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Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#681

Post by ryanbrunner »

haswell wrote: post #637
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>First, I hate having to have multiple apps to do the same thing Don't worry, once there are enough apps someone will figure out how to scrape and aggregate the info. The same thing happened when airlines and hotels started putting booking info online except at the time it was websites instead of apps.

Scraping and aggregating airline info is not really comparable. Airline data is based on predetermined schedules and is relatively static. Ride hailing is extremely fluid. Must be real-time. Must be able to provide GPS coordinates of the user to the service in question. I don't think you'll see an aggregation app until there is some ride hailing standard that is adopted by the various providers.

Google Maps is already starting down this road a bit (admittedly only with the big companies). That's the likeliest path in terms of companies that have the leverage as well as the existing technology to make this happen.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#683

Post by mattlondon »

cirenehc wrote: post #672
mattlondon wrote: post #297

All this talk about Lyft becoming the new Uber is perhaps a bit unrealistic. Apart from in SF, I've never found Lyft available anywhere I've been (although I understand it is operating on other parts of the US). To momentarily sing-praises of Uber: the same app, the same login, the same card just works internationally pretty much where ever I have gone on work and vacations regardless of currencies etc - morals aside…

have you been to NYC? LA? Seattle?

Not in the past few years - SF only. But I do appreciate that Lyft is active elsewhere in the US, just that Uber appear to be active in a LOT of markets where Lyft is not (i.e. there are places in the world that are not major US cities).

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#684

Post by xor1 »

blackrose wrote: post #614
camelite wrote: post #83

Should we believe men too when they're victimised by women, or is this a one way deal? What if it's a man and a woman accusing each other, or two men or two women. What if the dude is a historically oppressed minority?

> or is this a one way deal? FFS, dude. Men hold the vast majority of power in our society. No cards are stacked against them. No old fashioned norms are still levied on them everytime a woman speaks to them. They aren't constantly reminded by our culture to be gentlemen or look handsome or bring home the bacon or do anything they don't want to. To say "think of the men!" here is either willfully ignorant or just bei…

>Men hold the vast majority of power in our society.

Power isn't based on gender, it's based on wealth. Do you think abuse of power will suddenly end once the majority of wealthy individuals are women instead of men?

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#685

Post by MichaelGG »

ipsum2 wrote: post #250
MichaelGG wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Why? I looked her up on Wikipedia - she's an author and a political commentator?

I'm not OP, but Arianna Huffington is on the board of Uber, helping lead the investigation behind the sexual harassment report. NYTimes also has this ( https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/technology/arianna-huffin... ): > In recent months, Ms. Huffington has become the public voice of Uber’s board as the company has tried to overcome scandals over its workplace culture. She has forged a friendship with Mr. Kalanick. A…

Why would that qualify her to run it?

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#686

Post by andy_boot »

Exuma wrote: post #664
dfabulich wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, but I think that's exactly how/why Uber's investors were able to convince Kalanick to step down. Uber may or may not take over the world at some point, but Uber needs another round of investment in the next 18 months just to survive. If the existing investors refused to play ball, they could kill the next round, which really would kill Uber. And here's another important moral of this story for founders:…

Can you explain how these large companies operate, explained like I'm a golden retriever? How does a company so big not make a profit/could possibly go bankrupt? My current understanding is companies either focus on growth (at a loss) or choose to focus on profit (with the risk of competition overtaking them or decay over time). But lets say they go bankrupt in 1 year, couldn't they just switch to "profit mode"? If t…

>But lets say they go bankrupt in 1 year, couldn't they just switch to "profit mode"?

Well that they might have to try and do now. But usually it is hard to move to 'profit mode' - you upset your customers when you start to charge double. The idea is that before you do that you have either killed of the competition or your competition 'moat' is so big that everyone wants to keep using you because of $reason and so you can charge what you like.

>If there is no "profit mode" ... then why are people investing in the first place?

Nobody is ever sure if any startup will get to 'profit mode' you simply look at their market / numbers etc and if you decide to invest then you hope the startup can figure it out. This is the investing gamble.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#687

Post by WalterSear »

haswell wrote: post #637
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>First, I hate having to have multiple apps to do the same thing Don't worry, once there are enough apps someone will figure out how to scrape and aggregate the info. The same thing happened when airlines and hotels started putting booking info online except at the time it was websites instead of apps.

Scraping and aggregating airline info is not really comparable. Airline data is based on predetermined schedules and is relatively static. Ride hailing is extremely fluid. Must be real-time. Must be able to provide GPS coordinates of the user to the service in question. I don't think you'll see an aggregation app until there is some ride hailing standard that is adopted by the various providers.

So? Then there will be a standard of sorts.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#688

Post by xor1 »

camelite wrote: post #653
blackrose wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or is this a one way deal? FFS, dude. Men hold the vast majority of power in our society. No cards are stacked against them. No old fashioned norms are still levied on them everytime a woman speaks to them. They aren't constantly reminded by our culture to be gentlemen or look handsome or bring home the bacon or do anything they don't want to. To say "think of the men!" here is either willfully ignorant or just bei…

> Men hold the vast majority of power in our society. No cards are stacked against them. If you "believe women who report sexual harassment", and more specifically, if you believe women who report sexual harassment in "less clear cut" scenarios than Susan Fowlers, then you are deliberately stacking the deck against the specific men who are accused of sexual harassment, some of whom will invariably be innocent. How mu…

>Men aren't reminded constantly by their culture to do things they don't want to do? Where do you live, because it sounds like paradise to me.

blackrose is exclusively thinking of rich and powerful men when framing his argument.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#689

Post by rhino369 »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #610
Retric wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to grow when you sell dollars for 70c each. But, when you suddenly need to sell them for 1.01+$ nobody wants to buy. Uber's problem is taxi companies have lower overhead because among other thing their drivers sometimes get hailed by people at street level. Which means their either taxi prices are lower and people stop using Uber or they pay drivers more and drivers mostly stop working for Uber.

I travel a lot for work. Uber works in a lot of places where mass transit sucks and taxi service is nonexistent. Even if they cost more I have no idea how I'm going to get around when I travel. The other options are so disgusting I'm not going back to that. I would use them even if prices went up 30%.

And I used uber or lyft to ride back and forth to work every single day because it's so cheap. ~9 bucks compared to a 3 dollar metro ride (and I typically save 20 minutes). If it's 15 dollars I'd ride less often and I'd probably try to hail a cab first.

Uber demand is definitely elastic.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#690

Post by creepydata »

hueving wrote: post #426
venture_lol wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General observations from experience: A well-run company will have proper procedures, processes in place to deal with work place issues. Management and all staff will also be required to take training on a continuous basis. Professionally managed organizations don't walk around "believing" this or that or spouting off "innocent until proven guilty" and such :)

>Management and all staff will also be required to take training on a continuous basis. This is miserable. Unless the definition of sexual harassment changes every 6 months, you should not be forcing employees to retake these training sessions.

People (hopefully) won't get practice on reporting and handling harassment claims. It's good to have a refresher training to both remind employees of the process as well as a gesture to show they are still taking the issue seriously.
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