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The Fall of Travis Kalanick

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Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#91

What's it like to show up to work at Uber? Do people just sit there miserably while they constantly remind themselves that a "big payday" is on the way like some kind of perverse mantra? What if the pay day never comes? How will it look when your resume says you stayed at Uber well after everything has been revealed?

If your question is sincere, it's nothing too different from going to work to any other company, especially with Dara getting to act like the good cop. Source: know quite a few Uber employees.

Well, that is the thing right?

People historically went to work in any number of unethical organisations, including industrialised mass murder, human experiments, knowingly poisoning or defrauding people..the list is endless, and it was just any other job to them.

The structure of an organisation means nobody feels individual ethical responsibility, they are just doing their job after all.

In fact, I would say most corporate employees feel like that about the large anonymous bureaucracies they work in, but there is still a good number of people for whom this is unacceptable, the type that ends up saying no to hush money, the type that whisteb-lowers, the type that ends up being shot for part of a resistance against a dictatorship, and so on.

People again and again do this even though it often has terrible consequences for their personal fate, and I think this is the exact same kind of person who does not want to hire or work with the other type, the one that just does their job.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 shor…

I haven't seen this actually happen, though. In Denver, at least, RTD has been expanding routes and light rail service (albeit slowly, but that is most definitely NOT Uber's fault), even as Uber, Lyft, etc. have become more popular.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#93
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

this situation involved several people. possibly an entire team.

I also believe I was the target of an information-hunting initiative within uber, which was revealed publicly last year. I believe I was only interviewed to gain as much information about the company i was working for at the time. The recruiter was not listed on any uber database, and may not have even been officially a recruiting lead. after several probing questions about the company i was working for at the time, it became pretty clear the atg group had more of an interest in gaining info on the company rather than hiring me. extremely unprofessional. but that wasnt even the worse part.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> 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.

This is simply bullshit, through and through. Uber, at best, is just a middleman that provides billing services. Those performing the service are local corporations that are free to pick whichever billing service they want. In fact, after Uber started to cover my region the local cab companies were quick to setup a competing service. With them, other multinational ridesharing services started covering my region as well. In two occasions I took a ride whose driver stated he also worked through two Uber competitors.

This is a huge improvement over the old cartel system.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#95
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Salesforce is a software company. Uber is a taxi company. I understand why they have thousands of taxi drivers.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 shor…

> In the medium term, they get public transit systems shut down

This sounds like grade-A bullshit. At best rideshare services reduce the use of personal cars and compete with taxi services, but they can't or won't compete with mass transit.

Moreover the upper or even middle class aren't exactly the target market of public transportation services. If anyone was switching from public transportation to rideshare services, that would be the class you assert is being oppressed, which makes absolurely no sense.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#97
post #70
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…

[deleted]

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> 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. This is simply bullshit, through and through. Uber, at best, is just a middleman that provides billing services. Those performing the service are local corporations that are free to pick whichever billing service they want. In fac…

> Uber, at best, is just a middleman that provides billing services.

That's the bullshit they try to sell to the taxmen. It isn't how it works in reality, though.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#99
post #24
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its good to know you judge people by where they come from and not what they can do / have done.

Seems entirety reasonable to judge on both. A persons impact on your company is not just what they can do but also how they behave.

The OP was being sarcastic

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#100
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

this situation involved several people. possibly an entire team. I also believe I was the target of an information-hunting initiative within uber, which was revealed publicly last year. I believe I was only interviewed to gain as much information about the company i was working for at the time. The recruiter was not listed on any uber database, and may not have even been officially a recruiting lead. after several pr…

Wow, that's appalling. I'm really sorry to hear that. I know there's a competitive intelligence group somewhere in Uber, and given the ultimatum email specifically targeted at that group that I mentioned in my other comment, I guess it doesn't come as a complete surprise.

I do have a copy of an email about the newest policy governing competitive intelligence gathering from Salle Yoo (head of legal) from late august 2017. Skimming through it, what you described would be in blatant violation of probably half of the document. Not to mention that it flies in the face of basic human decency.

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