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Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

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Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#141

This seems like a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft. Amazon could bundle rides with package deliveries and get the pre-existing driver and passenger network from Lyft. Lyft was actually telling drivers to work with Amazon when the pandemic started (1). Waymo could take Lyft’s aggregated rider demand. They already have a partnership to transfer autonomous rides from Waymo to Lyft during bad weather situation…

This seems like a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft Or maybe Apple. Apple has been pouring millions into improving its street views in Apple Maps. It should buy Lyft. Pay the drivers an extra $x/mile to clamp the Apple Maps image gathering device to the roofs of their cars. The drivers win because they get a bump in income in an industry that's already hurting. Apple wins because it gets up-to-date informat…

> Pay the drivers an extra $x/mile to clamp the Apple Maps image gathering device to the roofs of their cars.

Why bother paying them? If they own the company, just make it a condition of the contractor agreement.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's incredibly insulting.

I miss the early days of the internet when people had thicker skins and weren't so easily offended/insulted.

so... back when the internet was just rich white guys that could afford computers as their hobbies and could get away with making extremely inappropriate jokes without consequence? Yeah, I "miss" it too

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#143

This seems like a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft. Amazon could bundle rides with package deliveries and get the pre-existing driver and passenger network from Lyft. Lyft was actually telling drivers to work with Amazon when the pandemic started (1). Waymo could take Lyft’s aggregated rider demand. They already have a partnership to transfer autonomous rides from Waymo to Lyft during bad weather situation…

love that this is the top comment on HN and not the fact that 1k people just lost their ability to pay their rent/mortgages, take care of their families, deal with medical costs.

Business value (or lack thereof) of Lyft now is an unknown, worthy of discussion. The things you mentioned are basic facts everyone is acutely aware about, hard to see what does it help restating them.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's the case, as they never made it into the FANG acronym. Even Twitter doesn't quite fit up there.

AFAIK, the FANG acronym was meant to represent the FAANG stocks, not the perceived quality of engineering within the industry.

I didn't know that. I thought it was because of their engineering chops.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#145
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft ...What would they do with it? The business model (also uber) as-is makes a loss. Uber/Lyft's initial proposition was that once ride sharing incumbents were established, they'd have a software-ish monopoly and margins. This did not work out. Now the proposition is "When driverless cars get invented..." If google had a car that can drive itself, they can figure out an app.…

Yes, it probably would be a valuable to Amazon. So valuable, in fact, that it already[1] exists. [1] https://flex.amazon.com/

yea it's trivial for Amazon to create their own 'driver network'

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s happening now is very analogous to the 2000 dot.com crash. The economy overall will recover, albeit slowly. However companies are questioning why they need 100 engineers instead of 50. That doesn’t just reverse itself overnight. As the OP said those that weren’t around the last time might find it hard to believe that tech jobs really just disappear for years.

No it’s not. The fed printed so much money and dropped rates so low, there’s a massive excess of capital looking for business opportunities. Monetary policy is what is driving the economy, and it’s making this bubble bigger than ever. You can’t ignore economics and cheap money. We will have ten more we work like companies.

>The fed printed so much money and dropped rates so low, there’s a massive excess of capital looking for business opportunities

Learn about monetary policy is and how the Federal Reserve controls the money supply before you make opinions on the matter.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#147

This seems like a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft. Amazon could bundle rides with package deliveries and get the pre-existing driver and passenger network from Lyft. Lyft was actually telling drivers to work with Amazon when the pandemic started (1). Waymo could take Lyft’s aggregated rider demand. They already have a partnership to transfer autonomous rides from Waymo to Lyft during bad weather situation…

The last thing I want to see come out of this pandemic is more consolidation that just makes the strong stronger.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#148

This seems like a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft. Amazon could bundle rides with package deliveries and get the pre-existing driver and passenger network from Lyft. Lyft was actually telling drivers to work with Amazon when the pandemic started (1). Waymo could take Lyft’s aggregated rider demand. They already have a partnership to transfer autonomous rides from Waymo to Lyft during bad weather situation…

Acquisitions by large tech companies could [0] be put on hold for now. Even if it's not, there could be a stronger push by antitrust. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/warren-ocasio-cortez-pande...

I've also heard that large investors are much more cautious about doing large deals right now. I think with all the uncertainty with Covid-19 would mean a major acquisition would be unpredictable.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#149

There was a person in the Uber thread yesterday who predicted this. I wonder if they’ll go back to hiring if this is over or they’re using as an opportunity to get rid of people they shouldn’t have hired in the first place.

Some companies should be billion dollar companies with 30 employees, like when Instagram was bought out in 2012. Headcount is mutually exclusive from how much the enterprise makes and can return to shareholders. If headcount is not directly helping that then it should not be an indefinite relationship. Also, I'm available for hire as a CFO or board member if you think your company has challenges with adopting this ma…

You should look in to private equity firms if you're so eager to lay people off.

Re: Lyft lays off 17% of workforce, furloughs hundreds more

#150

This seems like a great time for Amazon or Google to buy Lyft. Amazon could bundle rides with package deliveries and get the pre-existing driver and passenger network from Lyft. Lyft was actually telling drivers to work with Amazon when the pandemic started (1). Waymo could take Lyft’s aggregated rider demand. They already have a partnership to transfer autonomous rides from Waymo to Lyft during bad weather situation…

Acquisitions by large tech companies could [0] be put on hold for now. Even if it's not, there could be a stronger push by antitrust. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/28/warren-ocasio-cortez-pande...

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