Uber's Chief Product Officer Announces Plan To Step Down

Uber Technologies (NYSE:UBER) has lately been on headlines for all the wrong reasons. Soon after the stock slipped to a record low following the expiration of its lock-up period, large-scale sell offs by the company’s co-founder and former chief executive officer Travis Kalanick dealt a further blow. The latest news is that the company’s chief product officer Manik Gupta will be leaving the organization next month, per reports by TechCrunch.

Gupta joined Uber in 2015 as the senior director of the maps and marketplace product team. He was promoted to the position of chief product officer in November 2018. Previously, he worked with Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL).

After Gupta steps down from his position on Dec 13, the company’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will take charge, while looking for his replacement.

Though Gupta, who resigned to “take a break” is “very bullish on Uber’s future”, the timing of his withdrawal from the organization can’t be ignored. The company has successively incurred huge losses in each of the three quarters of 2019, ever since it went public on May 10, 2019, thanks to cost pressure. Significant expenses on sales and marketing are weighing on the company’s bottom line. Evidently, shares of the company have declined 35% since May 10.

Amid such setback, Kalanick has been continually dumping his shares. After three rounds of sales, he sold 33 million shares so far this month, worth $882 million.

Zack Rank & Other Key Picks

Uber carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Some other top-ranked stocks in the same space are Marchex, Inc. (NASDAQ:MCHX) , Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM) and HealthStream, Inc. (NASDAQ:HSTM) . While Marchex sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Akamai Technologies and HealthStream carry the same Zacks Rank as Uber. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Shares of Marchex, Akamai Technologies and HealthStream have rallied more than 50%, 44%% and 12%, respectively, so far this year.

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