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Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

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Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh - the comment from the person with the multi-car garage, the tesla and the range rover. Walk me through what folks without good car / transit access should be using? If cab companies are "essential" then uber is essential and preferred to cab companies in many markets. A lot of folks on HN seems to be approaching this whole situation from the I have a ton of money, can work from home, have a car mental model.

>have a car mental model. I suspect buying a reasonable used compact car is much more financially prudent than using Uber as you means of transportation. Maybe the calculus flips in a dense city like NYC but there's no way people who commute every day with Uber are doing so for cheaper than actually owning a car.

This discounts the difficulties in buying a car when credit is bad or nonexistent. I was in this situation, the only people who will give you a vehicle are loan sharks and scammers. Partially this was my own ignorance (see: awful credit). Partially it was my own bad credit itself.

It also discounts the horrible stress that adding a known monthly bill can cause, when Uber is more flexible, pay-what-you-need. And I was never as bad as many others, so I can see how the least-prepared and least-financially-secure could see Uber as a viable use, either once-in-a-while (e.g., missed the bus), or for regular use (paying $12 for a two-way, 1 mile trip through a crappy part of town can pay for itself if you avoid an hour of walking and get an hour of working).

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#202
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's the worst way to contact you?

Call from an unfamiliar number, don't leave a message. Keep redialing until they pick up.

When they eventually pick up, play back the sound you hear when you accidentally dial into a fax line.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#203
post #9

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 — our being there for millions of people and businesses who rely on us — demands it." This is only one sentence in an otherwise fairly measured email, but it nevertheless annoyed me given the context. Uber is not an "essential service". They made this decision so that they can stay in business to make money for th…

I dunno. I find services like Uber and Lyft pretty essential. In my smallish city, getting a cab pre-Uber was near impossible. My friends and I had the personal number of 2 cab drivers, and if neither of them picked up, good luck.

Even with the highly publicized Uber failures, no Uber I've ever taken has been worse than many of the cabs I was in prior. Something as simple as knowing the price up front has been key when traveling.

So sure, of course they want to stay an ongoing concern. But, services like Uber and Lyft have become essential to many people.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#204
post #69

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/

Want to help fight COVID-19? Here's us: https://curativeinc.com/ Here's me: maddox@curativeinc.com We do testing, all aspects. They're oral swabs, which greatly reduces the barrier for many people who could get tested: They don't want a swab so far up their nose it feels like it's scraping their brain. We build the software for the full-stack of testing from managing drivethrough sites with healthcare workers, full l…

sounds really good. I am curious, what tech stack do you use?

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#205
Developers at unicorns: even in the best of times, do you feel more expendable than you've felt at other jobs? We always are amazed at the number of developers at companies like this. (the numbers I've seen are old, but I guess out of 22,000 employees, it was something like 5000 engineers?) While that allows you to build in a more robust way than a smaller company, it seems like there's no shortage of developers working on tooling, R&D projects, and at least partially on open source projects, roles that could presumably go away if a company had to focus strictly on the core product.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Short-term"? He was CEO for 20 years, and made it one of the most successful companies during that time. One would be very hardpressed to call GE of 2001 a hollowed-out company.

Jack Welch retired in 2001 after twenty years as CEO. "Upon his retirement from GE, Welch had stated that his effectiveness as its CEO for two decades would be measured by the company's performance for a comparable period under his successors" If we use the long-term yardstick that Jack Welch suggested we use, he does not come out looking good. We are now at roughly the two-decade mark and GE is trading at the same p…

Meh, that's a completely arbitrary measure and flippant at best. He has no control over what his successors do, or their strategy. I, and many many others, prefer to judge him by how he handled the company when he actually had control over it.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#207
post #148
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly off topic. What's tier 1/2/3 in the US? I had just heard that kind of system applied in China

San Francisco / Seattle / Boston / New York --- Austin / Salt Lake / Los Angeles / Portland / Atlanta --- Ann Arbor / Chicago / Minneapolis / Miami

Props for posting an ordering :O

This seems to be ranked on eng availability, but in terms of actual city tiers it's more like

T1: SF / NY / LA / Miami / Chicago / Atlanta T2: Seattle / Boston / Austin / SLC / Portland T3: Minneapolis / Ann Arbor

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jack Welch retired in 2001 after twenty years as CEO. "Upon his retirement from GE, Welch had stated that his effectiveness as its CEO for two decades would be measured by the company's performance for a comparable period under his successors" If we use the long-term yardstick that Jack Welch suggested we use, he does not come out looking good. We are now at roughly the two-decade mark and GE is trading at the same p…

Meh, that's a completely arbitrary measure and flippant at best. He has no control over what his successors do, or their strategy. I, and many many others, prefer to judge him by how he handled the company when he actually had control over it.

I didn't come up with it. It is the yardstick that he suggested we use to measure his performance :)

And it's a well-known issue with executive compensation that CEOs will juice numbers in the short-term to get their payouts which is likely why he proposed this as a measure of his performance.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#210

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/

Hey @travis12 - we're hiring at App Annie for Staff and Senior FE roles - https://boards.greenhouse.io/appannie/jobs/2172372

Not OP, but I'm in a similar situation and a lover of App Annie's product. Are you hiring only in Vancouver or is the role open to remote? (US, Pacific Timezone)
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