I've lost a parent and left a startup I founded, so I can sympathize with how incredibly terrible it must be to deal with two huge losses at the same time.
But Uber has grown to impact an incredible number of souls. Gurley et al. have a serious fiduciary duty to exercise here, one not just aligned with their own greed.
Separately, Khosla is not a paragon of founder-friendliness despite his public attestations. No VC is. It is silly to think that 100% alignment can ever exist with an investor — they legally cannot abdicate their voice entirely. At some point Travis needs to recognize that he consciously took risks that diluted his power in exchange for funding. Had he run a profitable business that would not have needed to happen. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
> Khosla is not a paragon of founder-friendliness despite his public attestations
There's no evidence he hasn't been anything but. I choose to trust him. If I had to choose between a VC leaving a company and the founder CEO leaving, I'd rather the VC left which is the mantra that Khosla advocates for. Before you say the VCs money is at stake, remember also the founders' and employees' sweat equity is also at stake - you can always make more money, but when time is gone, you can't recover it.
A VC's reputation is privately held data. The same for a founder's reputation. Public data is largely useless.
And there is, of course, evidence that Khosla is not 100% founder-friendly, as there is data for every other VC and every other founder out there. Every conflict is gray.
But choose as you wish, of course. That's capitalism.
But Uber has grown to impact an incredible number of souls. Gurley et al. have a serious fiduciary duty to exercise here, one not just aligned with their own greed.
Separately, Khosla is not a paragon of founder-friendliness despite his public attestations. No VC is. It is silly to think that 100% alignment can ever exist with an investor — they legally cannot abdicate their voice entirely. At some point Travis needs to recognize that he consciously took risks that diluted his power in exchange for funding. Had he run a profitable business that would not have needed to happen. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.