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Uber and Airbnb Alumni Fuel Tech’s Next Wave

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber and Airbnb Alumni Fuel Tech’s Next Wave

#151

Post by csallen »

Scoundreller wrote: post #98
yaacov wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe... but I’ve noticed this far more at NYT than other newspapers

Which doubly counters csallen's claims because the NYT is doing just fine (they're publicly traded). If anything, the majors (NYT, Guardian, The Economist, WSJ) have a lot to gain when local journalism dies because of technology.

The fact that Google was doing just fine didn't stop it from pouring everything it had into Google+ when Facebook looked unstoppable. Which is to say, the health of the current stock price doesn't preclude a business from being paranoid about the future.

Re: Uber and Airbnb Alumni Fuel Tech’s Next Wave

#152

Post by hestefisk »

habosa wrote: post #104

I have a hard time verbalizing it but something about Uber creating all these millionaires sickens me. In no order: * The business is fundamentally based on ignoring the law. * They've done nothing but lose money, more than any private company ever. * The money keeping them afloat is very dirty (mostly from Saudi Arabia) * The culture is well-known to be awful. * The drivers are completely exploited, working long day…

What’s the source of the claims, ie Saudi Arabia being a major source of equity? Not trying to be difficult but it’s a set of pretty bold statements and could benefit from some of evidence.

Re: Uber and Airbnb Alumni Fuel Tech’s Next Wave

#153

Post by hestefisk »

JesseAldridge wrote: post #119
habosa wrote: post #104

I have a hard time verbalizing it but something about Uber creating all these millionaires sickens me. In no order: * The business is fundamentally based on ignoring the law. * They've done nothing but lose money, more than any private company ever. * The money keeping them afloat is very dirty (mostly from Saudi Arabia) * The culture is well-known to be awful. * The drivers are completely exploited, working long day…

* They created a transportation network that enables a huge chunk of the world to get from point A to point B quickly, safely, and cheaply. > something about Uber creating all these millionaires sickens me This feeling is called envy.

He has a fair point though. Uber make a lot of money and do not pay their fair share of taxes in the countries in which they operate. That’s not envy.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-uber-tax-britain-idUKKBN18...

Re: Uber and Airbnb Alumni Fuel Tech’s Next Wave

#154

Post by csallen »

jacques_chester wrote: post #69
csallen wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The media has a lot to lose in a tech-dominated world. They used to have a monopoly on reach. Readers came to directly to them. Today that role belongs largely to tech companies. Media companies are heavily dependent on the algorithms and whims of the likes of Google, Twitter, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon. And it's not just distribution: it's their business models, too. Apple taking a cut of NYC subscription revenue,…

Most newspapers have a clear division between the editorial and money-making parts. Journalists look down on the advertising and classifieds departments. The consider it beneath their worthiness. If you think they're hiring because they give a shit about the lowlies who pay to keep the lights on, you haven't worked in the trade.

The idea that a for-profit business "doesn't give a shit" about the money-making parts of its business is… interesting. It smells to me just as reasonable as taking Google's "Do no evil" at face value.

First, journalists don't run the organization and aren't in control of business decisions. If their disdain of the advertising arm of the business amounted to anything, there wouldn't be an advertising arm of the business. There are ads injected into the middle of their articles because higher powers than the journalists are making business decisions.

Second, journalists don't need to like the media's business model to become subservient to it. Both ad and subscription revenue are fueled by pageviews. To align incentives, you simply reward journalists who write popular articles, and reward editors for doing what they can to make articles more popular. It's not some mysterious coincidence that media tends to produce sensationalist articles and headlines. (And as I mentioned initially, it's quite effective to simply bend toward hiring journalists who already care about this.)

Who is controlling what articles end up on the front page? Are the programmers at Google and Facebook who don't like ads the ones in control of either of these two companies' business models? This just isn't how businesses work.

Businesses are incentive chains crafted by top-down decision-makers who aim to get sales-and-programmers, ads-and-journalists, and other business units who don't like each other to nonetheless work together to achieve a singular goal.

---

The front-page story on Vox right now is a take-down of tech in light of the NZ shootings: https://imgur.com/a/Li9zcAC

Re: Uber and Airbnb Alumni Fuel Tech’s Next Wave

#155

Post by adventured »

mdorazio wrote: post #130
uwuhn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who uses Uber and Lyft on a daily basis, and has done so for the past three years, their existence has measurably made my life better. Taxis were never an option due to a combination of cost, time, and inconvenience.

