zoomzippity
Joined 9 years ago
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Comment · 9 years ago
Comment · 9 years ago
Buried at the very very bottom of the article as a footnote.
Glossing over the tragedy of unexpectedly losing one's mother and almost losing One's father. The media reporting on Uber absolutely disgusts me and demonstrates a culture far more toxic than anything I've heard about Uber.
My bet is that the media doesn't make public any email from Travis about this because it will likely show how the media is grossly misrepresenting things.
FWIW How people read online: why you won't finish this article.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/06/...
Comment · 9 years ago
Prices likely won't go up when taxis are gone. Uber doesn't consider taxis to be a competitor. Uber is trying to compete with car ownership. Liquidity begets liquidity. This is why marketplaces like stock exchanges and Amazon are natural monopolies.
Comment · 9 years ago
Demand would drop if they charged more. This would have the following potential results:
- all driver earn more per trip, but may not make more per hour since there would be fewer trips to accept
- drivers who see a drop in the number of trips will be earning less or will have to exit the market if they don't earn enough.
- only when some drivers choose to exit the market would the remaining drivers be able to earn more per trip and and accept the same number of rides per hour.
Any company following Uber's loss leading strategy at the end of the day is fomenting more liquidity in order to gauge how much more demand there is at a lower price point. That gives them a profitability target to work towards by becoming more efficient.
Comment · 9 years ago
It's kind of ironic that that article uses Elon Musk as his example, especially in light of this first hand account of an accomplish rocket scientist explaining how impressed he was with Elon Musk learning rocket science by himself.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-elon-musk-learned-rocket-...
I generally agree with the sentiment that we should end the cult of the CEO, but that doesn't negate the fact that some CEOs might actually deserve the praise and respect they get.
Until you've actually worked directly for the Elon Musks, Mark Zuckerbergs, Travis Kalanicks and Steve Jobses of the world, you shouldn't dismiss that they might have actually earned cults they've created.
Comment · 9 years ago
> rely exclusively on white bros in their 30s with identical experiences.
According to Uber's diversity report, the racial composition of its workforce approximately matches the racial composition of San Francisco, Santa Clara and Alemeda counties, and its gender composition is roughly in line with the industry average in the Bay Area and is really no different than the gender composition at companies like Google or Facebook.
Comment · 9 years ago
I don't see any reason why Charlotte Willner's account of what happened at Facebook couldn't apply just as easily to Uber. What makes you say that things are not in the same league? Katherine Losses' allegations are as salacious as anything I've heard about Uber (or many other successful early stage tech companies for that matter)
After five months of examining the company's culture,
Uber's new human resources officer, Liane Hornsey
concluded that the firm's treatment of women was no
worse than what occurs at other companies.
Uber's biggest employee problems are pay and pride, not
sexism, says HR boss “Wherever I have worked, I have
seen things that are not great for women,” Hornsey said
in a USA TODAY interview. “I don’t think it’s about tech,
or this city or this company. I think it’s about the
world of work, and I think that it’s something that we
have to take really super seriously.”
Liane Hornsey was formerly the VP of People Operations at Google for like 5 years I think. I'm far more inclined to believe her account of what things are like than any journalist lazily trolling for any disgruntled former employee to recount a story that will generate ad impressions.
Comment · 9 years ago
> There just aren't that many barriers to entry in this space after Uber does all the hard work of dismantling those barriers.
FTFY.
Comment · 9 years ago
anti-Uber for this reason is just a specific case of Luddism. Just replace "Uber" in "anti-Uber" with whatever company would have instead driven down salaries in this industry and eventually put drivers out of work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
Elevator Operators: https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-b235dc58a1cfb3bef06fdd...
Switchboard operators: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/23/bc/a4/23bc...
Comment · 9 years ago
Even if they are breaking corrupt laws passed by the lobbyists working for the incumbents? Regulatory capture is a thing that harms society and Uber has done more to undo that harm than in this industry than anyone else.
Comment · 9 years ago
Zuckerberg didn't need a break and Facebook turned out fine.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2165566/Mark-Zuckerb...
All the company needs is some pressure to shore up some long overdue culture debt. This is the fastest growing company in history after all. Not every aspect of the company was going to come out of the over perfectly baked when you grow that quickly. Uber isn't the first successful startup with this issue and it won't be the last.
Replacing the leader would be a terrible mistake. I'm not a religious person, but I do wish more people were familiar with the lesson taught in the parables of the Lost Son, Lost Sheep or Lost Coin. Redemption is always possible. Society as a whole would be much better off if we gave more people a chance to redeem themselves. Not considering people capable of redemption and considering people deserving of punishment without mercy is the reason we (the United States) have the disaster that is the largest incarcerated population in the World.
Liane Hornsey was formerly the VP of People Operations at Google for like 5 years I think. I'm far more inclined to believe her account of what things are like than any journalist lazily trolling for any disgruntled former employee to recount a story that will generate ad impressions.
Does Uber have a problem with women in particular because there is something special about Uber or does it have "a problem with women in particular" because it's a tech company and the media established a narrative with momentum that it is somehow worse than other companies in this respect. If Facebook or Github had been founded in 2009, they'd be the scapegoat for what is an industry-wide problem.
Thinking this is specific to Uber and that Uber is somehow worse, just leaves all other companies with an unexamined culture. Worse yet, it leads other companies to think "Our culture is fine because at least we're not Uber" when they probably have all the same problems.