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Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

economist.com

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Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#111

Post by differentView »

sbov wrote: post #71
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Shouldn't" and "doesn't" are worlds apart. I think most people hate tipping because they hate when people ask for tips. But a formal tipping system might reduce the number of Uber drivers who already ask for tips.

I hate tipping because the rules are arbitrary, random, and unspoken. I have a few friends who work as servers in restaurants: anecdote, but they view anything under 20% of the bill total (including tax) as a "bad tip". This is partially because credit card receipts only include the total, not the tax separated out. So really, anything under around 22% is a bad tip. I tip 22% for full service, 10% for partial. If I g…

> This is partially because credit card receipts only include the total, not the tax separated out. So really, anything under around 22% is a bad tip.

Can you explain the math? Why is this amount higher than 20% rather than lower than 20%?

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#112

Post by Arizhel »

smallgovt wrote: post #105
Arizhel wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure. Wouldn't it be better for society overall if these companies were condemned to die by their own hand, instead of being able to be saved by an outsider? If they're saved, then all the people who participated in creating this toxic culture are rewarded. If the company goes belly-up, then any valuable assets can be bought by other firms for pennies on the dollar, and those and other competing, and hopef…

I'm not following. Are you proposing that companies should not be allowed to hire someone from the outside to fix severe culture issues? The problem with such a policy is the mechanism through which we'd determine which companies are condemned. From your comment, I gather that if it were up to you, you'd sentence Uber to death instead of giving them a shot at redemption. You wouldn't be alone in this perspective, but…

>Are you proposing that companies should not be allowed to hire someone from the outside to fix severe culture issues?

Not exactly, just that they shouldn't be able to offer them generous golden parachutes.

Of course, I'm not so sure about the legality of this, but perhaps within corporate law a law could be made that companies aren't allowed to promise enormous sums of money to people when they fail to fix the problem, and the company is now in dire financial straits. When the company is having severe financial difficulty, the first dibs should go to anyone it owes money to, not someone they promised a big golden parachute to in case he couldn't turn it around.

>I gather that if it were up to you, you'd sentence Uber to death instead of giving them a shot at redemption.

Absolutely. The good people should have found new jobs by now; all accounts now show this company to be truly toxic, at many levels (not just "a couple people"). They should not be rewarded with a shot at redemption. Now, if they can find someone willing to take on this challenge of turning the company around, who is willing to assume a great deal of risk in doing so (at least risk not getting paid much for it), then that's fine. I just don't think they should be allowed to offer a golden parachute if that person fails. Then, such people can evaluate such offers based on the true risk of the situation, instead of knowing they'll be safely off with their golden parachute if they can't make it work.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#113

Post by valuearb »

nebabyte wrote: post #92
valuearb wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it only matters if they can. Few rapidly growing tech startups make money while still investing in growth.

That 'growth' has included subsidizing rides, so their userbase once the 'growth' levels off will look radically different - likely diminished - from now. Obviously in larger cities the taxi model can and does thrive, but as Uber's price goes up, more frugal users comfortable with installing new apps will likely move to other platforms that offer the same basic service minus massive investor pockets to fill, while ot…

Yea, autonomous has no bearing on the market. If it becomes a thing Uber will just go autonomous.

In the meantime people won't switch because of branding. They will already have Uber on their phone and be comfortable with it. It will take a lot to get people to switch. Branding is a huge competitive advantage. Better colas than Coke have been developed for a hundred years and they still grew market share.

Uber will get market rates, whatever they are and will make tons of money because their business model is super efficient. It should only cost pennies to dispatch each ride, they get dollars in revenue from each ride, and are developing huge economies of scale cab dispatch companies have never had.

As soon as they stop investing so heavily on opening new markets and businesses their income statement is going to look a whole lot different.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#114

Post by ProAm »

valuearb wrote: post #100
ProAm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are in deeper trouble than that. If they cannot resolve the Waymo lawsuit in an economical fashion they will just wither and die, Lyft or not.

They have raised $15B+ and spent what, less than $5B? They have lots of runway left.

They are currently burning between 2-3B a year, that's not a lot of runway, especially with the Waymo lawsuit poised to set them back a decade.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#115

Post by nebabyte »

Arizhel wrote: post #93
twblalock wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In situations like this, in which an executive is hired to reform a company and is set against entrenched management and culture, golden parachutes seem entirely justified to me.

