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Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

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Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#51

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

ejstronge wrote: post #38
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #32

Good for him. This is probably an unpopular opinion here, but I feel bad for this guy. Could have built a really great empire, and he probably would have if it was ten years ago. But things are changing so fast nowadays and the masses have a lot of power (maybe too much than they deserve) and Uber unfortunately was at the wrong place at the wrong time. When I talk to real people in the real world (not Twitter trolls…

Perhaps the 'real people in the real world' would be offended and stop using Uber if they knew of Kalanick and his team's doings, not the least of which has been the intimidation and attempt to discredit a rape victim. EDIT: I appear to be mis-remembering Uber's actions - they did not initially share their denial of the victim's experiences with her, per the accounts I've found. In this setting, 'intimidation' may be…

This keeps coming up. Uber did not intimidate the rape victim.

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#52

Post by ryandrake »

forgotpw2018 wrote: post #42

Seems like a good time to dump this =). I think I know the kind of world Travis comes from. He was in a fraternity, and he treated it like a business like I did. When he owned a real business he applied those lessons far too liberally. Fraternities are ruthlessly competitive, going as far as planting fake pledges and building internal dossiers on all the other frats on campus. Very valuable was your loyal man with a…

As someone who knows nothing about fraternities: what on earth are they competing over? Are they competing over who throws the best parties?

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#54

Post by misun78 »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #34

Happy for him. I can only imagine how much being ousted from a company he created and raised to its current level must have hurt. I do not look fondly at what a pain local transport was in cities without public transport (and even those with), and it is Travis (yes, Travis first, Uber second) that led this paradigm shift. We can debate about Uber's business practices until the cows come home, but this is undeniable.…

Thank you for providing a balanced view that’s so often missing on anything Uber related on HN. There is no denying that Travis threw ethics out of the window and took his paranoia way too far and never matured into a peacetime CEO. But every time a HN user takes an Uber, Lyft, Via, Grab, Ola etc etc you can thank Travis for his ruthlessness in fighting some of the most powerfully entrenched politicians (DeBlasio of NYC as an example) to get you a product type that’s loved by millions.

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#55

Post by tristanj »

xandar11 wrote: post #30

Uber's business model is a total failure. Hubert Horan has done an amazing job exposing it [1] and you can also listen to his interview [2]. [1] http://horanaviation.com/Uber.html [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0D_Q8xvosM

Lyft and Uber share the same business model, which is ride hailing. Is Lyft's business model also a total failure?

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#56

Post by CydeWeys »

tw1010 wrote: post #45

It feels like a lot of people are saying, through distorted lenses, that it is understandable that he didn't become the next big tech leader because this or that reason. (Almost as if they "knew all along that this would happen".) Why not be honest with ourselves instead? Let's just admit that our predictor functions got this one totally wrong, and that we should probably each individually, and maybe as a community,…

There's always going to be a large element of chance and random error though. And he was pretty damn successful for awhile anyway, until the misdeeds caught up with him; who else that's emerged on the tech scene in the past decade was as successful?

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#57

Post by adjkant »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #34

Happy for him. I can only imagine how much being ousted from a company he created and raised to its current level must have hurt. I do not look fondly at what a pain local transport was in cities without public transport (and even those with), and it is Travis (yes, Travis first, Uber second) that led this paradigm shift. We can debate about Uber's business practices until the cows come home, but this is undeniable.…

The question is if this paradigm shift was more valuable than all of the negative things he did. If he didn't come up with it, how do we know someone wouldn't have done it a year later? We shouldn't rewrite history, but I don't think he deserves all that much credit for thinking up an app for cabs with drivers not needing a permit and using their own car.

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#58

Post by Ppw24 »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #32

Good for him. This is probably an unpopular opinion here, but I feel bad for this guy. Could have built a really great empire, and he probably would have if it was ten years ago. But things are changing so fast nowadays and the masses have a lot of power (maybe too much than they deserve) and Uber unfortunately was at the wrong place at the wrong time. When I talk to real people in the real world (not Twitter trolls…

Uber was not "at the wrong place at the wrong time." They did a whole bunch of shitty things.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/uber-trav...

All happened under Travis's watch. One or two isolated incidents could be the fault of a few bad apples. But for this much bad stuff to happen, the CEO is asleep at the wheel. If he couldn't handle that responsibility, he should have bowed out sooner.

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#59

Post by make3 »

LarryDarrell wrote: post #44

He at least showed us that waving a smartphone in the face of regulators and the public was the next best thing to a Jedi mind trick. waves smartphone "Uber is not a taxi service." -"Uber isn't a taxi service" waves smartphone "There is no need to regulate us as a taxi service." -"There's no need to regulate them like a taxi service." waves smartphone "Uber drivers are not employees." -"These drivers are not employee…

Netflix also does that to an extent, but just with "the web", like we're in the 2000s or somthing. The Canadian government just waived applying sales taxes to the subscriptions. wtf.

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#60

Post by heymijo »

misun78 wrote: post #54
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #34

Happy for him. I can only imagine how much being ousted from a company he created and raised to its current level must have hurt. I do not look fondly at what a pain local transport was in cities without public transport (and even those with), and it is Travis (yes, Travis first, Uber second) that led this paradigm shift. We can debate about Uber's business practices until the cows come home, but this is undeniable.…

Thank you for providing a balanced view that’s so often missing on anything Uber related on HN. There is no denying that Travis threw ethics out of the window and took his paranoia way too far and never matured into a peacetime CEO. But every time a HN user takes an Uber, Lyft, Via, Grab, Ola etc etc you can thank Travis for his ruthlessness in fighting some of the most powerfully entrenched politicians (DeBlasio of…

That's not entirely true. Lyft paved the way for UberX.
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