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Uber lays off 435 people

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Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#51

Post by repomies691 »

AgloeDreams wrote: post #38
dvt wrote: post #20

Uber was actively poaching from our team when I was at Edmunds.com a few years ago; hope my ex-teammates that jumped ship are doing alright. Uber is in a precarious position and I can't help but wonder what would be different if Travis Kalanick were still in charge. I know it might be an unpopular opinion, but I think his leadership and vision were really instrumental to Uber's early success.

I mean resistance to his ideals and methods are based on his relative carelessness towards anything but his and the company's goals. Incredible leader, amazing CEO with the raw ability to move mountains for the company's growth. Remarkably bad at human and helping humankind. If burning the Amazon rainforest helped Uber's goals he would have it torched in the most efficient and rapid method possible by morning light.…

> Remarkably bad at human and helping humankind.

I would say that the way how Uber aggressively expanded throughout the world has massively helped humankind. Because of Uber, many countries have changed their taxi laws, and many local competitors have sprouted up. More efficient taxi and ride-sharing services help save the environment and make cities nicer. Of course this is quite theoretical but I believe Uber was the needed company to push the mass transit development forward.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#52

Post by hendzen »

rubicon33 wrote: post #8

There's definitely a tightening of capital happening right now. Investors are pulling back as fear of recession grows. EDIT: Did I say I believe there's a recession coming? No. I said (accurately) that there are growing FEARS of one. There's definitely tightening of investments and capital happening.

Not really at the early stages from what I can tell. There is definitely a correction happening in late stage pre-IPO and recent-IPO companies. In part because everyone is realizing that SoftBank are actually the dumb guys in the room, when the prior common view was that they were the smart money. A lot of these crazy valuations (Uber, WeWork, Slack, etc) that are getting cut were set by them.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#54

Post by rubicon33 »

metalliqaz wrote: post #18
rubicon33 wrote: post #8

There's definitely a tightening of capital happening right now. Investors are pulling back as fear of recession grows. EDIT: Did I say I believe there's a recession coming? No. I said (accurately) that there are growing FEARS of one. There's definitely tightening of investments and capital happening.

Is Uber short of capital? I didn't see that in the article.

They run on investments (still haven't made a profit). If investors get shy (due to fear of recessions) then they have to cut back the pipe, and uber is forced to layoff.

435 people, especially engineers, is no small sum of money.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#55

Post by rubicon33 »

bduerst wrote: post #37
rubicon33 wrote: post #8

There's definitely a tightening of capital happening right now. Investors are pulling back as fear of recession grows. EDIT: Did I say I believe there's a recession coming? No. I said (accurately) that there are growing FEARS of one. There's definitely tightening of investments and capital happening.

Uber laying off several hundred people is not a signal for a market recession. How is your comment relevant?

I didn't say that it was.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#57

Post by rubicon33 »

riffic wrote: post #15
rubicon33 wrote: post #8

There's definitely a tightening of capital happening right now. Investors are pulling back as fear of recession grows. EDIT: Did I say I believe there's a recession coming? No. I said (accurately) that there are growing FEARS of one. There's definitely tightening of investments and capital happening.

Where is the line between "fear of recession" and "being in a recession"? Recessions happen on a somewhat consistent cycle ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cycle , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_recessions); people would be less fearful if they were better prepared for their inevitability. Antifragility would be a good concept to be familiar with.

You should re-read my post, as it wasn't myself that fears a recession is looming.

The broader discussions within the markets are that one is on the horizon. I'm not so confident.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#58

Post by [deleted] »

smeyer wrote: post #48
choppaface wrote: post #29

Google is pretty well-known for maintaining a very deep bench-- if an engineer isn't effective in some role, they'll just move them to some other team. Heck, a lot of hires (especially 3rd/last attempt) go directly to the bench. This strategy pays off well when a new competitor (like Facebook or Uber) comes along and snatches up people in the lead roles, or if the company feels the need to pivot to something really f…

What do you mean by "3rd/last attempt"?

[deleted]

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#59

Post by ageitgey »

bitL wrote: post #46
choppaface wrote: post #29

Google is pretty well-known for maintaining a very deep bench-- if an engineer isn't effective in some role, they'll just move them to some other team. Heck, a lot of hires (especially 3rd/last attempt) go directly to the bench. This strategy pays off well when a new competitor (like Facebook or Uber) comes along and snatches up people in the lead roles, or if the company feels the need to pivot to something really f…

What is 3rd/last attempt?

Google will only re-interview you 3 times for the same type of role total. After that, you are out for good.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#60

Post by Areibman »

"Of those laid off, more than 85% are based in the U.S., 10% in the Asia-Pacific and 5% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to the source."

Interesting. This hit seems to be mostly localized to the US. During their last mass layoff in July, employees from all over the world were affected.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/cwutan/oc_...

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