Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#131

Post by throw_away » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 12:04 AM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #118

pricechild wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's necessarily true... but I don't think anyone's cracked it yet either. There's https://www.car2go.com which ran for a year or so in my city but has since shut down. You could leave the car within the bounds of the city. There are also various bike schemes with a similar idea?

Car schemes exist like Zipcar. I know people who live in cities and don't own a car who use them all the time. But it's turned out to be a pretty niche business. Zipcar is the highest profile of these businesses, at least in the US, AFAIK and even they ended up bought by Avis. I suspect that with all the VC money subsidizing Uber et al, for most people the gap between regular rentals for a day+ and just calling an Ub…

car2go and reach now are much more usable than zipcar.

* cars are littered throughout the city rather than in designated parking spots

* cars are rented by the minute rather than by the hour

* cars don't have to be returned to where you got them from

The last point is the game changer. Now, it's feasible to do things like drive to the bar, but get a taxi back, or go on a long walk and grab a car back home when you're tired out.

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#132

Post by cstejerean » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 3:10 AM UTC

Neliquat wrote: post #126

cstejerean wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems unlikely. You need to register each car you intend to drive with Uber and each one requires them to perform an inspection. So the chances of just grabbing a ZipCar and using it for Uber for the day being allowed are pretty much zero.

Ehh, except I have seen people use different cars. I imagine you could just have a random zipcar inspected, and grab a similar looking one each time. People who drive for uber already have a terrible idea of finances, so not suprising.

As a rider I would report that. If the license plate doesn't match what I see in the app I also wouldn't get in the car. Maybe not enough riders care enough and some drivers can get away with it.

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#133

Post by bitmapbrother » Thu, Apr 27, 2017, 5:59 AM UTC

alain94040 wrote: post #15

bitmapbrother wrote: post #9

Perhaps this is standard practice, in the valley, to make the company that acquired your company defend you in the event that the acquisition resulted in a lawsuit, but this revelation just adds another red flag to the already long list of red flags that Uber ignored when acquiring Otto. IMO, Uber clearly knew what he did, either through disclosure or due diligence, and disregarded it. Considering their company cultu…

You are missing the key point: that agreement was not signed when Otto was acquired by Uber, it was signed days after Levandowski left Google, before there should have been any discussions with Uber regarding the acquisition of a startup that didn't exist yet. That is really bad optics.

I wasn't aware of that. That makes this whole thing look even more nefarious.

Re: Uber must turn over information about its acquisition of Otto to Waymo

#134

Post by nihonde » Sat, Apr 29, 2017, 8:23 PM UTC

timewarrior wrote: post #89

bduerst wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Matt Levine succinctly said it best: >Eventually there will be self-driving cars, and there's no special reason to think that Uber will be the best at building them, or that its dominant position in the ride-hailing-app space will protect it from better self-driving-car businesses.

Agreed. Unless they have a monopoly on self driving technology (which I seriously doubt). On the other hand, I feel that we will not have self driving cars for a really long time. Instead I believe we will have flying cars before that, who will solve the last mile problem. They will take you from the house to the hub and hub to the final destination. Buses can transport people between hubs. With self driving cars you…

I would settle for a system that takes over control of otherwise regular cars on highways and in congested areas.