While I agree, it's important to note that the reason for all three of those improvements is billions in subsidies + exploited drivers. If Uber rides were not subsidized, they actually followed employment and licensing laws, and drivers actually accounted for their total expenses properly, the cost we be pretty close to what taxis charge, number of available drivers would decrease, and wait times would increase. The…

> it's important to note that the reason for all three of those improvements is billions in subsidies + exploited drivers

First, they're not exploited drivers. You could claim any worker is exploited at any and all times. It's not a statement with any grounding to it in this case. They are not being held hostage by Uber, this is the best labor market in two decades. You could claim all workers at every big and small company are all universally exploited. The person making $15 / hour should be making $30; the person making $30 / hour should be making $60.

Second, almost every major tech company you can name exists due to initial venture capital or investor subsidies (including Apple, Amazon, Google, Salesforce, Workday, etc). Amazon bled a lot of red ink before they turned seriously profitable (not nearly so much as Uber granted), because they were investing massively to achieve scale. It was venture capital and investor money broadly that subsidized that build out and enabled them to have low prices. So what? It was widely claimed for 20 years that they couldn't generate a substantial profit, and now they are thanks to opportunities they grabbed hold of (perhaps Uber Eats will be that for Uber, or any number of other things).

Re: Uber and Airbnb Alumni Fuel Tech’s Next Wave

#156

Post by rco8786 »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #113
rco8786 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology has always outrun regulation. It’s not any different in these cases. Regulators will catch up as they always have. This, truly, is how progress has been made since the dawn of time. You’re taking the same position people took against the printing press, automobiles, and computers when they were all in their infancy. Restaurants in people’s homes were incredibly common until health regulators showed up.

Regulation was way ahead of airbnb here. Enforcement had to catch up.

Yes I did sort of lump those together. But it's not 100% enforcement either. Lots of place didn't and don't have rules against short term rentals - but we're seeing more and more pop up in response to Abnb

Re: Uber and Airbnb Alumni Fuel Tech’s Next Wave

#157

Post by rockinghigh »

habosa wrote: post #104

I have a hard time verbalizing it but something about Uber creating all these millionaires sickens me. In no order: * The business is fundamentally based on ignoring the law. * They've done nothing but lose money, more than any private company ever. * The money keeping them afloat is very dirty (mostly from Saudi Arabia) * The culture is well-known to be awful. * The drivers are completely exploited, working long day…

As an employee, I do not find the culture awful. I has improved considerably. As for the headquarters, Twitter, Square and Microsoft also have offices there. Do you also blame them? What do you expect these companies to do about homelessness?

Re: Uber and Airbnb Alumni Fuel Tech’s Next Wave

#158

Post by tracer4201 »

warp_factor wrote: post #79

Airbnb or Uber are not really tech companies. They are business companies with a WebApp required as part of the execution. They didn't invent anything on the technical level, they brought some business ideas to existing tech (I mean Airbnb is literally a website with a DB) In the same way that United is not a tech company, but they have a website that accepts reservation. Tech companies create new Tech as part of the…

What defines a “real” tech company? Gatekeeping what can or cannot be defined defined as a tech company. Am I on Reddit or hacker news? Wow.

Re: Uber and Airbnb Alumni Fuel Tech’s Next Wave

#159

Post by the_watcher »

hestefisk wrote: post #152
habosa wrote: post #104

I have a hard time verbalizing it but something about Uber creating all these millionaires sickens me. In no order: * The business is fundamentally based on ignoring the law. * They've done nothing but lose money, more than any private company ever. * The money keeping them afloat is very dirty (mostly from Saudi Arabia) * The culture is well-known to be awful. * The drivers are completely exploited, working long day…

What’s the source of the claims, ie Saudi Arabia being a major source of equity? Not trying to be difficult but it’s a set of pretty bold statements and could benefit from some of evidence.

Uber very famously took $3.5B from the Saudi government: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-03/the-insid...

Re: Uber and Airbnb Alumni Fuel Tech’s Next Wave

#160

Post by grandridge »

JesseAldridge wrote: post #119
habosa wrote: post #104

I have a hard time verbalizing it but something about Uber creating all these millionaires sickens me. In no order: * The business is fundamentally based on ignoring the law. * They've done nothing but lose money, more than any private company ever. * The money keeping them afloat is very dirty (mostly from Saudi Arabia) * The culture is well-known to be awful. * The drivers are completely exploited, working long day…

* They created a transportation network that enables a huge chunk of the world to get from point A to point B quickly, safely, and cheaply. > something about Uber creating all these millionaires sickens me This feeling is called envy.

It's not envy he's correct. When Uber left Austin there was a ride hailing app up in about a month. It's a bunch of people that got bailed out in 08 with zero percent money thinking they are smart looking to be part of the next big thing. Uber will never be profitable. But all early investors will treat ipo as an ATM, complete opposite of what stock market is for
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