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Uber Board to Discuss CEO Absence, Policy Changes: Source

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber Board to Discuss CEO Absence, Policy Changes: Source

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's important to notice that what you are talking about is a zeitgeist change. In the time that Jobs was building organizations the consensus was that work (particularly work by engineers with options) was a voluntary contract and if you didn't like how you were being treated you moved to another job. The flip side to your point that no one articulates today is that some people with thicker skin like very ch…

This. So much this. Diversity of workplaces is something we should celebrate, yet the media and activists are keen on converting every workplace into their ideal. Not everyone desires to work at the same company. Some people want to work at an Apple, some want to work at a s Google, some just want to work on a hippie commune/coop, and some want to work at a high pace, high states, only the toughest, most productive,…

As it turns out, "employment at will" isn't "the end of the day". And "people on the outside" won't "stay out of it".

Because if they did, we'd still have slavery, 8-year-olds in coal mines, and women in the kitchen.

So I'll continue to make my opinion known, as a consumer no longer using Uber, as a citizen supporting laws mandating sane employment law, as a software engineer discouraging everyone from taking a job at Uber, and as an investor making sure none of his money ever ends up at Uber.

And luckily, CEOs are much further, generally, than these Randian fantasies of masculinity. They have, for example, mostly recognised that it costs them money to rely exclusively on white bros in their 30s with identical experiences.

Re: Uber Board to Discuss CEO Absence, Policy Changes: Source

#73
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is going to burn billions of dollars and what change have they affected with it? That taxi companies now have phone apps?

You mean that we can now relaibly summon them to our location? That we can share rides via similar routes? We can cut out the medallion scam, where capital owners can rent seek off of driver's labor? Optimize routes to more efficienly move people and save energy?

... in markets where they can and do operate. Uber might be widely used in large cities but elsewhere it has little impact. Uber exists because American public transportation infrastructure is awful, nonexistent, or otherwise inefficiently designed. If they get to the point of running self-driving car networks then there will be much more to talk about. Until then they've only created a solution for a very small portion of the population.

Re: Uber Board to Discuss CEO Absence, Policy Changes: Source

#75
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh yes, that self-driving tech that they totally 100% developed on their own and didn't steal from anyone else, right?

what difference does it make to me whether they stole from waymo or not? im not going to white-knight for google. innocent until proven guilty, btw. some journalist writing something in a newspaper is not proof.

The difference being that if they were as unethical with other companies' tech as they were when expanding into markets and failing to protect their employees from harassment, then it could be an existential problem for the company. If their future relies on self-driving tech, which they never get a chance to implement because the only tech they have is stolen and they thus can't use it, they're fucked.

And the relevant legal standard here would be "preponderance of evidence", not "innocent until proven guilty" (which is a right for individual citizens in criminal trials). Corporations aren't fully people yet.

Re: Uber Board to Discuss CEO Absence, Policy Changes: Source

#76
post #74

The funny thing is that Kalanick may be pushed out over sexual harassment of a few people. Not for systematically underpaying several hundred thousand people. Not for creating a financial structure that's about a year from collapse.

I thought the problem was overpaying several hundred thousand people?

Re: Uber Board to Discuss CEO Absence, Policy Changes: Source

#77
post #74

The funny thing is that Kalanick may be pushed out over sexual harassment of a few people. Not for systematically underpaying several hundred thousand people. Not for creating a financial structure that's about a year from collapse.

The sexual harassment is more unusual and thus attention-worthy, though. We're so used to large corporations routinely screwing over their employees that it just becomes par for the course, and results in class-action settlements and maybe a few news articles but nothing else. Rampant sexual harassment at a company, however, is more newsworthy, and gets people paying attention.

Re: Uber Board to Discuss CEO Absence, Policy Changes: Source

#78

The board can't force him out if he doesn't want to go, can it? (Due to his special shares) Can the company thrive with someone else running it? And will it be obvious enough for Travis to see this? (How do you fight all the local taxi commissions without a combative streak?) I wonder if this will eventually cause companies to think twice about this type of governance.

My understanding is the other board members combined have more voting control than Travis individually.

So yes, they could, but the power isn't distributed evenly, so it's not as simple as getting >50% of votes.

Re: Uber Board to Discuss CEO Absence, Policy Changes: Source

#79
post #74

The funny thing is that Kalanick may be pushed out over sexual harassment of a few people. Not for systematically underpaying several hundred thousand people. Not for creating a financial structure that's about a year from collapse.

I thought the problem was overpaying several hundred thousand people?

Or undercharging several hundred thousand customers? (Not earning enough)
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