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Waymo filing says Travis Kalanick knew engineer had Google info

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Re: Waymo filing says Travis Kalanick knew engineer had Google info

#121

Post by eridius »

furioussloth wrote: post #115
eridius wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you describe is something that literally any car-sharing company anywhere provides, including taxis. This does not even remotely mean that "justice" has been served for any of the atrocities Uber has committed.

You are ignoring the fact that regulations which protected taxis would not allow ride sharing companies like uber or lyft to exist. Uber made it possible to have those car sharing companies.Taxis are awful in so many cities. It is impossible to expect quick pick-up in cities like buffalo,NY. Many worse things happen in loads of companies . They get away with it because media is not interested. I totally believe the m…

Uber chose one route to make it possible. That doesn't mean other ways didn't exist (e.g. lobbying for change).

Furthermore, the fact that Uber led the way here still doesn't mean "justice" has been served for anything, especially since most of the horrible things Uber has done were done after Uber opened up the market (and past actions can never be said to provide "justice" for future actions).

Re: Waymo filing says Travis Kalanick knew engineer had Google info

#122

Post by ScottBurson »

maheshp wrote: post #87

There's a very good read in HBR today on the fact that Uber's business model is predicated on illegality. Thought provoking read. https://hbr.org/2017/06/uber-cant-be-fixed-its-time-for-regu...

That is an interesting piece. But I think it somewhat contradicts itself. On the one hand it claims, "The company’s cultural dysfunction [...] stems from the very nature of the company’s competitive advantage: Uber’s business model is predicated on lawbreaking." On the other, it points out that Lyft was actually the groundbreaker in using unlicensed drivers; in fact it links to a 2013 Uber policy statement [0] detailing Uber's plan to start using unlicensed drivers only after competitors had been doing so unimpeded in a given metro area.

The point is, Lyft was even more aggressive in ignoring the relevant legal strictures than Uber was; yet I have not seen any stories about a dysfunctional culture at Lyft, which, by the author's argument, should be even more inevitable. Indeed I know hardly anything about Lyft as a company, except that their service has worked for me when I've tried it, and the drivers seem to prefer it over Uber. If I had to say what seems to distinguish the two businesses, based on what (little) I know, I would say that Lyft seems more interested in providing a good service, while Uber seems more interested in making lots of money. I am tempted to conclude that Uber's problems are rooted more in a general lack of concern for customers, drivers, and employees than in the fact that their business model is somewhat outside the law.

[0] http://web.archive.org/web/20150910144736/http:/newsroom.ube...

Re: Waymo filing says Travis Kalanick knew engineer had Google info

#123

Post by furioussloth »

bjl wrote: post #118
furioussloth wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people who had a better option than driving drunk will do. Many parents who wait for their kids to get home safe after parties will agree. The social good done is way higher to totally justify using some shady software to evade authorities. Ignoring sexual harassment complain was a huge mistake. But pretty much everyone involved was fired , an investigation by holder was carried out and most of his suggestions a…

All of those things could have done without systematically breaking the law at every turn. We shouldn't let corporations unilaterally decide which regulations they want to follow; if they think some laws are unfair they should work to change them through the democratic process like the rest of us.

Well I for one am glad to have these services at my disposal earlier than later. There would be way less innovation if everyone insisted on doing things right. Which laws are broken if it is good or bad is a subjective matter. Some people though those laws were unnecessary and backward. Some people thought otherwise. IMO people got better service and drivers got income because of that brash behavior.Breaking those laws probably saved more lives than not breaking them.

Re: Waymo filing says Travis Kalanick knew engineer had Google info

#124

Post by Frondo »

ethanhunt_ wrote: post #54
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The myth that you can build a billion-dollar business without some shady dealings needs to die. Startups are usually faced with hard choices if they want to survive. Pretending like Kalanick himself endorsed sexual harassment is ridiculous. We don't know whether he knew, how much he knew, or how involved he was. All evidence points to "the trail of information stopped at HR." I think we like to pretend that startups…

Ironically the sister-post to your parent post complains about a vampire being killed in the 19th century, when it's the same mindset that caused that and that wants to crucify Kalanick. The five-minutes-of-hate culture and public lynching culture is dangerous and has to end. In a year some contrarian will post an article on Medium with the title "Kalanick was unfairly ousted" and it'll be posted on reddit/r/TIL and…

Jesus, this is a seriously overblown description of what's happened to the guy.

He hasn't been lynched, he hasn't been jailed, he hasn't had his riches taken away from him. He's been asked to endure one consequence of years of behavior that many, many of us don't approve of.

There's no "five minutes of hate" here, there's a lot of people in the world looking at someone who behaved badly, consistently, without showing any sign of changing their behavior, and saying "enough, you don't get to run a big business anymore".

Maybe you don't give a shit about the kind of business the guy built, and that's up to you, you don't have to give a shit, but acting like the rest of us are a lynch mob is a ridiculous misrepresentation of the situation.

