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This is a great example of why you should make sure that your goals align with those of your investors. Kapor Capital has a strong focus on social impact compa

by tyre 10y ago

This is a great example of why you should make sure that your goals align with those of your investors. Kapor Capital has a strong focus on social impact companies that benefit the disadvantaged.[1] Travis is a phenomenal salesman and fundraiser. Travis convinced Kapor that, amongst other things, Uber was a platform for democratizing transportation, citing things like racism amongst taxi cabs to spin Uber as social good. So now you have a company that isn't actually what it pitched itself to be. For many investors, hyper-growth and skyrocketing valuation will wipe out other concerns around culture, impact, etc. The Kapors are showing (awesomely, in my personal opinion) that they are serious about their social mission. They're doing what they can to influence a portfolio company to live up to their expectations. Travis probably doesn't like that—it sucks to be called out!—but that's why you take investment based on aligned interests and not just awesome salesmanship. [1]: http://www.kaporcapital.com/who-we-are/ http://www.kaporcapital.com/who-we-are/

yummyfajitas 10y ago
Travis is a phenomenal salesman and fundraiser. Travis convinced Kapor that, amongst other things, Uber was a platform for democratizing transportation, citing things like racism amongst taxi cabs to spin Uber as social good. So now you have a company that isn't actually what it pitched itself to be. But that's not true. Uber is still a platform for democratizing transportation. It has more or less completely fixed the issue of racism in taxi cabs (or auto rickshaws), which was previously a daily experience for me. In Maharashtra they've literally made an enemy of Shiv Sena, racist/nationalist political party, because they are undercutting the Marathi autowales. It's also improving women's safety worldwide, which is a major issue outside the west. Literally days after an Uber driver raped a passenger in Delhi, my girlfriend at the time still insisted on taking a radio taxi home (wasn't Uber, which was shut down for a little bit) because she felt safer than in an auto rickshaw or taxi. Uber is working - fairly successfully - to partially fix the issue of cronyism in governments around the world. They've taken private battles public and shown the world exactly how much people like Bill DeBlasio hurt the public. This would all be a huge net gain for the world even if every >$150k/year engineer at Uber was horribly mistreated/marginalized/had their butt patted before shifting to another $150k/year engineering job. The Kapors are not calling out Uber based on a utilitarian calculation. Uber is still exactly the force of good they promised to be, and their goals align just fine with the stated goals of the Kapors. It's just that their personality doesn't appeal to the zeitgeist, and it looks like that matters more to the Kapors than the actual good they do.
- notaboutme 10y ago
  My girlfriend gets harassed by Uber drivers all the time, to the point where she had to switch to using Lyft or call the regular car services here in NYC (which used to be amazing pre-Uber, by the way). The one time I took Uber Pool in Brooklyn the driver refused to let a black couple into the car, which we all protested and complained about, but nothing came of it. In New York Uber isn't necessarily safer or less racist, although I'd concede it probably is in other countries.
  - oh_sigh 10y ago
    Does your girlfriend give those drivers 1 star reviews? For what it's worth, my girlfriend has taken an uber in NYC 100+ times, and has never complained about any kind of harassment from an Uber driver. She's complained to me about sidewalk/subway harassment, and workplace harassment, so I don't think there is a reason she would hide Uber harassment from me. Also: Regular car services were horrible pre-Uber...which is why Uber took over NYC car transit. It was basically: Call up a number, get answered by a guy with a heavy accent on a low quality landline, tell him what you want, and hope and pray that he understood what you said and the car shows up. If it doesn't, call another company and repeat.
    - arkades 10y ago
      There may be some miscommunication here. There are the 555-DRYV car services that are precisely what you described, and then there are the private car services that you routinely see lining up on Park Ave. to collect the glut of lawyers that had to stay past 8pm. The latter are fantastic.
    - bogomipz 10y ago
      There are hundreds of car services in New York City. Most New Yorkers have one or two they have learned work well for their neighborhood and provide good service and stick with those. Car services are no different than any other consumer service, there are a good ones and bad ones. Also why does it matter if they have a "thick accent"? You are suggesting that the communication is so poor that people regularly need to hang up and call another car service? This is simply hot true. There are times when you might need to call another service because they might be backed up but certainly not due to of a total communication failure.
perseusprime11 10y ago
+1. I often debated if Uber was better off with a CEO like Eric Schmidt. But I think ultimately in this business, you need a certain mindset to really go after establishment and entrenched interests.
- euyyn 10y ago
  I don't think successfully going after establishment and entrenched interests is incompatible with being decent.
accountface 10y ago
The solution to cab racism was a lie anyway, I've been kicked out of an Uber multiple times because of "I don't go to that neighborhood" (which happens to be primarily black)
- 6nf 10y ago
  Don't you enter your destination before getting picked up?
  - lazyasciiart 10y ago
    You don't have to.
  - pricechild 10y ago
    Every time I've gotten into an uber the first two questions have been "PriceChild? Where are you headed?" I'm very sure they don't get the destination when choosing whether to accept the ride, and often don't seem to get it until you get in the car?
  - accountface 10y ago
    I do, which makes it all the more troubling. I assume these drivers didn't look at it before picking me up.
  - officelineback 10y ago
    I believe both services stopped exposing that information to the driver pre-pickup to lessen the problem of cherrypicking.
aaron695 10y ago
> So now you have a company that isn't actually what it pitched itself to be. This is just plain factually incorrect. What the hell does sexism within the companies hiring and personnel have to do with - "Uber was a platform for democratizing transportation, citing things like racism amongst taxi cabs to spin Uber as social good." Seriously peoples logic circuits are broken beyond recognition here. I guess this is why 'fake news' thrives. Could people please at least try and think logically? Or is this a lost cause?
- hluska 10y ago
  This comment is beyond unproductive - it is outright rude. Please try to be civil - your points would be significantly more palatable.
  - aaron695 10y ago
    Sorry if you take it that way but it's a blatant lie. And these need to be called out strongly. This is nothing personal against the OP, it's against the people supporting this. We can't continue having people using alternate irrelevant facts as an excuse for their bandwagon. The workings within a company are totally separate from its mission. We all know this, yet people are blatantly supporting lies like this on this anti-Uber bandwagon. Why? Because it works is why, alternate facts convince people and it needs to stop. We so far have one specific source of issues within the internal workings of Uber. There seems like there might be more to this but so far no one has come forward publicly. This is currently a witch hunt by the general public and the normalisation of this behaviour is troubling. And now people are extending the witch hunt to Uber's mission on the basis of...... I don't see how this is acceptable.
    - euyyn 10y ago
      Your same argument has been made by others in a less histrionic and rude way, and upvoted.
- orthecreedence 10y ago
  How can a company fight for equal rights while simultaneously encouraging the opposite in their work culture? I think you are the one with "broken logic circuits."
krrrh 10y ago
It is laudable, and they definitely aren't going to get this level of concern from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Sovereign Wealth fund.

