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The Fall of Travis Kalanick

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Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#61

Post by misun78 »

panarky wrote: post #32
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I do the same -- except for Google and Apple , employees, and also anywhere else. Guilt by association is just you being naive.

> Guilt by association is just you being naive. You might be right. But there are many people making hiring decisions who are just as naive as I am, so the Uber brand doesn't help.

You are both anecdotally and factually incorrect. Go on LinkedIn and set past company to Uber. Most engineers (and nearly 100% I personally know) are either at Netflix, Facebook or Google. These companies in fact set targeted recruitment tactics in 2017 for Uber employees. I got emails from every company imaginable when the Susan Fowler report came out.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#62

Post by dylan604 »

matte_black wrote: post #23
dawhizkid wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking for myself, I worked at Uber in 2015/2016 and did not wear Uber swag in public because I was afraid of awkward encounters with Uber drivers, which happened on several occasions sitting in the car when it somehow became known I was an Uber employee.

Don't companies usually hand out t-shirt swag with their company names on it? Most of the time that I see someone with a company logo on their shirt I do not readily assume they work at that company.

I've been at a couple of companies where a large number of employees wore company branded items. I was flabbergasted to learn that the clothing items were not swag but purchased items. Of the 2 companies, one had world wide name recognition, but the second definitely did not.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#63

Post by mLuby »

fpoijasw wrote: post #37
mLuby wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does to me. Specifically, it says the person either tolerates or contributes to what is widely regarded as one of the most toxic work cultures in software; same goes for Amazon. Up to me to determine whether they're the former or latter. Granted, when they joined and when they left and why makes some difference, but it's still not a great starting place for a candidate.

Disclaimer: I work at Uber. Wow tell me what company you're recruiting for. I'll make sure to never apply there. This is really priveleged thinking, I've worked for Google, Amazon, and Uber, and two start ups. Let me tell you the engineering culture aren't all that different across all orgs I've worked at. It's really simplistic and naive of you to take what you hear on the media as truth. It's only "widely regarded"…

Hey, look, it's okay. You're most likely a good person. You're getting paid well, working on a world-changing thing, and have lots of smart people around you. Don't let one Internet comment ruffle your feathers too much. :)

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#64

Post by harryh »

misun78 wrote: post #54
harryh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is an unprofitable, non-public company with incredibly fierce competition that is expected to face enormous changes do to technological developments. Why in the world would you think it needs a peacetime CEO?

Peacetime doesn’t necessarily mean not being competitive. Uber is at a stage where it doesn’t need to bend the rules anymore. Read up on how Dara handled the Brazil legislation for example. Rather than fighting any regulation as TK may have, he effectively worked with the government to legalize and legitimize Uber. I expect him to do the same in London.

Your definition of peacetime/wartime does not conform to industry norms.

Peacetime in business means those times when a company has a large advantage vs. the competition in its core market, and its market is growing. In times of peace, the company can focus on expanding the market and reinforcing the company’s strengths.

In wartime, a company is fending off an imminent existential threat. Such a threat can come from a wide range of sources including competition, dramatic macro economic change, market change, supply chain change, and so forth. The great wartime CEO Andy Grove marvelously describes the forces that can take a company from peacetime to wartime in his book Only The Paranoid Survive.

https://a16z.com/2011/04/14/peacetime-ceowartime-ceo-2/

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#65

Post by adventured »

platz wrote: post #40

"Silicon Valley innovation now is directly aimed at oppressing the underclass, and everybody knows it and can see it. They hate Uber. People hate Uber. It means the death of the era of good feelings that came with this constant Moore's Law style innovation. And that was an unforced error, by Silicon Valley. It was in their DNA. They didn't have to give Travis Kalanick, a guy they despised and never trusted, for good…

Uber massively empowered the underclass by destroying the taxi cartels. Lyft exists because of Uber. Even if one argues that Uber deserves to be punished for its various sins, the revolution they helped spark will improve transportation over time. Just demolishing the medallion racket alone is a vast improvement for the underclass, of which pretty much all taxi drivers belonged. Pre-Uber, Taxi drivers were more like indentured workers, with between little and zero hope of ever owning or controlling anything. Medallion prices in New York City reached $1+ million before Uber tanked the scheme.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#66

Post by adventured »

tootie wrote: post #39
uberemployee wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who is miserable has already left in 2017. Many long time employees are waiting for SoftBank deal to close before leaving which makes sense. They deserve to be enriched for their hard work. But they are only a couple of hundred employees at most. We have 15,000+ employees and 3,000 engineers. I’m extremely proud of the work I’ve done at Uber. I have no worries about finding my next job. I have a laundry list o…

3000 engineers seems like a ludicrous number for a taxi company. I'd expect the new CEO to start shrinking to focus on core business.