Re: Waymo filing says Travis Kalanick knew engineer had Google info

#125

Post by furioussloth »

eridius wrote: post #121
furioussloth wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are ignoring the fact that regulations which protected taxis would not allow ride sharing companies like uber or lyft to exist. Uber made it possible to have those car sharing companies.Taxis are awful in so many cities. It is impossible to expect quick pick-up in cities like buffalo,NY. Many worse things happen in loads of companies . They get away with it because media is not interested. I totally believe the m…

Uber chose one route to make it possible. That doesn't mean other ways didn't exist (e.g. lobbying for change). Furthermore, the fact that Uber led the way here still doesn't mean "justice" has been served for anything, especially since most of the horrible things Uber has done were done after Uber opened up the market (and past actions can never be said to provide "justice" for future actions).

"horrible things": oh summer child. I would categorize most of these as misdemeanor. Try to take a breath and really look at it. Except for susan fowler case other things aren't that bad, except for firing everyone responsible I don't see what else should have been done.

Re: Waymo filing says Travis Kalanick knew engineer had Google info

#126

Post by eridius »

furioussloth wrote: post #125
eridius wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber chose one route to make it possible. That doesn't mean other ways didn't exist (e.g. lobbying for change). Furthermore, the fact that Uber led the way here still doesn't mean "justice" has been served for anything, especially since most of the horrible things Uber has done were done after Uber opened up the market (and past actions can never be said to provide "justice" for future actions).

"horrible things": oh summer child. I would categorize most of these as misdemeanor. Try to take a breath and really look at it. Except for susan fowler case other things aren't that bad, except for firing everyone responsible I don't see what else should have been done.

I get the impression that you're not actually aware of even half of what Uber's done. Maybe you've only been paying attention for the past few months, but Uber's been doing a lot of bad stuff for many years now.

Re: Waymo filing says Travis Kalanick knew engineer had Google info

#127

Post by jedberg »

_jal wrote: post #23
pfarnsworth wrote: post #10

Why does this article not mention that when Kalanick found out that Levandowski had this material, he immediately told him that Uber didn't want it, and told him to destroy those discs? The Bloomberg article on this topic said this directly. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-22/ex-uber-c...

Perhaps for the same reason you didn't mention the possibility of contempt mentioned in the Bloomberg article? There are multiple ways to tell a story. I realize partisans have discovered that yelling at journalists is a great way to distract from the underlying story, but it works better on Sunday shouty shows and swampy blogs.

> Sunday shouty shows

Never heard that before, but I'm totally stealing it from you.

Re: Waymo filing says Travis Kalanick knew engineer had Google info

#128

Post by enraged_camel »

kcorbitt wrote: post #119

This is perhaps the most important claim made by Waymo since the initial filing. Waymo had already built up a preponderance of evidence that Levandowski knowingly and intentionally stole their information. There's no way he's dancing out of that at this point. But up until now, they haven't provided any evidence or, I believe, made the claim that Uber knew what was up, which puts them in the awkward position of suing…

>>However, if they can demonstrate to a jury that Uber execs definitely knew what Levandowski did and ignored it

Since this is a jury trial, they only need to demonstrate it beyond reasonable doubt, no?

Re: Waymo filing says Travis Kalanick knew engineer had Google info

#129

Post by geoelectric »

enraged_camel wrote: post #128
kcorbitt wrote: post #119

This is perhaps the most important claim made by Waymo since the initial filing. Waymo had already built up a preponderance of evidence that Levandowski knowingly and intentionally stole their information. There's no way he's dancing out of that at this point. But up until now, they haven't provided any evidence or, I believe, made the claim that Uber knew what was up, which puts them in the awkward position of suing…

>>However, if they can demonstrate to a jury that Uber execs definitely knew what Levandowski did and ignored it Since this is a jury trial, they only need to demonstrate it beyond reasonable doubt, no?

Reasonable doubt is the criminal law standard, and is relatively hard to achieve since any credible theory by the defense can undermine it.

This is a civil lawsuit, so probably goes to preponderance of evidence. That's a lot easier--the plaintiff only has to prove it's more likely than not that the defendant was liable.

Jury or not doesn't really come into it, except that formal criminal trials (above an infraction, at least) always involve a jury.

Re: Waymo filing says Travis Kalanick knew engineer had Google info

#130

Post by woodandsteel »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #4

How long does Uber have left? Another post about Uber from yesterday said they had around a year left of runway. As an aside: Every day for at least the past month an Uber story talking about their failings has dominated Hacker News. I strongly believe that Uber's problems are extremely importantant, and deserve to be on the front page. But, its really tiring to talk about a company that is stumbling every single day…

There are so many Uber stories is because it is so big, it is so well known, and, above all, because it does so many different things that are flagrantly wrong. So we get a flurry of stories on one topic, then something else wrong is uncovered and we get stories on that, and so on.
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