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The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

danielcompton.net

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Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#451

Post by Tempest1981 »

ghaff wrote: post #350
eco wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I like autocomplete email addresses but I do worry that the day will come when I send something embarrassing or damaging to the wrong person. I never have afaik although I have sent a couple emails that resulted in a frantic follow up to please don't read the prior message.

You can have some Mail apps highlight (in red) email recipients with "outside" domains.

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH19137?locale=en_US

https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1299903 (Outlook macro)

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#452

Post by trprog »

rsp1984 wrote: post #315

(Possible) Consequences: ... Without any way to raise more money or reduce their costs, Uber runs out of money and folds. Highly unlikely. Why? Investors who stomach multi-billion dollar annual losses will probably just shrug off a mere lawsuit or a "bad media narrative". If the choice is to either write off $15 billion or to give another couple to help the company go through a rough patch (what a buying opportunity!…

As they say, if you owe the bank $100 you have a problem. If you owe the bank $100 million the bank has a problem.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#454

Post by ziszis »

Just the way companies incur technical debt, there is also ethical debt. It is accumulated by taking ethical shortcuts and avoiding painful decisions (a case I have seen several times is letting star devs/sales misbehave).

Eventually the payment on the ethical debt comes due. In Uber's case, they have been building it up for a long time without any down payment. A hard cleaning is needed from top to bottom.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#455

Post by eridius »

quickConclusion wrote: post #453

If all of this is true, the logical end to me, not suggested by the author, is that Google buys Uber. For less money than anyone could. Travis is out. Makes industrial sense for Google to be in that business too.

Why? Uber's technology is literally stolen from Google. What would Google gain by buying them?

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#456

Post by jsmthrowaway »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #444
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's weird being the guy who has lobbied for discretion and waiting for the other side in these cases on Hacker News before, and then being told I don't understand the words I am typing. The evidence basically indicts him, outright. Full stop. I'm sorry, and I know it offends you, but I'm acknowledging that fact. He is pretty much red-handed, and the evidence basically amounts to "we found the defendant standing over the corpse while holding a bloody knife."

Maybe he has an explanation that we will find out (maybe he was performing surgery to save him!), but right now, the evidence doesn't look good. This isn't complicated whether English is my primary, secondary, tertiary, or quarternary language. I also have performed forensics investigations not unlike the deposition I've read, and at no point did I say "gosh, that's thin." That's my point. He was remarkably dumb in the alleged narrative, if it's all true. Given my experience with Google's investigative abilities, I don't doubt any of the evidence submitted.

I disagree with you, you are wrong, and I understand every inch of the words I am typing. It's perfectly reasonable to acknowledge that Google and Waymo have done their due diligence bringing a coherent and well-defended complaint here. Please do me a favor and don't assume that because I'm on the other side I'm deficient or inferior to you in some way. It's how I know there is literally zero fruit down the path of engaging you.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#457

Post by jimmywanger »

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

I don't think that slots can be stateful between plays - there are extremely stringent regulations for slot machines and odds. For instance, if you advertise a 99.95% slot giveback, they will test that.

Also, for video poker and card games, the wins and losses are distributed as if it were a real deck of cards shuffled between hands. There are strict regulations there too, and payout percentages based on the rules of the game and the payout values for each type of poker hand.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#458

Post by tbv »

NathanKP wrote: post #40
repomies69 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I didn't know about these. How well do those work? Do payments work automatically? What about reputation system?

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.

I believe you when you say you've had a good experience with Ride Austin, but I think you've been lucky. I've never been able to successfully book a ride with either Ride Austin or Fasten :\

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#459

Post by vonklaus »

Retric wrote: post #348
svachalek wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sliding off topic but I think that's more like 49% of pulls. The amount of time that it takes a slot machine to drive your odds of walking away richer down to hopeless levels is pretty short.

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…

They probably set those the highest so passerbys see people win most and sit down. That is what I seem to have heard but a case could be made either way

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#460

Post by andrewflnr »

eridius wrote: post #455
quickConclusion wrote: post #453

If all of this is true, the logical end to me, not suggested by the author, is that Google buys Uber. For less money than anyone could. Travis is out. Makes industrial sense for Google to be in that business too.

Why? Uber's technology is literally stolen from Google. What would Google gain by buying them?

The userbase and momentum.
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