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

nytimes.com

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

#21

Post by darawk »

dontreact wrote: post #19
mruts wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

> 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)

Sure, but that simply suggests that those externalities should be priced. Problem solved.

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

#23

Post by dontreact »

darawk wrote: post #21
dontreact wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

> 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…

The devil is in the details. Often it is very hard to price the negative or positive externalities. And sometimes companies are far and away in the best position to make an estimate of this.

For example, if you believe that Facebook played a large role in electing trump and that trump is bad how would you even begin to price such a thing. If those things were both true how could we ever find out.

Purely shareholder value is an overly narrow way of looking at the world or making decisions.

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

#25

Post by fancyfish »

jeswin wrote: 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…

Likewise, I gifted someone a $50 Uber gift card to their cell number. They never received it.

I filed a support request online and received no response. Apparently there is no phone support here either? This is in US.

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

#26

Post by biesnecker »

asafira wrote: post #22
marcrosoft wrote: post #7

The brand is already tarnished. I know many people that use lyft over Uber for this reason alone.

This might be the silicon valley bubble here though.

Totally. I use Lyft wherever I can but I can virtually always use Uber whereas Lyft is spotty.

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

#27

Post by repsilat »

bunderbunder wrote: post #12
mruts wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Ought" came up in two places:

> maximizes employee value and customer value

and

> the abundent and efficient markets of today

I suspect the GP believes it a little more strongly than I do, but I think their point is that we should consider outcomes (i.e. "plenty") rather than stated intentions ("maximum profit"), though their examples mostly illustrated the point in the other direction.

Criticising Uber for trying to maximise their profits could be construed as criticising them for delivering customer value. Bit of a stretch, though :-).

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

#28

Post by lettergram »

biesnecker wrote: post #26
asafira wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be the silicon valley bubble here though.

Totally. I use Lyft wherever I can but I can virtually always use Uber whereas Lyft is spotty.

Where do you go that doesn't have Lyft, but has Uber?

I travel regularly and it is very rare not to have Lyft available. Virtually any city with >250k has both from my experience, although that could just be where I travel, I don't know.

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

#29

Post by phowon »

mruts wrote: post #10
keyle wrote: 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 is no constraint that companies must maximize shareholder value. Companies can be set up for any number of reasons (including non-profit reasons).

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

#30

Post by FriedPickles »

jeswin wrote: 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…

In the US we have Lyft, so not quite a monopoly. Possibly an oligopoly though. I'm building an app that pits them against each other on price to promote a competitive transportation market. In some countries Uber does have a monopoly, or has been kicked out in favor of a different monopoly...
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