威胁。在这种前提下，卡兰尼克本人的压力一定不小，他需要证明自己是领导优步的不二人选。

编译：雷琰

编辑：李博文

编辑：翻吧君

来源：经济学人