Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 689 posts

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#241

Post by bradlys »

CydeWeys wrote: post #229
bdcravens wrote: post #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 work…

Worth pointing out that Uber is no longer a unicorn. It is a large publicly traded corporation with a market cap of $58B. I suppose you're asking your question about large tech companies generally, not so much unicorns? Most unicorns are still quite small (revenue and employee count-wise) relative to large publicly traded corporations like Uber and the FANGs.

Am at a Unicorn. Engineering is 20-30 engineers total. This person is definitely confusing Unicorn with some generic big engineering heavy company. Many companies scale very differently. Some scale with large engineering efforts - mine doesn't. The change in number of engineers has barely moved in the last 2 years.

That said - to the question about unicorns: You're always expendable. Same as any job - same politics - same nonsense. No matter how important they make you think you are to a products success - they'll fire you regardless. It's amazing how fake management will be about urgency. "This is the most critical business function! We must have people working on it!11!!1!1!" Fires key employee because they didn't like them - "critical business function" gets shoved into the backlog to never be seen again. People are fake and think they need to show urgency to get the most value out of their employees.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#243

Post by erichurkman »

0zymandias wrote: post #238
erichurkman wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To read that quote differently: 1981 • Jack Welch becomes CEO • $1.29 2001 • Jack Welch retires • $37.20 (down from its peak of near $60.00 in mid 2000) 2020 • Nearly 20 years post Jack Welch • $6.28. 20 years of Jack Welch - +2,800% increase 20 years after Jack Welch - -83% decrease

2800% is a much bigger number than 83%. But if you do the math using your numbers, you see that GE substantially underperformed the S&P since 1981: GE = (1+2800%)*(1-83%) = 4.93 = 393% appreciation since 1981. S&P = S&P has appreciated 2000% since 1981. GE << S&P

Maybe that's why Welch said to measure against GE's future leaders if they are destined to forever underperform the S&P. :)

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#244

Post by dreamcompiler »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #138
jonluca wrote: 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…

Uber all but destroyed the existing taxi infrastructure in several major cities. So yeah, in many places they're now pretty essential.

That said, the barrier to entry for an Uber-like service is quite low, so if Uber vanished from the face of the Earth it wouldn't take more than about a month to re-create it.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#245

Post by derrick_jensen »

eecc wrote: post #142
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

Check where they unionized more?

New York is probably one of the most union heavy places in America. Checking where they are unionized more isn't an accurate reflection of the rest of the world.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#246

Post by javajosh »

ping_pong wrote: post #211
0zymandias wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, I know. But it's a nonsensical way to measure it. Is sounds like something he said flippantly without thinking about what that meant, because it's meaningless.

An interesting comment because it's a good example of what you see more and more of from people with a positive emotional disposition toward someone who won't let them fail or look bad even if its quite obvious that they failed, and it looks bad (and even if they themselves would admit it).

As a factual matter, the measurement isn't meaningless at all. Give Jack some credit.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#247

Post by opportune »

koblas wrote: post #148
Havoc wrote: 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

Don't really agree with this at all unless you are only talking in the context of the software engineering job market - which I don't think is usually what people refer to by "tier N"

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#248

Post by fermienrico »

alexmic wrote: post #116
travisl12 wrote: post #52

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/

We're hiring at Supergreat ( https://supergreat.reviews ) :) I'd love to tell you more, email me at alexmic@supergreat.reviews.

What the.. hmm...interesting business for sure.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#249

Post by nom »

jacquesm wrote: post #134

Hard to let go of that many people without losing critical knowledge, Uber will come out of this a diminished company in many ways. Best of luck to those laid off.

IMHO Unicorns are built with the assumption that almost every developer is replaceable. At that scale the critical knowledge is not with the developers.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#250

Post by x0x0 »

economicslol wrote: post #222
aeyes wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's no way people who commute every day are doing so for cheaper than actually owning a car. Yes there is: Public transportation (bus, metro, train). Millions of people get to work using it every day. Just having a car sit on the street would cost me at least 100$ per month in taxes, insurance, parking and other misc costs. I spend much less on public transportation. Most people live in dense cities so these se…

I should have specified, my point was that Uber is not the same as public transportation and is essentially a luxury good.

I bet Uber/Lyft enable single car ownership for lots of couples, and is nothing like a luxury good. Things like people who carpool, but need a backup when that falls through. Or the ability to get to a doctor (or any location) poorly served by public transit.

I mean, it's not a luxury good in the sense that you can buy a car, but I suspect many folks have made difficult or expensive to unwind decisions that make car ownership expensive. Classifying transportation where an alternative may well cost more than $1k/mo as a "luxury good" is a real stretch of the word luxury.

Post reply on HN