I'm actually separating the issues rather than conflating them.
Capitalism by itself looks at profit. In the United States capitalism is held in check by a legal+political+free speech system. A company (Uber) is not held in check by more capitalism; it is not held in check by competition. As an aside, this breaks down with regulatory capture.
When VW cheated on its emissions testing it was not checked by a more efficient and competitive Tesla. It was held to account by a legal system external of capitalism.
We are not saying the same thing. His investors asked him to step down for a reason and that reason was not profit or rather lack thereof; they've had ample profit reason to fire him for years. The reason the Uber board asked him to leave was not a capitalist reason.
I'm not sure why you seem to deny the possibility that capitalists are concerned with future profits as well as past ones. You say their reason was not lack of profit, based I guess on the fact that they haven't suffered any major setback beyond their normal lack of profitability in the past couple of quarters. That's an oddly restrictive definition.
Capitalism is about future profits, by definition. I can't invest money in Apple in 1997. I have to invest it today, and my only concern is what happens after that investment. The Uber boarding kicking him out is entirely a capitalist reason. They've invested money, and his presence will (they believe at least) negatively affect the return on that investment going forward.
It's just a blatant fact that Kalanick wasn't axed because of his inability to turn a profit. That card has been left on the table for quite some time by board inertia in the vain hope that this unicorn would grow wings. Instead, Uber lost $2.8B last year. That isn't rational.
Your only concern may be what happens after an investment but you'd be foolhardy not to take past performance into account. Undervalued (Apple in 1997, return of Steve) is one thing. Throwing good money after bad is another.
$2.8B is just a ton of money to lose and for a startup it's insane (thinking of Amazon but Uber's losses dwarf Amazon's early losses). Frankly, I think the board is using this as an excuse to do now what they should have done a couple of years back. Boards are human. They aren't homo economicus incarnate. Ascribing rationality to the outcome of a board meeting because capitalism makes no sense. Really, they lost $2.8B last year.
> It's just a blatant fact that Kalanick wasn't axed because of his inability to turn a profit.
No one is suggesting that. When people say "this is capitalist of the board to do" they're talking about the individual board member profiting from a successful exit. Put more simply - investor puts $1 in Uber on day 0 and expects to make $100 on day 1,000 and makes a $99 profit. They're axing TK because they want to make their $99 return on investment.
