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Peter Thiel: Uber is most ethically challenged company in Silicon Valley [video]

money.cnn.com

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Re: Peter Thiel: Uber is most ethically challenged company in Silicon Valley [video]

#11

Post by ivraatiems »

Notice the language here. He doesn't seem, at least from my reading, to be chastising Uber for doing things that are morally wrong. He's instead chastising them for doing morally wrong things and not pulling it off. For example:

"Sometimes the people who break the rules win and sometimes they push it too far,"

implying that Uber could be doing wrong things in some more correct way and continue to thrive, and that there isn't anything wrong with that. He doesn't say "broke rules," or "did bad things," he said "pushed the envelope."

Look at the implication there - you can and maybe should do unethical things, break some rules, "push the envelope" with questionable behaviors as long as you get away with it.

Re: Peter Thiel: Uber is most ethically challenged company in Silicon Valley [video]

#13

Post by georgemcbay »

Objectivist World View + Wild Success + Survivorship Bias = Incredibly Dangerous Mix when it comes to ethical behavior, IMO.

Having said that, Thiel's very Randian himself, so I'm not sure how much of this is his actual concern for Uber's drivers or journalistic critics versus just being a Lyft investor taking a jab at the competition.

Re: Peter Thiel: Uber is most ethically challenged company in Silicon Valley [video]

#14

Post by jboy »

OK, so it's obviously a little transparent of Thiel to say that Uber [a competitor to Lyft, a company in which he has invested] is "on the cusp" of going too far, but Airbnb [another company in which he has invested] has "a different feel" and is OK.

But it's also a little ironic that the champion of "Competition is for losers", who says that monopolies can be a good thing for society [0], is against Uber trying their best to achieve such a monopoly.

[0] "Creative monopolists give customers more choices by adding entirely new categories of abundance to the world. Creative monopolies aren't just good for the rest of society; they're powerful engines for making it better." -- http://online.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-fo...

Re: Peter Thiel: Uber is most ethically challenged company in Silicon Valley [video]

#16

Post by 001sky »

Here's the problem for uber:

(1) In many places they are breaking the law and/or want the law changed so they can expand without breaking it.

(2) This means they need the moral high ground. They need to have people believe they are acting in good faith when operating outside or in the grey areas of existing legislation and policy.

(3) Winning at all costs mentality means operating in ethical grey areas.

(4) You can exloit grey areas but you cannot at the same time occupy moral high ground.

Without a coherent strategy "winning at all costs" (to hell with being ethical) will almost surely lose the war, even if it wins a few battles.

That means, their future as a brand and as a company could be greatly impacted if they continue to have public PR meltdowns that involve dis-proportionate and underhanded approaches to solving their problems.

Things are always going to be messy in their line of work, but they need people's trust and political support outside of pure-business. The specifics can always be debated (and the nuances sometimes are critical), but they need to demonstrate proportionatly and good faith are core values to their firm.

Re: Peter Thiel: Uber is most ethically challenged company in Silicon Valley [video]

#19

Post by jbhatab »

mattee wrote: post #6

Peter Thiel is correct. But, it should be noted, that as an investor in Lyft, Thiel has a big interest in scolding Uber publicly.

Yeah the second he said that he was invested in Uber's biggest competitor, I couldn't take him seriously. Uber has gone over the line sometimes, but he's obviously going to make it sound worse than it is.
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