The Drivers Cooperative • Hacker News Board

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#251

Post by ryandrake » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

aerosmile wrote: post #229

agloeregrets wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My numbers were talking app expenses, obviously a company of Uber's scale would need 100+ employees. I broke down below that if they worked at their current scale and charged just a penny, they could pay their employees an average of $100K per year and still make millions in profit after spending millions on Infrastructure. Uber bills on average more than 100-200 times that and spends insane numbers on unprofitable p…

Nope, your words were clear - you were flat out wrong, and are now trying to save face. I don't have a tendency to call people out, but blindly applying the "two devs in a garage" axiom is not only wrong when it comes to labor marketplaces, but it also unnecessarily spreads discontent to the point that we have to stop this silliness. I don't care one bit about your recalculated math from now on - for me, you're just…

Yes, OP was wrong to specifically call out "two devs" and HN, as it always is, was technically correct and called him out on it. Congratulations HN! Bad OP!

I agree with the overall sentiment though: "What are all these people doing?" is a valid question against lots of Silicon Valley companies who are currently growing for the sake of growing. Yes, you need a few lawyers. Do you need 100 lawyers, each with executive assistants, and lawyer managers of other lawyers? Why? What specifically are they all doing? Why can't you do it with 90 lawyers? or 80?

I've worked for companies ranging from 12 people up to 100,000+. I've seen companies that were legitimately understaffed, but also companies where I don't think anyone (including the employees themselves) could articulate why all these people were needed. Outwardly, it's always explained with some nebulous reason like "Oh, what we do is oh-so-complex! We need people to, um, manage the complexity, and uh, create synergies." Yea, and they need exec assistants and interns, and their own staff of sub-complexity-wranglers, who also need assistants, and soon it's complexity-wranglers all the way down, and nobody knows what any of them are actually doing, but they're all sending E-mails to each other!

The unspoken side is that most companies simply measure your importance by how many people are under you, so everyone tries to hire as many people as they can get budget for, and build their empire. But it's an empire of paper, of TPS reports! These people aren't really doing anything, but they make this SVP's org bigger than the other SVP's org, and the CEO can tell everyone how huge (i.e. important) the company is getting, and that's what's important.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#252

Post by samcheng » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #194

sandworm101 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You can get off an airplane just about anywhere in the world and get an Uber. That’s huge value. I wonder what percentage of people driving on roads are actually the old "jet set", people who travel internationally more than once a year. I'd bet that is actually less than 1% of western populations. I think the real market is locals, people who need rides home when drunk, rather than 1%ers going to and from airport…

The vast majority of people travelling aren’t jet-set or 1% flying in first - they’re just normal hard-working people flying in economy who happen to have a job that requires them to travel and don't have any choice in that matter if they want to put food on their tables and feed buying their children new shoes.

Maybe COVID will render many of these "must travel for work" use cases obsolete! One can hope...

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#253

Post by agentdrtran » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 3:36 PM UTC

kbos87 wrote: post #176

It's always surprised me that we haven't seem more attempts at co-op like models in spaces like this, and I'm happy to see it. Uber/Lyft strike me as thin businesses in the value that they actually provide both to riders and drivers. Yes, they were responsible for some initial innovation, but now the cat is out of the bag, and the concept could absolutely be applied in a business structure that is more profitable and…

It requires a lot of start up capital to make co-ops involving network effects work, and it's hard for co-ops to get startup capital.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#254

Post by staticautomatic » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

njoubert wrote: post #180

kbos87 wrote: post #176

It's always surprised me that we haven't seem more attempts at co-op like models in spaces like this, and I'm happy to see it. Uber/Lyft strike me as thin businesses in the value that they actually provide both to riders and drivers. Yes, they were responsible for some initial innovation, but now the cat is out of the bag, and the concept could absolutely be applied in a business structure that is more profitable and…

The single benefit of Uber having a global presence likely already outweighs the value of these local coops. You can get off an airplane just about anywhere in the world and get an Uber. That’s huge value.

Does it? What proportion of rideshare users regularly travel internationally?

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#255

Post by gruez » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 3:49 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #249

gruez wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are also hybrid models possible where workers own some % of the company -- over 50% if you want to consider it worker-controlled -- but investors also own a portion. but why would investors invest in a company that gives them half as much stake (because the other half goes to the workers)?

Why do investors invest in a founder-controlled company, where the founders have more than 50% stake? To make money, I would assume, is why they do it? I'm sure it's a barrier, but it apparently isn't one that rules out all investment, since investors do it with founder-controlled companies, right? There is even entirely non-voting stock, which people invest in. If it were decided through political processes that wor…

>To make money, I would assume, is why they do it?

If the only option were a drivers cooperative, then yes they might go for it (although they're still going to be competing against other forms of investment, eg. other stocks). However that's rarely the case, because there's going to be non-cooperatives which don't have workers taking up 50% of the stake.

>since investors do it with founder-controlled companies, right? There is even entirely non-voting stock, which people invest in.

