Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O. • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#411

Post by mcjiggerlog » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:38 AM UTC

naskwo wrote: post #352

A few weeks ago, I posted on HN about my experience in Hamburg (no Uber in Germany. The local taxi authority has its own app which works equally well, if not better). Last weekend, I was in Budapest. There is no Uber in Hungary (anymore), but the main taxi company (Fötaxi) has its own app which works brilliantly. I honestly see no "moat" around Uber in markets where (large) taxi dispatchers have the insight to build…

This is definitely already starting to happen. Uber was banned for a long time here in Madrid which allowed other apps to gain a lot of traction. I'd say the most popular is myTaxi, which allows you to hail the standard local public taxis. I believe it works the same in most major European cities. No need for private taxis.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#412

Post by timje1 » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:39 AM UTC

bunkat wrote: post #405

baby wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys are talking about Uber dying, but I cannot fathom how this is possible from just the user's perspective. Uber seems to be everywhere, people take Ubers or driver for Ubers every day. How could a company this big fail? Stop growing maybe, but going bankrupt and shutting down?

Uber doesn't make enough from fares to be profitable, they use investors' money to heavily subsidize them. Once the investor money runs out, Uber won't be able to pay drivers unless they jack up prices considerably. Once they are no longer price competitive, customers will move to other services. Turns out the car service business isn't very sticky at all (even the drivers work for multiple companies...). Drivers sta…

Ha, nice use of "borrow".

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#413

Post by devdoomari » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:39 AM UTC

jeroenjanssens wrote: post #372

NumberCruncher wrote: post #343

print "%s may or may not take over the world at some point, but it needs another round of investment in the next 18 months just to survive." % ('any Ponzi scheme')

Python 2? Absolutely barbaric.

python2 has much better syntax than that...

print "{something} may or may not take over the world at some point, but it needs another round of investment in the next 18 months just to survive.".format(something='any Ponzi scheme')

python 2, 3 are nice... got loads of libs... just that they don't have enough static typings to help me around :(

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#414

Post by auggierose » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:40 AM UTC

bunkat wrote: post #405

baby wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys are talking about Uber dying, but I cannot fathom how this is possible from just the user's perspective. Uber seems to be everywhere, people take Ubers or driver for Ubers every day. How could a company this big fail? Stop growing maybe, but going bankrupt and shutting down?

Uber doesn't make enough from fares to be profitable, they use investors' money to heavily subsidize them. Once the investor money runs out, Uber won't be able to pay drivers unless they jack up prices considerably. Once they are no longer price competitive, customers will move to other services. Turns out the car service business isn't very sticky at all (even the drivers work for multiple companies...). Drivers sta…

Come on, self driving cars was never a solution for Uber in the medium term. Cabs are in the midst of normal traffic, not even highway or anything. No way this will work good enough within the next 15 years

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#415

Post by jbb67 » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:43 AM UTC

I never understood why the tech press and sites like this one are obsessed with Uber.

It's a taxi company with an app. That's it.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#416

Post by VMG » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:44 AM UTC

Super_Jambo wrote: post #409

baby wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys are talking about Uber dying, but I cannot fathom how this is possible from just the user's perspective. Uber seems to be everywhere, people take Ubers or driver for Ubers every day. How could a company this big fail? Stop growing maybe, but going bankrupt and shutting down?

The reason it's so big is they're burning VC cash to subsidize rides. So yea when billionaires are paying your taxi fair to try and drive the local taxi firms out of business naturally they're everywhere. But when that cash runs out the necessary price hike could just as easily drive them out of business. It's not like the drivers have any great loyalty. We really need pro-competition legislation to stop this sort of…

> We really need pro-competition legislation to stop this sort of predatory capitalism.

That's a non-sequitur

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#417

Post by Applejinx » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:45 AM UTC

danpalmer wrote: post #359

curiousDog wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Amazon has a shot at taking over Uber or even entering this space. They already have a great logistics pipeline built out.

This is a really interesting point. Uber didn't get its valuation by aiming to be the world biggest taxi company, they got it by aiming to be the infrastructure fabric that underpins everything. Amazon have started from a very different place, but apart from the user accessible vehicles they are nearly at the same point, with their recent efforts in Prime, groceries, etc. I wonder whether Amazon will open up that inf…

Uber got it by aiming to be the most dominant, demonstrably aggressive and ruthless competitor there could ever be. It almost didn't matter what Uber proposed to do, it was in how they meant to do it and Travis personified that, and all the 'bad behavior' was read as good… by Wall Street standards… because it indicated a sharklike savagery that surely no other company could prevail against. This is why they got their valuation.

With Travis gone, the only people who will believe that's still the case are whatever committee is at the steering wheel. They will think they're great and totally capable of being as ruthless and fierce as Travis, which is why they are creating that situation. No other investors will agree: you can't replace someone like Travis with a committee.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#418

Post by beaconstudios » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:50 AM UTC

matt4077 wrote: post #362

hkmurakami wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an embattled company like this in a fiercely competitive industry, you need committed leadership and not a rotating cast of hired guns looking to make a quick buck. Kalanick has serious issues but he's demonstrated unquestionably forceful (and polarizing) leadership that mere "managers" will never be able to replace. I've been bullish on Uber despite all their mistakes and internal issues because at the end of th…

Please don't further this narrative that sexually harassing women and his general brohaviour are good for business. They are not. There are ways in which being an asshole ay be good for founders (cf Steve Jobs). Kalanick is just an asshole, and even take-no-prisoner ask-forgiveness-later businesses run much better with a bit of attention to human decency.

has Kalanick himself ever harassed women? I'm genuinely asking, I haven't followed the Uber story closely but I thought the harassment accusations weren't aimed at the CEO.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that sexually harassing women is good for business.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#419

Post by jlborxes » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:54 AM UTC

matt4077 wrote: post #375

jaypaulynice wrote: post #128

Wow...Travis Kalanick has his flaws, but come on, he will come back bigger just like Steve Jobs. That hurts! A company like Uber needs an aggressive CEO, not a pushover CEO...this is one reason why investors kill companies. I see this happen so many times, a company takes too much investment, the CEO is replaced, then the company dies within a year...

None of Kalanick's kinks is helpful to Uber. Don't promote this idea that it's good business to sexually harass you employees.

Kalanick has sexually harassed his employees? Must have missed that part.

Re: Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

#420

Post by chapmindustries » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:55 AM UTC

jbb67 wrote: post #415

I never understood why the tech press and sites like this one are obsessed with Uber. It's a taxi company with an app. That's it.

Why does anyone care about Tesla? It's just another car company? Except that in both the case of Tesla and Uber the two companies have the potential to revolutionize transportation. Consequently, people are very interested by what these companies are up to.