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

nytimes.com

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

#611

Post by amyjess »

rmason wrote: post #62
robzyb wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't (yet) have an opinion on this, but it's important to note the other side of the coin... > Hope everyone's paying attention to the identity of these investors behind this horrid behavior. Travis is not without his flaws but he created an awful lot of value for them. He's been very well compensated for the value he's created. You don't keep a job because of what you've done in the past, you keep a job based on…

Firing founders was tried in the nineties and it always resulted in failure. Guess the Uber VC's need to painfully relearn that lesson? If Travis had been smart enough to create two classes of stock like Mark Zuckerberg and the Google founders he'd be calling the shots, instead he's out of a job.

Google only became a successful business because of Eric Schmidt. If Larry & Sergey never stepped aside, Google would have died long ago.

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

#612

Post by emodendroket »

Pica_soO wrote: post #548
Super_Jambo wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

billionairs can get burned too

Yes, but the ill effects are wildly out of proportion.

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

#613

Post by skinnymuch »

_asummers wrote: post #488
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?

Anecdotally, I've personally taken Lyft almost exclusively lately. Among my peers, I've noticed similar trends. I've even heard shifting in language -- rather than say "call an Uber", I've heard "call a Lyft"., Plural of anecdote is obviously not data, but those are my data points.

This conversation was had in a thread a week or two ago. The consensus was that the Lyft or other alternative anecdotes are far and few between. Like saying call a Lyft has to be rare and probably just in certain small circle. Most people are on Uber.

The thread link is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14456973

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

#614

Post by blackrose »

camelite wrote: post #83

Should we believe men too when they're victimised by women, or is this a one way deal? What if it's a man and a woman accusing each other, or two men or two women. What if the dude is a historically oppressed minority?

> or is this a one way deal?

FFS, dude. Men hold the vast majority of power in our society. No cards are stacked against them. No old fashioned norms are still levied on them everytime a woman speaks to them. They aren't constantly reminded by our culture to be gentlemen or look handsome or bring home the bacon or do anything they don't want to. To say "think of the men!" here is either willfully ignorant or just being a dick.

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

#615

Post by thedevil »

I'm going to go against the crowd and say that Uber survives as a business for now. They may scale back expansion and they might raise prices. They may even get acquired at a lower valuation. But I bet they'll still be operating.

I think their burn rate is almost surely the result of subsidizing expanding markets. I can't imagine established markets being anything but ludicrously profitable.

Disclaimer: I don't necessarily like Uber, I've never even used them and I know almost nothing about their (former) CEO outside of headlines.

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

#616

Post by wcummings »

hueving wrote: post #430
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…

Paying the driver directly still sucks. In the US you constantly deal with the "I don't take cards" bullshit and lack of simple feedback for when they take you on a scenic tour. I would be fine with taxis if I didn't have to interact with the driver at all when it came to payment and could provide feedback right in the app.

>In the US you constantly deal with the "I don't take cards" bullshit

Sounds like a free ride, to me. In my city cabs have to accept credit cards by law. This means if the machine is broken, the cab is unfit for service. If a driver refuses to take a credit card, you don't have to pay them. If they're rude about it, you can call 911, there's a whole division of the PD dedicated to dealing with cabs. The threat of having an officer show up and a possible fine or suspension is probably enough to "fix" their machine.

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

#617

Post by 24gttghh »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #536
kevinburke wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people that report harassment are taking a big career risk (and if they go public like Mrs. Fowler did, inviting abuse from Internet mobs) by doing so, so yes, I'm going to default to believing people that report harassment unless I can find credible evidence it didn't happen.

How on Earth can someone possibly provide evidence a crime didn't happen?

I believe such evidence would be the lack thereof which would imply no crime occurred.

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

#618

Post by devdoomari »

brianwawok wrote: post #475
devdoomari wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :(

Look into mypy! Its a good start.

mypy is going in a nice direction! hope it would get scala or idris-level typechecks :)

But... most library definitions are quite lacking... if only some big company would volunteer to fill that huge gap... (hope MS gives some luv! just like they did with Typescript + DefinitelyTyped)

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

#619

Post by emodendroket »

cgeier wrote: post #465

Somewhat off-topic: Why is something like Uber called ride-sharing to begin with? I'm not sharing my ride with anyone that coincidentally wants to travel (more or less) the same route as me. I pay somebody to drive their car first to me, and then some other place. This is called a taxi or cab [1], there Uber is a taxi company. At least in Germany, there used to be actual ride-sharing systems, of which the best one us…

Well, the real reason is because none of regulations that apply to taxi and livery services make any mention of "ride-sharing," so you can claim you aren't subject to any of them.

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

#620

Post by _jal »

devdoomari wrote: post #413
jeroenjanssens wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :(

Wake me when it finally gets a case statement.
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