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Uber lays off 435 people

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Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#131

Post by WarDores »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #85
nyrulez wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean one company prints money, and the other has some of the biggest losses in tech industry. What do you expect? If anything, Uber has invested in too much tech for the sake of being tech heavy, which may not be best suited for their business (outside self-driving, which needs heavy tech investment).

Yea but self-driving would instantly turn Uber into a cash cow and it's not that far away. Edit: By not that far away I'm talking 5-15 years. I'm not talking next week. Amazon burned cash for at least 20 years.

Why would Uber necessarily reap outsized benefits from self driving though? In my mind, "ridesharing" would be even more commoditized, with price and safety being the two main factors in consumer choice.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#132

Post by Barrin92 »

dangus wrote: post #127
Barrin92 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are only 4000 engineers I still feel like this is a ridiculous amount of workers when one takes into account that the product they're offering is essentially a smartphone app with a backend service that pairs drivers and customers, which regular cab markets do without almost a single person. To me Uber feels like some sort of soviet-era experiment of replacing a market with someone micromanaging cars

But of course, when you just oversimplify what the app actually does it sounds like it should be so darn easy to make and maintain. It's like saying Microsoft Office is "just an app that writes documents" or that GMail is "just an email client." Uber and Lyft do a whole lot more than what you described on the scale of millions of concurrent users in dozens of countries. Your comparison to a taxi isn't really a great…

>Uber and Lyft do a whole lot more than what you described on the scale of millions of concurrent users in dozens of countries.

which is my point. There's no use in engineering and coordinating something that organises itself. The utility of a centrally managed service needs to be balanced against the resources it costs to run the operation.

Taxis actually don't spent as much time sitting around as you think, traffic organises quite spontaneously, drivers know where to wait and downtime is usually quite low. Which is why it is so difficult for Uber to make a profit, the efficiency gains compared to the engineering effort that goes into them are miniscule, which is the disease of all centrally managed systems. The Soviet planning buro managed millions of factories which sounds impressive, it doesn't mean that they were any good at it.

If Uber would realise such huge efficiency gains in organising rides the result would either be higher wages than taxi companies or lower prices, which would make them instantly profitable, no billions of subsidies required.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#133

Post by [deleted] »

Zenst wrote: post #76

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…

[deleted]

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#134

Post by hintymad »

theincredulousk wrote: post #71

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 (rathe…

They did some impressive stuff, but internally the eng org was bloated as hell, thanks to Thuan's leadership. Ironicaly, Thuan recently asked his directors to tell him which departments are bloated so he could decide who to cut. So much for the "amazing leadership".

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#135

Post by sbarre »

simonrobb wrote: post #128
theincredulousk wrote: post #71

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 (rathe…

It doesn't really cost anything to open source something though. These are all projects which are developed for a reason: the commercial version might be prohibitively expensive at Uber scale, or not technically capable of operating at Uber scale, or just plain doesn't exist yet. At that point you can engage with the tech community and offer it as OSS (not to mention make your engineers happy), or you can keep it to…

That's not true. It costs quite a bit to open source a product if you're a commercial entity.. It needs to be reviewed (by legal, security, engineering, etc) and approved..

You're not just flipping the public/private flag on the repo.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#137

Post by favorited »

Elof wrote: post #49

Kinda interesting that they chose to do the layoffs during the Apple event. I wish companies would just own what's going on instead of trying to bury it.

Some tech company always tries to bury their garbage during Apple keynotes, unfortunately... Glad this made it to the top here anyway.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#138

Post by csb6 »

edw wrote: post #108
jobu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was absolutely instrumental to the early success. In some places they were actively breaking the law just to operate there, and Kalanick was able disrupt the system and make Uber important enough to change the laws. However, that doesn't mean he should still be CEO. Kalanick also created a company culture that became more and more toxic as it grew larger. Lyft was arguably on the ropes and might've failed without…

You've reminded me of an observation I made recently about Star Wars: the behavior of Han Solo (pre-Greedo-shoots-first-bs) and Darth Vader aren't that different. It's the context that matters. If you're small and scrappy, antisocial behavior makes you a charming scoundrel. If you're big, the same behavior makes you evil.

But the difference is that Han came around at the end of A New Hope, joined the Rebellion, and saved Luke’s ass, which lead to the Death Star’s destruction. This proved he wasn’t a complete scoundrel and had good within him.

Uber’s corporate culture was ugly and toxic from the start. And it never got better or “came around” to a good cause. A better analogy would be Anakin moving from small-time massacres of Sand People to blowing up planets as Vader. The scale changed, but it was still evil all along.

I think it’s misleading to defend Travis as some misunderstood scoundrel whose enabling of sexual harassment didn’t “scale”. He’s just a shitty person who initially had less power to be shitty.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#139

Post by rubiquity »

Railsify wrote: post #75

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.

One drink determines whether you can walk 5 blocks or not?

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#140

Post by [deleted] »

dmode wrote: post #102
txcwpalpha wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't what the article in the parent comment says: >The office would include engineers, finance executives, salespeople and other roles across Uber's business.

Here https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-new-offices-chicago-dal... This directly quoted an Uber exec saying that it will be focused on HR, sales, and ops

[deleted]
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