It Will Take a Lot to Kill Uber

For six months now, almost all the news about Uber has been bad. Even before then, the ride-hailing company's combative executive team displayed a remarkable facility for generating negative headlines, but since former Uber engineer Susan Fowler went public in February about seemingly systemic sexual-harassment problems at the company, it's just been one disaster after the other. Ugly lawsuit over allegedly stealing autonomous-car secrets from Google parent Alphabet? Check! Revelations of a concerted effort to evade regulators around the world? Check! Embarrassing video of co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick rudely berating a diver? Check! Board member resigning after complaining during an all-hands employee meeting on combating sexism that women talk too much? Check!

Even the forced departure of Kalanick in June doesn't seem to have settled things down much, with the company's board struggling to agree on a replacement and Kalanick -- who remains a major shareholder -- reportedly haunting the search with chatter about “Steve Jobs-ing it” by eventually returning to power.