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The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

danielcompton.net

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Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#351

Post by linkregister »

alpha_squared wrote: post #327
memmcgee wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber's drivers aren't really fans of them though, nor are they loyal to a single company. Uber could disappear tomorrow and all its drivers would be fine on Lyft.

This may no longer be the case, but doesn't Lyft have a stricter vetting process than Uber? It could be that some (most, none, all?) of Uber drivers may not be that happy with Lyft.

Not really. I'd be surprised if most Uber drivers weren't already at least onboarded to Lyft. About half of the drivers I see have two phones on cradles in their cars.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#352

Post by tlrobinson »

Analemma_ wrote: post #3

Yeah, this is a big deal. Uber has gambled everything on self-driving cars, what with their absurd burn rate and all. If that gets shut down because of trade secret injunctions, I don't think they have time to pivot to another strategy, especially after their reputation has nosedived.

If Uber doesn't have a path to profitability before fully autonomous self-driving cars are viable and legal in enough markets (5 years?) then I don't think they had a chance even without this debacle.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#354

Post by londons_explore »

WatchDog wrote: post #206
mmanfrin wrote: post #59

Outside of the case, the most striking thing to me about this is the level of detail that Google has over the logs and actions of their laptop. They were able to tell that a memory card was plugged in for 8 hours a year ago? I have trouble finding exactly how a customer encountered a 500 10 minutes ago.

Does anyone know if this information was collected as part of a monitoring service or if it was collected by forensically recovering the data from the laptops hard disk?

If the laptop was re-imaged to Windows, I doubt much of the syslogs from linux were left.

Especially since windows is much bigger than a default linux install these days, and this was a rarely used laptop, it seems unlikley any linux was left, even in free sectors.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#356

Post by londons_explore »

nlh wrote: post #307
GCA10 wrote: post #58

For all the noise and excitement at the start of these clashes, don't they usually get settled with a licensing agreement that both sides can live with? Sometimes we also see a medium-sized payment (not ruinous) to address the allegedly bad conduct. That usually gets paired with some lawyer-like phrases that amount to a blend of quasi-apology and face-saving evasions. It's still an interesting suit. But after Apple/S…

Because I think in this case, it's not just about money (per se), copying a public design, or patent-related technicalities ("we had a patent on that very generic thing!"). This one is about bad-faith theft. Google didn't sue Uber because they want to extract some $ from them, they sued because they feel their hard work was literally stolen by a bad-faith actor who is now competing against them with their own work. N…

Divisions in a company are fairly tightly budgeted.

If Waymo can sue Uber and get $5b, that might keep them away from the prying eyes of the ruthless shareholders looking to cut unprofitable side projects.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#357

Post by harryh »

randyrand wrote: post #345
harryh wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number was determined by looking at gross revenues (which is just Uber's cut of rides not the total that customers pay) and comparing it to corporate expenses (which is not the same thing as what it costs to deliver the rides). It's an almost non sensical calculation. The fact that it has been widely reported is a sad statement on the innumeracy of journalism.

^ to reiterate. This is a bit arbitrary since investor capital is not actually used this way, but the numbers would be: - 41% of Uber's corporate expenses are paid for by the customer, 59% by investors - 100% of non-corporate costs (driver, car, fuel, maintenance, etc) are paid for by the customer and 0% by investors. But this instead somehow got interpreted as "the customer only pays for 41% of the ride cost". Which…

That is an excellent explanation. Thank you.

I will add that I suspect that some corporate expenses are going to the driver in the form of bonuses or minimum per hour earnings (Uber has had a lot incentive programs for drivers). This, kinda, goes to the cost of a ride. I have no idea how much money this is overall. A lot maybe.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#358

Post by fullshark »

tlrobinson wrote: post #352
Analemma_ wrote: post #3

Yeah, this is a big deal. Uber has gambled everything on self-driving cars, what with their absurd burn rate and all. If that gets shut down because of trade secret injunctions, I don't think they have time to pivot to another strategy, especially after their reputation has nosedived.

If Uber doesn't have a path to profitability before fully autonomous self-driving cars are viable and legal in enough markets (5 years?) then I don't think they had a chance even without this debacle.

They have a path to profitability without self-driving cars. They don't have a path to justifying a 70 billion dollar valuation without self-driving cars on the horizon IMO.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#359

Post by londons_explore »

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.

Not filing suits/charges against the individuals involved suggests "sending a message" isn't the goal.

In fact, the people involved look to have done rather well financially out of it so far.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#360

Post by halflings »

transfire wrote: post #137
themgt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even at the time, knowing none of the characters or background I found Otto a very odd startup, one I almost didn't believe looked legit, and their rapid acquisition by Uber was one more "huh, strange" moment - how could they have bootstrapped out of nowhere and had tech worth that kind of money so fast? It's almost hard to believe Uber would be so brazen as to put something like this together, except that breaking t…

> except that breaking the law has been Uber's business model since day 1. So tired of hearing this. It's just parrots talking in the echo chamber. Show me a court verdict that Uber broke the law.

I was in Helsinki a couple weeks ago. They are offering their services there even if it is totally illegal [1]. Of course, it's the Uber drivers taking the fall, and Uber is letting this happen, simply hiding part of the license plate on the app to make it harder for authorities.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-16/uber-driv...

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