Travis Kalanick is stepping down from Uber’s board of directors

Travis Kalanick, co-founder and former CEO of Uber, is stepping down as the company board’s director at the end of the month. Uber announced Kalanick’s departure this morning. According to the press release, Kalanick will be focusing on “his new business and philanthropic endeavors.”

The right move at the moment — In a statement, Kalanick said it seems like “the right moment” for him to leave the board. He praised the company in his statement, saying, “I’m proud of all that Uber has achieved, and I will continue to cheer for its future from the sidelines.

Uber’s current CEO is grateful for Kalanick — Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s current CEO, isn’t downplaying the role Kalanick played in building the company. “Very few entrepreneurs have built something as profound as Travis Kalanick did with Uber,” she stated. “I’m enormously grateful for Travis’ vision and tenacity while building Uber, and for his expertise as a board member. Everyone at Uber wishes him all the best."

Uber's problematic fav — Kalanick has been with Uber since its humble beginnings in 2009 and he’s credited with cultivating the company into the global phenomenon it is today.

But he was also the subject of an intense internal investigation after being accused of sexual harassment by a former employee in 2017. That year was a tumultuous time for the company writ large, too — its workplace culture came under fire, it was the subject of extreme police scrutiny, and Kalanick’s business strategies were publicly shamed as being too risky for the company’s good.

Eventually, Uber’s investors and top executives pushed him out of the company, and he resigned as CEO. His departure from the company’s board puts an end to a ten-year saga of dramatic risks, successes, and high-stakes failures.