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Lending Club plans layoffs, discloses loans to former CEO and family members

latimes.com

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Re: Lending Club plans layoffs, discloses loans to former CEO and family members

#101

Post by ycombobreaker »

mikestew wrote: post #4

Stock's up 7% as I write this. I'm assuming nothing has been revealed that isn't already at least suspected, and layoffs are generally good for a stock's price. I've already made money on one dip-and-bounce, but currently in at 4.88, so here's hoping it will claw it's way back a little bit. I'm in no way qualified to declare a bottom, but I'm guessing all of the bad news is out of the way. This in no way constitutes…

Check this chart, which shows LC returns relative to SPY (S&P 500) over the past 5 days. The stock is up from the open today, but relative to the market it looks like it is tracking mostly unchanged from last week, or slightly negative. If I had to guess, I'd suppose that the negative trend is related to brexit's impact on the entire financial sector, and the sharp drawdown/recovery is related to the news: sharp drop on reaction, then partial recovery after value traders decide that the "wash" lending apparently doesn't matter much for future value.

http://www.barchart.com/chart.php?ss=1&spread=LC+%2F+SPY&p=I...

Re: Lending Club plans layoffs, discloses loans to former CEO and family members

#102

Post by pbreit »

maxerickson wrote: post #42
a_t48 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name a major successful mobile application that you think _doesn't_ use analytics?

I dunno, wouldn't the better question be if I am at all comfortable using a third party app for financial transactions? Because I'm not. But I'm not super concerned about me, I'm curious how the thinking goes when someone decides to collect information about the loans that other people are taking out. Maybe they are pretty sure that users understand it, the app could have a strong disclosure for all I know.

Can you suggest any reasonable concerns with what the app author has disclosed?

Re: Lending Club plans layoffs, discloses loans to former CEO and family members

#103

Post by pbreit »

rando18423 wrote: post #6

Wow, so the crown of the "fintech" movement is just as bad as the banks, and the two biggest Silicon Valley successes of the last decade, Uber and AirBnB, are really just cases of massively successful regulatory arbitrage. Nice innovation!

Dismissing Uber & AirBnB as primarily/solely successful from exploiting legal loopholes is insulting and uninformed.

Re: Lending Club plans layoffs, discloses loans to former CEO and family members

#104

Post by pbreit »

rando18423 wrote: post #21
hkmurakami wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tesla is just growing off of government subsidies!" etc.

No, making cars was never outright illegal. Operating a cap company, (or rather an illegal one), without proper licensing was. Operating a hotel out of your house was. Nice strawman.

But hasn't professional licensing and regulation gone a bit too far when driving someone in your car for money is supposedly illegal? What's the crime in that?

Re: Lending Club plans layoffs, discloses loans to former CEO and family members

#105

Post by nostrademons »

phil21 wrote: post #60
amalcon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the innovation there was in the cell phone[1]. You've been able to order a car by phone in major metros for longer than those have been around. In fact, Uber started off as an app for using those very services. Props to Uber for execution, but all the pieces were there. [1]-edit: some in the smartphone, but most in the old "makes calls" cell phones

The older I get the more I realize execution is simply all that matters. A zillion people had the same basic idea for Uber. They made it a reality, and made it Not Suck(tm). The user experience prior to Uber for ordering a car via phone was absolutely horrific.

Execution and timing. Uber had a big advantage in being new & shiny just as the market was ready for it. They tried it multiple times and the first few it failed to gain any traction.

Re: Lending Club plans layoffs, discloses loans to former CEO and family members

#106

Post by maxerickson »

pbreit wrote: post #102
maxerickson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, wouldn't the better question be if I am at all comfortable using a third party app for financial transactions? Because I'm not. But I'm not super concerned about me, I'm curious how the thinking goes when someone decides to collect information about the loans that other people are taking out. Maybe they are pretty sure that users understand it, the app could have a strong disclosure for all I know.

Can you suggest any reasonable concerns with what the app author has disclosed?

Primarily what I allude to in my initial comment, it indicates that they are in possession of specific user information. As I also point out above, I have no idea how informed the users would be about that.

I guess that might not meet all definitions of reasonable concerns.

Re: Lending Club plans layoffs, discloses loans to former CEO and family members

#107

Post by jpatokal »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #92
jpatokal wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember trying to find a cab in suburban Silicon Valley on my first visit in the days before Uber. Then as now, if you Google for "taxi Mountain View" or similar, you get 2.5 million results. Should I call Yellow Cab or Yellow Taxi Cab or Bay Area Yellow Cab or Sky Cab? Which one is going to show up in a reasonable amount of time and not gouge me? Who the fuck knows! Not even my local coworkers did, because they a…

It's almost like there should be websites that give reviews and ratings for local businesses and services.

As it happens, the first hit for that search is Yelp. Do you find this helpful?

https://www.yelp.com.au/search?cflt=taxis&find_loc=Mountain+...

Re: Lending Club plans layoffs, discloses loans to former CEO and family members

#108

Post by ocdtrekkie »

morgante wrote: post #79
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems a common way to "disrupt" a market is to find a loophole to call yourself something else so you can avoid all the laws everyone else is beholden to that were put in place for people's protection.

If that were true, I would expect the experience of using Uber to be identical to using a taxi, or for AirBnBs to be identical to hotels. They're different experiences and certainly innovating. Just because they had to overcome legislation to grow does not mean that regulatory subversion is their only benefit.

Uber lacks the safety precautions taxis do, and they're leaving cities who mandate the level of accountability taxi companies have. AirBnB customers have reported heavy amounts of racism and bigotry, things that wouldn't fly very far very fast in the hotel industry.

Regulatory subversion is what gives them the margins to operate, and if a few people get hurt or discriminated against, I'm pretty sure Uber and AirBnB are okay with that trade-off.

Re: Lending Club plans layoffs, discloses loans to former CEO and family members

#109

Post by morgante »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #108
morgante wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that were true, I would expect the experience of using Uber to be identical to using a taxi, or for AirBnBs to be identical to hotels. They're different experiences and certainly innovating. Just because they had to overcome legislation to grow does not mean that regulatory subversion is their only benefit.

Uber lacks the safety precautions taxis do, and they're leaving cities who mandate the level of accountability taxi companies have. AirBnB customers have reported heavy amounts of racism and bigotry, things that wouldn't fly very far very fast in the hotel industry. Regulatory subversion is what gives them the margins to operate, and if a few people get hurt or discriminated against, I'm pretty sure Uber and AirBnB a…

> Uber lacks the safety precautions taxis do,

Name those precautions and how exactly they relate to safety.

> AirBnB customers have reported heavy amounts of racism and bigotry

Millions of people stay in AirBnBs and the vast majority of them have positive experiences. There's no evidence of rampant racism or bigotry and any host who acted that way would be kicked off the platform.

This continued insistence that Uber and AirBnB are categorically inferior to legacy companies and only profit by skirting (useful) regulations is ridiculous. If taxis were better than Uber, why would anyone ever use Uber?

Re: Lending Club plans layoffs, discloses loans to former CEO and family members

#110

Post by mikeyouse »

pmorici wrote: post #63
ilamont wrote: post #10

The latest disclosures Tuesday, uncovered by a company probe, found that in the last few weeks of December 2009, Laplanche and three relatives took out 32 loans for a total of $722,800. All but three of those loans were repaid in full over the next two months, implying they were taken out to artificially goose Lending Club’s loan origination numbers. If true, would that be considered fraud?

Whether it is or not it doesn't have any relevance to the current state of the company.

They either lacked the internal controls or the morals to stop likely illegal self-dealing.. I wouldn't be first in line to trust their next moves..
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