SAN FRANCISCO - In the end, the traffic jam of internal and external issues at Uber proved too paralyzing for its hard-charging co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick, who late Tuesday night Pacific time resigned from the ride-hailing company he helped found in 2009. The letter, titled "Moving Uber Forward," asked that the CEO depart immediately but also assist in the search for his successor as well as a chief financial officer, according to anonymous sources quoted in the report. Mike Isaac, The Times reporter who broke the story, in an interview on NPR's Morning Edition, said that Kalanick, 40, consulted with at least one Uber board member and after hours of discussions with some of the investors, he agreed to step down. Uber’s board said in a statement that Kalanick is taking the time to heal from the death of his mother in a boating accident “while giving the company room to fully embrace this new chapter in Uber’s history.” He will remain on the Uber Technologies Inc. board. In a statement obtained by NYT, Kalanick said, “I love Uber more than anything in the world and at this difficult moment in my personal life I have accepted the investors’ request to step aside so that Uber can go back to building rather than be distracted with another fight.”

The ride-hailing service has faced various troubles in 2017. And after buying a new self-driving trucking company called Otto last summer for around $680 million, Uber quickly learned in a lawsuit filed by Google's self-driving car company Waymo that Otto's founder and Uber's new head of self-driving tech, Anthony Levandowski, had apparently stolen thousands of trade secrets files from Google before leaving. At the same time, Uber officials also announced that the company was adopting new policies to improve its workplace environment — including ones meant to help it fight sexual harassment and to change a corporate culture blamed for allowing workplace misconduct to flourish. Kalanick last week said he would take an indefinite leave of absence from Uber, partly to work on himself and to grieve for his mother, who died last month in a boating accident.
Uber founder and CEO Travis Kalanick resigns amid pressure from investors due to allegations of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and corporate misconduct in the company.