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Uber Lays Off 400

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber Lays Off 400

#191

Post by buckminster »

spectramax wrote: post #163
UberIsAnnoying wrote: post #161

I hope it included the people responsible for sending me the most abusive SPAM campaigns I have had in years. 1) I never subscribed to these e-mails 2) The e-mails contain a link to unsubscribe in this format: click.uber.com/f/a/ 3) You get redirected to uber.com/unsubscribe 4) They make you manually fill your e-mail 5) When you press unsubscribe: - It makes a request to uber.com/api/unsubscribe?email= &et_job_id=&et…

I am no lawyer but pretty sure this violates: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003

Sure it does, but ignoring regulations is Uber's schtick. Using their services is the moral equivalent of buying stolen goods.

Re: Uber Lays Off 400

#192

Post by rightbyte »

grecy wrote: post #147
codingdave wrote: post #18

> The marketing team had more than 1,200... I fully admit that I'm not in marketing, so there are surely nuances I don't know. But that scale of marketing department is orders of magnitude above any other place I have worked, with the possible exception of IBM in the 90s. Just maybe... this was a reasonable move.

Marketing runs the world now, because we've reached a point where companies really, really have to convince people to spend their money on whatever useless product is being pushed. Ever notice there isn't marketing for potatoes, bread, rice, etc. ? People buy those things anyway. The latest smartphone? gotta convince everyone to buy it. At my last company engineering spent $10m installing fiber into some remote commu…

15 million? How can local ads for a fiber network be so expensive? Just pay a bunch of kids to hand out flyers. Fiber is usually something people want.

If your numbers are correct it sounds like some kickback scam.

Re: Uber Lays Off 400

#193

Post by kaikai »

muzani wrote: post #187

I had an impression that they hired lots of people at very high salaries to build fast and establish a presence all over the world. Now that they have something nice built and are all over the world, it's a great time to cut costs. A lot of the people they've hired probably have some equity and so they're probably just fine getting laid off after the IPO.

Not if they're still in the lockup and can't sell off stock in order to cover the taxes from exercising.

Re: Uber Lays Off 400

#194

Post by pessimizer »

muro wrote: post #104
mr_crankypants wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't think of a single large software company that doesn't regularly draw internet comments of the form “What do all the employees do?" I also can't think of a single large software company that doesn't, in the long run, survive by either endlessly buying and extracting all the value out of smaller software companies, or creating a moat that makes it almost impossible for new competitors to emerge. Having worked…

I don't think large companies just "extract value" from the small ones. They prove that the small company had a great idea and make the idea successful by providing sales, marketing and support that the small.company wouldn't be able to provide (if for no other reason than reduced risk and existing customer relations).

Or killing that small company to protect one of their own products.

Re: Uber Lays Off 400

#195

Post by pessimizer »

grecy wrote: post #147
codingdave wrote: post #18

> The marketing team had more than 1,200... I fully admit that I'm not in marketing, so there are surely nuances I don't know. But that scale of marketing department is orders of magnitude above any other place I have worked, with the possible exception of IBM in the 90s. Just maybe... this was a reasonable move.

Marketing runs the world now, because we've reached a point where companies really, really have to convince people to spend their money on whatever useless product is being pushed. Ever notice there isn't marketing for potatoes, bread, rice, etc. ? People buy those things anyway. The latest smartphone? gotta convince everyone to buy it. At my last company engineering spent $10m installing fiber into some remote commu…

Quoted film budgets are usually about half the actual budget as a rule of thumb, because they don't mention the half spent on marketing.

That's why films are often known as flops even when they make their "budgets" back. You're not in the money until you double the budget.

edit: Also, considering the vast majority of that marketing money is spent before the film comes out these days, and all the sales are made within a month - as much is spent on convincing people that a film that nobody has seen is going to be good as is spent on the film.

Re: Uber Lays Off 400

#196

Post by Cacti »

aresant wrote: post #6

From a non-paywalled source (1): 1) These cuts appear to be exclusively in the marketing department taking department from 1,200 to 800 - that is a BIG ASS cut of 33% [EDIT from 25%]. 2) Seems like this was a warning shot by CEO Khosrowshahi who comments "[M] any of our teams are too big, which creates overlapping work, makes for unclear decision owners, and can lead to mediocre results." - I'd be doing my best work…

25,000FTE does not include their drivers, right?

Re: Uber Lays Off 400

#197

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

yawgmoth wrote: post #81
dymk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Marketing Manager > Average: $67,935 And that's for a manager. 40k may be a little low, perhaps they're making 50 or 55, but it's not unreasonable for a normal marketing job.

Marketing manager is often an individual contributor role. "I am managing our content." "I am managing our product marketing material."

In the context of other roles, one would likely not assume this. For example, considering Engineering Manager. "I am managing our engineering." Could mean you're coding, but usually it means a team of coders.

Re: Uber Lays Off 400

#198

Post by QuixoticQuibit »

themagician wrote: post #183
codingdave wrote: post #18

> The marketing team had more than 1,200... I fully admit that I'm not in marketing, so there are surely nuances I don't know. But that scale of marketing department is orders of magnitude above any other place I have worked, with the possible exception of IBM in the 90s. Just maybe... this was a reasonable move.

Marketing is all they are. The driver aren't employees. The cars in the fleet aren't their assets. The insurance is handled by someone else and there is no licensing. Uber, itself, is just an app with a giant marketing department. The app itself isn't even that different than it was in 2011. 99% of the functionality that people actually use is exactly the same as it was when they started.

Doesn’t Uber also lease cars to drivers? I was surprised to see in the Bay Area that so many drivers had fairly new cars. I asked one about it and he said that Uber leased it out. Presumably a portion of the driver’s income goes directly towards the car.

Re: Uber Lays Off 400

#199

Post by sprafa »

AJ007 wrote: post #181
resters wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not a shareholder, but I think market share is the short term goal. The incentives can be phased out as prices increase a bit after competition cools off.

The big question is driver retention and how much Uber subsidizing drivers is required. Maybe Uber spends 0 extra, drivers drop out of the system, ride prices increase, and drivers return as riders stop using Uber, bringing it to some sort of equilibrium. Maybe not. These retention numbers, for any business that needs returning customers or service providers pretty much make or break all the customer/provider acquisi…

In London Uber is unravelling already. Here Citymapper is the default transit app and Uber is just one of the options listed. The transfer cost for a customer changing app is 0. We keep saying we’re “not sure” whether Uber will have customer retention... no, of course it won’t! Unless they change their model, they’re the biggest VC folly in recent times. Just proves how overheated the market become when F/A/G acquired everything in the market that competes with them, leaving ridiculous Vc money to flow to dumb ideas like Uber.
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