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Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

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Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#71

Post by desdiv »

haberman wrote: post #48

> David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development, joined the Uber board of directors in 2013, and has served on it ever since. Not super related to this story, but I always have to wonder: why do powerful people join boards? What's in it for them? It seems like an awful lot of work, responsibility, and potential for conflict of interest. What do board members get out o…

It's much less work than you'd think.

>Directors of Fortune 500 companies received median pay of $234,000 in 2011. Directorship is a part-time job. A recent National Association of Corporate Directors study found directors averaging just 4.3 hours a week on board work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_directors

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#72

Post by kryptiskt »

comrade1 wrote: post #61

On the one hand, this is great. Competition and I couldn't wish Google's infinite pockets on a more terrible group of people. On the other hand, Google has only been successful with search and advertising and are known for terrible customer service. I mean, who are you going to call when your driver rapes you? You'll never be able to talk to a human.

> I mean, who are you going to call when your driver rapes you? You'll never be able to talk to a human.

If the self-driving car rapes you, you are probably a character in a scifi-horror movie.

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#73

Post by nofutureagain »

higherpurpose wrote: post #37
hosay123 wrote: post #18

My inner paranoid finds this interesting from the perspective of Google entering yet another domain where they have high accuracy data on the present/future whereabouts and private concerns of a large number of people.. add it to the hundred other properties they maintain that appear to have no direct business value other than capturing masses of sensitive data that was previously nicely decentralized and private. Ca…

I wonder if eventually NSA will get massive layoffs because much of what they'd do would be redundant, and for 80 percent of the stuff they want they could just ask/hack Google. The other 20 percent employees will remain for users of Google competitors and more targeted spying. So essentially 80 percent of NSA's "intelligence" would be outsourced to Google (for free).

> they could just ask/hack Google

You mean "buy from".

This is Google's core business. And I don't consider the NSA more creepy than Google's other customers.

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#74

Post by comrade1 »

notatoad wrote: post #64
comrade1 wrote: post #61

On the one hand, this is great. Competition and I couldn't wish Google's infinite pockets on a more terrible group of people. On the other hand, Google has only been successful with search and advertising and are known for terrible customer service. I mean, who are you going to call when your driver rapes you? You'll never be able to talk to a human.

You call the police if somebody rapes you. that isn't a customer service problem.

Are you a robot?

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#75

Post by escherize »

higherpurpose wrote: post #37
hosay123 wrote: post #18

My inner paranoid finds this interesting from the perspective of Google entering yet another domain where they have high accuracy data on the present/future whereabouts and private concerns of a large number of people.. add it to the hundred other properties they maintain that appear to have no direct business value other than capturing masses of sensitive data that was previously nicely decentralized and private. Ca…

I wonder if eventually NSA will get massive layoffs because much of what they'd do would be redundant, and for 80 percent of the stuff they want they could just ask/hack Google. The other 20 percent employees will remain for users of Google competitors and more targeted spying. So essentially 80 percent of NSA's "intelligence" would be outsourced to Google (for free).

Why would the NSA relinquish power? Layoffs imply a lack of income, a problem the NSA, as a government program, doesn't have to worry about.

If those 80% were redundant, why not repurpose them to dig a little deeper into other activities?

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#76

Post by xixixao »

I also don't understand how this is news to anyone. The fact that Google wasn't planning on selling its driverless cars but instead provide a service was discussed months ago, including the fact that the way this service would be purchased via a phone. I am especially doubtful Uber's board wouldn't notice this...

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#77

Post by rottyguy »

ajju wrote: post #65
rottyguy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was baselining from here: http://www.irs.gov/2014-Standard-Mileage-Rates-for-Business,... but, sure, it would most likely be less.

That $0.56 number includes depreciation. There are other costs like insurance which are non-trivial. Initially at least, it's not going to be much less.

Actually, insurance in driverless cars should be trivial. Accidents should drop to near 0 (over time) due to driver error... at least in theory.

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#79

Post by mef »

DigitalSea wrote: post #30
geoffwoo wrote: post #2

Google could cut Uber down hard by pulling Google Maps API access. Ballsiest play Google has ever done if they execute on this. Love it.

Considering Google have invested a fair bit of cash into Uber which might be a tax write-off for Google, I would probably say we are going to see Google try and buy Uber out instead. Cutting off their maps access would probably open up a can of worms for Google as Uber would undoubtedly take legal action (and they have the funds to really go for it), there could be a little bit of conflict of interest happening here…

Vastly less upside on running your own airline than transforming ground transportation.

Re: Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

#80

Post by spoondan »

lpolovets wrote: post #14
k-mcgrady wrote: post #8

If Google competes directly with a company they are invested in via GV they're going to really damage the reputation of GV. Why would you accept investment from them if they're going to get access to your private info and then turn around and screw you.

I don't have insider knowledge, but I believe Google claims that there's a wall between Google and GV, and they act completely independently. This makes sense to me -- otherwise, no one would pitch ideas to GV that Google might one day implement (i.e. basically all ideas that have a software angle). To me, if Google uses insider knowledge to copy Uber, then that would be huge mistake and credibility killer; if they w…

I don't think Google Ventures's role is particularly relevant. Companies should be aware of what data they are providing Google when making use of Google services. Google doesn't need to have insider information to have a wealth of information about Uber trips: the number of trips, when they most frequently occur, duration and miles covered, what cities are most popular, what are the popular starting and ending points. All of these data can be mined from just watching Uber's use of the Google Maps API. It may not be contractually permitted, but the data are there for Google to use.

Through a paranoid lens, Google APIs are corporate espionage you sign up for. Since Google is a valuable and entrenched service provider, they can get away with it. What I could see companies doing in return is attempting to obscure their API usage by fabricating requests. For example, Uber could break the correspondence between API requests and trips by sending requests that look authentic but don't correspond to any actual trips. This kind of corporate information warfare sounds like something out of a William Gibson novel, but it certainly feels present and real when you look at Google's relationships.

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