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The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

danielcompton.net

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Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#441

Post by gpawl »

throwawaysbdi wrote: post #407
Retric wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have only played slots for a few hours, but my lifetime average is up ~3x and a few hundred dollars vs. what I put into the machines. So, I think they are set fairly close to break even as that's from a few dozen minor wins vs a single jackpot. Honestly, if every single time someone played for 3+ hours they where always down then fewer people would come back. That said, they probably set machines in very high traff…

It's likely that the RNG's in slots don't produce uniformly distributed wins and losses except over long timeframes. A machine that's truly random will result in everyone losing money slowly and reliably after a large number of pulls. So not fun. A machine built to have the odds wander around over a period of time will be more unpredictable with a greater earnings spread

That's not how random works. If odd wandered like that, there would be long time frames where the slots were 'not fun' and would drive people away.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#442

Post by MBlume »

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…

> and making their own app (Ride Austin) that isn't designed to make investors and owners rich, instead just benefit drivers and riders.

As discussed upthread, Uber's investors and owners take a 20% loss on every ride. How much more benefit to drivers and riders do you want?

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#443

Post by danans »

londons_explore wrote: post #383
_audakel wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i can't believe someone as smart as he is would just blatantly stick in a usb. With how much money he was going to make he could have researched some more annomous ways to get it. Not the least would be to intercept a team members auth/pw and use that to access the data.

He had a Windows laptop according to the filing. Engineers rarely use windows. He was also a manager at Google. Very techy folk don't take on manager responsibilities because it quickly saps time. Both those things tell me he was more of a people person than a technical person.

A lot of engineers use Windows, especially in circuit design since a lot of the design tools are only on Windows.

And as a Googler, I can comfortably state that most engineering managers are very technical. I know because I've worked under many of them.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#444

Post by pfarnsworth »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #400
pfarnsworth wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All testimony in a trial is under oath. You still haven't heard the testimony from any of the accused, and you already came to a conclusion based on the single testimony of the plaintiff? "Welp, that's good enough for me, I guess Levandowski is guilty. Let's wrap it up, everyone!" I hope you realize how ridiculous this is. You don't know he dumped anything onto a USB drive. As far as the testimony knows, he plugged i…

I didn't say he was guilty. That's not my place to decide. I said it looks like they have a smoking gun unless they can explain away a lot of suspicious behavior. Maybe they can. I actually haven't drawn any conclusion, particularly on the person involved. This is basically standing on the sidelines and saying damn, they have a good case. It'll be impressive to see the defense. You've drawn the conclusion and assumed…

You said "I think they have him dead to rights". Unless you are not a native English speaker and you don't understand the words that you're typing, it means you think that the accused is guilty. If that's not what you meant then I suggest using different words.

Of course you think they have a good case. All you've heard is their side.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#445

Post by bitmapbrother »

flylib wrote: post #402

"That Otto hadn’t received funding from any VC’s is unusual. With 91 employees, getting paid $150k/year (this might even be too low given they are working on self-driving cars, one of the hottest spaces in tech right now), they would have had a $13.6 million/year burn rate just on salaries. Otto always aimed to get to market quickly, but getting to profitability without funding seems like it would have been very hard…

Where does it say Anthony Levandowski is worth hundreds of millions?

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#446

Post by PhantomGremlin »

Spooky23 wrote: post #409
foxylad wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you, communist or something?! I read a poignant comment on Twitter the other day, about how nowadays public libraries and fire services would never be funded - perhaps we'd give illiterate people tax credits for buying books, and insurance companies would have private fire engines. The neo-liberal agenda of not allowing any public entity to provide services that could possibly compete with a private corporat…

We already have that: https://usnews.newsvine.com/_news/2011/12/07/9272989-firefig... Modern conservatism is a cancer.

No sympathy from me.

I pay for fire protection as part of my property taxes. In this case, it's a separate item that must be purchased separately. That's what makes it "a cancer"?

As the morons in the article said: Bell and her boyfriend said they were aware of the policy, but thought a fire would never happen to them.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#447

Post by jaimex2 »

shrewduser wrote: post #371
untog wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were in a prime position to be "the" self driving car company, if anyone was. I disagree: they don't make cars. That's a huge impediment. The prime position company is surely Tesla. Or, really, any car manufacturer.

i disagree again, making cars isn't the competitive advantage it's being able to run and service large fleets of cars, taxi / bus companies with all the physical plants would have the competitive advantage out of the gate.

I disagree, if you make the cars you can create them from the ground up to be self driving taxis. Think of all the improvements you could make to make better use of the cabin.

If you are retrofitting existing cars you are wasting a ton of money and getting a half baked solution to a dedicated provider.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#448

Post by nstart »

bogomipz wrote: post #436
flylib wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Besides, Lewandowski couldn't realistically raise money through proper channels if his pitch amounted to, "I stole stuff from Waymo." yes he could, the team and him had a killer track record and he wouldn't admit to stealing anything from Waymo "He joined Google in 2007 as part of its Maps team and helped to build the company’s Street View product. When Google gave the green light to begin working on a self-driving…

So this person(Lewandowski) is fantastically wealthy then? Why was he still at Google then? I'm guessing he was on an earn out schedule? Why would he need to steal if he had that kind of money already?

Not going to imply he stole, but rephrasing the question as why would someone really rich want to steal?

Greed.

It's why politicians who have enough money for several generations continue to take more and more bribes. (I live in Sri Lanka and witness this on a regular blatant basis).

Enough or more than enough isn't a reason for human nature to not want more. It actually seems to be a driver to get more by any means. (my assumption )

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#449

Post by throwaway729 »

bogomipz wrote: post #436
flylib wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Besides, Lewandowski couldn't realistically raise money through proper channels if his pitch amounted to, "I stole stuff from Waymo." yes he could, the team and him had a killer track record and he wouldn't admit to stealing anything from Waymo "He joined Google in 2007 as part of its Maps team and helped to build the company’s Street View product. When Google gave the green light to begin working on a self-driving…

So this person(Lewandowski) is fantastically wealthy then? Why was he still at Google then? I'm guessing he was on an earn out schedule? Why would he need to steal if he had that kind of money already?

Greed

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#450

Post by computerphage »

alpha_squared wrote: post #346
Eridrus wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem that much stranger than the Cruise or Argo; people with real experience are getting snapped up like crazy without a product.

Can't find info on Argo (not looking properly, most likely), but Cruise raised over $18m before being bought (for ???). It looks like a solid effort to launch a product/startup that was snatched up. Otto was ~6 months and bought for $680m. I think there's a pretty large delta of strangeness there.

Cruise was bought for a billion dollars. Argo got a billion dollar investment.
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