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Uber's New CEO

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Re: Uber's New CEO

#71

Post by praneshp »

furioussloth wrote: post #34
feedjoelpie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious: What makes you call Uber fast and taxis unreliable in NYC? I would agree with you in almost any other market, but I find getting a taxi in NYC using Curb just as fast and reliable, yet cheaper.

Also being cyclist in NYC these yellow cab drivers are your worst enemies. I have almost got ran over more than once. You can listen to them moan about cyclists if you have been in enough yellow cabs. Having biked around in city for a while I personally go out of my way to avoid them. I only use them if I am in manhattan and have absolutely no patience or sobriety to call uber.

I do feel like this applies to Uber/Lyft drivers also (at least in SF and bay area). The bonus structure built on X rides per day makes some drivers quite rash.

Re: Uber's New CEO

#72

Post by Tiktaalik »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #66
Tiktaalik wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since there is data from NYC that shows that Uber is making traffic congestion worse. In general major cities are trying to reduce automobile traffic and are giving more space to pedestrians and cyclists. In the future as cities consider mobility pricing to control congestion and further limit car use, it's quite likely that ride hailing services like Uber will have caps placed on them much like how taxis…

I'm curious, is there data to show if parking demand is dropping with Uber making congestion worse? I mean in my head it makes sense that more people driving would lead to less parking but I don't know if that's true or not. While congestion is not optimal I wonder if parking drops if space can be reclaimed to make other improvements.

I think there's a lot of interest from cities in reclaiming parking, but it would be giving more space for pedestrians and cyclists. The amount of space for cars would remain the same.

Re: Uber's New CEO

#73

Post by mahyarm »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #66
Tiktaalik wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since there is data from NYC that shows that Uber is making traffic congestion worse. In general major cities are trying to reduce automobile traffic and are giving more space to pedestrians and cyclists. In the future as cities consider mobility pricing to control congestion and further limit car use, it's quite likely that ride hailing services like Uber will have caps placed on them much like how taxis…

I'm curious, is there data to show if parking demand is dropping with Uber making congestion worse? I mean in my head it makes sense that more people driving would lead to less parking but I don't know if that's true or not. While congestion is not optimal I wonder if parking drops if space can be reclaimed to make other improvements.

A lot of people use uber because parking is horrible at their destination and public transit doesn't work. If uber doesn't exist then they would of drove. How many cars is that one uber car replacing in that case?

Re: Uber's New CEO

#74

Post by fstuff »

praneshp wrote: post #71
furioussloth wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also being cyclist in NYC these yellow cab drivers are your worst enemies. I have almost got ran over more than once. You can listen to them moan about cyclists if you have been in enough yellow cabs. Having biked around in city for a while I personally go out of my way to avoid them. I only use them if I am in manhattan and have absolutely no patience or sobriety to call uber.

I do feel like this applies to Uber/Lyft drivers also (at least in SF and bay area). The bonus structure built on X rides per day makes some drivers quite rash.

More than that, it seems a lot of SF Uber/Lyft come from far away to work in San Francisco and don't know their way around and have their eye's glued to their phone's GPS. I ride a bike in SF and I've nearly been hit by a Uber/Lyft driver at least 10 times this year(once the same driver cut me off 3 times on 2nd street). I keep a eye peeled for those Uber/Lyft logos when I see them pulled over, when pull out into traffic they almost never look for bikers and usually screwing with their phones.

Re: Uber's New CEO

#75

Post by mahyarm »

shostack wrote: post #64
20170319 wrote: post #58

lol For instance, his brother Kaveh Khosrowshahi is a managing director at Allen & Co., the investment bank best known for its ultra exclusive Sun Valley conference. A few cousins are Google execs. His cousin Amir Khosrowshahi is at Intel after Intel bought the AI company he co-founded, Nervana, last year for $400 million. His twin cousins Ali and Hadi Partovi sold their startup to MySpace back in 2009 for $20 millio…

Wow. How does a whole family succeed at that level? Presumably some of it is connections, but connections only get you part of the way.

The family was a wealthy merchant family in Iran before the revolution. They brought money and knowledge of how to become wealthy when they left. Look at other wealthy persians in LA and you see similar patterns.

Re: Uber's New CEO

#76

Post by praneshp »

fstuff wrote: post #74
praneshp wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do feel like this applies to Uber/Lyft drivers also (at least in SF and bay area). The bonus structure built on X rides per day makes some drivers quite rash.

