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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.

#811

Post by ChuckMcM »

Think about this the next time you're putting up with bad behavior at work. Susan Fowler ultimately lost her job and went through painful criticisms for speaking out, but she did kick off a lot of change at the company.

Think about this the next time you're tolerating bad behavior on the part of your employees. A number of people lost their jobs in the resulting firestorm but that fire reached right up to the top.

Think about this the next time you're considering investing in a company where the leadership team plays fast and loose with law. Disruption is important, but principles are just as important. If the leadership team gets their advantage by not following the rules that others do, watch for them to not follow the rules that they should as well.

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

#812

Post by CPLX »

davidf18 wrote: post #802
CPLX wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is factually incorrect. You're drawing a direct parallel between medallion taxis and Uber/Lyft rides, when they are not in fact the same at all. The outer boroughs, and every neighborhood in the city, has had car service options for decades, where you call a phone number (or often walk to a local storefront stand) to get a ride. This is the exact market segment that Uber has entered. Literally. There wasn't and…

> This idea that there "were no taxis" in the boroughs and now there are is ridiculous. The few times I tried to take those services the service was horrible, horrible. Now, thankfully, Uber is available and they have much better service and they have a single identifiable reliable brand and they take credit cards. Uber pool where unrelated riders ride in the same car are going to have less greenhouse gas than riders…

> I actually live there and there are no Yellow Cabs in the outer boroughs.

I am writing this from Brooklyn, where I have lived for about 20 years.

> Before Uber there was no hailable service.

There still isn't. Street hails are only from medallion cabs, plus the green outer borough cabs which came just a little bit before Uber showed up and are still around.

There wasn't street hailing before and there isn't now. This isn't complicated. You used to use a phone to get car services before and you still do now. The laws and the dynamics of that aspect really didn't change much.

The innovation is that now your phone has a computer in it and GPS so you press a button and use an app instead of talking into the thing to a dispatcher guy in an office. It's a technological change that happened.

> I don't take these services much in the outer boroughs

As mentioned, I live in the outer boroughs, Brooklyn specifically. You should come check it out sometime, there are about three million of us here. We got along pretty well before Uber, we just called Arecibo. They were fine, and still are, I use them to get to the airport now since the drivers are way better.

Pricing is honestly pretty similar now to what it was five years ago, with very short trips being a little cheaper on Uber/Lyft than they were in the old system. Plus all the promos and so on.

It's way better now to just press a button on the phone, and have your payment info stored, and all that. No question about that. But those are technical innovations.

Your argument is that their innovation had to do with changing the dynamics of supply and demand in a restricted market. But that didn't really happen, and to the extent it did it was because smartphones made it possible. Steve Jobs probably has more to do with the declining price of medallions than Travis Kalanick.

> Uber pool reduces greenhouse gases because multiple unrelated parties can ride in the same taxi instead of using two different vehicles. Elementary.

Unless they were previously taking the subway, of course. The world isn't quite so facile.

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

#813

Post by abvdasker »

jamisteven wrote: post #777

UBER: Crowdfunding the development of autonomous vehicles by temporarily giving people jobs and keeping all the data collected by the thousands of drivers using its app.

What? Are you saying it be better for them to sell that personal data like every other tech company?

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

#814

Post by davidf18 »

neuromantik8086 wrote: post #801
davidf18 wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The regulations by and large were simply there to protect incumbents that wanted to keep out competition which offered higher customer value (by offering lower cost, more responsive, less greenhouse gas) service. Unlike AirBnB which does break NY City and NY State laws, Uber has been following regulations that are imposed by the NYC Taxi & Limousine commission (e.g., screening drivers, etc.).

I see this "incumbents" narrative touted a lot, but it just ain't so. Non-medallion livery companies (black cabs) have been in NYC for a looooong time.

But because of stupid laws protecting Yellow Cab monopoly, it is against the law to street hail them, having to call instead. Also, not a reliable single brand, also they don't take credit cards, unlike Yellow Cabs.

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

#815

Post by metaphorm »

blackrose wrote: post #747
metaphorm wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you honestly believe that there aren't difficult and often unrealistic social pressures put on men?

Generally speaking, as a group, yes -- especially when compared to the social pressures put on women. Yes, that's changing, but we still have a way to go. Happy to hear any difficult and unrealistic social pressures you think we regularly face today.

