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The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

danielcompton.net

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Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#291

Post by partiallypro »

NathanKP wrote: post #289
partiallypro wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pri…

> That's actually why they passed the measure in the first place, the taxi lobby was incredibly strong. No the measure passed because Uber and Lyft failed to understand Austin culture and shot themselves in the foot by annoying Austinites with intrusive tactics that made them look bad in the eyes of a local culture that tends to be fiercely anti big business. It's the same type of mistake Airbnb made in SF with their…

That's not what I've heard from insiders.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#292

Post by joering2 »

Judgmentality wrote: post #277
joering2 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No it is not. Google != police.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#293

Post by sauronlord »

st3v3r wrote: post #283
ptero wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Removing a CEO based simply on allegations sounds to me as a pretty extreme response. Would you feel the same if the company in question would not be Uber (whose CEO may be a liability for Uber ATM anyway) but, say, IBM? This is an honest question.

To be honest, given the history of Uber's CEO, I think he's no longer afforded the benefit of the doubt. The onus would be on him to prove to the board that these accusations are not true.

What crimes or violations was he convicted of?

Enough accusations and then you are guilty until proven innocent?

Wtf

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#294

Post by jsmthrowaway »

beamatronic wrote: post #249
zeven7 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general there might be other reasons you can think of that he would do that, but at Google he would have been told where and when he's allowed to store & retrieve company data. It would have certainly been a fireable offence for him to copy company data to a memory card. You're not even allowed to store source code on your work laptop.

At Google, is it common to develop code in some kind of cloud IDE?

Actually, yes, though not an IDE. The need for code on a laptop has been solved another way.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#295

Post by archerface »

iandanforth wrote: post #148
pm90 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In hindsight, a better crook would have accepted outside funding just to cover this line of attack (Assuming the Otto Founder is guilty; of course it might be otherwise).

Due diligence during funding is designed to uncover these kinds of IP issues. That would probably have been a larger risk.

They could have taken capital from Uber to fund themselves and then waited longer for Uber to acquire them.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#296

Post by ivraatiems »

mulmen wrote: post #271
_audakel wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, but for Costco it actually makes sense. Costco sells items that are big, bulky and hard to transport, and they already do a ton of logistics - supply chain stuff is a big part of why they remain profitable. Uber is trying to do something that other people are already doing, better, for less cost, without experience. It isn't working out.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#297

Post by xapata »

hardtke wrote: post #276
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…

Pool is profitable on average, but low margin, so any particular ride is likely to be an expense. Much like how a casino loses money on 49% of slots sessions.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#298

Post by st3v3r »

partiallypro wrote: post #280
NathanKP wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pri…

"How is what Austin did good? It dissuades capital investment and innovation."

I don't believe that for a second. Especially because the exact regulations that Austin put into place are followed by Uber in other places.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#299

Post by Twirrim »

booleanbetrayal wrote: post #4

I can't imagine what Lewandowski and Uber were thinking here. The timeline is just too constrained to even be taken seriously.

> Summer 2015 - Anthony Levandowski told Pierre-Yves Droz, a colleague at Waymo, that he had talked with an Uber executive about forming a self-driving car startup and that Uber would be interested in buying that startup.

This, particularly, seems absolutely moronic. If you're going to do something shady, don't tell anyone about it.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#300

Post by olegious »

"the information" had a great article on Uber's finances recently. One of the stats cited was from an internal Uber study that said moving to a fleet of self driving cars would only achieve a 5-10% profit margin for the company.
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