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The Story of Hertz Going Bust

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Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust

#101

Post by save_ferris »

autokad wrote: post #99

hertz had a 'hackathon' (more like datathon?) at my university in 2013. They gave us data (no PII but demographics such as age) along with other store sales, etc. goal, take the data and draw some insights. I showed them a chart on how the average age of their customer was going up and they were failing to get newer and younger customers. I also showed search trends on car rentals going down, and search trends on rid…

What an incredible way for a company to signal that they only want sycophants. Good on you for pointing out what probably should have been obvious to them.

Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust

#102

Post by ipnon »

smachiz wrote: post #93
ipnon wrote: post #91

Turo[0] immediately crossed my mind upon finishing the article. I have never used a traditional car rental service and plan to avoid them. [0] https://turo.com/

I'm not sure how that's your takeaway here. Hertz's troubles seem pretty unrelated to the experience as a consumer. While Turo is great for your weekend trip or whatever, it is not at all good for a business traveler.

I agree this is a weak comment. My takeaway is that Hertz seems irredeemable as a consumer and that alternatives exist.

Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust

#103

Post by treis »

BareNakedCoder wrote: post #82
treis wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A remarkably large number of job offers/bid requests I've seen start with some variation of "Accenture screwed up and [client] is looking for someone else to take over". And looking at the former co-workers that have landed there it's not even a little surprising they're that bad.

I've seen this more than once. Senior management thinks maintaining a portfolio of software applications is like flipping hamburgers: they see no problem or risks in one team of developers handing the spatula to another team. What, wasn't the one-day knowledge transfer session not enough? So, the transfer from the home-grown team to Accenture is screwed up. Let's try it again, from the Accenture team to another team;…

It's not the transfer. Accenture (or at least some parts of it) are just that bad.

Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust

#104

Post by dhosek »

mpalczewski wrote: post #77
stevetursi wrote: post #43

I am Hertz Alumni, 2011-2016. We had a great group of engineers and product people, many of us far too talented to be in company like what hertz turned into. We were under the leadership of an incredible division head and most of the folks in our group felt a deep sense of loyalty to her. Nearly all of us, including that division head, are gone now, mostly laid off. If you poll any random Hertz alumnus, the story you…

Icahn is doing just fine. https://www.epsilontheory.com/the-hertz-story-isnt-what-you-...

He also cleaned up with covid bailout funds to close his losing position with Herbalife. The man is a walking plague.

Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust

#105

Post by puranjay »

rb808 wrote: post #76

Honestly this is a good thing. There are too many big companies, not enough small, we need more to fail - esp the type that have gone through lots of mergers to reduce competition.

While I agree with the sentiment, operating at scale does mean that consumers often get lower costs.

Smaller players would also be far less likely to enter less lucrative markets.

Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust

#106

Post by microtherion »

chadash wrote: post #60
microtherion wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I liked about Hertz was being able to choose a particular from a collection of models in the chosen size category, which allowed me to get the combination of CarPlay and rear camera that I liked. As for the article blaming their fleet for sticking with sedans for too long, to me as a European traveler, this is a feature . One time, I rented from a different company, which "generously" stuck me with some monster…

> As for the article blaming their fleet for sticking with sedans for too long, to me as a European traveler, this is a feature. One time, I rented from a different company, which "generously" stuck me with some monster SUV, and I mostly hated the experience. I also like sedans, particularly small ones that don't use much fuel. And all of the rental companies have sedans in their fleets. The issue is that they deprec…

Thanks for the explanation! This seems very plausible to me, but I wonder why that is so.

I can understand trucks retaining their value, as there is a clientele who drives them for utilitarian reasons (though not necessarily the ones who buy them new). I can understand why luxury sedans devalue quickly, as they are bought for prestige.

But it is not self evident to me why SUVs would have superior utilitarian value to regular sedans.

Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust

#107

Post by gandreani »

stevetursi wrote: post #43

I am Hertz Alumni, 2011-2016. We had a great group of engineers and product people, many of us far too talented to be in company like what hertz turned into. We were under the leadership of an incredible division head and most of the folks in our group felt a deep sense of loyalty to her. Nearly all of us, including that division head, are gone now, mostly laid off. If you poll any random Hertz alumnus, the story you…

We overlapped for a short time. It was my first job straight out of college. I worked around some really nice people but even my inexperienced self knew that it wasn't a good environment to grow (terrible code base, silo-ed teams, archaic processes, weeks onboarding, etc) so I left after 6 months.

I think it was about a year later when I heard the IT team was fired. The kicker: a lot were hired by IBM _and subsequently contracted to work for Hertz_ on the exact thing they were working on before.

Safe to say I didn't regret my decision at all

Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust

#108

Post by bigtechdataeng »

sceadu wrote: post #48
namdnay wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only hear about LBOs that fail. There are dozens that work every year

There are dozens of us! DOZENS!

How many LBOs happen each year in the US? I would guess somewhere around a hundred. So dozens of success stories per year might be really good, compared to similarly distressed companies that did not get the LBO.

Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust

#109

Post by L_Rahman »

microtherion wrote: post #106
chadash wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for the article blaming their fleet for sticking with sedans for too long, to me as a European traveler, this is a feature. One time, I rented from a different company, which "generously" stuck me with some monster SUV, and I mostly hated the experience. I also like sedans, particularly small ones that don't use much fuel. And all of the rental companies have sedans in their fleets. The issue is that they deprec…

Thanks for the explanation! This seems very plausible to me, but I wonder why that is so. I can understand trucks retaining their value, as there is a clientele who drives them for utilitarian reasons (though not necessarily the ones who buy them new). I can understand why luxury sedans devalue quickly, as they are bought for prestige. But it is not self evident to me why SUVs would have superior utilitarian value to…

They do not. The higher price for the SUV is a product of American market preferences for SUVs that have nothing to do with utility and everything to do with branding and self-image.

Re: The Story of Hertz Going Bust

#110

Post by compuguy »

treis wrote: post #78
compuguy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part, all that I've heard of Accenture seems to match what you are saying.

A remarkably large number of job offers/bid requests I've seen start with some variation of "Accenture screwed up and [client] is looking for someone else to take over". And looking at the former co-workers that have landed there it's not even a little surprising they're that bad.

Yep. Worked for a company that was brought in to fix what Accenture messed up. Sadly they were able to regain the contract that I worked on because of some bizarre run around involving another contract.....
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