I don't want to get into a back and forth with you on this topic so I will politely decline your request.

I just wanted to say that it seems to me like you are speaking about broad generalizations and that is not the same thing as speaking about real people or individuals. Also, that your generalized idea of men is based on the premise that that general man is a wealthy and powerful person, but this is not the case for most men.

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

#816

Post by whatok »

CPLX wrote: post #770
davidf18 wrote: post #701

Much of the resistance to Uber (such as laws that were broken, protests) were from entrenched interests. At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. It provided completion for the entrenched Yellow Cab monopoly with its very high rates. Sometimes Uber would have higher rates but then you could take a Yellow Cab instead. The Yell…

This is factually incorrect. You're drawing a direct parallel between medallion taxis and Uber/Lyft rides, when they are not in fact the same at all. The outer boroughs, and every neighborhood in the city, has had car service options for decades, where you call a phone number (or often walk to a local storefront stand) to get a ride. This is the exact market segment that Uber has entered. Literally. There wasn't and…

Are you really comparing car service in the outer boroughs to Uber? I mean I guess I agree with the TLC comparison but experience to the consumer is absolutely different.

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

#817

Post by anigbrowl »

davidf18 wrote: post #701

Much of the resistance to Uber (such as laws that were broken, protests) were from entrenched interests. At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. It provided completion for the entrenched Yellow Cab monopoly with its very high rates. Sometimes Uber would have higher rates but then you could take a Yellow Cab instead. The Yell…

Everyone already knows what the upsides are, that's why people supported the growth of Uber in the first place when it was just a San Francisco startup. Nobody has ever argued in good faith that the firm wasn't solving a problem, of course they were.

But focusing only on the benefits and avoiding discussion of the costs or new problems that something creates is sales talk; internalizing sales talk leads to cognitive bias.

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

#818

Post by oh_sigh »

CPLX wrote: post #770
davidf18 wrote: post #701

Much of the resistance to Uber (such as laws that were broken, protests) were from entrenched interests. At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. It provided completion for the entrenched Yellow Cab monopoly with its very high rates. Sometimes Uber would have higher rates but then you could take a Yellow Cab instead. The Yell…

This is factually incorrect. You're drawing a direct parallel between medallion taxis and Uber/Lyft rides, when they are not in fact the same at all. The outer boroughs, and every neighborhood in the city, has had car service options for decades, where you call a phone number (or often walk to a local storefront stand) to get a ride. This is the exact market segment that Uber has entered. Literally. There wasn't and…

Uber entered both markets. I live in Manhattan(UWS) and treat taxis or Ubers as interchangable. When you can pull up an app on your phone and have a car in 2 minutes, that is effectively similar to a street hail. Heck, because I work near Chelsea market(big tourist destination), using Uber gets me a car 5-10 mins quicker than trying to hail a cab and constantly getting sniped by people who appear upstream.

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

#819

Post by [deleted] »

CPLX wrote: post #770
davidf18 wrote: post #701

Much of the resistance to Uber (such as laws that were broken, protests) were from entrenched interests. At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. It provided completion for the entrenched Yellow Cab monopoly with its very high rates. Sometimes Uber would have higher rates but then you could take a Yellow Cab instead. The Yell…

This is factually incorrect. You're drawing a direct parallel between medallion taxis and Uber/Lyft rides, when they are not in fact the same at all. The outer boroughs, and every neighborhood in the city, has had car service options for decades, where you call a phone number (or often walk to a local storefront stand) to get a ride. This is the exact market segment that Uber has entered. Literally. There wasn't and…

[deleted]

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

#820

Post by pcnix »

vostrocity wrote: post #651
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…

People keep saying Uber is burning cash, but their core business model is sound: $5 per hour per driver goes to Uber Assume 80,000 drivers (half of # U.S. Uber drivers) drive 8 hours a day, 7 days a week 52 weeks in a year 5x8x80000x7x52=$1,164,800,000 So about $1.1 billion just in the US. The only expenses are at headquarters (engineering, operations, design, legal, marketing, support) and the tiny field support off…

As far as I know, Uber loses money on driver incentives and stuff like pool/share options, where they pay the driver the amount over the discount granted to the customer. I'm assuming a lot of such tricks are how they keep their drivers, and this is what they spend money on.
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