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Uber CEO to take leave

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Re: Uber CEO to take leave

#101

Post by acchow »

barleyworth wrote: post #78
dvt wrote: post #21

I really don't buy the Travis Kalanik hate. Yeah, Uber started out as your typical SV unicorn (bro warts and all). Yeah, Uber's entire business model can be described as "grey-area" at best and its business practices as sometimes exploitative. But this is exactly how you're supposed to run a massively successful startup in its first decade. This is exactly how FB started out. And this follows every rule in the startu…

> There was literally nothing wrong with the email There were at least two things wrong with the email, from my perspective as a guy who's been around plenty of benign bro culture. 1. Explicitly mentioning "sex" as opposed to "relationship" or "dating", and talking about it so casually, sets a very aggressive tone. 20-something guys with lots of hormones will definitely hear that tone and push hard for sex during the…

Why do you talk about females like they are precious snowflakes?

Re: Uber CEO to take leave

#102

Post by pishpash »

dvt wrote: post #39
exogeny wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He presided over a culture of widespread sexual harassment that has been echoed repeatedly by multiple employees and you don't really understand why he's being criticized? Cool story, bro.

Uber has 12000 employees; 20 were reprimanded for sexual harassment. That's 0.001%

That's 0.2%, not 0.001%.

Re: Uber CEO to take leave

#103

Post by Florin_Andrei »

dvt wrote: post #21

I really don't buy the Travis Kalanik hate. Yeah, Uber started out as your typical SV unicorn (bro warts and all). Yeah, Uber's entire business model can be described as "grey-area" at best and its business practices as sometimes exploitative. But this is exactly how you're supposed to run a massively successful startup in its first decade. This is exactly how FB started out. And this follows every rule in the startu…

> I don't really understand why.

When something like this happens, it's because the story runs counter to the listener's / reader's deepest assumptions and the foundations of their Weltanschauung.

E.g., you're a deeply religious conservative, and you hear a story about a gay couple who are great parents, you block it out.

You're a Democrat and you hear about Hillary making millions from speeches to Wall Street tycoons, you block it out.

You're a MAGA type of person, and you hear anything negative about Trump, you block it out.

You bite hook, line and sinker into the whole free market thing, Ayn Rand for the win, and you hear anything bad about some entrepreneur who made a fortune, you block it out - you ain't got no time for that, cause you've got empires to build.

---

What we do not perceive says more about us than what we do perceive.

Re: Uber CEO to take leave

#104

Post by dnr »

burkaman wrote: post #97
m12r wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you? Microsoft Antitrust nightmare that probably set them back 5 years. Google for invading our privacy, they are still fighting big important battles in Europe. Facebook for similar privacy invasion, the whole beacon debacle. There are a lot of things that they probably did wrong, but not to the extend that the press is picturing it. Agreed 100% w/ dvt.

I could be missing some shady history, but off the top of my head how about Square? Edit: Dropbox, Craigslist, GitHub, PayPal, Instagram, Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter Anyone feel free to jump in if I'm ignoring any exploitation or shadiness. Bad examples: Spotify and Snapchat.

A few seconds on google:

http://gizmodo.com/early-spotify-was-built-on-pirated-mp3-fi...

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/05/09/spotify-illegal-m...

Re: Uber CEO to take leave

#105

Post by bjl »

blfr wrote: post #87
vkou wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not supposed to run a massively successful startup by blatantly breaking every single consumer protection law that gets in the way of your profit margin. The e-mail by itself isn't the only problem. It's that it's just one line in a list of unethical, illegal or abusive behaviour that's as long as his arm. Keep in mind - this is also the guy that stole money from the IRS (By funding his previous company with…

These are consumer protection laws in name only. The laws/rules/regulations that Uber is breaking are first, foremost, and pretty much exclusively protecting the taxi industry.

If they really believed that then they should have fought those laws in the political arena rather than just ignoring them.

Re: Uber CEO to take leave

#106

Post by mst »

wavefunction wrote: post #58
bjl wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Greyball was fake? How about their Hell program? Or the fact that one of their executives illegally acquired a rape victims medical reports and circulated them around the office? Uber has continuously demonstrated a total disregard for both the law and common decency. They lost the benefit of the doubt a long time ago.

Kalanick was aware and had seen the rape victim's health records and apparently it was an attempt (by Emil?) to figure out how to discredit the victim and her accusations. These are horrific people and while I sympathize with Kalanick over the loss of his mother and his father's situation, I do not wish him any professional success.

My position here is "I am entirely capable of hating Kalanick and the reporting about Kalanick at the same time".

Re: Uber CEO to take leave

#107

Post by moomin »

Let's ignore the fact that TK is a garbage fire for a moment and talk about what an utter disaster this move is. A smarter contributor than me write a good article that basically said you shouldn't own something you're not contributing to. By this logic he should be selling his stake right now. Except no-one wants to buy it. Which leaves an IPO, which is a tough ask for a firm that's never made a profit and, AFAICT, not even on the board's radar.

That or this is a temporary face-saving measure that doesn't really change anything, and that's a disaster too.

Re: Uber CEO to take leave

#109

Post by jacquesm »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #34
exogeny wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was prefacing it more in terms of the trickle-down effect; literally thousands of people have been hired into a culture that was mandated by Kalanick. (See PatrickAuld's post on this thread.) Just because he goes away doesn't mean that they all do; if anything, they might view what's happening to Travis as unnecessary, or worse, unfair. Ergo, there's a ton of timebombs ticking away all over that place. Very possibl…

If leadership is replaced and strengthened, the rest of the corporate structure will fall in line or be terminated. Culture comes from the top.

In theory, yes. In practice, that takes time and probably more time than they have. If you hire this many people into a culture where 'x' was ok last week and off the table this week you end up with the same kind of situation that an incoming government deals with: the civil servants have not changed.

Re: Uber CEO to take leave

#110

Post by burkaman »

dnr wrote: post #104
burkaman wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could be missing some shady history, but off the top of my head how about Square? Edit: Dropbox, Craigslist, GitHub, PayPal, Instagram, Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter Anyone feel free to jump in if I'm ignoring any exploitation or shadiness. Bad examples: Spotify and Snapchat.

A few seconds on google: http://gizmodo.com/early-spotify-was-built-on-pirated-mp3-fi... http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/05/09/spotify-illegal-m...

Thanks. This seems unconfirmed but pretty believable, so strike Spotify off my list.
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