Uber is marching toward $10 billion in annual sales. That's the size of Salesforce.com, which has 25,000 full-time employees.

3,000 engineers is not particularly out of line. It's certainly not ludicrous. It's a very large, global business, that is likely to get a lot bigger yet.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#67

Post by mrgordon »

Anderkent wrote: post #52
platz wrote: post #40

"Silicon Valley innovation now is directly aimed at oppressing the underclass, and everybody knows it and can see it. They hate Uber. People hate Uber. It means the death of the era of good feelings that came with this constant Moore's Law style innovation. And that was an unforced error, by Silicon Valley. It was in their DNA. They didn't have to give Travis Kalanick, a guy they despised and never trusted, for good…

How does Uber 'oppress the underclass'? Puhlease.

In the medium term, they get public transit systems shut down or reduced in service by pricing fares artificially low for a period of time. This enables them to then exercise monopoly pricing power on the market (or oligopoly with Lyft or whatever local competitor) and ultimately harms the lower classes.

Thus the $5 splurge for an Uber instead of the $2 bus hypothetically becomes the $10 Uber with no alternative short of driving yourself.

I'm not super convinced by this argument but it is a reasonable argument. Especially given that Uber wields billions in venture capital specifically to systematically underprice both regular taxis and public transit options.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#68

Post by lhorie »

decacorn wrote: post #43
zwily wrote: post #2

If you’ve followed the Kalanick story till now, there’s nothing new in this article. However, it’s interesting to see it all put together. Anyone know what it’s like inside Uber today?

For all the uber employees on here reading and defending their stake in the company, the company culture is absolute garbage, it's truly crap. I was interviewed in 2017 and treated like shit, and by that I mean the worst professional experience in my life. I work at a reputable tech company with very reputable people, and I have never experienced the kind of devious, malicious behavior EVER. I can't wait to out the n…

> the company culture

Honest question. How do you know it's a company-wide culture issue if you haven't worked there? In my experience, teams at Uber are pretty insular with only occasional interactions outside their groups.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#69

Post by rhizome »

uberemployee wrote: post #25
heymijo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you had any experience with Frances Frei? She seems to be a unique talent who seems genuine from her interviews. I'm curious how she is viewed within Uber and what impact she may be having.

FF is great. She is leading online courses for all Uber employees about business strategy and culture from real Harvard professors. It’s very educational for everyone. It’s a very unique opportunity for us because she is an expert on what makes companies great. Not just culturally but business strategy too. Having her as a key member of the team is an advantage that t companies don’t have because whereas other people…

She is leading online courses for all Uber employees about business strategy and culture from real Harvard professors

Harvard only?

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#70

Post by platz »

api wrote: post #56
platz wrote: post #40

"Silicon Valley innovation now is directly aimed at oppressing the underclass, and everybody knows it and can see it. They hate Uber. People hate Uber. It means the death of the era of good feelings that came with this constant Moore's Law style innovation. And that was an unforced error, by Silicon Valley. It was in their DNA. They didn't have to give Travis Kalanick, a guy they despised and never trusted, for good…

VC-driven Silicon Valley innovation is directly aimed at making money. The fact that money making overlaps significantly with oppressing the underclass is not the fault of Silicon Valley, though SV isn't doing anything to help. It's a side effect of the fact that we are in an extremely demand constrained economy. Demand constrained economy is a fancy pants way of saying "everyone is broke so they can't buy anything s…

Quite right. Both can be true - it's not either-or.

I encourage you to watch the talk, if you're willing to stomach his gen-x sensibility. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2O_fxmrP_Q

.

> that means entrepreneurs can't make money selling things to people unless they're luxury goods

"[Moore's law] is ending. It hasn't quite ended yet, but in ten years it'll be obvious that it's over.

Apple is selling jewelry. That's what they sell.

And there is no singularity of California. There is.. I mean Intel could not make it pay. I mean I saw them struggle to keep Moore's law alive.. they were heroes about it - it didn't work."

.

> The ultimate blame for this situation goes to Washington for pushing supply side economics in a demand constrained economy

"The mausoleum for Moore's law. They couldn't make it pay under the Washington Consensus, and their version of global neo-liberalism. They just couldn't make it pay.

So now Silicon Valley is becoming Detroit, because that's the logic of American industrial development. Tech has lost its charmed life. Even the Apple AppStore has died.

It's quite like the space race after the American moon landing, or it's quite like the end of a Californian Gold Rush. This is California's DNA, and time passes for everyone, and consequences always arise.

Stuff that seems revolutionary and disruptive in 2017 is mostly frills for rich people."

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