They only do that because they think the founders are valuable. I don't see how the same dynamic exists with mostly replaceable drivers.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#256

Post by kingnothing » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #246

gvb wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The single benefit of Uber having a global presence likely already outweighs the value of these local coops. That and a willingness to subsidize rides to the tune of billions of dollars per year. A coop is going to struggle to provide rides at a "competitive" rate when the competition is paying people to use their services. "For all of 2020, Uber's net losses amounted to $6.77 billion..." Ref: https://www.cnbc.com/…

What is causing Uber's losses? The customers are paying money, the drivers are getting only a fraction of it. Are the drivers actually getting more money than the customers are paying? Are Uber's data center and transaction costs really high? Or is it the armies of lawyers and business development people? The basic value proposition of ride share seems viable. If Uber's losses are overhead, maybe somebody can compete…

Uber's core rideshare business is net positive. They invest significant money in to other lines of business.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#257

Post by toast0 » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

njoubert wrote: post #180

kbos87 wrote: post #176

It's always surprised me that we haven't seem more attempts at co-op like models in spaces like this, and I'm happy to see it. Uber/Lyft strike me as thin businesses in the value that they actually provide both to riders and drivers. Yes, they were responsible for some initial innovation, but now the cat is out of the bag, and the concept could absolutely be applied in a business structure that is more profitable and…

The single benefit of Uber having a global presence likely already outweighs the value of these local coops. You can get off an airplane just about anywhere in the world and get an Uber. That’s huge value.

> You can get off an airplane just about anywhere in the world and get an Uber. That’s huge value.

You can get off an airplane just about anywhere and get a taxi at the taxi stand, but that never enabled a global company.

Airports with local unlicensed taxi services generally have advertising in the airport for arrivals. Installing a new app in each city, and putting in payment information is more hassle (especially if payment options aren't geared towards international visitors), but you do it once per trip, just like the in flight entertainment app.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#258

Post by xyzzyz » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

gvb wrote: post #238

njoubert wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The single benefit of Uber having a global presence likely already outweighs the value of these local coops. You can get off an airplane just about anywhere in the world and get an Uber. That’s huge value.

> The single benefit of Uber having a global presence likely already outweighs the value of these local coops. That and a willingness to subsidize rides to the tune of billions of dollars per year. A coop is going to struggle to provide rides at a "competitive" rate when the competition is paying people to use their services. "For all of 2020, Uber's net losses amounted to $6.77 billion..." Ref: https://www.cnbc.com/…

If you look at Uber financial reports, you’ll see that they earn profit on rides, and their losses are due to their attempts at expansion in other segments.

Uber used to subsidize rides a lot, and it still does in some foreign markets where it is trying to get a foothold, but this is not really happening in US anymore.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#259

Post by bhupy » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 4:03 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #251

aerosmile wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, your words were clear - you were flat out wrong, and are now trying to save face. I don't have a tendency to call people out, but blindly applying the "two devs in a garage" axiom is not only wrong when it comes to labor marketplaces, but it also unnecessarily spreads discontent to the point that we have to stop this silliness. I don't care one bit about your recalculated math from now on - for me, you're just…

Yes, OP was wrong to specifically call out "two devs" and HN, as it always is, was technically correct and called him out on it. Congratulations HN! Bad OP! I agree with the overall sentiment though: "What are all these people doing?" is a valid question against lots of Silicon Valley companies who are currently growing for the sake of growing. Yes, you need a few lawyers. Do you need 100 lawyers, each with executive…

> The unspoken side is that most companies simply measure your importance by how many people are under you, so everyone tries to hire as many people as they can get budget for, and build their empire.

If we're throwing around conventional aphorisms, one could just as easily argue that most companies simply optimize for maximizing profits by minimizing labor costs, and therefore have an incentive to eliminate redundant labor. Heaven knows that Uber's primary goal for the next few years is profitability. Why, then, wouldn't Uber just get rid of all of these paper TPS report empires? Should be simple enough, right?

The reality is that it's a lot more complicated. I think GP's comment about armchair quarterbacking is an important one, and I think this comment as a good example of that. A fun joke I've heard is that the mark of a senior engineer is how often they say "Well, It Depends™". It mostly alludes to the general tendency to avoid simple explanations of complex systems the more senior one gets.I think the same applies in the context of organization building.

There was a good comment a while ago from a former Uber engineer that broke down just why the Uber app is so big: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376346

If you take that, and try to imagine that it's not just engineers, it's also Product Managers, Designers that feed into the raw R&D; and the fact that Uber actually operates in multiple business lines (Eats, Rides, Freight, Bikeshare, Transit) and then the operationalization of all of those features, including customer support, biz ops, product marketing, etc. And then wrap all that up into the core organizational infrastructure necessary to support all that: FP&A, HR, etc. It all adds up! And that's just the current businesses we see, you also have portions of all of that feeding into the numerous exploratory efforts they probably have underway into new business lines.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#260

Post by gonehome » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 4:13 PM UTC

vore wrote: post #52

gonehome wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do others have better experiences with co-ops than I do? I know people love REI, but whenever I go in there to buy anything that requires someone (ski boots, skis, work on skis) - it sucks. There's never anyone available, it often takes up to an hour or more to get helped or waiting in line. Sometimes I have to leave and come back later. Last time I gave up and ordered everything online. It's not like it's crazy pack…

REI is a consumers' cooperative, not a workers' cooperative. The people who work at REI don't own the business, and they would basically have the same role in any other company (which is one of the criticisms of why they're not actually good for labor). In fact, in a consumers' cooperative would probably be better in this case since you would have more direct control over the business than with a regular corporation.

This is a good point - and makes my REI example irrelevant, thanks.