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The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

danielcompton.net

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Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#151

Post by heisenbit »

rhino369 wrote: post #119
techthroway443 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Uber be awarded licensing terms they could "live with" for code they (allegedly) outright stole from a competitor?

It is typical for the terms of the license include giving back and not using the actually stolen documents/code. The license would just allow them to redesign without worrying about the other party indirectly using the trade secrets. It's because you can't really close pandora's box. Though in many cases its beneficial to use this as a way to become a key supplier to a competitor. If it's not a winner take all market…

The protection of IPR is a strategic concern of Google. Outright theft committed by the highest levels in both companies is hard to settle for them because of the message it sends. Google may perceive to have more at stake than simply the self driving related IPR.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#152

Post by harryh »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #141
harryh wrote: post #29

Uber passengers only pay 41% of the cost of trips, with investor capital making up the difference FWIW this assertion (which isn't really core to the central thesis of the post, but still) is wrong. That number comes from https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/12/01/2180647/the-taxi-unic... but the author of that story misread the data. Uber only counts their cut as revenue not the full cost of the ride. Despite this repet…

Personal experience, so take it with a grain of salt. I've talked with 2-3 Uber drivers in LA area. They seem to be getting 65% to 75% of what passenger pays. I think many of the core Uber markets are fairly profitable. This would imply that majority of the burn is focused on growth in new markets. Some potential problems with extrapolating the data: * Small sample size. * Uber rides cost more in California, observed…

That is my suspicion as well though I will add that in addition to spending to grow in new markets they are also, quite obviously, spending a lot to develop self driving cars (possibly sometimes through nefarious means!). Unclear if you count that as "growth in new markets" or not.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#153

Post by acchow »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #130
hangonhn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no network effect here. Each additional driver does not increase the value of the network to the other drivers and similarly for passengers. Uber and Lyft are old-fashioned market makers. They increased the pool of suppliers and consumers and connected the groups. In cities where both Uber and Lyft exist, substituting Uber for Lyft and vice versa does not change the value the driver or passenger derives from…

> There is no network effect here. Each additional driver does not increase the value More drivers => decreased wait times => more customers => more drivers

But there's minimal stickiness to the network. The switching cost to another network is almost free, and the network value itself is pretty low.

Consider eBay, perhaps the most-successful two-sided network of the first dot-com boom. You could switch to another auction site, but as a seller you would lose all of your online reputation (sales history) which is worth a lot on eBay (since people don't buy expensive items from someone with no sales history whatsoever). When is the last time you cared how many drives your Uber/Lyft driver had given? eBay - very sticky. Uber/Lyft - not so much.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#154

Post by ghaff »

wh-uws wrote: post #124
NathanKP wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They work fantastically. Ride Austin is actually way better than Uber in my opinion. In fact even if Uber and Lyft decided to start following the city regulations and return to Austin I would probably never use either in Austin again, simply because I prefer the non profit approach that respects drivers and gives them a much higher percentage.

Ride Austin is far from "way better" on par when the service works maybe but hardly better. This past Saturday none of the ride sharing services could handle demand and all went down. No riders could request and an no drivers could accept. Also when the service does work glitches like seeing the login screen when you are already logged in are routine. Source: I'm in Austin right now for sxsw and I'm a former Austin r…

In all fairness, SXSW is a pretty severe stress test. FWIW, it can be hard to get personal transportation in a heavy rainstorm in NYC too.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#155

Post by passivepinetree »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #141
harryh wrote: post #29

Uber passengers only pay 41% of the cost of trips, with investor capital making up the difference FWIW this assertion (which isn't really core to the central thesis of the post, but still) is wrong. That number comes from https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/12/01/2180647/the-taxi-unic... but the author of that story misread the data. Uber only counts their cut as revenue not the full cost of the ride. Despite this repet…

Personal experience, so take it with a grain of salt. I've talked with 2-3 Uber drivers in LA area. They seem to be getting 65% to 75% of what passenger pays. I think many of the core Uber markets are fairly profitable. This would imply that majority of the burn is focused on growth in new markets. Some potential problems with extrapolating the data: * Small sample size. * Uber rides cost more in California, observed…

I think you're misinterpreting what the post and the GP meant.

