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

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

#51

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 the…

There are rules and there are rules. Moral compass tells you which ones you can break, and often breaking the rule is the moral thing to do. So I think Thiel is calling them out for doing things morally wrong, not just rule breaking.

Uber has lost their way. You break rules for a just cause, you get rewarded because you stuck your head out and took a risk. You put it all on the line. But you have to be willing to be held accountable.

Breaking rules to avoid accountability? Well, that just sounds all too fucking familiar.

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

#52
post #14

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 thei…

Back to econ 101 for you.

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

#53

I think Thiel is an investor in an Uber competitor. If so, I'm sure this would bias his opinion. If he were an Uber investor, I doubt he would be saying this. Which implies a weird sort of ethical dilemma - where money invested makes the person not say things about ethics. Just as I'm sure Microsoft investors in the 1990's didn't call out Microsoft for its monopolistic tendencies.

You should have watched the video before commenting.

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

#54

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 the…

Almost every notable tech company has at least one unethical story behind it. Steve Jobs and Woz selling blue boxes to fund Apple is probably the most famous.

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

#55
post #41
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you feel that Thiel needs the money more than his credibility?

I mostly agree. For instance, I don't believe there exists a conflict of interest in challenging the ethics of a competitor. Choosing to support a competitor because a company behaves unethically makes a lot of sense to me.

That all being said, I think you overestimate the probability someone will call him out on anything. When was the last time someone was ever called out for making a bad prediction, making a false but ultimately mild allegation, or raising concerns about a competitor? I've worked at places that would state publicly that their competitors steal from customers, and never heard that even questioned on a factual basis, forget someone doing some weird kabuki theater credibility sacrificing ritual.

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

#56
post #52
post #14

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 thei…

Back to econ 101 for you.

Please elaborate.

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

#58
post #49

Does anyone else remember the "PayPal Mafia" article ( http://fortune.com/2007/11/13/paypal-mafia/ ) that Fortune did some years ago? There was one description that really stuck with me -- how customer service complaints were handled under Thiel's watch: Customer-service complaints flooded the phone lines and in-boxes and were often dealt with by simply not answering the phone or doing a mass deletion. What sort of l…

I clearly don't vouch for Thiel -- but isn't this an ad hominem attack? If he has a substantial critique, how is it relevant that he, personally, is bringing it up?

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

#59

The bummer is that the bullshit misogyny feels like it's been running pretty rampant for some time, though maybe it's only lately that we're seeing the sort of graduating class of this particular brand of ethically vapid growth-hacked shops seeing some success (Uber, Tinder, Genius...) I like making things, but the part of our industry that manages to sustain such an asshole-farm gets me wishing I'd chosen a differen…

How is misogyny relevant to what he said or what is being discussed here?

Uber's executives are known for making some sexist remarks and just generally being douches.

I don't think it's fair to say that Silicon Valley has a misogyny problem, but Uber's hilariously stereotypical "frat boy" culture certainly seems to.

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