Uber’s CEO doesn’t think the company is ready to go public yet

Like an eighth grader being told they should go to prom, Uber wants people to stop telling it that it needs to go public soon. That’s the analogy that CEO Travis Kalanick in response to one of Uber’s board members publicly criticizing the company for its refusal to go public. According to Kalanick, it’s simply too soon for the company to go public, and investors need to be patient, because they’re going to be rewarded for investing in Uber eventually. 

Hours after his own board member publicly criticized Silicon Valley unicorns for refusing to go public, Uber Chief Executive Travis Kalanick said he has no plans for an initial stock offering. Kalanick said the ride-sharing company he founded five years ago still needs time to mature. “We’re like eighth graders and someone’s telling us we need to go to the prom,” said Kalanick in remarks Tuesday at the Wall Street Journal’s WSJDLive conference in Laguna Beach, Calif. “We’re too early in our cycle. Most companies, when they go public, it’s usually later in their life.” The remarks seemed to come in response to those of Uber board member Bill Gurley, who earlier in the day said startups whose executives refuse to go public should be given a “liquidity discount” of as much as 70 percent to 80 percent of their valuations. Kalanick said of the unusually public debate that he and Gurley don’t “agree on everything — but that’s ok.” The founder of the fast-growing company said investors and employees will eventually be rewarded for their patience. For the moment, at least, Uber is having no difficulty raising capital from private investors. Just this summer, it closed a $1 billion investment round that gave it a $51 billion valuation.