Uber president Jeff Jones is leaving the company after just six months on the job.
While CEO Travis Kalanick is blaming his search for a COO as the reason Jones quit, the president told Recode that “that the beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided [his] career are inconsistent with what [he] saw and experienced at Uber.”
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Jeff Jones worked as the CMO of retail giant Target before making the move to Uber in October 2016. While he was there, Jones spent a lot of his time talking to drivers to decipher the ride-sharing company’s next move. He believed that the best ideas came from the people who use the app every day.
But the good Jones believed he could do was overshadowed by the onslaught of scandals that hit Uber after just a few months at the company.
In February, Kalanick resigned from US President Donald Trump’s executive advisory board after 200, 000 people deleted Uber in protest of his position. Earlier this month, former engineer Susan Fowler Rigetti wrote a blog post about the entrenched sexism in Uber’s workplace. A few weeks later, Kalanick was filmed being short with a driver who told him the business had made him bankrupt.
Jeff Jones believed that the best ideas came from the people who use the Uber app every day
The perpetually-apologising Kalanick does not attribute these issues to Jones’ resignation, however.
In an email sent to staff last night, Kalanick asserted it was due to his decision to hire a COO.
Travis Kalanick’s email to employees about President Jeff Jones’s sudden departure pic.twitter.com/VuHovwixUb
— Eric Newcomer (@EricNewcomer) March 19, 2017
According to The New York Times, Jones isn’t the only executive leaving the company.
Brian McClendon, vice president of maps and business platform, is moving back to Kansas to focus on politics — though The New York Times states that his departure has “been in the works for some time.”
Let’s all have a moment of silence for Uber’s HR department.
Featured image: Núcleo Editorial via Flickr (CC 2.0, edited)
