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A profound apology

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Re: A profound apology

#311

Post by codr4life »

kbenson wrote: post #238
codr4life wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not though. He's turning worse, owning the media makes it easier to pretend being mr Nice Guy. Bill has his head so far stuck up the elite ass by now that he's helping killing off less fortunate parts of the global population for profit to invest in oil and weapons. http://www.wakingtimes.com/2017/02/23/bill-gates-admitted-eu...

> He's not though. He's turning worse, owning the media makes it easier to pretend being mr Nice Guy. Bill has his head so far stuck up the elite ass by now that he's helping killing off less fortunate parts of the global population for profit to invest in oil and weapons. http://www.wakingtimes.com/2017/02/23/bill-gates-admitted-eu... Stop trolling. The only reasons you would post that link is if you either didn't r…

I've followed Bill around, bad trees don't give good fruit; just because the information comes from a non-bought source and contradicts what you imagined to be true; that doesn't make it fake or turn the comment into trolling.

Re: A profound apology

#312

Post by codr4life »

kbenson wrote: post #251
codr4life wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Where is the proof, except from a lot of hot air from Bill and his prostitute media; about any good being done? Good for anyone except Bill and his elite buddies, I mean.

Why don't you try pointing out where one of the numerous listed accomplishments[1] are incorrect, or only helpful to Bill Gates and his friends, rather than making unsubstantiated claims? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat...

Seriously? Who do you think wrote the Wikipedia entry, and why?

Re: A profound apology

#313

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

What's missing from this apology is any statement about what, specifically, he's going to do to change.

If you're reading this, Travis, here are some ideas:

- Overhaul transparency at Uber because you don't know how to monitor your culture & doing so takes longer to learn than letting in some light

- Mindfulness meditation (lots of it)

- Become an Uber driver for a month and only live off what you make driving. Do the Undercover Boss thing.

- Brain programming (shameless plug: I invented methods for doing this & they double as mindfulness practices)

Re: A profound apology

#315

Post by intrasight »

gpawl wrote: post #183
gragas wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with Travis and I don't think he did anything wrong. I think it was a bad move on his part to apologize for the video.

It's a good tactic -- blow off all the worse things you do, then apologize for the one time you weren't at fault, people notice and give you sympathy, and start to forget those worse things.

Wow. That's a wow.

Re: A profound apology

#316

Post by gingerbread-man »

dowjones wrote: post #301
gingerbread-man wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretty much everything that Steve is remembered fondly for -- his success at Apple and Pixar -- came after 1995. I strongly disagree. I think Steve is more remembered for the Macintosh than for the iMac/iPod/iPhone/iPad, at least amongst HN readers and the like.

You're changing the subject. You imply Travis isn't a good CEO because his company is losing money, whereas Steve Jobs was "was a phenomenally effective CEO." At the age of 40, he most certainly was not.

The core presumption of my argument is that Uber isn't really succeeding as a company in the way that Apple (or even NeXt) did at the same "age." There are a lot of articles out there making the case that Uber's current business is not sustainable, and I tend to agree.

If NeXt wasn't profitable, it was because their sales hadn't yet caught up with their fixed engineering costs. Uber's unprofitability isn't because they're waiting for sales to grow large enough to cover the cost of their engineering operation, it's because they're heavily subsidizing the unit costs of their business.

Re: A profound apology

#317

Post by kbenson »

codr4life wrote: post #312
kbenson wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you try pointing out where one of the numerous listed accomplishments[1] are incorrect, or only helpful to Bill Gates and his friends, rather than making unsubstantiated claims? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat...

Seriously? Who do you think wrote the Wikipedia entry, and why?

Then it should be easy to disprove, should it not?

If you bothered to actually read cited sources, you might find that there's criticism there as well. There is criticism at Wikipedia, backup up in some of the 153 cited sources.

Congratulations, by dismissing it out of hand without justification all you've done is remove any doubts as to whether you should be listened to on the topic at all. Hand-waving away massive amounts of information as propaganda because it's inconvenient to your view is not the action of a credible person.

Re: A profound apology

#318

Post by sotojuan »

Jaruzel wrote: post #287
zapu wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why this is getting downvotes. There is a lot of insight about the situation in the linked comment.

Except it's not linked. It's an unclickable relative URL. Also, if I wanted to read about this on Reddit, I'd be over on Reddit. I'm here because I want to read the comments from HN users.

I don't understand why people say this. Aside from the default subs, the rhetoric of HN is rarely any better than Reddit's.

Re: A profound apology

#319

Post by geofft »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #294
randycupertino wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole thing reminds me of when Tommy Carcetti becoming mayor scene from the Wire. The old outgoing mayor is giving him some advice and he basically explains that when you're mayor you have to smile and eat shit from everybody- the unions, the lobbyists, the press, the teachers, the churches... and smile and act gracious while you're doing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjzqO6UOPFQ Travis should have just smi…

Even then, at some point, you're off stage so to speak when it comes to managing that "impression" for others. You can't always be fake all the time, it gets draining.

Eh, I think that just means the role of the CEO is not one you're cut out for. I know people who spend their entire workday and their entire work-related interactions outside of the workday being fake, because that's what they need to do to succeed at their job. They come out of it completely exhausted, and they have friends they can recharge with, privately. But if they get an urgent email or IM on the weekend, it's back to being fake. And they're not even CEO-level.

It's a job skill. The job of CEO requires a lot of skills, almost none of which are the ability to come up with and execute on a great initial idea.

Re: A profound apology

#320

Post by panglott »

_xhok wrote: post #153
_xhok wrote: post #124

Here's the conversation that took place: Travis: So we are reducing the number of black cars in the next few months. Fawzi: It’s good. Travis: You probably saw some email. Fawzi: I saw the email [that says] it starts in May. But you’re raising the standards and dropping the prices. Travis: We’re not dropping the prices on Black. Fawzi: But in general. Travis: In general, but we have competitors. Otherwise we’d be out…

Personally, I didn't find this disproportionately disrespectful. The driver makes a couple unsubstantiated claims (perfectly ok--it's a car discussion). Travis does the same. The driver starts making accusations ("you keep changing every day"). Travis asks for clarification. The driver keeps up his attack ("You changed the whole business! You dropped the prices.") If someone accused me in such a fashion, and persiste…

Obviously the general statement "some people don't take responsibility" is in this context not a neutral general observation, but rather a personal implication of the driver.
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