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The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

danielcompton.net

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Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#501

Post by mchan »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #500
uptownfunk wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what, I may get downvoted for this, but my take is you just can't stop these guys. They'll do whatever it takes to win. I probably spend around $2,000 USD on uber trips per month. And frankly, as much disturbing stuff I hear about these guys, Uber beats the heck out of renting a car in a snowy area (especially after having taken a red-eye to a client site). It also beats the crap out of taking a cab in most…

I'm curious how one would spend $2000 on uber per month? For what group of people would that be typical?

I believe they mentioned business use. They are getting reimbursed by their employer.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#502

Post by andruby »

bogomipz wrote: post #436
flylib wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Besides, Lewandowski couldn't realistically raise money through proper channels if his pitch amounted to, "I stole stuff from Waymo." yes he could, the team and him had a killer track record and he wouldn't admit to stealing anything from Waymo "He joined Google in 2007 as part of its Maps team and helped to build the company’s Street View product. When Google gave the green light to begin working on a self-driving…

So this person(Lewandowski) is fantastically wealthy then? Why was he still at Google then? I'm guessing he was on an earn out schedule? Why would he need to steal if he had that kind of money already?

Maybe it wasn't about the money and he just wanted to continue working on autonomous vehicles on new terms for a different parent company, without losing all the previous work.

This is also stealing in my opinion, but it might be a little more nuanced than for pure greed.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#503

Post by dustinmoris »

When it comes to the self driving car business I really hope Alphabet kicks Uber's ass, because as a consumer I must trust the car to do the best in my interest and safety and I don't trust Uber for a second. This company would do every dodgy thing to become quickly profitable. I rather trust Alphabet or Tesla.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#504

Post by pja »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #500
uptownfunk wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what, I may get downvoted for this, but my take is you just can't stop these guys. They'll do whatever it takes to win. I probably spend around $2,000 USD on uber trips per month. And frankly, as much disturbing stuff I hear about these guys, Uber beats the heck out of renting a car in a snowy area (especially after having taken a red-eye to a client site). It also beats the crap out of taking a cab in most…

I'm curious how one would spend $2000 on uber per month? For what group of people would that be typical?

At a guess: cross country sales travel. You could easily rack up 2 or 3 fairly long distance Uber trips / day doing that (Airport -> Hotel -> Client -> Airport to travel to the next client)

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#505

Post by friendzis »

Strangely I do not see this said in discussions about Uber, but I think they are operating in a way on good publicity and the false premise of Uber being ride-sharing, which is not really the case.

Compared to other services in this market, e.g. taxis or buses, Uber has a significant portion operation costs implicitly discounted and/or indirectly subsidised. Uber drivers are self-employed, which in many parts of the world has lower tax rate as opposed to employment contracts (which is pretty common for bus drivers). Uber cars are registered as non-commercial vehicles with less restrictions inherently increasing utility value (a family can have one car used for Uber and weekend driving, but having a Taxi car may very likely result in the need for another car) and non-commercial insurance rate despite increased accident risk, which results in elevated overall risk of non-commercial vehicles which all (non Uber) drivers must share.

Bad press for Uber may result in law changes that level the playing field and either increase operation costs for Uber significantly increasing their burn rate or lower operation costs for their competitors decreasing Uber's attractiveness and revenue thus increasing burn rate.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#506

Post by MertsA »

obstinate wrote: post #427
nunez wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a Windows engineer for Google's Corp Eng PaaS SRE team and have familiarity with this topic. It's not hard to get this data or set this data collection up on a Windows domain or machine. Anyone can set this up as long as you have the TBs to collect the data and the presentation/searching layer to find it. Windows has the ability to log everything , including device installs/uninstalls, file opens/closes/creatio…

I don't think GAIA has been publicly commented on by the company, in case that matters to you at all. Could be wrong, though, as it seems the term is present in the deposition and un-redacted.

FWIW Google seems to refer to the GAIA ID in stuff like random error messages, documentation for Google Apps, and in data downloaded from Google Takeout. If it's not supposed to be public information then Google isn't doing a very good job.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#507

Post by nunez »

obstinate wrote: post #427
nunez wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a Windows engineer for Google's Corp Eng PaaS SRE team and have familiarity with this topic. It's not hard to get this data or set this data collection up on a Windows domain or machine. Anyone can set this up as long as you have the TBs to collect the data and the presentation/searching layer to find it. Windows has the ability to log everything , including device installs/uninstalls, file opens/closes/creatio…

I don't think GAIA has been publicly commented on by the company, in case that matters to you at all. Could be wrong, though, as it seems the term is present in the deposition and un-redacted.

I've seen references to GAIA online. Also, the deposition makes mention of it, so I think it's okay to mention here

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#508

Post by thedonkeycometh »

This doesn't seem to affect Ubers current bombshell, and the overarching tale of Levandowski's poaching is pretty well documented already. They're just fighting over licensing. OP is, IMHO, exaggerating for hyperbolic effect. This won't hurt Uber in the ways he thinks it will.

Re: The Uber Bombshell About to Drop

#509

Post by corobo »

HenryBemis wrote: post #498
freyr wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> self-driving R&D, which is honestly well outside of their current business According to the CEO, self-driving cars are "existential" to Uber's success. They may need something that disruptive to meet the company's sky high valuation.

as far as it goes for "world domination" I've read before that Uber's plan is to make everyone's (self-driving car) a money making machine for Uber and the car owner. You go to work at 9am and while at work 9.01am to 4.59pm your car drives around making you both money. The same applies for when you return home 6.01pm to 8am the next day. No drivers, only Auto-bots ;) and paying customers! (makes me wonder how much In…

I can only imagine how filthy your car would be when it gets back to you at 5pm.

I don't want to imagine what it'd be like at 8am after giving lifts to people coming home after a night out

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