181–190 of 611 posts
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…
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…
> Saying they're ~ "culling the low performers" can be entirely true Even if it isn't they have just branded everybody with 'Uber' on their CV that is on the market a low performer. Think before you speak.
A job candidate with solid skills will be able to show their value to employers, and if an employer puts more weight on this quote over a candidate's qualifications then it was a bullet dodged.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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:/…
> 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'm the manager of one of Uber's OSS projects, and all that the things you listed here ring true. I just know that in our case at least, OSS prep absolutely pales in comparison to the feature/operational work put in by t…
I just hope there won't be a kind of AI winter when some of these startups run out of money.
12h sort of performance.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Saying they're ~ "culling the low performers" can be entirely true Even if it isn't they have just branded everybody with 'Uber' on their CV that is on the market a low performer. Think before you speak.
It's especially a dick move when everybody already knows they're hurting for cash, and the official position could be "we just can't afford all these people" without the company losing any face. They aren't fooling anybody by pretending it's not about the cost.
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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Saying they're ~ "culling the low performers" can be entirely true Even if it isn't they have just branded everybody with 'Uber' on their CV that is on the market a low performer. Think before you speak.
It's especially a dick move when everybody already knows they're hurting for cash, and the official position could be "we just can't afford all these people" without the company losing any face. They aren't fooling anybody by pretending it's not about the cost.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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!)
OP's inference that Uber's quarterly loss is more than double Uber's quarterly R&D costs in general shouldn't be propped up by a moment in time observation.