More than that, it seems a lot of SF Uber/Lyft come from far away to work in San Francisco and don't know their way around and have their eye's glued to their phone's GPS. I ride a bike in SF and I've nearly been hit by a Uber/Lyft driver at least 10 times this year(once the same driver cut me off 3 times on 2nd street). I keep a eye peeled for those Uber/Lyft logos when I see them pulled over, when pull out into tra…

Yes. I rode in the car of a person that lives in Fresno, but drives 5 days in SF. He and a bunch of others sleep in their cars at night. He knows the city well enough now, but pointed out 10+ drivers in a 30min drive with cellphones in their hand.

The only time I felt unsafe inside the car was when my driver drove with his elbows, with the Uber app in one hand and his wife on a different phone in the other hand. He just honked and cut across 3 lanes of traffic on El Camino on Mountain View. He told me later that he used to drive a taxi for years. I chalked it down as a cool story to tell people.later.

Re: Uber's New CEO

#78

Post by sctb »

camillomiller wrote: post #2

At least the name sounds female if you didn't know the guy. I guess it's a success. Edit after flagging: I forgot that you can't be snarky about the anti-feminism of Silicon Valley here on hacker news. Duly noted.

“Don't be snarky.”

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Uber's New CEO

#79

Post by ch4s3 »

icebraining wrote: post #70
ch4s3 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't how traffic works in theory or practice. Driving, or taking car trips has a high price elasticity. Lowering the cost of a car trip even a litte increases demand a lot. So Uber's subsidy of trips should increase demand a lot, which it does. Additionally the convenience of the app, and not having to find parking, or maintain a car also increase demand. If all of that outweighs the individuals cost of sitting…

Right, but Uber is not cheaper than owning and using one's own car, so they haven't actually lowered the cost of a car trip, only of a taxi trip. Own cars are not only still much cheaper, as the cost per trip actually goes down as you use it more, making Uber even less attractive as the number of trips increases. It's exactly for people who take very few car trips, like me, since they use mostly public transport, tha…

You're missing my point, I'm not talking about Uber vs owning a car. My point is that for people like you who might take public transit, walk, bike, or otherwise not take a taxi Uber lowers the total cost of a car trip, thereby increasing your demand for car trips. Also, while taking 2+ trips per day will eventually cost more, it's cheaper in the short run where people actually make decisions.

Furthermore, Ubers like cabs drive around waiting for fares so they create traffic while not providing rides. Similarly with recent cases of Uber driver brigading to drive up surge prices, they also create surges of traffic.

Gas taxes only pay for up to 40% of road maintenance and that's in states with the highest gas taxes. The rest of the cost is made up from general funds and transportation budgets. There was a high profile case recently in Maryland where the governor redirected light rail funds to highway maintenance and construction. In fact gas taxes have never fully covered road construction and maintenance costs anywhere in the US, ever.

Re: Uber's New CEO

#80

Post by icebraining »

ch4s3 wrote: post #79
icebraining wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but Uber is not cheaper than owning and using one's own car, so they haven't actually lowered the cost of a car trip, only of a taxi trip. Own cars are not only still much cheaper, as the cost per trip actually goes down as you use it more, making Uber even less attractive as the number of trips increases. It's exactly for people who take very few car trips, like me, since they use mostly public transport, tha…

You're missing my point, I'm not talking about Uber vs owning a car. My point is that for people like you who might take public transit, walk, bike, or otherwise not take a taxi Uber lowers the total cost of a car trip, thereby increasing your demand for car trips. Also, while taking 2+ trips per day will eventually cost more, it's cheaper in the short run where people actually make decisions. Furthermore, Ubers like…

My point is that for people like you who might take public transit, walk, bike, or otherwise not take a taxi Uber lowers the total cost of a car trip, thereby increasing your demand for car trips

No, because, like I said at the beginning, if I didn't have Uber I'd get my own car, and so my marginal cost per car trip would be much lower, and so I'd use it more than the couple of quarterly rides I take nowadays.

Furthermore, Ubers like cabs drive around waiting for fares so they create traffic while not providing rides.

On the other hand, if I need to go some place after work, I'd need to take my car to work during the morning commute, creating extra traffic. Also, there's driving around looking for parking. Finally, there's UberPOOL.

Gas taxes only pay for up to 40% of road maintenance and that's in states with the highest gas taxes.

Fair enough. Sounds like states need to raise their gas taxes. But at least here Uber also pays 23% VAT. Don't they pay sales tax over there?

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