by tyre 10y ago

yummyfajitas 10y ago

Travis is a phenomenal salesman and fundraiser. Travis convinced Kapor that, amongst other things, Uber was a platform for democratizing transportation, citing things like racism amongst taxi cabs to spin Uber as social good. So now you have a company that isn't actually what it pitched itself to be. But that's not true. Uber is still a platform for democratizing transportation. It has more or less completely fixed the issue of racism in taxi cabs (or auto rickshaws), which was previously a daily experience for me. In Maharashtra they've literally made an enemy of Shiv Sena, racist/nationalist political party, because they are undercutting the Marathi autowales. It's also improving women's safety worldwide, which is a major issue outside the west. Literally days after an Uber driver raped a passenger in Delhi, my girlfriend at the time still insisted on taking a radio taxi home (wasn't Uber, which was shut down for a little bit) because she felt safer than in an auto rickshaw or taxi. Uber is working - fairly successfully - to partially fix the issue of cronyism in governments around the world. They've taken private battles public and shown the world exactly how much people like Bill DeBlasio hurt the public. This would all be a huge net gain for the world even if every >$150k/year engineer at Uber was horribly mistreated/marginalized/had their butt patted before shifting to another $150k/year engineering job. The Kapors are not calling out Uber based on a utilitarian calculation. Uber is still exactly the force of good they promised to be, and their goals align just fine with the stated goals of the Kapors. It's just that their personality doesn't appeal to the zeitgeist, and it looks like that matters more to the Kapors than the actual good they do.

