Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Fall of Travis Kalanick

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 159 posts

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#81

Post by dan678 »

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…

I interviewed at the Pittsburgh office early 2017, and it was a great experience. Granted, I did not get the job, but I feel like the technical portion was fair and not an unpleasant experience.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#82

Post by TeMPOraL »

adventured wrote: post #65
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…

Depends on where, really. Some places had real taxi mafias, other had taxi market that got stuck in the 80s, yet others had well-functioning taxi services.

But "destroying the taxi cartels" wasn't a good thing, because it replaced an imaginary taxi mafia (that supposedly spanned cities) with a single taxi mafioso that's a global corporation. Uber tried to paint itself as an underdog fighting the establishment, but the truth is that in this battle, it's Uber who was the only large player. That's how they won, too - they could strategically allocate funds to beat taxi networks on a city-by-city basis.

I'm not going to defend all taxis. I happen to live in a place with nice cabs, but I've heard plenty of horror stories from elsewhere. But - ironically, as I warned years ago, back before Uber was a frequent guest of newspaper headlines, but right about time when their rotten-to-the-core culture became visible in their dishonest and unethical behavior - this is a story of unleashing a monster. We should have slain it long time ago, before it got the chance to grow. Alas, here we are.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#83

Post by matte_black »

dylan604 wrote: post #62
matte_black wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which companies?

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#84

Post by stcredzero »

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…

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.

This has been coming down the pike since at least 2012, in days when Sidecar was still a big deal. One good practice all the world religions and philosophies worth a damn tell us: Keep checking your level of smug. Put a dipstick into your smug-sump and read off the level, because it is directly correlated with your douchebag index!

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#85

Post by matte_black »

mieseratte wrote: post #44
matte_black wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 would never assume someone walking around with a North Face t-shirt works for North Face but tech companies are obscure, especially outside of the big tech cities. If I see someone wearing a t-shirt for a tech company in my city, they more likely than not work for that company. If I saw someone with an Uber shirt I would assume they work for them, and probably as corporate. I can't say I've ever seen a driver weari…

I collect company shirts, often from companies or apps I like. Occasionally I wear them, especially if they just had a good earnings report.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#86

Post by TeMPOraL »

Larrikin wrote: post #55
mieseratte wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never assume someone walking around with a North Face t-shirt works for North Face but tech companies are obscure, especially outside of the big tech cities. If I see someone wearing a t-shirt for a tech company in my city, they more likely than not work for that company. If I saw someone with an Uber shirt I would assume they work for them, and probably as corporate. I can't say I've ever seen a driver weari…

As a receiver of a lot of SWAG, all of those company shirts become pajamas until the day they go into the H&M donation bag. I can't imagine any situation outside of working for that company where I would want to walk around advertising for them on an uninspired shirt with their logo plastered on it. I've gotten one single shirt from a hackathon I considered wearing based on their well designed logo, but the entire ba…

I can imagine one - I would gladly wear SpaceX swag everywhere I go. Hell, I'd wear a SpaceX-themed tie.

Beyond that, I prefer to order t-shirts with my own design; $random-company swag frequently ends up as home/nightwear for either me or my SO.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#87

Post by stcredzero »

platz wrote: post #70
api wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

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.

Do you happen to know that California is still dealing with the environmental effects of the gold rush?

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#88

Post by uberemployee »

raiyu wrote: post #72
adventured wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes but I believe that figure is revenue before paying their drivers, so it would be 30% of that, or $3B. Still nothing to scoff at.

The articles I’ve read state that $10B is Uber’s revenue not gross bookings.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#89

Post by stcredzero »

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…

I was interviewed in 2017 and treated like shit, and by that I mean the worst professional experience in my life.

Something is up with SF Bay Area corporate culture. There are many taboos -- things you just don't do -- which I only saw broken in my career once I arrived in the Bay Area.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#90

Post by stcredzero »

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"…

It's really simplistic and naive of you to take what you hear on the media as truth. It's only "widely regarded" because Uber is under heavy scrutiny, because of the industry we operate in.

Right. It's not as if journalism has been a paragon of ethics and civic mindedness of late.

Post reply on HN