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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

#261

Post by fermienrico »

MattGaiser wrote: post #255
fermienrico wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your point, can you please elaborate more? I read it twice and your comment isn't making any sense to me: 1) Are you suggesting that developers should go join a smaller company so they are less expendible? 2) Are you suggesting that developers, now that they are laid off, go work on R&D projects, tooling and open source startups? I am so confused. What is the take away?

I do not think he is suggesting any course of action beyond awareness that their position is less stable than it might be in other jobs.

Ohh....I get it now. Jeez, I need more coffee.

I've always worked in manufacturing so people aren't that easily expendible. Takes a long time to train someone and without them, one of the line shuts down or gets less productive / slow.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#262

Post by hobofan »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #184
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Tell that "Uber is not an essential service" to the millions of otherwise unemployable people that were able to feed their families using it. In countries like Brazil, where I'm from, the fall of Uber will have a gigantic impact. Gig economy apps BECAME ESSENTIAL parts of our lives, there's no denying it. But it was never sustainable. When everybody benefits from a product/service, other than the company that offers…

The classification as an "essential service" has only to do with the service being essential to the _users_ of the service, and nothing to do with the workers.

You are completely twisting the label of an essential service in a way that makes it effectively meaningless. For every worker that depends on their salary for their livelihood, their job is essential, but that has nothing to do with an "essential service".

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#263

Post by KptMarchewa »

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.

Then car is essentially a luxury good, since it's the same - just someone else is driving it.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#264

Post by ivalm »

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

To be fair, most companies underperform s&p 500. S&p is driven by giant winners, and every generation has different winners. In the 90s GE was the winner and other companies in s&p trailed them. This is what makes survivors like Microsoft so amazing, they managed to remain on top by reinventing themselves many times under different leaderships.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#265

Post by gbronner »

whymauri wrote: post #63
lhorie wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, everyone knew it was coming. Dara has been pretty transparent about the timelines, plus there were a ton of leaks in the news about details over the course of the last few weeks. It looks like everyone in eng got an email this morning that stated in bold italics whether they are affected or not. Gotta say I appreciated that clarity. But the day's just starting so I don't really have a grasp on what teams are st…

I don't understand why the firings are waves. Is this a logistics thing, or a morale thing somehow? Because it seems like it would negatively impact morale, more than anything. In either case, don't feel obligated to answer given the current circumstances. I'm sorry this is happening to you and your company. I'm sending you and the other workers good wishes.

At Lehman Brothers, the waves came every few weeks. On Tuesdays, HR fired business people, and engineering people cleaned up the mess. On Wednesdays, HR fired engineering people. On Thursdays, HR fired each other.

It allows you to ramp down without pandemonium.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#266

Post by KptMarchewa »

economicslol wrote: post #219
tjr225 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying a reasonable used compact car probably costs around 2000$ minimum. And a 2000$ car, no matter how nice, has the potential to require much more $$$ in maintenance when things start breaking. Believe it or not, there are people out there who don't have $2000 and these people are also the same ones who can't get anyone to lend them money.

This is not some let them eat cake thing, frankly I think people with your pov are actually the ones saying that. How much would it actually cost to commute 20-30 minutes to and from work in an Uber? $40 a day? More? Let's just say its 40 and you strictly commute during the week so that's $200 a week or 800 a month. Even with bad credit or no credit you would be able to save for a car rapidly. The $2000 car would onl…

Why are you so focused on the "sole means of transportation"? Before COVID I've used Uber and the likes around twice a month - when using public transportation was unfeasible, like going to the airport with heavy luggage. Using public transportation and supplementing it with Uber was definitely most reasonable solution.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#267

Post by simias »

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…

I've never worked for a true unicorn but I've been in companies that got a sudden success and grew way too big way too fast. I think you can tell from the inside when a company loses its way. As you mention, suddenly you have tons of teams working on what seems to be fairly niche aspects of the company's product. You have man-years worth of work going nowhere as projects get scrapped mid-development. You start having a massively more complicated hierarchy of bosses and managers and project leaders and it seems like everybody is chief of something and everybody loses sight of the big picture as they just become focused on a single aspect of a given product. What was once a lean startup with a vision is now struggling to get new products out of the pipeline even though they have ten times (or more) the manpower.

Growing is hard and unicorns are expected to grow really, really fast. In the end many companies with a completely viable product end up going under just because investors thought that a million dollar company should be a billion dollar company.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#268

Post by economicslol »

x0x0 wrote: post #250
economicslol wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So a luxury that you can normally get by without? You seem to be strengthening my argument that it's not essential.

I think my point is being missed though and that is that using Uber as your daily commute is certainly not cheaper than owning a car. I think that's perfectly reasonable to say.

Also I don't mean to imply that Uber is a luxury in the same way Lois Vuitton is a luxury.

In my examples in other comments using Uber as a daily commute option almost certainly costs nearly 1000 or more per month.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#269

Post by adrianmonk »

mattwad wrote: post #171
0zymandias wrote: post #145

It looks like Dara is executing the Jack Welch & General Electric playbook [1]. Essentially, it comes down to "Be the #1 or #2 company in the market or exit" You can debate whether it was successful at GE. The criticism of Jack Welch was that his approach improved short-term financials, but he left a hollowed-out company to his successor that became irrelevant and lost value relative to the S&P. The way I see this pl…

> I worry the most about Scooters and AV as those are arguably core to urban mobility Scooters are a fad that was never needed. Bikes or mopeds like Revel are 10 times more useful. I don't think scooters replace anything of note, since you can pretty much walk the same distance. They're only fun for tourists and left in the sidewalk for everyone else to stumble over.

> you can pretty much walk the same distance

I think I'm the intended use case because I live about 2 miles (3.2km) from an entertainment district. I can walk it, and I have done so, but it takes quite a while, around 45 minutes. On a scooter it takes like 10.

Because of parking costs, scooter is cheaper than driving. It might even be faster. I own a bike, so I could ride that, but I don't like parking it in a busy downtown area.

There's also a bus I can take, and sometimes I take bus one direction and scooter the other if the bus schedule doesn't work for me.

I admit many people park scooters in a very inconsiderate way, but I always park carefully out of the way, so I don't feel bad about that personally.

Re: Uber cuts 3000 more jobs, closes 45 offices

#270

Post by MattGaiser »

fermienrico wrote: post #261
MattGaiser wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not think he is suggesting any course of action beyond awareness that their position is less stable than it might be in other jobs.

Ohh....I get it now. Jeez, I need more coffee. I've always worked in manufacturing so people aren't that easily expendible. Takes a long time to train someone and without them, one of the line shuts down or gets less productive / slow.

How long do people usually stay at your company?
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