notaboutme 10y ago
My girlfriend gets harassed by Uber drivers all the time, to the point where she had to switch to using Lyft or call the regular car services here in NYC (which used to be amazing pre-Uber, by the way). The one time I took Uber Pool in Brooklyn the driver refused to let a black couple into the car, which we all protested and complained about, but nothing came of it. In New York Uber isn't necessarily safer or less racist, although I'd concede it probably is in other countries.
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  Does your girlfriend give those drivers 1 star reviews? For what it's worth, my girlfriend has taken an uber in NYC 100+ times, and has never complained about any kind of harassment from an Uber driver. She's complained to me about sidewalk/subway harassment, and workplace harassment, so I don't think there is a reason she would hide Uber harassment from me. Also: Regular car services were horrible pre-Uber...which is why Uber took over NYC car transit. It was basically: Call up a number, get answered by a guy with a heavy accent on a low quality landline, tell him what you want, and hope and pray that he understood what you said and the car shows up. If it doesn't, call another company and repeat.
  - arkades 10y ago
    There may be some miscommunication here. There are the 555-DRYV car services that are precisely what you described, and then there are the private car services that you routinely see lining up on Park Ave. to collect the glut of lawyers that had to stay past 8pm. The latter are fantastic.
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    There are hundreds of car services in New York City. Most New Yorkers have one or two they have learned work well for their neighborhood and provide good service and stick with those. Car services are no different than any other consumer service, there are a good ones and bad ones. Also why does it matter if they have a "thick accent"? You are suggesting that the communication is so poor that people regularly need to hang up and call another car service? This is simply hot true. There are times when you might need to call another service because they might be backed up but certainly not due to of a total communication failure.

perseusprime11 10y ago

+1. I often debated if Uber was better off with a CEO like Eric Schmidt. But I think ultimately in this business, you need a certain mindset to really go after establishment and entrenched interests.

euyyn 10y ago
I don't think successfully going after establishment and entrenched interests is incompatible with being decent.

accountface 10y ago

The solution to cab racism was a lie anyway, I've been kicked out of an Uber multiple times because of "I don't go to that neighborhood" (which happens to be primarily black)

6nf 10y ago
Don't you enter your destination before getting picked up?
- lazyasciiart 10y ago
  You don't have to.
- pricechild 10y ago
  Every time I've gotten into an uber the first two questions have been "PriceChild? Where are you headed?" I'm very sure they don't get the destination when choosing whether to accept the ride, and often don't seem to get it until you get in the car?
- accountface 10y ago
  I do, which makes it all the more troubling. I assume these drivers didn't look at it before picking me up.
- officelineback 10y ago
  I believe both services stopped exposing that information to the driver pre-pickup to lessen the problem of cherrypicking.

aaron695 10y ago

> So now you have a company that isn't actually what it pitched itself to be. This is just plain factually incorrect. What the hell does sexism within the companies hiring and personnel have to do with - "Uber was a platform for democratizing transportation, citing things like racism amongst taxi cabs to spin Uber as social good." Seriously peoples logic circuits are broken beyond recognition here. I guess this is why 'fake news' thrives. Could people please at least try and think logically? Or is this a lost cause?

hluska 10y ago
This comment is beyond unproductive - it is outright rude. Please try to be civil - your points would be significantly more palatable.
- aaron695 10y ago
  Sorry if you take it that way but it's a blatant lie. And these need to be called out strongly. This is nothing personal against the OP, it's against the people supporting this. We can't continue having people using alternate irrelevant facts as an excuse for their bandwagon. The workings within a company are totally separate from its mission. We all know this, yet people are blatantly supporting lies like this on this anti-Uber bandwagon. Why? Because it works is why, alternate facts convince people and it needs to stop. We so far have one specific source of issues within the internal workings of Uber. There seems like there might be more to this but so far no one has come forward publicly. This is currently a witch hunt by the general public and the normalisation of this behaviour is troubling. And now people are extending the witch hunt to Uber's mission on the basis of...... I don't see how this is acceptable.
  - euyyn 10y ago
    Your same argument has been made by others in a less histrionic and rude way, and upvoted.
orthecreedence 10y ago
How can a company fight for equal rights while simultaneously encouraging the opposite in their work culture? I think you are the one with "broken logic circuits."

krrrh 10y ago

It is laudable, and they definitely aren't going to get this level of concern from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Sovereign Wealth fund.