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As Uber Prepares to Go Public, Its Lead Lawyer Races to Clean It Up

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11–20 of 78 posts

Re: As Uber Prepares to Go Public, Its Lead Lawyer Races to Clean It Up

#11
post #6
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've already done some pretty shady stuff. This is a case where going public might actually work the other direction.

Going public, they can get better at respecting local laws and regulations, and still sacrifice their customers (and of course employees) at the altar of their shareholders. (At least that is what I read the Op is saying).

Uber already has a pretty strong track record of doing poorly by its emplo-- er, sorry, "independent contractors."

Re: As Uber Prepares to Go Public, Its Lead Lawyer Races to Clean It Up

#12
post #10
post #2

I have this pet theory that every company that becomes publicly traded on financial markets becomes "evil" because the focus is taken away from customers, and towards keeping shareholders happy. Let's hope I'm not proved wrong, again.

How is that “evil”? Isn’t that the crystallization of the teleological purpose of a company? The ideal company works to maximize shareholder value. And not just short-term value, but the amortized value of the company in perpuitity. This in turn maximizes employee value and customer value. Let’s take a company that has great products and gives away everything for free. In the short-term, this might look like maximizi…

One criticism, from a philosophical angle, would be that you have foundered on the is-ought problem.

Re: As Uber Prepares to Go Public, Its Lead Lawyer Races to Clean It Up

#13
Uber has among the worst customer support policies I have seen - but alas they are a monopoly and there's no end in sight. I think they should be regulated.

Recently, I raised an issue when I got billed twice for the same ride. In India, they have no phone support, just email. Instead of checking transactions on their end, they wrote back to me asking me to submit my bank statement so that they can verify. I was quite surprised that customer support could just ask for people's bank statements.

Re: As Uber Prepares to Go Public, Its Lead Lawyer Races to Clean It Up

#14
post #2

I have this pet theory that every company that becomes publicly traded on financial markets becomes "evil" because the focus is taken away from customers, and towards keeping shareholders happy. Let's hope I'm not proved wrong, again.

Is keeping shareholders happy so much worse than keeping venture capitalists happy?

Re: As Uber Prepares to Go Public, Its Lead Lawyer Races to Clean It Up

#15
post #10
post #2

I have this pet theory that every company that becomes publicly traded on financial markets becomes "evil" because the focus is taken away from customers, and towards keeping shareholders happy. Let's hope I'm not proved wrong, again.

How is that “evil”? Isn’t that the crystallization of the teleological purpose of a company? The ideal company works to maximize shareholder value. And not just short-term value, but the amortized value of the company in perpuitity. This in turn maximizes employee value and customer value. Let’s take a company that has great products and gives away everything for free. In the short-term, this might look like maximizi…

The government (or sufficiently powerful corporations, which effectively take on some aspects of public governance) sets up the framework that the market operates in. Corporations operate in a society which may break down if sufficient pressure is applied to people (e.g. employees, customers).

Down vote baiting is discouraged by the site guidelines.

Re: As Uber Prepares to Go Public, Its Lead Lawyer Races to Clean It Up

#16
post #4

They still hire bad drivers.

I do wonder in the new age of increasingly automated employer-contractor relations, if “hire” is the right word.

I think from a tax and accounting perspective, “hire” is probably the appropriate term.

Re: As Uber Prepares to Go Public, Its Lead Lawyer Races to Clean It Up

#17
post #2

I have this pet theory that every company that becomes publicly traded on financial markets becomes "evil" because the focus is taken away from customers, and towards keeping shareholders happy. Let's hope I'm not proved wrong, again.

Precisely because Uber's trajectory is unswervingly evil, they will eventually arrive at good upon traversing the universe's hypertorus.

Re: As Uber Prepares to Go Public, Its Lead Lawyer Races to Clean It Up

#18
post #13

Uber has among the worst customer support policies I have seen - but alas they are a monopoly and there's no end in sight. I think they should be regulated. Recently, I raised an issue when I got billed twice for the same ride. In India, they have no phone support, just email. Instead of checking transactions on their end, they wrote back to me asking me to submit my bank statement so that they can verify. I was quit…

> they are a monopoly

In India, don't you have Ola?

Re: As Uber Prepares to Go Public, Its Lead Lawyer Races to Clean It Up

#19
post #10
post #2

I have this pet theory that every company that becomes publicly traded on financial markets becomes "evil" because the focus is taken away from customers, and towards keeping shareholders happy. Let's hope I'm not proved wrong, again.

How is that “evil”? Isn’t that the crystallization of the teleological purpose of a company? The ideal company works to maximize shareholder value. And not just short-term value, but the amortized value of the company in perpuitity. This in turn maximizes employee value and customer value. Let’s take a company that has great products and gives away everything for free. In the short-term, this might look like maximizi…

There are many places where we know that a free market doesn’t properly function. Specifically, there are certain types of goods that end up priced wrong: those with externalities (positive or negative). So if all a company cares about is maximizing shareholder value over time they are drawn away from products with positive externalities (like a public park) towards those with negative externalities (like cars that pollute)

Note: I use these two examples because they are classic cases of positive and negative externalities but they are so well known that the government has already stepped to make public parks and tax or regulate of the externalities related to the pollution from cars.

Re: As Uber Prepares to Go Public, Its Lead Lawyer Races to Clean It Up

#20
post #13

Uber has among the worst customer support policies I have seen - but alas they are a monopoly and there's no end in sight. I think they should be regulated. Recently, I raised an issue when I got billed twice for the same ride. In India, they have no phone support, just email. Instead of checking transactions on their end, they wrote back to me asking me to submit my bank statement so that they can verify. I was quit…

At the very beginning of Uber it was the inverse, their customer service was top notch. I would reply to a receipt saying the driver took a longer route for instance and they would reimburse me. Now their customer service is basically inexistent.
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