Uber's board chose Expedia's Dara Khosrowshahi to be the ride-hailing company's new chief executive.  It ends the long search that began in June when controversial boss Travis Kalanick stood down.

The choice of Mr. Khosrowshahi represents a compromise between two factions on the board:  Kalanick , who favored Jeffrey R. Immelt, the former chief of General Electric; and major Uber investor Benchmark Capital, which wanted to bring in Hewlett Packard chief and former Senate candidate Meg Whitman.  The feud got pretty acrimonious; but Immelt dropped out of the race over the weekend, and smoke appeared from the Vatican chimney.

Khosrowshahi has run Expedia since 2005, expanding its worldwide consumer reach with brands including Expedia.com, Hotels.com and Hotwire.  The outspoken leader joined Amazon to oppose Donald Trump's proposed ban on people entering the US from seven predominantly Muslim countries, which many tech companies eventually signed on with because they want to keep recruiting the best talent from an international pool.  He cited his own experience as an emigre to the United States from Iran because of the fundamentalist revolution in that country in the late 1970.

"We sure didn’t feel like refugees, but in hindsight I guess we were - my father and mother left everything behind to come here - to be safe and give their boys a chance to re-build a life," Khosrowshahi wrote in a memo to Expedia workers earlier this year.

His work at Uber will center on helping the company recover from sexual harassment allegations, the alleged distribution of a rape victim's medical records, political pressure, a legal battle with Google's parent Alphabet, and more.  Khosrowshahi also has the long shadow of Kalanick on his office:  The former CEO owns still ten percent of the company's stock and controls 16 percent of the board's voting power, giving him a big say in how the company moves into the future.