[uberemployee]

As an Uber employee, I can say this: although the feelings on TK are mixed (some loving TK, others glad that he's gone), the feelings about Benchmark are pretty uniform. They are only out for themselves, and nothing they have done have "helped" us. They have only hurt us. This current ploy they are doing is only further hurting us. Everyone thinks this "letter" is a joke. Nothing to see here, at least from an employee perspective.

[BinaryIdiot]

Interesting. As far as I can tell (from the outside, of course) Travis is reneging on his deal and he's planning on reinstalling himself as CEO in addition to the extra board seats he just procured. This seems like it would hurt employees more than anything and possibly give Travis even more control over the company.

To me it appears Benchmark is mostly aligned with employees; both want the company to grow and do well. So why do many have bad feelings about Benchmark's actions? What am I missing?

[smallgovt]

Benchmark's interest lies in protecting the value of their investment and liquidating it as soon as possible.

This can be very different from employees' interest in the case where Benchmark seeks to sell their stake via a private transaction (e.g. to Softbank).

I'd also add that Benchmark couldn't care less if the company 'grows'. They've already made enough money to return their fund many times over. Their strategy now is mainly to mitigate risk to the paper value of their holdings.

[BinaryIdiot]

Fair point. I can't exactly blame them either.

[tschellenbach]

Founders and employees typically own common stock. Investors will have preferred stock with different rights. Depending on the deal specifics this will give VCs different incentives for the company. So yeah I can't imagine that employees are very happy about this change of control.