The Uber Bombshell About to Drop • Hacker News Board

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#261

Post by zeven7 » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 10:10 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #253

joering2 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They claim to have forensic logs of his laptop of him downloading them and copying them to a memory card Sounds like a farytale to me, unless those logs are captures and stored independently then otherwise anyone can claim having any kind of evidence against anyone involved. Besides, there might be many reasons of him doing that, let the backup be one.

Read the original allegations, not the summary here. Just to start you off, here's some the things alleged by google you're missing from that summary: - He installed custom software to access the files. - The files were in a data store he had no normal access to. And here's my best guess as to why Google knows so much: - Google requires access to their networks using either your Google assigned device, or a pre-appro…

> why not stop the forming of Waymo initially

You mean Otto?

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#262

Post by clay_to_n » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 10:10 PM UTC

free_everybody wrote: post #255

I read the whole article and it was very interesting. Thanks for the info! However, could someone explain to me why Uber is losing money from their taxi services? Obviously the drivers take home a large chunk of revenue, but what about the rest of the money they receive from the fares? Shouldn't that be enough to cover the overhead of running a mobile app? Are they trying to do too much? What gives?

Everything else they're invested in. Subsidizing rides (in new markets I think they sometimes pay the drivers more than the passenger pays) maybe. But new R&D, lik building self-driving cars, doesn't come cheap.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#263

Post by pm90 » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 10:11 PM UTC

Applejinx wrote: post #240

r00fus wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when Google, Apple, Amazon or other company with a solid cloud app team steps in? Austin's homegrown competitors may not be fearful, but one of the existing majors could single-handedly shatter Uber's image with a half-decent app, esp if it's integrated with something like Google Maps or Apple Wallet or equivalent feed.

Why could this not be a public service? Sort of like the very public highways the cars drive on.

Hmmm... interesting idea. I wonder it autonomous vehicles would enable this even more? I wouldn't mind paying a little extra tax to my local government to enable them to maintain a fleet of self-driving vehicles that I could summon with an app.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#264

Post by joering2 » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 10:11 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #253

joering2 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They claim to have forensic logs of his laptop of him downloading them and copying them to a memory card Sounds like a farytale to me, unless those logs are captures and stored independently then otherwise anyone can claim having any kind of evidence against anyone involved. Besides, there might be many reasons of him doing that, let the backup be one.

Read the original allegations, not the summary here. Just to start you off, here's some the things alleged by google you're missing from that summary: - He installed custom software to access the files. - The files were in a data store he had no normal access to. And here's my best guess as to why Google knows so much: - Google requires access to their networks using either your Google assigned device, or a pre-appro…

Thank you for this detailed summary.

My point wasn't that Google doesn't have data; my point is that they want to use it as evidence.. but said evidence has been created by themselves!

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#265

Post by mulmen » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 10:11 PM UTC

kirykl wrote: post #226

eugeniub wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Were they going to buy and operate a fleet? I don't see what's the problem with that.

Uber no longer passes the depreciating asset liability on to vehicle owners

But they also don't have to pay the drivers at all. It's a pivot from making the drivers foot the bill but its not obviously untenable as a business model. I think the part that should raise eyebrows is Uber's claim they can actually build the cars before they run out of money.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#266

Post by seansmccullough » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 10:12 PM UTC

free_everybody wrote: post #255

I read the whole article and it was very interesting. Thanks for the info! However, could someone explain to me why Uber is losing money from their taxi services? Obviously the drivers take home a large chunk of revenue, but what about the rest of the money they receive from the fares? Shouldn't that be enough to cover the overhead of running a mobile app? Are they trying to do too much? What gives?

The drivers are being paid more per ride than riders are paying for a ride.

Let's say an Uber ride costs a passenger $10, and the driver is paid $15. Uber loses $5.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#267

Post by ghughes » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 10:13 PM UTC

robotresearcher wrote: post #196

nopriorarrests wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many thousands of hours of video is uploaded to youtube _daily_ and stored on google servers forever? And you are talking about logging actions of your own employees. Let's say 100kb per day per employee (these logs are pretty detailed). 100kb * 50 000 employees = 4.7Gb per day. 1740Gb per year. Probably much, much less then 1 day of youtube videos.

It's obviously not the volume of data that is surprising. It's that they retained system message logs from a random laptop for years. They must regard this as potentially important business information. Does your company do this? Mine sure doesn't.

Turns out it was important business information after all.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#268

Post by elwell » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 10:13 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #74

wyldfire wrote: post #31

This part looks to be the most smoking-gun: > December 13, 2016 - A Waymo employee was accidentally copied on an email from one of its LiDAR-component vendors titled OTTO FILES. The email contained a drawing of what appeared to be an Otto circuit board that resembled Waymo’s LiDAR board and shared several unique characteristics with it. (Filing 59)

"accidentally copied" Thank god for the honest among us.

Yeah, you have to wonder if the LiDAR employee had realized the similarities and eventually one day just decided to let it leak 'accidentally'.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#269

Post by eco » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 10:14 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #74

wyldfire wrote: post #31

This part looks to be the most smoking-gun: > December 13, 2016 - A Waymo employee was accidentally copied on an email from one of its LiDAR-component vendors titled OTTO FILES. The email contained a drawing of what appeared to be an Otto circuit board that resembled Waymo’s LiDAR board and shared several unique characteristics with it. (Filing 59)

"accidentally copied" Thank god for the honest among us.

It could have also been a simple mistake. Several Otto employees came from Waymo. Not hard to send email to John Smith instead of John Smith by mistake if you were in regular contact with that person as part of their role at a previous job doing largely the same thing.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#270

Post by kbenson » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 10:14 PM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #139

r00fus wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#3 if anything should be proof to Uber's potential future investors that they need to be wary that Uber has anything but name recognition and first mover advantage. They have no moat, no barrier to entry, and a whole lot of hubris just waiting to mature in the form of fierce competitors and negative PR.

To be fair, the new apps do suffer with reliability issues in periods of high loads. e.g. I would not, from experience, trust fasten to get me back home at 2.30am on a weekend night (even if I'm willing to pay their "boosted" fares). Its not an unsolvable problem though. I bet if they could hire more/better engineers and invest in infra for reliability they could be a lot better. And it might actually happen if Uber…

> To be fair, the new apps do suffer with reliability issues in periods of high loads

This is where someone should come in and offer business software that is easily branded to handle the technical aspect of the business, and just sell it to the new entrants. This is a great market for shovels.