Live data from Hacker News

Uber, Mired in Corporate Scandals, Sees Uptick in Bookings

nytimes.com

41–50 of 99 posts

Re: Uber, Mired in Corporate Scandals, Sees Uptick in Bookings

#41
post #21

The value proposition of Uber is so good that with an empty C-level suites they are pretty much running on an auto-pilot of sort. Honestly, this is a tremendous feat. In that case, they should get their CEO from inside rather than outside.

It's only a tremendous feat until they run out of cheap VC money to burn. They lost $650 million this quarter.

Re: Uber, Mired in Corporate Scandals, Sees Uptick in Bookings

#42

Frankly the outrage against Uber makes me more likely to use the service. Before it became politically incorrect to mention Uber, I was entirely impartial. I'm sure that I'm not the only one.

This is the first down voted to absolute transparency comment I have ever seen. Although what he is saying is very extreme. There are certain scandals which I was pretty pissed off about but there were other "scandals" i felt were very unfair to them. For eg. the whole delete uber for providing service to JFK when people were protesting was absolute horse shit. They even cancelled the surge pricing, promised to help out drivers stuck abroad etc. The issue here was people were outraged without any logical reasoning behind it. Lyft did not stop the service but hell no one deleted lyft that day. Second one being when Travis being on Trump's board, come on every major tech CEO was on the board. Once people decide to hate a particular thing they seem to think little about what they are getting angry about. Having said that, they do or have done some shitty things as a company and I hope they work that shit out.

Re: Uber, Mired in Corporate Scandals, Sees Uptick in Bookings

#43
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even those who care, might not have real alternatives. The real benefit I see from Uber is exactly that: opening the markets up so we can avoid the bad actors. But for now, many of us still only have the choice between "new and corrupt" and "old and corrupt". Thankfully, more competition is coming, after Uber broken the barrier down. (And yes, I know other places already had good working systems. Good for you, doesn'…

How's Via and Sidecar doing?

sidecar shutdown long ago and via sold to an israeli company

Re: Uber, Mired in Corporate Scandals, Sees Uptick in Bookings

#45

Of course Uber sees an uptick in bookings. None of the people using the service in almost 200 countries worldwide are tuned into the daily drama of Silicon Valley. Normal people want to get from point A to point B in the most comfortable, efficient, cheap way possible. If that means Uber then so be it. If that means Taxis then so be it. If that means Didi Chuxing then so be it. It just turns out that Uber is well pos…

Also not to downplay the issues with sexism in tech, but the level of uproar is somewhat reminiscent of the Ellen Pao situation and how much Twitter/HN/SF exist in an echo chamber. I'm sorry I don't want to march on the streets because a group of billionaires are acting like total assholes towards an aspiring billionaire trying to play the game of thrones with that court. The rest of us have-nots have real problems t…

The Uber boycott is not about the ousting of Travis, it started before that, back in January, after the kerfuffle surrounding the infamous executive order, the taxi union's decision to refuse to pick up drivers at the airport, and Uber's tweet that they had disabled surge pricing.

It then gained more steam after allegations of having a cutthroat workplace, accusations of sexism and sexual harassment (over which they fired 20 employees after an internal investigation), and allegedly colluding to rip off Waymo. Oh, and the accusations of misleading drivers, over which they ended up paying $20M to the FTC.

Re: Uber, Mired in Corporate Scandals, Sees Uptick in Bookings

#46

Dear Lyft, you're screwing up your chance. When Uber started to have a bunch of scandal, I tried to switch to Lyft. I really did. But, stuck at a hospital after an emergency room visit, trying to get home at 10pm, I sat there for 45 minutes, watching a driver go from 4 minutes away to 5 minutes away to 8 minutes away, then no driver, then a new driver is 4 minutes away, then 4 minutes away, then 5 minutes away, then…

I guess this brings up the question: Is uber succeeding in its goal? Their value prop is that they can monopolize the taxi business, maybe they're actually pulling it off. Could explain why Lyft is starting to lag.

Re: Uber, Mired in Corporate Scandals, Sees Uptick in Bookings

#47

Of course Uber sees an uptick in bookings. None of the people using the service in almost 200 countries worldwide are tuned into the daily drama of Silicon Valley. Normal people want to get from point A to point B in the most comfortable, efficient, cheap way possible. If that means Uber then so be it. If that means Taxis then so be it. If that means Didi Chuxing then so be it. It just turns out that Uber is well pos…

That might be true but it still got the CEO fired. It's not quite totally inconsequential.

Re: Uber, Mired in Corporate Scandals, Sees Uptick in Bookings

#48

Dear Lyft, you're screwing up your chance. When Uber started to have a bunch of scandal, I tried to switch to Lyft. I really did. But, stuck at a hospital after an emergency room visit, trying to get home at 10pm, I sat there for 45 minutes, watching a driver go from 4 minutes away to 5 minutes away to 8 minutes away, then no driver, then a new driver is 4 minutes away, then 4 minutes away, then 5 minutes away, then…

This has happened to me on both services. It's inherent to the whole concept and has nothing to do with Lyft. If you ride enough it will happen to you to. The other day I ordered an uber, it was 5 minutes away, it drove to an entire different city, but uber wouldn't let me cancel without charging me, until 20 minutes had passed.

Re: Uber, Mired in Corporate Scandals, Sees Uptick in Bookings

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup - they've been heavily subsidizing rides recently (even more so than usual) to pull booking numbers up!

Suddenly the headline seems less amazing...

Losses as a percent of gross bookings: Uber: 8% Lyft: 13.5%

Lyft is the one buying marketshare, not Uber.

Re: Uber, Mired in Corporate Scandals, Sees Uptick in Bookings

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true. Most people just don't care. I've used this to my advantage over the past few years, as soon as a "big corporate scandal" breaks the stock tends to fall. Check their financials, buy the stock if it looks good, then wait a few months for it to all blow over. My most recent was Wells Fargo during their opening accounts scandal. Bought early Oct, Sold late Jan. 20.06% profit. There were so many headlines callin…

>For every one person saying: "Uber is evil, don't use them" There are ten saying "Meh, its cheap and convenient." I guess there is actually an 11th person saying, awesome I can financially support this evil company in the short term and make a quick buck. I've been talking a lot about boycotts lately on HN to curb unwanted corporate behavior, in particular as it relates to a lot of the recent 1st Amendment issues an…

How is buying a company's stock "financially supporting" them?
Post reply on HN