I'm not so sure. Wouldn't it be better for society overall if these companies were condemned to die by their own hand, instead of being able to be saved by an outsider? If they're saved, then all the people who participated in creating this toxic culture are rewarded. If the company goes belly-up, then any valuable assets can be bought by other firms for pennies on the dollar, and those and other competing, and hopef…

Yeah, it sounds like nearly a nearly textbook definition of one of the problems capitalism (and a "free market" with low barriers to entry) are supposed to solve. You don't challenge someone's control of their company, you just challenge the company. "Good" employees and customers who object to their culture jump ship to yours; "bad" employees go down with the ship.

Of course, because of the innumerable real-world confounds to the model (not least of which is the artificial-or-otherwise high barrier to entry that most industries seek to ensconce themselves in), this doesn't happen anywhere else, but at least here with novel companies competing in their early stages, I don't see why anyone would bother "saving" a company that will be dragging against you every step of the way you can just invest in one of its competitors and let that dragging force drag your competition down, to your advantage.

If the "capitalism will save us" model can't succeed here of all places, I don't know why people still bother with it anymore.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#116

Post by angry-hacker »

amazingman wrote: post #90
67726e wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not at all a fan of Uber, but at this point it seems like a coordinated smear campaign.

Or, you know, their culture really is that toxic, their ethics really are that terrible, and Kalanick really is a hyper-libertarian jerk. The first claim is what catalyzed the latest spate of bad press, but there have been many, many examples of the latter 2 claims over the past few years. All you have to do is browse to your favorite search engine and use it.

And you can find hundreds of CEO's with the same characteristics.

I hate uber for breaking the laws and calling it disruption, but obviously media smells the blood and this attack gets s lot of attention and pageviews so they keep pouring the oil to fire.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#117

Post by [deleted] »

valuearb wrote: post #106
st3v3r wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I have Lyft, not Uber. Your point?

That you are a an exception. I've never had a friend suggest Lyft, i'm not sure they even know what it is. They suggest uber all the time, and it's clear Uber has massively more market share.

[deleted]

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#118

Post by nebabyte »

valuearb wrote: post #106
st3v3r wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I have Lyft, not Uber. Your point?

That you are a an exception. I've never had a friend suggest Lyft, i'm not sure they even know what it is. They suggest uber all the time, and it's clear Uber has massively more market share.

And when the unsustainable "subsidized growth" period ends, Lyft will be the new word on the street. It's not exactly a high barrier to entry to hear about and install a new app in this day and age.

If your reasoning is entirely anecdata, there's really no point in you engaging in threads about where businesses are going, since you'd only ever have something to contribute after it already happened.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#119

Post by smallgovt »

Arizhel wrote: post #112
smallgovt wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not following. Are you proposing that companies should not be allowed to hire someone from the outside to fix severe culture issues? The problem with such a policy is the mechanism through which we'd determine which companies are condemned. From your comment, I gather that if it were up to you, you'd sentence Uber to death instead of giving them a shot at redemption. You wouldn't be alone in this perspective, but…

>Are you proposing that companies should not be allowed to hire someone from the outside to fix severe culture issues? Not exactly, just that they shouldn't be able to offer them generous golden parachutes. Of course, I'm not so sure about the legality of this, but perhaps within corporate law a law could be made that companies aren't allowed to promise enormous sums of money to people when they fail to fix the probl…

Thanks for clarifying.

The negative impact of such a decision wouldn't just be on Uber employees, but also the 500,000 drivers actively using their app; on average making $30K per year. A large fraction of these people are probably depending solely on this income to make ends meet.

In an ideal world, there'd be an immediate replacement for Uber for all these drivers to switch over. However, we all know that's wishful thinking. At best, capacity would only be halved, which still means you'd effectively be letting go of 250K people tomorrow.

Imo, even if your goal is to enact maximum punishment on Travis and Co, doing so THROUGH punishing the company is a really destructive way to accomplish said task.

Re: Uber is facing the biggest crisis in its history

#120

Post by [deleted] »

Arizhel wrote: post #112
smallgovt wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not following. Are you proposing that companies should not be allowed to hire someone from the outside to fix severe culture issues? The problem with such a policy is the mechanism through which we'd determine which companies are condemned. From your comment, I gather that if it were up to you, you'd sentence Uber to death instead of giving them a shot at redemption. You wouldn't be alone in this perspective, but…

>Are you proposing that companies should not be allowed to hire someone from the outside to fix severe culture issues? Not exactly, just that they shouldn't be able to offer them generous golden parachutes. Of course, I'm not so sure about the legality of this, but perhaps within corporate law a law could be made that companies aren't allowed to promise enormous sums of money to people when they fail to fix the probl…

[deleted]
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