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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

#141

Post by Fricken »

forapurpose wrote: post #119
logicchains wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who voted for Kalanick? What gave him the right? You could say people voted with their wallets.

> You could say people voted with their wallets. You could say it, but that's not how democracy or legitimate government and lawmaking works. And in Uber's case, the wallets voting are a few investors who subsidized the customers.

What makes a government legit? People support it.

What makes Uber legit? People support it.

Although I guess a government doesn't need the support of the people to maintain legitimacy, it just needs to be able to maintain a monopoly on violence. And if Uber had a monopoly on the taxi industry maybe it wouldn't need the people's support either.

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

#142

Post by msmith10101 »

sushid wrote: post #133
msmith10101 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two points: 1. You write as if Uber has solved the transportation problem sustainably. The end state of an Uber job is that it will pay less than minimum wage. Why? Because the barrier to entry is the same as most minimum wage jobs (assuming you have a car made in the last 10 years) and it is more desirable than minimum wage jobs (flexible hours, no boss). The pay may look better on paper, but when all the hidden cos…

Wow, you do realize that you can mention the Uber rape case without trying to make it so personal to the OP, right? he's not defending him in that regard at all. All he's saying is that he brought about the concept of ride sharing (debatable since there was, for instance, Sidecar before the advent of UberX) to the public and that he understands the pain of being ousted by your own company.

The saddest thing about Travis Kalanick's story is that he was ousted because his greedy investors were afraid they wouldn't see a 20x return on their investment, and not because of the ponzi-scheme fundamentals or ethical compromises that appear in tech rags every week. He was ousted by Benchmark, not by law enforcement. He's walking away with over a billion, rather than a go-to-jail card.

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

#143

Post by Fricken »

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…

How does he deserves every cent of 1.4 billion dollars? He didn't do $1.4 billion worth of labour. His drivers, carmakers, road builders, telecom providers, smartphone makers and software engineers did $1.4 billion worth of labour. Kalanick found himself in a position where he could extract $1.4 billion worth of rent. He's just one fucking guy. It took a solid chunk of western civilization to make Uber possible. It was literally millions of years in the making.

If you wish to make an apple pie from search, you must first invent the universe.

https://youtu.be/7s664NsLeFM

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

#144

Post by msmith10101 »

isoskeles wrote: post #139
forapurpose wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I can understand people arguing for the rule of law. Yes, we have laws, and they should be followed. Breaking them carries the risk of punishment. What I can't understand is the moral grandstanding, e.g. "What gave him the right?" Are taxicab medallions worth it? I never take it seriously when someone starts talking like this about the marriage between taxis and local governments, like it was some holy industry that…

What, exactly, has been fixed? What leads you to believe that the supply of Uber driver's will exceed zero once Uber can no longer lose over a billion dollars a quarter in subsidizing trips to pay these drivers more than minimum wage? Uber spun up self driving cars because it realized that it does not have a product or a business model.

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

#145

Post by kamaal »

forapurpose wrote: post #119
logicchains wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who voted for Kalanick? What gave him the right? You could say people voted with their wallets.

> You could say people voted with their wallets. You could say it, but that's not how democracy or legitimate government and lawmaking works. And in Uber's case, the wallets voting are a few investors who subsidized the customers.

For better or worse, thats how it should work. Failure of centrally planned economies all across the globe says something.

Markets don't have elections and most politicians/bureaucrats don't exactly have the competency to decide what should be good for everyone. Letting people vote with their wallets has largely worked.

Of course no system is perfect, but this is as fair as it gets.

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

#146

Post by kamaal »

msmith10101 wrote: post #144
isoskeles wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand people arguing for the rule of law. Yes, we have laws, and they should be followed. Breaking them carries the risk of punishment. What I can't understand is the moral grandstanding, e.g. "What gave him the right?" Are taxicab medallions worth it? I never take it seriously when someone starts talking like this about the marriage between taxis and local governments, like it was some holy industry that…

What, exactly, has been fixed? What leads you to believe that the supply of Uber driver's will exceed zero once Uber can no longer lose over a billion dollars a quarter in subsidizing trips to pay these drivers more than minimum wage? Uber spun up self driving cars because it realized that it does not have a product or a business model.

Well again, people will vote with their wallets.

Which ever way it goes, its fine and fair.

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

#147

Post by kamaal »

craigching wrote: post #94
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 somet…

>>How about we improve public transport?

That sort of costs money, hence taxes. Which no one can agree upon, as everyone has their own list of what's important for them.

>>Why does someone have to profit for something that you agree is a “pain?”

Because people have to get paid, infrastructure and operations have to be expanded and world needs to run.

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

#148

Post by user5994461 »

forapurpose wrote: post #91
misun78 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AirBnb didn't disrupt anything. people have been subletting their flat since the dawn of time.

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

#149

Post by user5994461 »

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…

There weren't smartphones with GPS and 3G 10 years ago. Uber couldn't work.

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

#150

Post by crdoconnor »

krrrh wrote: post #134
NotSammyHagar wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Who voted for Kalanick? What gave him the right? >You could say people voted with their wallets. Money should never overwhelm the will of the people. I say this even though I hated the way taxis used to work, with the artificial limitation, and I love a chance to take a much more convenient app based ride, I really despise how they got away with violating at least any standard of reasonable behavior, but also they…

Everything you say is true, but the vested rent-seeking interests of the medallion holders that for years caused untold costs to people who needed transportation, and to the economy as a whole, was also despicable. Money was already overwhelming the will of everyone who couldn’t get a cab, who had to buy a car they didn’t want to own, and who had to put up with a higher percentage of drunk drivers. Just because it wa…

I think Goldman Sachs took an Uber stake around the time it dumped it's medallions.

So the identity of the rent seekers at the top hasn't even changed. But you use an app now... so, yay?

I think anybody who takes a rent seekers' side over even the most despicable politician doesn't deserve to live in a Democracy.

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