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A profound apology

newsroom.uber.com

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Re: A profound apology

#71

Post by subpixel »

anjc wrote: post #20

It strikes me as a mistake to apologise for something that you shouldn't apologise for. I thought the video was humanising, and if anything, he remained cool in the face of threatening behaviour. Apologising just legitimses the critics, who'll remain critical regardless.

For me the video humanizes Uber drivers - the people who have the most to lose when Uber brass damage the company through scandal and mismanagement. The fact that Kalanick dismisses the driver's opinions on what might be good for the company reveals the fragility of his ego. If he'd listen to the opinions of the people who actual make Uber work, he might learn a lot.

Re: A profound apology

#72

Post by Jtsummers »

icelancer wrote: post #68
Jtsummers wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Synonym with deep, it's an expression of sincerity and/or being particularly heartfelt.

It is not their call to make whether the apology is sincere or heartfelt. It is for others to judge.

It's an expression. When I write something like, "My deepest condolences". I'm using a fairly standard expression. Same with, "My most heartfelt apology". Yes, the veracity of those statements will be judged in time, but it's still a common, and idiomatic, way to say things in English.

Re: A profound apology

#73

Post by fenomas »

bobsky wrote: post #9
madeofpalk wrote: post #2

Can someone link to the video? This is all news to me...

On front page earlier, with couple hundred comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13757628 Direct link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-28/in-video-...

Seems to have gotten flagged off the front page fairly quickly.

(Actually a lot of stuff seems to do that lately - I find myself doing a daily check of the second page, just to see which big stories got flagged down before I saw them.)

Re: A profound apology

#74

Post by M_Grey »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #67
alphonsegaston wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news is that determining the truth of "internal realizations" is entirely irrelevant. Look at what people do, what they have done, not what they say. On that account, Uber and Kalanick's track record is quite clear. We've gone through this apology ruse any number of times, and yet here we are again.

> We've gone through this apology ruse any number of times, and yet here we are again. Not to this degree. He said he intends to get help. Companies don't change their culture without the CEO being involved in the process. A CEO saying this is a big deal.

Right, him and Jim Bakker. Common factors? Money and power.

Re: A profound apology

#75

Post by sjtgraham »

throwanem wrote: post #27
sjtgraham wrote: post #16

The driver covertly filmed a passenger during a ride he was being paid for and disclosed the footage to a news organisation. This is extremely unethical IMO. Even if this is the CEO of Uber, it is entirely inappropriate, and he IMO is still entitled to an expectation of privacy equally as you or I would when we are paying for the exclusive private hire of a vehicle.

So, welcome to the world, where there's a reason why the phrase "public figure" contains the word public . I tend to agree that, in an ideal world, it wouldn't be that way. But this is hardly an ideal world, and I'm kind of frightened that someone confused on this point should be building a read/write API on bank accounts.

I'm not defending Kalanick's behavior, although I do think it is regretful he ended the interaction in the way he did. Public figure or not I think it's unreasonable to expect anyone to completely waive their expectation of privacy. There are right and wrong ways to pursue a grievance, IMO this was not the right way and two wrongs do not make a right.

Re: A profound apology

#76

Post by alphonsegaston »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #67
alphonsegaston wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news is that determining the truth of "internal realizations" is entirely irrelevant. Look at what people do, what they have done, not what they say. On that account, Uber and Kalanick's track record is quite clear. We've gone through this apology ruse any number of times, and yet here we are again.

> We've gone through this apology ruse any number of times, and yet here we are again. Not to this degree. He said he intends to get help. Companies don't change their culture without the CEO being involved in the process. A CEO saying this is a big deal.

I'm sorry, but its not. A "big deal" would have been not engaging in subprime lending that most likely put the driver in this desperate position, where he's recording the CEO in some last ditch effort to get the broader community to acknowledge his humanity. Or any of the other myriad atrocious things they've done to their customers and employees.

This is up against the wall PR BS. But the fact that people believe it explains a lot about how we got where we are with Uber.

Re: A profound apology

#77

Post by enneff »

Jtsummers wrote: post #72
icelancer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not their call to make whether the apology is sincere or heartfelt. It is for others to judge.

It's an expression. When I write something like, "My deepest condolences". I'm using a fairly standard expression. Same with, "My most heartfelt apology". Yes, the veracity of those statements will be judged in time, but it's still a common, and idiomatic, way to say things in English.

To this native English speaker it came off as self-aggrandizing.

Re: A profound apology

#78

Post by scotch_drinker »

horsetranqs wrote: post #66
Alex3917 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's bold. I can't remember hearing any recent CEO saying this. It sounds more like the kind of apology one would make after getting caught diddling children and blaming it on an addiction to snorting horse tranquilizer.

Hey so for what it's worth those horse tranquilizers will leave you totally unable to diddle, or even stand.

This is by far the funniest thing I've ever read on HN and the fact you created a fake account to do it makes it even funnier, I think.

Re: A profound apology

#79

Post by davesque »

smcmurtry wrote: post #65
jamestimmins wrote: post #26

I'm a bit unclear what is so negative about this. While there is an argument that a leader should be able to handle criticism without losing his/her temper, he appears to respond to the driver as an equal with whom he profoundly disagrees. He didn't write the man off or act as though he wasn't worth his time, he simply responded in a frustrated manner to an interaction that he clearly was not in the mood for. Does be…

>Kalanick: You know what? >Kamel: What? >Kalanick: Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit. They blame everything in their life on somebody else. I think that is a very insulting and superior thing to say to someone.

Especially when your net worth is six billion dollars.

Re: A profound apology

#80

Post by unityByFreedom »

throwanem wrote: post #52
unityByFreedom wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think that's because he has experienced a genuine change of heart and intends on doing all in his power to repair at least some of his myriad grievous failures in the exercise of his responsibilities? I think that's impossible for anyone to judge but himself. He said he's going to seek help. That's (a) admission he did something wrong and (b) a proactive attempt to do something about it. That is precisely th…

I pretty much covered that when I said that option A was what he did, and option B was anything else. Deflecting would be "anything else". It would have had the result I described. Instead, by tossing off a couple short paragraphs of apparent and frankly rather self-congratulatory contrition, Kalanick's PR staff has managed to actually pick up a little credibility with, among others, you. That's an impressive accompl…

I don't live in SV because I didn't want to be in a bubble. I made that choice 15 years ago.

You seem to have it all figured out, including how Uber has brainwashed me and how the only imaginable scenarios are the ones you've written.

> Woman beats her husband regularly for years. Eventually, he gets up the gumption to ditch her. When he tells her he's done, she bursts into tears and promises between sobs that she'll get help and do better. You buy that, too?

Would I stay if I were the guy? Probably not. As a 3rd party, I'd certainly support the woman's admission of guilt and her effort to get help.

What kind of society would we be if we did not have services to support people who sought help?

Again, if you only seek perfection in CEOs, you're going to end up with better liars.

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