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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.

#721

Post by metaphorm »

kevinburke wrote: post #3

According to the article 5 different VC firms representing 40% of the voting shares asked him to resign today. Kalanick still controls the majority of voting shares and a board seat. Most of Kalanick's trouble started with Susan Fowler speaking out. Please believe women when they report harassment in the workplace. Many of their reports may not be as clear cut as Mrs. Fowler's.

The Susan Fowler article greatly accelerated this process and drew a huge amount of (deserved) media attention. However, Uber has a long history of bad behavior in many different ways. The internal culture being rotten was known-about-but-not-talked-about for a long time, and their history of legally gray and unethical business practices was already a major specter on the company's public image.

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

#722

Post by macspoofing »

kevinburke wrote: post #676
macspoofing wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Please believe women when they report harassment in the workplace This meme is often repeated in context of sexual harrassment (workplace or otherwise). How do you square that with the fact that women are as capable of laying and misleading as men are? How do you square that with "innocent until proven guilty" when accusation are leveled against another individual or company.

The required burden of proof can and should be much lower in the workplace. Sure everyone is capable of lying but P(harassment occurred | report of harassment) is much greater than P(harassment did not occur | report of harassment).

>Sure everyone is capable of lying but P(harassment occurred | report of harassment) is much greater than P(harassment did not occur | report of harassment).

Care to put some real numbers on that?

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

#723

Post by Bartweiss »

eddieroger wrote: post #520
johnbellone wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I hate having to have multiple apps to do the same thing. That would drive me crazy for every city. I would pay a premium not to do that. Second, none of these apps I have seen thus far even attempts to make it easier for the user to add payment methods. Each time I need to put in my credit card information? Twice if I am on business? Nobody has taken advantage of Apple or Android pay integration. I don't cons…

The first point is key, especially when you're not familiar with the city. I rarely use either Uber or Lyft in my home city, but now Lyft is the first thing I launch when landing in a new place, and that's all domestic US travel, forgetting international. It can't really be discounted how important the multi-city, single app feature is to these services for travelers.

My first ever use of Uber was in another country, after about 40 hours awake and traveling. Even with the hurdles of setting up an account, it was vastly easier than getting local transit for my route. (As checked later when I was functional.) That's a huge benefit that none of the proposed alternatives (bar Lyft) can offer.

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

#724

Post by ajamesm »

davidf18 wrote: post #701

Much of the resistance to Uber (such as laws that were broken, protests) were from entrenched interests. At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. It provided completion for the entrenched Yellow Cab monopoly with its very high rates. Sometimes Uber would have higher rates but then you could take a Yellow Cab instead. The Yell…

yeah, real shame that the unmitigated sexual harassment got in the way of their complete avoidance of regulations

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

#725

Post by metaphorm »

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…

do you honestly believe that there aren't difficult and often unrealistic social pressures put on men?

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

#726

Post by zer00eyz »

yladiz wrote: post #350
zer00eyz wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did he do a lot, sure. Does he deserve to be complimented in any way shape or form? No... Not in the slightest. I think the question is can uber continue winning without being toxic to staff (drivers, women, I'm sure there are others), maybe stealing (waymo lawsuit), and building tools to avoid the law.... The answer is I don't know, but it is going to be hard to recover from.

I don't think that's quite fair. He absolutely deserves a lot of criticism for the things that happened under his watch as Uber CEO, but he did create a giant company that has the highest(?) valuation of any SV startup. He deserves some respect and compliments for that.

> but he did create a giant company that has the highest(?) valuation of any SV startup. He deserves some respect and compliments for that.

The only people that benefited from his achivement were the investors. Considering where Uber stands at the moment they might not ever see a return on that.

If creating value gives you some sort of moral pass then we shouldn't have any sort of issues with epipens being more expensive, or martin shkreli jacking up drug prices... after all they did it in the name of creating value.

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

#727

Post by aeturnum »

efuquen wrote: post #606
kevinburke wrote: post #3

According to the article 5 different VC firms representing 40% of the voting shares asked him to resign today. Kalanick still controls the majority of voting shares and a board seat. Most of Kalanick's trouble started with Susan Fowler speaking out. Please believe women when they report harassment in the workplace. Many of their reports may not be as clear cut as Mrs. Fowler's.

If you go to a police station and report a murder do you think they'll a) investigate your claim or b) ignore you? That is the sort of belief we're talking about, a serious investigation with the assumption the person reporting it is not lying. The investigation itself could of course result in not sufficient evidence being found. It's really not that complicated.

There have long been reports from various minority communities in the United States and elsewhere of crime reports being ignored entirely or not taken seriously.

Alternatively, look at the public scrutiny of police shootings. However you personally feel about them, there is a section of the population that sees them as a miscarriage of justice that is playing out in the public square. People look at the extremely low (non-existent?) conviction rate of officers and see either a police force operating without consequences or a remarkably well-mantained and well-monitored police force.

Obviously there should be an investigation, but history tells us that it is very easy to fool ourselves into believing we've done a "fair" investigation which will not look fair to outsiders or victims. No malice is necessary, but it is frequently endemic anyway.

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

#728

Post by snowwrestler »

gregorymichael wrote: post #717
davidf18 wrote: post #701

Much of the resistance to Uber (such as laws that were broken, protests) were from entrenched interests. At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. It provided completion for the entrenched Yellow Cab monopoly with its very high rates. Sometimes Uber would have higher rates but then you could take a Yellow Cab instead. The Yell…

The previous market making mechanism for this industry was for a buyer to stand on a street corner, hold their hand up, and hope that a vendor who sold that service drove by. That's insane.

You could call for a cab, which worked fine. The app-based experience is undoubtedly better though.

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

#729

Post by [deleted] »

davidf18 wrote: post #701

Much of the resistance to Uber (such as laws that were broken, protests) were from entrenched interests. At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. It provided completion for the entrenched Yellow Cab monopoly with its very high rates. Sometimes Uber would have higher rates but then you could take a Yellow Cab instead. The Yell…

[deleted]

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

#730

Post by Bartweiss »

wcummings wrote: post #616
hueving wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying the driver directly still sucks. In the US you constantly deal with the "I don't take cards" bullshit and lack of simple feedback for when they take you on a scenic tour. I would be fine with taxis if I didn't have to interact with the driver at all when it came to payment and could provide feedback right in the app.

>In the US you constantly deal with the "I don't take cards" bullshit Sounds like a free ride, to me. In my city cabs have to accept credit cards by law . This means if the machine is broken, the cab is unfit for service. If a driver refuses to take a credit card, you don't have to pay them . If they're rude about it, you can call 911, there's a whole division of the PD dedicated to dealing with cabs. The threat of h…

Not exactly appealing... The last time I went through that, I ended up with a cabbie following me down the street in his car, making threats and watching where I was going, in a town with police response times of 20+ minutes.

A ride experience where I don't have someone threaten me while I call 911 is worth some money to me.

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