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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

#91

Post by forapurpose »

misun78 wrote: post #74
adjkant wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As an Uber employee who has seen the company fight one battle over another for the last 4 years, he absolutely deserves most of the credit (and conversely all the blame from the fallouts). Uber formulated the following approach to get ridesharing in the hands of everyone: 1. Operate in legal grey areas to get a product infront of consumers. Build a large enough network of riders and drivers to prove the product marke…

Many businesses have 'disrupted' industries, and almost all without behaving like Uber and Kalanick. Airbnb is a simple example.

Your description left out buying off politicians and breaking the law.

> taxi cartels

The picture of taxi owners as powerful doesn't at all match what I know. It's a shibboleth promoted by Uber.

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

#92

Post by LarryDarrell »

forapurpose wrote: post #87
volgo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. People sit comfortably in their morals while enjoy the huge benefits brought about by Uber. Things are comfortable because people like Travis were willing to take the blame on the wrong side of history and forge ahead anyways. We all sit comfortably in the Bay Area because our ancestors murdered and stole lands from Native Americans. They also build an entire ecosystem that gained wealth from exploiting…

I've heard people justify war crimes this craven way, saying the survival of their nation was at stake, and those people usually and rightfully go to jail. I've never heard fraudulent business practices that someone cashed in on justified this way.

Capitalism blood-lust.

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

#93

Post by forapurpose »

remarkEon wrote: post #85
ivanbakel wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We can debate about Uber's business practices until the cows come home, but this is undeniable. This is really strangely dismissive. Does the "paradigm shift" justify any and all of Uber's unethical actions? If so, why do you think breaking the law and harassing rape victims is either acceptable or laudable? If not, why bring it up, unless you're perpetuating some kind of entrepeneur business-worship over basic mora…

Steve Jobs was, on balance, likely a horrible person and needlessly cruel. I’m still very happy he did what he did. These people are human, and are not without sin. Entrepreneur worship is weird, I agree, however I wouldn’t dismiss the additive things otherwise miserable people did for society.

Jobs is a great point, for the other argument. Jobs didn't break the law, but he disrupted multiple industries from computers to phones to music to retail.

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

#94

Post by craigching »

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.…

> 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.

How about we improve public transport? I know it’s unpopular to propose “socialist” ideas, but public transport works elsewhere in the world, why does it have to be so horrible here? Why does someone have to profit for something that you agree is a “pain?”

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

#95

Post by santoriv »

volgo wrote: post #76
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.…

Exactly this. People sit comfortably in their morals while enjoy the huge benefits brought about by Uber. Things are comfortable because people like Travis were willing to take the blame on the wrong side of history and forge ahead anyways. We all sit comfortably in the Bay Area because our ancestors murdered and stole lands from Native Americans. They also build an entire ecosystem that gained wealth from exploiting…

Wait what?

Murdering people and stealing land turned out great for the murderer's ancestors so it's all ok? Not from the point of view of those who were murdered.

Using that logic - if space aliens came and murdered all the technologically inferior humans and took Earth for themselves, it would be all ok. After all, they are building a more technologically advanced and superior society on Earth for their children.

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

#96

Post by remarkEon »

forapurpose wrote: post #93
remarkEon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs was, on balance, likely a horrible person and needlessly cruel. I’m still very happy he did what he did. These people are human, and are not without sin. Entrepreneur worship is weird, I agree, however I wouldn’t dismiss the additive things otherwise miserable people did for society.

Jobs is a great point, for the other argument. Jobs didn't break the law, but he disrupted multiple industries from computers to phones to music to retail.

You’re absolutely right. And Travis needs to be criticized for that (and he is). If the question, though, is about judging a company’s contribution to society based on how morally upstanding the founder is I think the point I’m trying to make still stands.

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

#97

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

jachee wrote: post #69
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know why Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple?

It wasn't allegations of sexual harassment and/or legally-questionable business practices.

> It wasn't allegations of sexual harassment

The "sexual harassment" claim was for an employee (or employees), it wasn't him who sexually harassed someone.

There is sexual harassment everywhere. Probably at your company too, it's just that people wanted to see Uber fail, and that's why he's become the sacred cow.

I'm not saying he did a great job dealing with these issues. I'm saying a lot of the things Uber was accused of was something that EVERY other company does. You just aren't aware of it.

And in this particular case, this was used as a weapon to bring down Uber. The narrative you're following is really just a result of politics and media manipulation by some parties which benefited from this result.

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

#98

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

CPLX wrote: post #61
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…

Did Uber change the world or did ubiquitous smartphones with GPS capability change the world? While it seems obvious that Uber may have hastened the process is it really arguable that people would still be using their phone to call taxi dispatchers in 2018? Seems to me he capably profited from a trend. Which is great. But did it unethically. Which is, obviously, not ethical. It's not clear the world really needs more…

Every great entrepreneur profited from a trend and an opportunity.

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

#99

Post by eanzenberg »

Balgair wrote: post #50
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,…

> correct whatever the bug in the function was. You mean the egregious sexual harassing and blatant attempts to obstruct justice? Or do you mean the ability of people on the HN forums to predict the future?

Who did Travis sexually harass?

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

#100

Post by logicchains »

forapurpose wrote: post #88
misun78 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's no evidence that the unethical behavior was necessary or even helped. > powerfully entrenched politicians (DeBlasio of NYC as an example) DeBlasio is entrenched because he was elected by a majority of his constituents. The people get to write the rules, called laws. Who voted for Kalanick? What gave him the right?

>Who voted for Kalanick? What gave him the right?

You could say people voted with their wallets.

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