121–130 of 689 posts
I was let go today from Uber. If anyone is looking for a Frontend/Fullstack with 7yoe. I'm here :) Find me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/travis-lawrence-b77400b8/
I was let go today from Uber. If anyone is looking for a Frontend/Fullstack with 7yoe. I'm here :) Find me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/travis-lawrence-b77400b8/
Dara's email was really well written, and felt as compassionate as one can for a letter from a CEO announcing job cuts. The full email: Team Uber: These have been unprecedented and challenging times for everyone—our societies, our governments, our families, our economies, all around the world. They’ve also been challenging for Uber, and many of you, as you’ve waited for us to define the road ahead. I’ve said clearly…
> I had to make this decision because our very future as an essential service for the cities of the world Any company that facilitates or provides an in-person service that has seen a sharp decline from Covid-19 is pretty clearly not an essential service in the minds of their customers.
I would argue some portion of the accommodations industry is essential (avg. occupancy rates of around ~%60 in normal times, so let's say ~%60 of hotels/motels are essential) and yet I know multiple hoteliers who have had to close shop for the next few months due to zero volume. This doesn't mean that day-to-day, hotels aren't an essential service.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you’re cutting off someone’s source of income, giving them extra money gives them extra time to land on their feet. I’d say that’s pretty ethical.
Is shorter or zero severance unethical? We all enter into this employment contract knowing it could end abruptly from either party. If money is tight, they could afford longer severances for all if they cut 4000 instead. Does that not seem unethical toward the extra 1000 cut?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How might this affect hiring in the future when they need more people "Independent contractors" working from home and using their own equipment. "Gig economy". Hope they enjoy it.
Geez, this is incredibly callous. These are real people who are losing their livelihoods.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
AI engineers cost an absurd amount of money for dubious ROI in the self-driving car space.
That's true in more than just in the self-driving car space. Even at companies like AAPL and AMZN where ML focused researchers/engineers work on production related tasks, I've seen their value production is dubious at best.
I would argue that ML researchers/engineers have a clear impact on AAPL products in several areas:
* FaceID
* Steadily improving speech recognition accuracy in Siri
* Considerable improvement in speech synthesis quality
* Increasing sophistication in camera image processing
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's gauche to say it on the day a bunch of people lost their jobs (and there's no need for the schadenfraude) but I think the underlying point is sane. Uber's business model is replacing FTEs in a a hidebound, regulated industry with gig workers (& good UX!). If you were forecasting how this company in particular would deal with a downturn, it's a reasonable guess that they'll try to do the same thing to their own w…
> Uber's business model is replacing FTEs Where are taxi drivers employees with benefits? At least in New York, they're mostly independent contractors. (A minority are sole proprietors.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I had to make this decision because our very future as an essential service for the cities of the world Any company that facilitates or provides an in-person service that has seen a sharp decline from Covid-19 is pretty clearly not an essential service in the minds of their customers.
As a counterpoint, buses/railways are imo 100% an essential service for cities and yet they were running empty during the COVID-19 lockdown where I live. I would hate to see them recategorized as non-essential because of a situation that is clearly completely abnormal.
And precisely because public transport IS essential we still had all of it running, just at a reduced capacity to facilitate the essential public demand. So comparing public transport with Uber only highlights even more how Uber is non essential, because we can live pretty much without it, but we evidently can't without public transport (as seen in London).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
what's the worst way to contact you?
This is a great question. I'll use this as an icebreaker in the future.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/gm5zwu/what_is_t...?