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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.

#741

Post by dragonwriter »

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.

In a couple urban cores where both customers and providers were extremely dense so that that simple method could work, surez that a mechanism in play; everywhere else (and often also available on those same areas) it was “customer calls dispatch agency on the phone, dispatch agency routes to service provider via radio (or mobile phone)”; Uber replaces the dispatch agency and changes the communication mechanism on both sides from a phone to an app on the phone.

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

#742

Post by dorfsmay »

stephenr wrote: post #731
gregorymichael wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do taxi companies in the US really not have apps or, you know, phones?

In Canada, none had an apps until Uber arrived.

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

#743

Post by chaostheory »

stephenr wrote: post #731
gregorymichael wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do taxi companies in the US really not have apps or, you know, phones?

until Uber and Lyft rose in popularity, taxi companies were resistant to apps

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

#744

Post by Uehreka »

snowwrestler wrote: post #728
gregorymichael wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I disagree. When I was in college (09-12 in Baltimore) it was impossible to get a cab unless it was a weekend night (in which case they’d all line up outside the dorms). I remember calling cab companies, being told “we put out a call on the radio, someone will probably be there in the next half hour.” And then nobody showing up. The ability to rate drivers and the ability of the system to punish drivers who won’t pick up mildly inconvenient fares has vastly improved this industry (at least from my POV).

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

#745

Post by oaktowner »

stephenr wrote: post #731
gregorymichael wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do taxi companies in the US really not have apps or, you know, phones?

They do now in San Francisco. But only because they lost so much business to Uber. This was an industry that was effectively a monopoly -- not one company, but one type of provider. And none of the players was improving the experience for the customer.

Calling for a cab was extremely unreliable here. You could easily wait for an hour (because any driver coming to pick you up could, without ill effect for him/herself, stop to pick somebody up on the street). Some cabs took credit cards, some didn't. Some claimed to take credit cards but then "the machine was broken" so you had to pay cash.

Uber improved on every single aspect of the customer experience. And they did it while offering lower prices for the consumer.

However: to me, they haven't proven it's a viable, long term model. I highly doubt that they are paying their drivers enough to cover the cost of wear and tear on the cars (many/most of the drivers I see with Uber and Lyft are doing it full time, so they are crazy if they aren't factoring in the cost of the car and maintenance as part of their cost). And AFAIK neither company has proven they can make money.

So: this industry was due for a shakeup.

But it needs to be done by a company without rampant management problems, and it still needs to prove that there is a viable, long term business model that works for the company, the drivers and the consumers.

[edit: and, yes -- long term, there won't be drivers in these cars. But Uber has to find a way to survive until then, and I don't believe they can burn cash that long]

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

#746

Post by adamnemecek »

majewsky wrote: post #386
adamnemecek wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubers other differentiator is the fact that I can go to just about any city in the world and use it. I guess I could research and install fotaxi but as a 21th century consumer, I'm extremely lazy.

That's why these local taxi companies usually have billboards at train stations and airports that inform travellers of their app. EDIT: Alternatively, convince the taxi companies to open up their API. Then you can have one app that selects the correct API based on your current location.

> That's why these local taxi companies usually have billboards

What year is this? $YEAR_OF_BILLBOARD_INVENTION + 2?

> Alternatively, convince the taxi companies to open up their API.

I still feel like one company will take over. You cannot build a good product by federating APIs across different municipalities, governments, continents, (planets?).

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

#747

Post by blackrose »

metaphorm wrote: post #725
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…

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

Generally speaking, as a group, yes -- especially when compared to the social pressures put on women. Yes, that's changing, but we still have a way to go.

Happy to hear any difficult and unrealistic social pressures you think we regularly face today.

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

#748

Post by chrisdbaldwin »

ryandrake wrote: post #709
acjohnson55 wrote: post #590

I, for one, will consider using Uber again. It is very important to me to see a change in leadership. I simply couldn't square my use of the app with the sense that Uber was deeply unethical, starting from the top. Also, it's so disappointing to see so many people buy into the cult of personality of the Startup Founder. There's a lot of half-baked reasoning going on on why Uber's fate should be inexorable tied to Tra…

> Also, it's so disappointing to see so many people buy into the cult of personality of the Startup Founder. There's a lot of half-baked reasoning going on on why Uber's fate should be inexorable tied to Travis. So far, the two main arguments I've seen are "because Steve Jobs" and "he raised so much money for them". Neither one of these are compelling in explaining why Uber's survival prospects should be further dama…

I'd argue this is a common organizational dysfunction -- "only the leader can lead," nonsense.

There are glaring organizational problems at Uber, and I truly hope removing Travis from the head helps turn their toxic culture around.

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

#749

Post by chris_7 »

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…

Uber might improve "customer value", but as someone that takes a cab once every three months or so, cars with TLC license plates constantly failing to yield to my attempts to use a crosswalk have not improved my experience.

I've decided to solve this by 1-starring and no-tipping any driver that fails to yield to a pedestrian, drives in a bike lane, or exceeds the 25mph speed limit at any point in the ride (so, like, all of them), but of course, I take a cab once every three months, so that won't do much.

If we really want to reduce greenhouse gases, a better approach might be:

1. Properly funding the MTA (congestion charging)

2. Widening sidewalks, especially in Midtown

3. Grade-separated and camera-enforced BRT lanes and/or surface rail with signal priority.

4. Proliferation of bike lanes.

5. Charging market rate for all street parking.

Uber and Lyft have have increased car traffic in New York: http://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/27/its-settled-uber-is-ma...

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

#750

Post by braveo »

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…

don't really care, Uber's behavior as a company is such that I'd rather see lyft succeed.

Those positives will be brought about regardless of who it is, so lets make sure it isn't a company who acts as egregiously bad as Uber.

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