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

nytimes.com

871–880 of 1001 posts

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

#871
post #812

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This idea that there "were no taxis" in the boroughs and now there are is ridiculous. The few times I tried to take those services the service was horrible, horrible. Now, thankfully, Uber is available and they have much better service and they have a single identifiable reliable brand and they take credit cards. Uber pool where unrelated riders ride in the same car are going to have less greenhouse gas than riders…

> I actually live there and there are no Yellow Cabs in the outer boroughs. I am writing this from Brooklyn, where I have lived for about 20 years. > Before Uber there was no hailable service. There still isn't. Street hails are only from medallion cabs, plus the green outer borough cabs which came just a little bit before Uber showed up and are still around. There wasn't street hailing before and there isn't now. Th…

> The innovation is that now your phone has a computer in it and GPS...

And a map confirming your pickup & destination, and a payment system. Yeah, not much different than talking to a dispatcher with your phone /s

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

#872

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people that report harassment are taking a big career risk (and if they go public like Mrs. Fowler did, inviting abuse from Internet mobs) by doing so, so yes, I'm going to default to believing people that report harassment unless I can find credible evidence it didn't happen.

The trust of people like yourself is definitely going to be abused by people who want to smear others.

This suggests that trust isn't or hasn't been abused by harassers at places like Uber. There, Uber HR trusted harassers when they said "I didn't do that," or they just didn't care.

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

#873
post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true, but does this justify Uber's workspace culture, Waymo secrets, or sidestepping law enforcement (main reasons for Kalanick's resignation according to article)?

The law enforcement cited was mostly to keep Uber out of the market to protect incumbents from competition. Unlike AirBnB which breaks NY City and NY State regulations, Uber does follow NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission rules imposed on them and Lyft and other services. But in NYC, the Mayor's unsuccessful efforts withstanding, we aren't trying to restrict market entry and basically asking that Uber drivers undergo the…

Did you read the linked article? The law enforcement thing (at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/technology/uber-federal-i... ) was started by Portland, Oregon. What does it have to do with NYC?

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

#874

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 was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas.

Reducing greenhouse? Relative to what?

This is all one needs to read http://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/27/its-settled-uber-is-ma...

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

#875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When Uber and Lyft came, the rates were lower, one could use Uber Pool to have even lower rates > not forcing drivers to pay excessing leasing fees for vehicles. Err, the cheaper rates were due to uber subsidising rides with VC money, which was unsustainable. Uber also did start a leasing program for drivers.

> Err, the cheaper rates were due to uber subsidising rides with VC money, which was unsustainable. Uber also did start a leasing program for drivers. The cheaper rates in NYC which are extremely high compared with the rest of the USA were because there was no $125 / 12 hour lease fee because there were no medallions. Medallion owners would get mortgages (like houses) for the $1.2 million medallions and the high leas…

> The cheaper rates in NYC which are extremely high compared with the rest of the USA were because there was no $125 / 12 hour lease fee because there were no medallions.

As explained elsewhere in the thread, Uber does not and has not ever competed with medallion taxis for their main product (Uber X/Uber Black) in New York City. Uber's direct counterpart would be the for-hire cabs which are also regulated by the TLC, and are not required to have medallions.

Uber is already subject to the exact same requirements of the TLC that their predecessors were - Uber drivers in NYC have to have a valid TLC license. So there is literally no difference in supply-side regulatory cost there.

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

#876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is the largest player by far, so they are an easy target for frustrations and for incumbents. "Uber" is almost a generic term for a iPhone hailable vehicle. Generally, there is market competition for drivers. For example, Lyft for those drivers who are unhappy with Uber. You have stated that in your city, São Paulo, there are 3 good companies. If one company mistreats drivers, they would go to a competing firm a…

Uber is the largest in the US, not across the world. Didi provides way more rides than Uber any single day.

Kind of unfair to compare Didi (or any Chinese company) with the free market alternatives. If you're given state sponsorship from one of the largest countries, then you should easily be able to do more rides than Uber.

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

#877

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, hope that you are white.

I'm going to wager that wearing a suit and/or other indicators of being of a higher social class are far more important than race. I've never seen a rich minority person discriminated against...

Maybe because you're not a rich minority? Plenty of them have filed complaints: http://people.com/celebrity/al-roker-files-complaint-after-n... http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/04/nyregion/danny-glover-says...

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

#878

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…

Oh please you are going to tell me sexual abuse employees faced was "from entrenched interests". Get real...

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

#879
post #41

This may kill Uber. Kalanick is a jerk, but he created that insane valuation. Uber has less than a year of runway left at their current burn rate. Unless they can find a bigger sucker than the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia,[1] they're going broke in 2018. (That "undisclosed amount" in 2017 isn't a significant investment on Uber's scale.) IPO? No way. They'd have to publish audited numbers. What's leaked out i…

So does Kalanick still walk away a rich man at this point?

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

#880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is the largest player by far, so they are an easy target for frustrations and for incumbents. "Uber" is almost a generic term for a iPhone hailable vehicle. Generally, there is market competition for drivers. For example, Lyft for those drivers who are unhappy with Uber. You have stated that in your city, São Paulo, there are 3 good companies. If one company mistreats drivers, they would go to a competing firm a…

Uber is the largest in the US, not across the world. Didi provides way more rides than Uber any single day.

I found it hard to find good numbers, so hopefully this research will be of use to other people:

Yesterday, Uber co-founder Garrett Camp wrote "Uber has become a global service providing roughly 15 million rides per day across 500 cities" at https://medium.com/@gc/ubers-path-forward-b59ec9bd4ef6

The most recent estimate I could find on Didi Chuxing is 20 million rides per day as of October, 2016 as stated at https://www.techinasia.com/china-didi-chuxing-20-million-dai...

It's reasonable to assume that Didi has noticeably grown since October 2016, but none of these numbers are easily verifiable externally to these companies.

(Lyft's market share is unclear to me, but perhaps 2 million rides per day, more or less?)

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