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The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

danielcompton.net

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Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#411

Post by Neliquat »

partiallypro wrote: post #291
NathanKP wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well then share what you heard.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#412

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

Your description of a non-profit pretty well lines up with Uber.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#413

Post by Spooky23 »

empath75 wrote: post #6
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.

It was a stupid moonshot play. They should have just focused on being a really good taxi company.

You're assuming that the real objective of the company was a positive outcome for the company.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#414

Post by catshirt »

aianus wrote: post #363
catshirt wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if your definition of guilt is "found guilty by a jury"- then sure. but because OP claimed they were "breaking the law", whether or not they were found guilty is irrelevant (by your definition). that is, just because one was not found guilty by deliberation does not mean one didn't break the law.

They may or may not have broken the law but asimov_ is trying to present settlements as proof of lawbreaking which is invalid.

because it settled the best we can do is vet the material and make our own educated decisions. they're asking for proof of an opinion. (i feel compelled to mention, some opinions hold more water than others. i think we are free to carefully speculate).

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#415

Post by Spooky23 »

syntheticnature wrote: post #318
robotresearcher wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's interesting is that I can see these logs as being a liability as well as an asset; there's a reason most business records retention policies are about getting rid of records, not keeping them. From that perspective it's surprisingly they'd reveal the level of logging in play.

It depends. If you have the ability to use the data, it's a real advantage. It's a flood of data that most folks can't handle.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#416

Post by harryh »

apsec112 wrote: post #403
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…

The nakedcapitalism post that started the 41% myth actually has enough info to calculate the real number, at least for 1H2015 ( http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver... ) Farebox ratio = fares / total cost of operations Total cost of operations = fares - profits Farebox ratio = fares / (fares - profits) For 1H2015: Farebox ratio = 3,661 / (3,661 - -987) = 3661 / 4648 = 78.8%

That is a somewhat reasonable answer. The reason that I don't consider it exactly correct is that the original claim was:

"Uber passengers were paying only 41% of the actual cost of their trips."

What you have calculated is that Uber passengers paid 78.8% of the cost of operating the company in 1H2015.

The cost of operating the company isn't the same thing as the cost of all their trips. The company does a lot more than provide trips.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#417

Post by jpatokal »

halflings wrote: post #360
transfire wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> except that breaking the law has been Uber's business model since day 1. So tired of hearing this. It's just parrots talking in the echo chamber. Show me a court verdict that Uber broke the law.

I was in Helsinki a couple weeks ago. They are offering their services there even if it is totally illegal [1]. Of course, it's the Uber drivers taking the fall, and Uber is letting this happen, simply hiding part of the license plate on the app to make it harder for authorities. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-16/uber-driv...

From TFA: "Uber Technologies Inc.’s app remains available in Helsinki -- there’s no law against it as is the case in other cities around the world -- but drivers are required to have a permit, which few drivers have, according to the police."

TL;DR: App is legal, most drivers are not.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#419

Post by bigiain »

sauronlord wrote: post #372
bigiain wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having not been convicted of a crime (with the assistance of one of the world's largest legal budgets) is not the usual measure of being the sort of respected and trusted person you'd want at the helm of your corporation. The man is unquestionably toxic - it's entirely possible the entire company is toxic.

Innocent until proven guilty as a legal prescription has nothing to do with respect and trust and some peoples (filtered) opinions.

Exactly.

Board members and shareholders aren't responsible or particularly concerned with innocence or guilt, but are very concerned with trust and respect that customers (or potential-investors/business-partners/governments) have in their company's leadership.

They're not deciding whether to put him in jail or not, but board members are legally obligated to determine whether or not he's adding or detracting from shareholder value.

Even if every single accusation against him and the culture he's built is false - the public perception needs addressing. Perhaps "remove" is the wrong wording, but if you're an insider/board member who thinks every single accusation and report is false - you'd at least have to seriously consider asking Travis to publicly "recuse" himself while the investigations are under way - without that anything coming out of the investigation is going to be about as believable as the Police Union guy announcing "We've investigated the matter and cleared ourselves of any wrongdoing!".

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#420

Post by jethro_tell »

clubm8 wrote: post #236
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…

One thing no one seems to talk about: a large chunk of the Uber drivers I've encountered are also Lyft drivers. If large chunks of people ditch Uber, Lyft could stand to grab the lion's share of the market.

This is really crazy to me. I feel like they missed an opportunity to build a moat by treating drivers as employees. Complete with health and non compete.
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