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I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

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Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#331

Post by aurareturn »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #317
aurareturn wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US media: China is wrong to use its military power to bully countries. Poster: But the US does it too and has done it for far longer and more often. Average HN reply: Omg, whataboutism.

That is sort of the definition of the informal red herring fallacy whataboutism. It doesn’t mean the US hasn’t. It means it’s not related to China being wrong to use military power to bully countries. An awful lot of folks here agree it’s wrong for anyone to bully anyone in any context, especially nations bullying the people of another country. We are all, after all, people. But people citing a fallacy when a fallacy…

I don't have a problem with the US bullying others. My problem is that people here on HN and in the west in general, demonizing China for doing the exact same thing when the US has done worse. They think it's ok to boycott Chinese products, but they won't boycott product from their own country. They will say that the Chinese government is evil, but is completely ok with the government of their own. They will say China has no right to bully Vietnam, but they will vote in politicians who advocate for war with just about anyone.

It's hypocritical. Don't demonize China unless you're willing to demonize yourself.

Hell, don't demonize China unless you read their point of view too. I'm sure you're only getting one POV.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#332

Post by slim »

mkii wrote: post #177
ipython wrote: post #144

Best quote: "People working for Didi apply for intern jobs at Uber China and then exfiltrate our data. We can’t let them see the formulas or they’ll just copy what we do!” This is so true. People in the US just don't understand the level of economic and industrial espionage that happens in China on a daily basis. I was responding to an unrelated breach at an unnamed tech company back in mid-2000s time frame and had a…

And yet, when the author takes code from one company to use for another, or releases company code on Github, nobody bats an eyelid.

[flagged]

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#333

Post by PeterStuer »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #207
nextaccountic wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> State espionage is going to be at every large US company too. Snowden revealed, among other things, that the NSA did state espionage on Brazil's state oil company, Petrobras https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/world/americas/nsa-spied-... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-bra... https://g1.globo.com/fantastico/noticia/2013/09/nsa-document... International relations are based on reciprocity. I…

A crucial difference is the US spying is for state use, whereas in China the state is deeply intermixed with industry. State industrial espionage is used for commercial competitive advantage. This is a huge structural and cultural difference. For instance it’s hard to believe China bootstrapped BYD and GWM among others from green fields. They’ve been exfiltrating and transferring automotive technology for decades. Th…

US corporate espionage is also shared with select companies for economic gains. This has been going on since forever. Google Echelon.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#334

Post by yeahwhatever10 »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #148
bastawhiz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I asked at the time, and I did it. If either company wants to start a legal fight over a pile of code that neither of them wanted that's old enough to be in elementary school, they know how to reach me.

The problem is that you are claiming ownership of this code and by making it available on GitHub under an MIT license you are claiming that you have the right to do so. If I take that code and make a billion dollar business out of it, Box or Uber could then claim a share of it. That's the kind of things that companies do with the lawyers on retainer. I then sue you for falsely claiming that you own it. You are partic…

Can you source the claim about Washington State?

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#335

Post by seabrookmx »

aurareturn wrote: post #305
pbj1968 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I was called a racist 25 years ago when I said, “like, our engineering school is, like, crawling with Chinese nationals.” We said like a lot on the 90s.

[flagged]

Is it the phrasing you think is racist? I don't think pointing out the fact that the student body of a given school is, for example, 20% Chinese, is racist. It's merely a statement of fact.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#336

Post by slim »

bastawhiz wrote: post #16
Znafon wrote: post #4

"Nothing came of it, but I took the code and shoved it into my back pocket for a rainy day. My idea was to take this code and spruce it up for Uber’s use case." "My first reaction was to publish the code on Github." I’m very surprised by this, isn’t the code property of Box, or Uber? The author does not mention their authorisation before releasing it under MIT license.

Author here. The code was originally written outside of work hours. I offered the code to Box and they didn't want it. If Uber wants a few thousand lines of JavaScript from over half a decade ago that didn't originate with them and that they used for less than a month, they can send me a letter.

I just want to say I am sorry you have to cope with people trying to convince you you are not free for no reason

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#337

Post by aurareturn »

seabrookmx wrote: post #335
aurareturn wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Is it the phrasing you think is racist? I don't think pointing out the fact that the student body of a given school is, for example, 20% Chinese, is racist. It's merely a statement of fact.

It's both the phrasing and the content.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#339

Post by vkazanov »

iancmceachern wrote: post #320
ipython wrote: post #144

Best quote: "People working for Didi apply for intern jobs at Uber China and then exfiltrate our data. We can’t let them see the formulas or they’ll just copy what we do!” This is so true. People in the US just don't understand the level of economic and industrial espionage that happens in China on a daily basis. I was responding to an unrelated breach at an unnamed tech company back in mid-2000s time frame and had a…

I've watched this happen. I've watched key, core engineers and technical leaders work for US and European companies, develop their next generation products, then turn around and design and develop essentially the exact same thing for the Chinese market. They then build a company, in China, that makes essentially the same product, but for the Chinese Market, and with Chinese investors, etc. Examples: Thoratec/Abbot He…

So an engineer learns how to make something, and then goes elsewhere to make it.

To be honest, the way you put ut, the story feels OK to me.

There are many truly bad examples, e.g. the arm china story, but engineers doing their thing is not one of them.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#340

Post by speedgoose »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #283
sneak wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The code is MIT licensed. Anyone is legally allowed to upload MIT licensed code to GitHub, it's free software and may be freely redistributed.

It's probably not legally his code to license, if his employment agreement is like the vast majority of engineers'.

He could be authorised to open source the company code he wrote. Though, I wouldn’t bet it’s the case there. But Uber has a lot of Open-source projects so they are perhaps allowing engineers to decide themselves.
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