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The Fall of Travis Kalanick

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Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#141

Post by dogma1138 »

matte_black wrote: post #83
dylan604 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been at a couple of companies where a large number of employees wore company branded items. I was flabbergasted to learn that the clothing items were not swag but purchased items. Of the 2 companies, one had world wide name recognition, but the second definitely did not.

Which companies?

Cisco does that and it’s freaking expensive like $100> for a hoodie the gear they sold on the employee store was decent hoodies were Columbia soft shells were TNF but man that swag was expensive.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#142

Post by Anderkent »

DenisM wrote: post #123
Anderkent wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were better options available, people would work there. Folks drive ubers not because they want to contribute to the 'gig economy', but because that's the best option they have. Removing someone's best option never helps them.

Same argument can be applied to labor conditions in the factories 100 years ago. It was wrong then, and it might be wrong now.

Factories were a huge improvement over peasantry/starvation actually. Yes, they were still horrible, and we've improved since; but there was a reason people moved en masse to the industrial towns.

I suggest Polanyi's The Great Transformation if you want to find out more about this.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#143

Post by DonHopkins »

Shamelessly promoting Deepak Chopra on her wellness web site was inexcusable. But proxying Kalanick while promoting "meditation wristbands" for drivers??!

>"Even in top-level conversations where Kalanick appeared to be absent, other executives and board members suspected that Huffington was serving as his proxy. The founder of the Huffington Post was a constant presence at Uber’s offices, making suggestions that seemed to promote her new wellness company, Thrive Global Holdings LLC. For example, she wanted to put “nap pods” at driver hubs and give drivers meditation wristbands. Huffington’s company received $50,000 in consulting fees from Uber. The perceived self-dealing didn’t go over well internally, and she had the money returned, according to a person familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for Huffington says that Thrive provided services at cost, and that Huffington refunded the fees when events required her to take on a more active role at Uber."

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#144

Post by geezerjay »

mrgordon wrote: post #127
IWeldMelons wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3.90? Are you going like half a mile or what? Most of the city people usually have bus passes, because jobs are often far away.

Usually 1-2 miles. We don't need to do it every day so it isn't worth having a bus pass. If we wanted to do it daily though, there are ridesharing passes too. Some people pay like $20-25 a month for a pack of Uber passes that give a certain number of rides. This is just talking about the daily commute. Say I want to go to the airport. Its $12-14 in a Lyft usually and about the same for two people on BART. Even if I h…

> Usually 1-2 miles. We don't need to do it every day

You hardly count as mass transit traffic if your only use is sporadic and it covers close to a walking distance.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#145

Post by geezerjay »

mrgordon wrote: post #115
IWeldMelons wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand how it is possible. Public transit is soo much cheaper. In many cases, it is just unaffordable for someone to switch from taking the bus to Uber.

For example, in San Francisco the bus costs $2.50 to $2.75 depending on how you pay. If two people want to go somewhere, thats at least $5. Instead I can get door to door service with Lyft for between $3.90 and $4.10 for the first person and an additional $0.90 for the second person. This means I typically come out slightly ahead with Lyft with two people and its way more convenient. Its great... for now. Who knows h…

> For example, in San Francisco the bus costs $2.50 to $2.75 depending on how you pay.

According to Google, sfmta fares are $2.25 per adult. Those fares however are for single trips for sporadic users. Those are don't represent mass transit users. People who use mass transit with some relevant frequency use it with enough to justify paying for a monthly pass, which sfmta's goes for between $68 and $80 a month.

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#146

Post by wand3r »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #86
Larrikin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a receiver of a lot of SWAG, all of those company shirts become pajamas until the day they go into the H&M donation bag. I can't imagine any situation outside of working for that company where I would want to walk around advertising for them on an uninspired shirt with their logo plastered on it. I've gotten one single shirt from a hackathon I considered wearing based on their well designed logo, but the entire ba…

I can imagine one - I would gladly wear SpaceX swag everywhere I go. Hell, I'd wear a SpaceX-themed tie. Beyond that, I prefer to order t-shirts with my own design; $random-company swag frequently ends up as home/nightwear for either me or my SO.

SpaceX ran a promotion for employees where everything was 50% off. A few of my friends worked there and I was broke so for 2.50 for cofee mugs, hats and shirts was pretty attractive. I was a spacex brand whore for 6 months due to poverty. Love tge company though, if you can ever tour that facility I cant recommend it enough

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#147

Post by Anderkent »

Jasper_ wrote: post #130
Anderkent wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were better options available, people would work there. Folks drive ubers not because they want to contribute to the 'gig economy', but because that's the best option they have. Removing someone's best option never helps them.

Perhaps some of that $50 billion valuation can be used to pay their workforce a proper wage and give them benefits? Just a thought...

Valuation is not revenue nor any other form of money. They don't actually have $50 billion. At best you could claim the markets expect the future worth of the company be on average around $50 billion (modulo preferential stock impact, so actually a bit less).

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#148

Post by platz »

Anderkent wrote: post #147
Jasper_ wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps some of that $50 billion valuation can be used to pay their workforce a proper wage and give them benefits? Just a thought...

Valuation is not revenue nor any other form of money. They don't actually have $50 billion. At best you could claim the markets expect the future worth of the company be on average around $50 billion (modulo preferential stock impact, so actually a bit less).

So, basically Amazon is a form of Charity then; they basically have "no form of money" under that perspective. (Dispite knowing the fact they could turn on the money spigot at any time if so desired)

Re: The Fall of Travis Kalanick

#149

Post by Anderkent »

platz wrote: post #148
Anderkent wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valuation is not revenue nor any other form of money. They don't actually have $50 billion. At best you could claim the markets expect the future worth of the company be on average around $50 billion (modulo preferential stock impact, so actually a bit less).

So, basically Amazon is a form of Charity then; they basically have "no form of money" under that perspective. (Dispite knowing the fact they could turn on the money spigot at any time if so desired)

Amazon is a publicly traded company, so their valuation isn't really impacted by preferential stock. Also, if you think amazon has access to 1.6 trillion dollars, you're crazy.

And, well, they actually make money.

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