What's at issue here isn't that Uber drivers don't get to take home X% of what the passenger pays, but rather that the cost Uber charges passengers isn't enough to keep the business afloat without a significant amount of VC funding.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#156

Post by mbesto »

GCA10 wrote: post #72
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't imagine there'll be an amicable end to both parties. What the lawsuit is describing is tantamount to blatant theft. This wasn't just reverse engineered. I imagine someone might go to prison if Alphabet wins.

The Oracle/SAP case covered the exact same territory, with allegations of illegal downloads of proprietary software as part of a theft-like scheme. Details are here: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-oracle-sap-se-settlement-i... The civil case was filed in 2007, reached its high-water mark with a jury verdict in 2010 of $1.3 billion in damages, and after a great deal of appeals-court maneuvering, ultimately was sett…

The biggest difference here is the hype and attention associated with self-driving cars.

TomorrowNow was basically caught stealing Oracle manuals to provide the same service as Oracle but at a lower cost.

The person who "wins" the self-driving market on the other hand potentially may be the purveyor of a business and an industry that is set to upend an industry that absolutely dwarfs "Oracle maintenance contracts". Stakes are much higher.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#157

Post by scarmig »

patmcguire wrote: post #39

How credible are all these logs? Email records (came up in Oracle Android case) are one thing, emails are a known thing. But how trustworthy are Google Drive logs, a record that only exists within Google, when what they've recorded helps their case? I'm not casting aspersions, just curious how a new kind of evidence plays out.

By what process do you think Waymo (or is it Alphabet) would fabricate these logs? Like, who in particular would do it? Would they form a team of a dozen, two dozen people to do all the fabrication across all the systems that would be impacted, without leaving any fingerprints?

And of course none of this planning could be done over email or Google docs, so it all has to be coordinated in person with only handwritten notes. And you've got to make sure a co-operative representative from legal is involved, just so the evidence generated in the logs corresponds to the cover story.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#158

Post by NathanKP »

jimmywanger wrote: post #106
NathanKP wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They work fantastically. Ride Austin is actually way better than Uber in my opinion. In fact even if Uber and Lyft decided to start following the city regulations and return to Austin I would probably never use either in Austin again, simply because I prefer the non profit approach that respects drivers and gives them a much higher percentage.

> because I prefer the non profit approach that respects drivers and gives them a much higher percentage For now. I generally prefer for-profit approaches because their motivations are far more transparent. They want to make money for the investors. Non-profits exist to serve the wishes of the donors, which may be opaque. For instance, the Ride Austin investors might suddenly decide that they really want to focus on…

Yeah I can understand that. Honestly, the non profit / coop thing is just a big part of Austin culture.

Not only are food coops a pretty big deal in Austin, but when I lived in Austin even the electricity company that I got my power from was a coop (https://www.pec.coop/) and if the coop made too much money it redistributed the profits back out as credits to member accounts. I generally ended up with one out of twelve months effectively being free because of profit credits being redistributed back out to my account.

The whole culture of coops and nonprofit service organizations is something I really miss about Austin now that I no longer live there.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#160

Post by niuzeta »

thrill wrote: post #83
ontoillogical wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As someone who several years ago "managed" to take over a publicly traded company ... That sounds like an interesting story! Have you told it elsewhere?

Heh - usually after a few beers, and it gets even better. The first SEC attorney involved was a real stickler, but up for retirement in the middle of the process. His replacement was a real hard charger, and worked with me to get the former CEO incarcerated ... and he then went into private practice ... and a few years later got indicted for pulling the same scheme himself working with another small cap company as th…

I'm willing to buy you several beers for a story! this sounds totally worth it.
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