Ever since Travis Kalanick, CEO of the once-dominating ride-hailing startup Uber (traded privately), left the company in late June, the company has been frantically searching for a new leader. Currently, a search committee made up of five Uber board members are going through applications for the CEO position.

Kalanick’s exit from the company he co-founded came in the wake of several former employees revealing Uber’s toxic work environment and disregard for female employees — some of whom were sexually harassed and reported the incident only to be told by Uber HR that nothing could be done. Shortly thereafter, the company found itself in hot water again when Alphabet Inc’s. (NASDAQ:$GOOGL) Waymo sued Uber, claiming Uber stole technology from Waymo. However, these incidents, along with a broken company morale, did not scare off applicants – instead, the very opposite has occured. According to The New York Times, the search committee has already interviewed multiple candidates. Rumours have arisen that these candidates may include former Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, former Twitter Inc. (NYSE:$TWTR) chief operating officer (COO) Adam Bain, and a former Disney (NYSE:$DIS) COO.

Analysts explained that the chance to showcase great competence and success by getting Uber back on track — maybe even leading the company to trade on a public exchange – is what has attracted so many interested applicants to be the company’s CEO. Of course, there is also the appeal of running the highest-valued private technology company. Even after its valuation dropped since the company was plagued with scandal after scandal, Uber is still probably worth around $50 billion, if not more.

Vivek Wadhwa, director of research at Duke University, noted that after the events of the past few months, being Uber’s CEO may be the most publicized role in the world. Wadhwa, having spoken to those who are familiar with Uber’s search for a CEO, said that they are looking for someone who can seriously bring Uber back on track. “This is a dream opportunity,” Wadhwa pointed out. “Whoever gets it can come into a distressed company, turn it around and look like a hero.”

Although it’s a great opportunity, the potential future Uber CEO may be in an awkward situation once they are hired, because Kalanick is still part of Uber’s board, Wadhwa said. Not only that, he owns a number of “super voting shares” that allow Kalanick 10 votes a share.

This means that Kalanick, still a large individual shareholder of Uber thanks to his “super voting shares”, will be working with the board on its search for executives – just like any other boards that have to work with major shareholders when making important decisions, Bradley Tusk, founder of Tusk Ventures and an early adviser and investor in Uber, explained. Because of this, Wadhwa thinks that Kalanick could influence both the search process and the decision of who will be Uber’s next CEO.

The biggest concern for prospective CEOs right now is the question of just exactly how much power Kalanick still holds within the company, Wadhwa said.

As the five members of Uber’s board conduct their search, a committee made up of 14 executives that had previously reported directly to Kalanick is temporarily leading the company. The 14 members of the committee is rumoured to include people like chief technology officer Thuan Pham, human resources chief Liane Hornsey, chief security officer Joe Sullivan, leader of Uber’s U.S. and Canada business Rachel Holt, and recently hired senior vice president of leadership and strategy Frances Frei.

The committee is an unusual structure for a temporary CEO-replacement – especially for a company like Uber that is still in the middle of dealing with a number of problems, Wadhwa said. As such, both investors and employees are starting to lose hope in the company. When asked how much they valued Uber after its series of scandals, an investor told Wadhwa that they don’t value it much. Several employees have expressed concern about Uber’s future, while others resented the fact that Kalanick was forced to leave the company.

Usually, the chief operating officer (COO), chief financial officer (CFO), or any other C-Suite executive would be the temporary replacement during the period of time of the company finding a new CEO to replace the former one, Michael Solomon, managing partner at 10x Management, said. But because many of Uber’s management stepped down from the company last month – including the COO, CFO, president, general counsel, and senior vice president of engineering – the 14-member committee have been put in place to help keep Uber afloat and address current poor public perception of the company.

Since Kalanick stepped down, Uber has mainly kept to itself besides announcing a handful of new plans. Most recently, on July 13, Uber announced that it had formed a partnership with the Yandex (NASDAQ:$YNDX) owned ride-sharing company Yandex. Taxi. Other announcements include initiatives to protect Uber drivers by introducing tipping for its U.S. drivers as well as additional improvements that will be implemented in the next few months.

As such, it seems like Uber is more focused on its search for executives and making sure no information is leaked without approval, the Times noted.

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