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The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

danielcompton.net

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Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#271

Post by mulmen »

_audakel wrote: post #213
beamatronic wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly and not to mention, people aren't the only thing that needs to be taxied around.

i never understood why something like food / grocery delivery never took off with lyft/uber. they could partner with costco and do deliveries. I would love that.

They literally do this. It's also not that great. Want to pay $12.00 for a cold $8.00 sandwich? Safeway has its own delivery service in some markets and so does Amazon. Instacart does Costco delivery as well. Costco itself has business delivery at least and possibly other delivery options.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#272

Post by kbenson »

zeven7 wrote: post #261
kbenson wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, thanks!

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#273

Post by phasetransition »

thrill wrote: post #146
pthreads wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to know the whole story so bad. You should write a book. :-)

If only I could write as well as the screenplay for Dave Barry's "Big Trouble".

My friend is a professional ghostwriter, if you ever consider a book seriously. Sounds like an interesting read.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#274

Post by mulmen »

empath75 wrote: post #227
dookahku wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not. Every major car company plus competitors are focusing on self-driving cars. Why pay a human what a machine can do for cheaper? Uber's future depends on being first with self driving cars. Being a good taxi company in the 21st century will mean good at self-driving cars.

So why not just wait for someone else to build the cars and buy them?

Because then you would just be a boring successful business and not a unicorn.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#275

Post by angersock »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #252
beering wrote: post #2

TL;DR: The "Bombshell" is Alphabet/Waymo's lawsuit against Lewandowski and Uber for stealing trade secrets, and an interpretation that Lewandowski formed Otto basically as a cover to get a big payday from Uber in exchange for the secrets.

Bloggism at its worst. A blog post with an agenda making huge leaps of faith without bothering to keep a semblance of impartiality to try to show that Uber somehow conspired to steal technology. Without bothering to hear the other side. "From Waymo’s filings, it seems that they have Levandowski dead to rights on stealing their LiDAR designs." This is one of the dumbest quotes in the post. Of course the lawyer's job i…

So, do you work for Uber full-time, or are you just shilling as a contract gig?

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#276

Post by hardtke »

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…

Uber seems to offer quite generous bonuses to drivers who complete milestones (e.g. $600 bonus for 100 trips in a week, for instance). Every time I've chatted with a driver in Oakland, it seems that the bonuses are generally in the $5-7 per trip range. I've also been alone for many Uber Pool rides where I am nowhere close to being an economically viable passenger for the driver ($6 for a ride that costs the driver at least half an hour of time and requires more than 10 miles of driving).

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#277

Post by Judgmentality »

joering2 wrote: post #264
kbenson wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

> 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!

That's like saying the police created their own evidence by performing an investigation.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#278

Post by martinald »

clay_to_n wrote: post #262
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.

I think people are really underestimating how generous these subsidies are. They're not usually on the riders side, but the drivers.

In Edinburgh, Scotland over NYE all Uber drives were on £75/hr minimum, regardless of how many rides they took. A friend of a friend who decided to ride for them that night said he was out for about 7 hours and picked up about 10 people the whole night (was very busy after midnight but quiet otherwise).

The fares totalled about £150. So Uber probably got £30 but subsidised the driver by £525. Pretty crazy if you times this by all the 'newer' markets uber is in.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#279

Post by kbenson »

joering2 wrote: post #264
kbenson wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Well, what's to differentiate that argument from being used against video evidence of a robbery? It's up to the defense to get the evidence deemed inadmissible to discredit it in court if there's any indication that it may not be legit.

I imagine logs by themselves might not sway some people, but logs combined with whatever is found in a discovery process from Uber along with the fact that a parts supplier of Waymo happened to be making the exact same part for Otto (either because the secret part was requested or because they were provided the exact same design docs), doesn't make it look very good for Otto/Uber (if that allegation is correct).

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#280

Post by partiallypro »

NathanKP wrote: post #15
Analemma_ wrote: post #3

Yeah, this is a big deal. Uber has gambled everything on self-driving cars, what with their absurd burn rate and all. If that gets shut down because of trade secret injunctions, I don't think they have time to pivot to another strategy, especially after their reputation has nosedived.

I'll be really interested in seeing what happens if Uber can't recover from the burn rate and make a sustainable business without self driving. I can see in the best possible scenario we end up with more cities like Austin, Texas that have their own nonprofit ride sharing app. I actually have huge respect for what Austin did in banning Uber and Lyft and making their own app (Ride Austin) that isn't designed to make i…

How is what Austin did good? It dissuades capital investment and innovation. City governments were why rides were so expensive and service was poor for decades upon decades. Taxi licensing and medallions priced out everyone. Soon Austin's city government could easily be "captured" and limit the number of drivers, driving up ride prices and stifling competition. That wouldn't be market demand driving (unlike surge pricing.) That's actually why they passed the measure in the first place, the taxi lobby was incredibly strong. Now people I know in Austin use work around to use Uber.
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