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Uber lays off 435 people

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Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#71

Post by theincredulousk »

Probably some reality shaking out. Uber's engineering team puts out some impressive stuff, often as OSS. Their engineering blogs are regularly on HN. I've been genuinely surprised that they churn out some of these things and release them for free given their relatively extreme financial situation.

In contrast to companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon etc. that have mountains of their own money to burn (rather than investors') on research and OSS side-projects, it always seemed to me that Uber was trying to play the same game, but far too early. Paying lavish SF engineer salaries to generate cool, but not revenue generating, software is probably excellent for morale, culture and recruiting, but a dubious use of resources when you are losing money seemingly faster than it would be logistically possible to literally burn it.

Saying they're ~ "culling the low performers" can be entirely true, but it is also a Silicon Valley, meritocracy-culture-friendly way of saying "we're losing far too much money to pay bloated growth-stage poaching-game salaries to engineers, so if you're not working on something that generates revenue, glhf"

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#72

Post by AgloeDreams »

repomies691 wrote: post #51
AgloeDreams wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Was making more taxis on the road with more downtime and increasing congestion really an improvement in cities? A Recent study found that 50% of all cars in lower manhattan were rideshares. Is that really a better world? Ridesharing in cities has been absolutely proven to increase pollution rather than reduce while carpooling in rural areas helps reduce pollution. The problem with rideshares is that they are jobs based on time rather than efficiency. You drop someone off and then you are available to pick someone up, so you drive to them, drive them where they need to go and drive to the next person, the points between passengers are reductions in efficiency vs single cars and add to congestion in high congestion areas. In any case mass transit is much better in cities.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#73

Post by keehun »

fardin1368 wrote: post #41
sparkling wrote: post #27

Serious question: what does Uber need 27k employees for? 1k people to run the show in the main headquarters + some small-ish ~50-100 people regional offices should be enough to keep the company running.

Uber is in 85 countries and each one needs ops, legal, marketing, driver interaction teams and etc. There are only 4000 engineers.

Perhaps the next question is, what do 4000 engineers do? Not aimed as a troll-y question: an informed idea of what the breakdown of that many engineers do would be enlightening. For example, there were about 200 iOS engineers the last I heard. Assuming similar levels for Android, that leaves 3,500-3,600 engineers.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#75

Post by Railsify »

I suspect when the economy takes a downturn luxury purchases like this will be the first to go. If I think I might be laid off do I spend 10 dollars to Uber home or walk the 5 blocks and have one less drink? I would personally have one less drink and walk, or take the train/bus... Those 7 dollars Starbucks venti iced white chocolate mochas with 5 shots will slow also.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#76

Post by Zenst »

I wonder about Uber, they have spent lots of money branding and getting everything in place, that they overshot the whole making money aspect and now playing catchup. Problem is, will they reach that balance before they bleed beyond the point that they become vulture targets for another large company to step in, cherry pick what they want and discard the rest.

With all that said, I wonder if maybe Amazon or some self driving car startup steps in and buys them up for a lot less than it would to build that penetration. Can imagine your Amazon owned Uber driver bus picking you up, with half a dozen stops on the way, some people, some packages, doing the rounds. Things change, how will Uber adapt and more so, all those drivers on zero hour contracts, are just as easily laid off and much cheaper as well. Self driving cars are a case of when, not if as so much being done in the field, progress has become a hot competition and slowly getting there.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#78

Post by appleshore »

landryraccoon wrote: post #65
paxys wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless Travis could have pulled off a miracle with self driving cars, Uber would be in exactly the same place it is today. If anything the company is executing better than it did under his leadership. It just cannot win the battle against basic economics, which everyone saw coming.

I don’t get why Uber isn’t profitable. Their marginal cost is only higher than zero because they choose to lose money. Their fixed costs are servers and engineering. If they set their prices higher than what drivers are willing to accept they should make money. I don’t see how “basic economics” is the enemy. Their enemy is setting expectations too high. If they were happy with a profit of $100M a year they would be s…

Uber should just increase their rates dramatically, increase the driver’s share and offer discount subscriptions to loyal customers. Spontaneous riders pay more, others pay less.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#80

Post by dmode »

txsoftwaredev wrote: post #40

Uber is also planning to open an office for 3k employees in Dallas. "...create 3,000 full-time jobs and pay employees an average salary of at least $100,000..." Considering the lower cost to operate in TX it would make sense to move IT roles to that area. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/2019/08/09/ub...

The Dallas office is an administrative office and will not have eng roles. Also, these are all "promises", we really have to see how it plays out. Promises are cheap. Remember how Foxcon was going to hire 10k people in Wisconsin
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