Homeless, assaulted, broke: drivers left behind as Uber promises change at the top

Yet as staff gathered on Tuesday morning at Uber's headquarters in San Francisco, there was one very conspicuous absence. "Let us address the elephant in the room," said Arianna Huffington, perhaps the most high-profile member of Uber's board. The answer: Travis Kalanick, Uber's 40-year-old co-founder and chief executive, was taking a leave of absence from the taxi-hailing app he has transformed into a global behemoth valued at almost $70bn. Huffington told Uber's staff that the company would not await Kalanick's return, choosing instead to act immediately on the findings of a damning investigation, accepted by the board, into the company's workplace culture amid claims of sexual harassment. "Uber is his life," she said of Kalanick. The embattled company had hit the reset button, without its controversial CEO, it would, Huffington declared, be "a new Uber".