The Great Executive Shuffle of 2019 continued on Wednesday, with Expedia Group announcing the surprise departure of its CEO and CFO after clashing with the company's board over the travel company's direction. Chief Executive Mark Okerstrom and Chief Financial Officer Alan Pickerill will resign their posts effective immediately, with Chairman Barry Diller and Vice Chair Peter Kern managing the company while a new leadership team is chosen.
In a statement, Diller said that Expedia's reorganization, spearheaded by Okerstrom and Pickerill, was "sound in concept" but resulted in the company's disappointing third-quarter earnings results. Diller said the board "strongly [believes] the Company can accelerate growth in 2020" under new management.
Shares of Expedia ($EXPE) shot up more than 5 percent on the news. In contrast, shares of Alphabet ($GOOGL) moved only marginally higher on Tuesday's announcement that Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were stepping aside and naming Sundar Pichai CEO of Alphabet.
From Expedia to Google, the year has been notable for how many chief executives have resigned, quit, or been forced out. It's happening across sectors like fast food (McDonald's), retail and apparel (Nike, Under Armour, Gap), cloud computing and enterprise software (SAP, ServiceNow), e-commerce (eBay). Some of those executives actually took each other's jobs, with Bill McDermott departing SAP for ServiceNow, and John Donahoe (who used to run eBay) leaving ServiceNow for Nike.
Even Expedia's rival in travel booking, Trivago, lost its CEO last month. And that's not to mention the collapse of WeWork, which forced out its founder and CEO over a disastrous IPO attempt. More than 170 chief executives left just in the month of October, according to Challenger, Gray and Christmas.
There is no single reason for the C-suite exodus. Some, like Steve Easterbrook at McDonald's, were fired over misconduct. Others, like Mark Parker at Nike and Adam Neumann at WeWork, departed amid other scandals. Still others, like Kevin Plank at Under Armour, resigned under the pressure of struggling businesses.
But for some of these executives, their influence in the companies they led doesn't follow them out the revolving door. Brin and Page of Google, for instance, still hold a majority of the voting power in Alphabet, about 25 percent a piece, according to regulatory filings. Because of how many businesses ー particular in Silicon Valley ー structure their Class A and Class B shares, a CEO can step down, but still never really be gone. Just ask WeWork, which had to pay Neumann $1.7 billion to give up his voting rights and walk away.
Skype users are scrambling to find an alternative after Microsoft shut down the pioneering internet phone service which let people make cheap long distance calls and chat with other users. Google Voice lets users make calls from a smartphone or a desktop web browser but it's only available to people in the U.S. Viber users can call phone numbers but can't get a number to receive calls. Zoom offers phone options too. You could get a number from a low cost virtual carrier or try other internet phone services. Microsoft says some Skype features will migrate to Teams, but its Teams Phone feature is only for businesses.
Amid a backdrop of ongoing tariff uncertainty, more and more gamers are facing price hikes. Microsoft raised recommended retailer pricing for its Xbox consoles and controllers around the world this week. Its Xbox Series S, for example, now starts at $379.99 in the U.S. — up $80 from the $299.99 price tag that debuted in 2020. And its more powerful Xbox Series X will be $599.99 going forward, a $100 jump from its previous $499.99 listing. The tech giant didn’t mention tariffs specifically, but cited wider “market conditions and the rising cost of development.” Beyond the U.S., Microsoft also laid out Xbox price adjustments for Europe, the U.K. and Australia. The company said all other countries would also receive updates locally.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Thursday that the majority of iPhones sold in the U.S. in the current fiscal quarter will be sourced from India, while iPads and other devices will come from Vietnam as the company works to avoid the impact of President Trump’s tariffs on its business. Apple’s earnings for the first three months of the year topped Wall Street’s expectations thanks to high demand for its iPhones, and the company said tariffs had a limited effect on the fiscal second quarter’s results. Cook added that for the current quarter, assuming things don’t change, Apple expects to see $900 million added to its costs as a result of the tariffs.
Visa is hoping to hand your credit card to an artificial intelligence “agent” that can find and buy clothes, groceries, airplane tickets and other items on your behalf.
Shares of Deliveroo, the food delivery service based in London, are hitting three-year highs on Monday after it received a $3.6 billion proposed takeover offer from DoorDash.
