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The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

danielcompton.net

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Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#331

Post by [deleted] »

heisenbit wrote: post #151
rhino369 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is typical for the terms of the license include giving back and not using the actually stolen documents/code. The license would just allow them to redesign without worrying about the other party indirectly using the trade secrets. It's because you can't really close pandora's box. Though in many cases its beneficial to use this as a way to become a key supplier to a competitor. If it's not a winner take all market…

The protection of IPR is a strategic concern of Google. Outright theft committed by the highest levels in both companies is hard to settle for them because of the message it sends. Google may perceive to have more at stake than simply the self driving related IPR.

[deleted]

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#332

Post by harryh »

pm24601 wrote: post #330
harryh wrote: post #29

Uber passengers only pay 41% of the cost of trips, with investor capital making up the difference FWIW this assertion (which isn't really core to the central thesis of the post, but still) is wrong. That number comes from https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2016/12/01/2180647/the-taxi-unic... but the author of that story misread the data. Uber only counts their cut as revenue not the full cost of the ride. Despite this repet…

> Uber only counts their cut as revenue not the full cost of the ride. except that revenue != income. ( http://smallbusiness.chron.com/net-sales-revenue-vs-net-inco... ) > Net sales, or net revenue, is the money a company gets from doing business with its customers. Net income is profit -- what's left over after the company has accounted for all its revenue, expenses, gains, losses, taxes and other obligations. Uber…

Uber almost certainly counts the revenue. This is a standard silicon valley way of getting a higher VC valuation.

It does not, as you can plainly see if you look at the nakedcapitalism link. Revenue is a separate, and much smaller, number than total passenger payments.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#333

Post by svachalek »

xapata wrote: post #297
hardtke wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber seems to offer quite generous bonuses to drivers who complete milestones (e.g. $600 bonus for 100 trips in a week, for instance). Every time I've chatted with a driver in Oakland, it seems that the bonuses are generally in the $5-7 per trip range. I've also been alone for many Uber Pool rides where I am nowhere close to being an economically viable passenger for the driver ($6 for a ride that costs the driver at…

Pool is profitable on average, but low margin, so any particular ride is likely to be an expense. Much like how a casino loses money on 49% of slots sessions.

Sliding off topic but I think that's more like 49% of pulls. The amount of time that it takes a slot machine to drive your odds of walking away richer down to hopeless levels is pretty short.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#334

Post by pm24601 »

pm90 wrote: post #263
Applejinx wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why could this not be a public service? Sort of like the very public highways the cars drive on.

Hmmm... interesting idea. I wonder it autonomous vehicles would enable this even more? I wouldn't mind paying a little extra tax to my local government to enable them to maintain a fleet of self-driving vehicles that I could summon with an app.

Oh .. you mean buses, paratransit, and other mass transit vehicles :-)

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#335

Post by thomasrognon »

wavefunction wrote: post #231
wh-uws wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ride Austin is far from "way better" on par when the service works maybe but hardly better. This past Saturday none of the ride sharing services could handle demand and all went down. No riders could request and an no drivers could accept. Also when the service does work glitches like seeing the login screen when you are already logged in are routine. Source: I'm in Austin right now for sxsw and I'm a former Austin r…

I disagree with your "tax grab" angle since there is no evidence of that. Unless you mean that the city of Austin was somehow going to make money off fingerprinting?

"(A) Each TNC operating in the City of Austin shall pay an annual fee calculated by the department based on one of the following methods of that TNCs choosing:

(1) The total of the permit fee paid by taxicab companies times the number of persons driving for the TNC;

(2) One (1) percent of the TNCs annual local gross revenues, or a comparable percentage of a TNCs portion of driver fares; or

(3) Based on total miles driven.

(B) Except for any TNC participating in the Safety Assurance Program, each TNC shall pay an additional fee of one (1) percent of the TNCs annual local gross revenue for the Compliant Driver Education Fund to be used to assist and incent drivers to become compliant."

Also, it was about much more than just fingerprinting. Fingerprinting was emphasized because it would have affected Uber and Lyft's business model the most by reducing the supply of drivers due to higher onboarding friction.

Here's the ordinance: https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm%3Fid=245769

Some more interesting parts:

- "A TNC shall establish a driver-training program designed to ensure that each driver safely operates his or her vehicle prior to the driver being able to offer service"

- "during periods of abnormal market disruptions, dynamic pricing shall be prohibited."

- ...and the whole reporting section where they have to hand over all their internal operating data to the city

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#336

Post by harryh »

peteretep wrote: post #312
harryh wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK there is not enough publicly available data to answer this question. But total_corporate_revenue(1) / total_corporate_spend(2) is an almost nonsensical way to calculate that number. (1) which is not the same thing, at all, as the total amount customers are paying for rides (2) which is not the same thing, at all, as the cost of providing all uber rides

> (1) which is not the same thing, > at all, as the total amount customers > are paying for rides Why not?

Because they are two different numbers in the report in question. Maybe go look at it?

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#338

Post by gwern »

pm90 wrote: post #121
bedhead wrote: post #105

Among the circumstantial evidence, the self-funding aspect is what jumped out at me the most. This is the equivalent of a hedge fund manage buying something based on inside information, but only for his personal account. Why cut other people in on the wink-and-nod-guaranteed payday? Besides, Lewandowski couldn't realistically raise money through proper channels if his pitch amounted to, "I stole stuff from Waymo."

In hindsight, a better crook would have accepted outside funding just to cover this line of attack (Assuming the Otto Founder is guilty; of course it might be otherwise).

I think that's his point. In this scenario, you can't raise any meaningful amount of outside funding without either getting very lucky, coming clean about your crime, or raising very small amounts. You go to a prospective VC and tell them you're going to be a super-successful self-driving car with an exit of $1b. 'Why? What makes you so awesome?' 'Well...' Either you tell them the truth, you give up a large fraction of equity just to get a token $1m investment, or you go away with $10k for 1%. In the first case, they may blow the whistle on you; in the second case, you reduce your eventual payment by a lot just for some dubious plausibility; and in the third case, you have the hassle of outside investment for no real plausibility at all.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#339

Post by c_r_w »

randyrand wrote: post #329

I still love Uber and will continue to use them. They provide a great service: point A to B at a good price and no hassles. That's why I use them. I don't care at all about the rest of the drama. It's hard to even keep up with it. I suspect most people are the same.

It is easy to love a company that is tossing free money at you to use their service. It will be harder to love them if/when they are a de facto monopoly on public transportation and are limiting service and raising fees to recoup their years of investor subsidies.

Enjoy your cheap rides!

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#340

Post by flukus »

ProblemFactory wrote: post #112
ivraatiems wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their "taxi" business model was completely unsustainable. A moonshot was/is the only thing that'd save them. That's why they did this (the self-driving part we know for sure, and the alleged stuff, if proven).

Taxi services are a centuries-old profitable business model (London had first laws regulating "taxis" in the 1600s). Dispatch via app is a solid improvement over the old phonecalls or street pickup, automatic credit card billing is an improvement over cash, and in cities with shady taxi drivers, GPS tracking is an improvement over potentially hacked taxi meters. So there is an obviously valuable business model for "t…

> Dispatch via app is a solid improvement over the old phonecalls or street pickup, automatic credit card billing is an improvement over cash, and in cities with shady taxi drivers, GPS tracking is an improvement over potentially hacked taxi meters.

It's also the easiest part to copy, most taxi companies have already. Now try asking they investors why the spent so many billions of dollars to break into the taxi business?

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