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Uber lays off 435 people

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Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#161

Post by jdro »

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…

This is a worthwhile writeup of how Uber's operating costs are generally higher than the industry it "disrupted" without actually solving the structural problems that industry had found an equilibrium around: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/05/ubers-path-of-des...

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#162

Post by dougk16 »

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…

> It doesn't really cost anything...

Depending on context, sure this could be true. Like if you're comparing the cost of releasing some small OSS module of Uber's to Uber's annual revenue, sure, it's going to be a negligible cost. But if you compare against the cost of developing the module in the first place, it can easily be an equal expense. For example I spent several months on a BLE library for Android (https://github.com/iDevicesInc/SweetBlue) and asked my company to open source it. It took several more months to get the library to a point that was suitable for a proper OSS release. So cleaning up code, making sure no sensitive info, swear words and such, documentation, lawyery stuff, icons, PR copy, blog post, basic website, wiki, and much more nitty gritty I'm glossing over.

I mean a company can just throw code over the wall into GitHub and call it OSS, but I associate a basic level of polish with a proper OSS release that does indeed take a good amount of effort. And that's just initial effort! If it becomes at all popular then you have further ongoing overhead.

I'd say a general rule is that open-sourcing something is at least 50% of overall cost of the project.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#163

Post by rightbyte »

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.

"Only 4000 engineers"? What are they all doing? That's more engineers than a random truck manufacturer.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#164

Post by danans »

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.

> Those 7 dollars Starbucks venti iced white chocolate mochas with 5 shots will slow also.

On the plus side, this may slightly delay the onset of type II diabetes related healthcare expenses!

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#165

Post by est31 »

sbarre wrote: post #135
simonrobb wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not disagreeing but elaborating: The costs are higher when it's an already existing product of which parts the company doesn't fully own enough rights of for publishing. Even higher when it's not known which parts are fully owned by the company and which parts are of foreign origin. The costs are lower when it's meant to be open sourced from the start and it's been a project constraint since before the first line was written.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#166

Post by xmichael999 »

dougk16 wrote: post #162
simonrobb wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It doesn't really cost anything... Depending on context, sure this could be true. Like if you're comparing the cost of releasing some small OSS module of Uber's to Uber's annual revenue, sure, it's going to be a negligible cost. But if you compare against the cost of developing the module in the first place, it can easily be an equal expense. For example I spent several months on a BLE library for Android ( https:/…

100% agreed, I started doing this for a small project my company has. We don't really use it anymore, but it would be helpful to many hobby projects however we are now sitting here saying 3 weeks work to just give this code away? ick.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#167

Post by Apocryphon »

csb6 wrote: post #138
edw wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Pe…

Not to mention the stories of early stage Uber engaging in shady tactics like hailing and cancelling Lyft rides as a manual DDOS, or ripping mustaches off parked Lyft cars.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#168

Post by jcdavis »

simonrobb wrote: post #92
TylerE wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Their quarterly losses are more than double their entire R&D spend.

Fact check: R&D spend for three months ending June 2019 was $3.06B. Reported loss for three months ending June 2019 was $5.24B. So, already false. Now take away the one-time IPO expense of $3.9B, and we're not even close to being true. Further take away the $300M "IPO driver appreciation award" and you end up with a $1B loss for three months ending June 2019. In other words, the quarterly R&D spend is over three time…

But that IPO stock-comp expense is largely attributable to R&D, so if you want to subtract that from the losses to look at a more cash-focused analysis you have to substract that cost from the R&D side as well.

Of the $3.95B total stock expense, $2.56B was from R&D, which suggests cash cost that quarter was more like $910m (still a lot!)

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#169

Post by kelnos »

throwaway66920 wrote: post #84
landryraccoon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They’re valued on growth, so if they decide to stop growing their valuation will plummet. If they raise prices then quantity of rides will go down. If quantity of rides goes down, it becomes harder to earn a living as a driver. If it is harder to earn a living as a driver, there are fewer drivers. If there are fewer drivers, then the cost of drivers goes up. Not to mention the fact that if uber becomes 10% more expen…

If Uber pays drivers more than Lyft to a point where drivers stop driving for Lyft, riders won't be able to get a ride on Lyft, so they'll pay Uber's higher prices. Not everyone will; some will opt for a regular taxi, driving themselves, or transit. But I suspect that there is actually some combination of higher ride prices and higher driver salaries that will keep Uber alive and growing, though probably not at the same rate.

Re: Uber lays off 435 people

#170

Post by tanilama »

cwperkins wrote: post #144

Is it any coincidence this happens the week that CA is debating a bill that can drastically change how they compensate drivers? It appears like they are trying to gain leverage from an outsider’s perspective.

Uber is at a worrying place with or without bill.
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