How Khosrowshahi is grappling with Uber's past to execute a drama-free IPO

All IPOs are by nature unpredictable, but with Uber the possible outcomes seem especially extreme

Dara Khosrowshahi had a problem. His name was Travis Kalanick.

That, of course, was nothing new. When Mr. Khosrowshahi took over as chief executive of Uber in 2017, he became the best-compensated janitor in Silicon Valley, with a mandate to clean up the mess left by the company’s exiled founder. But this time, in mid-April, Mr. Khosrowshahi faced a Travis headache that lay in the future.

Uber was just weeks away from its initial public offering. After years of scandal, infighting and user revolt, this was supposed to be a $91 billion moment of triumph, when employees would become wealthy and the