19 ms·

In Video, Uber CEO Argues with Driver Over Falling Fares

383 points by coloneltcb 10y ago

brotherjerky 10y ago
Perhaps they need to hire Sally Yates or John Ashcroft to get to the bottom of this now?
jforman 10y ago
Travis and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Quarter for PR
- VMG 10y ago
  Maybe they are flushing out the bad stories that are out there?
envy2 10y ago
Unfortunately, that driver is about to find out what "two party consent" for recordings means.
- koolba 10y ago
  Does that apply to being recorded in a public location (and would the driver's cab count)? Also, for all we know there could be a sign in the black car that says, "Smile you're on candid camera!".
  - ericcumbee 10y ago
    I think the answer is maybe. http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law
  - loeg 10y ago
    Inside of a private car with the windows up isn't public. I don't know whether California is a two-party consent state, and the specifics of what that requires are different state to state anyway.
    - koolba 10y ago
      > Inside of a private car with the windows up isn't public. If it was your car and someone got in and recorded you, then I'd say that's more clear cut. But if you get into someone else's car do you have a reasonable expectation of privacy?
      - user5994461 10y ago
        Dunno about the USA but for the few EU countries I known the law of, the answer is yes, there is an expectation of privacy.
      - loeg 10y ago
        If you go to someone's house, do you expect to be recorded there? I'm not a lawyer, in any case :-).
      - dkonofalski 10y ago
        Since you're technically hiring that person and their car to provide you a service, they have to disclose up-front if you're being recorded. In addition, just because you were being recorded doesn't mean the driver has the right to publicize the video. That requires additional consent unless it's a matter of public record.
- coloneltcb 10y ago
  No, I think Travis has enough bad PR now. He doesn't need to punch down and sue a driver he's already bankrupted
  - myblake 10y ago
    Your reading of Travis strikes me as wildly optimistic.
  - envy2 10y ago
    I'm not sure about that. This isn't a 'scandal' in the way Uber's treatment of its female engineers is; it's just a driver leaking what was thought to be a private conversation, albeit one that isn't particularly flattering for Travis. As a passenger, I think I'd be happy to have an example made of a driver who recorded and then published video and audio of a private conversation without consent. I've said and done plenty of things in the back of an Uber/Lyft/taxi that I wouldn't want the whole world to see. Having issues with Uber's practices is fine, and talking about them publicly is fine—but a driver who makes and leaks illegal recordings is not someone I want to ride with. Throw the book at him, IMO, and frame it as standing up for riders' privacy.
- RandomInteger4 10y ago
  I'm ... fare-ly ... certain certain this law does not apply to recordings for security purposes in a place of business; the vehicle being the place of business of the Uber driver. EDIT: Er, scratch that. Didn't realize there was audio attached. I think audio might be the incriminating factor in the two party consent thing. I mostly just wanted to make a bad pun.
  - jimrandomh 10y ago
    There are separate laws for video and for audio. Recording video is allowed in most places; audio recording is much more restricted, and as far as I know making this recording was not legal if it was in California. However, litigating it would cause so much more PR damage that it will almost certainly won't be.
    - KirinDave 10y ago
      You agree to surveillance when you use these cars.
      - carniaclaly 10y ago
        No you don't. Show me where that's in the terms?
      - PeterisP 10y ago
        Intent matters - as soon as the recording is used (and published!) for a clearly different purpose, the legal situation is quite different. For example disclaimer similar to classic "your call may be recorded for quality control purposes" may allow the recording (depending on the location, etc) but generally will still land you in hot water if the company publishes that for an unrelated reason.
  - carniaclaly 10y ago
    Some states make exceptions for recordings that take place for business security purposes. California does not. However, CA does make an exception for recording "in any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded." You could certainly make an argument that this douchebag might reasonably expect audio to be recorded in his company's driver's cars. Not so sure you could make that argument for the other passengers. Interestingly, Bloomberg could be sued (or prosecuted; $5000 fine) for distributing the recording if it indeed falls under CA's wiretapping laws.
- save_ferris 10y ago
  Granted, this is all still speculation, but what would such a lawsuit do to the Uber brand? They'd basically be telling all of their drivers in two-party consent states not to not use dashcams because of the liability, which seems tenuous given some of the terrible videos of riders abusing drivers we've seen. Legal liability over safety seems like a hard sacrifice for people who make so little as it is.
- fudged71 10y ago
  I bet he was kicked off Uber because of this exchange
  - quickdraw46 10y ago
    If he was, I'm sure there would have been a big hue and cry about it already.
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B1narySunset 10y ago
This guy comes across as a quintessential douche.
NTDF9 10y ago
How can a driver lose $97000? Not asking in support/opposition of uber. Genuinely curious about what are some ways drivers could get into so much trouble?
- jbob2000 10y ago
  He probably took out a loan to buy a nice car/limo to do Uber Black work. Since the rates dropped, he probably can't make the monthly payments, let alone maintenance and gas.
- arprocter 10y ago
  I'm guessing he multiplied his total miles driven by the old $20 rate mentioned and the current $2.75 rate and the difference is his 'loss'
- dkonofalski 10y ago
  He more than likely purchased multiple cars in order to run a business using the Uber infrastructure. He may even have family or friends involved as drivers. If he purchased a luxury car outright, he could also have dropped $97k just for that vehicle alone since Uber Black requires a certain type of vehicle in exchange for higher fare rates.
jbob2000 10y ago
But was the driver right? Did uber black fares drop?
- deleted 10y ago
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- inverse_pi 10y ago
  I think what the driver is arguing is that Uber changed its business model from black car only to including UberX and UberPool which drove the price of a trip down and less people using black car. I think this is perfectly reasonable, it's just maybe the way Travis responded was not very nice.
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frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
To me this illustrates one of the biggest problems we have in america which is the crazy firewall between rich and poor. Kamel wanted to have a serious discussion with Kalanick about how his decisions as CEO were affecting Kamel's life and Kalanick gets upset about this. That's your job! At least it should be. If you can't even handle light criticism from the people you employ, you shouldn't be at the top.
- dswiese 10y ago
  This is driven by the argument that drivers are not employees. He has no vested interest in the drivers circumstances.
  - nilved 10y ago
    As far as he is concerned drivers are not humans.
    - simplehuman 10y ago
      How did you reach this conclusion?
      - nilved 10y ago
        I saw a video of the CEO talking to a driver.
        simplehuman 10y ago
        You are contradicting yourself. The video then proves that he thinks the driver is capable of intelligent conversation. Unless you have seen videos of Travis talk to rocks, trees and bots. If so, please do share.
  - atomical 10y ago
    I showed up to uber to pick up a phone that my girlfriend at the time had left in an uber. They told me to wait in line behind the drivers. "Sir, we are all customers here."
aioprisan 10y ago
Does Travis have the temperament to lead this company to a public offering? Given how much baggage he has and how responsible he is for Uber's current sexist culture, I hope investors give keeping Travis on some thinking. Responsibility for a terrible culture that shields sexist management starts at the top.
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dokein 10y ago
A bit of a tangential point: last week there was a post here about Facebook "changing the rules" and a significant number of small businesses disappearing as a result. Whether or not Uber's black car reimbursement really did change, it strikes me that drivers probably made business decisions (e.g. car purchases) based on Uber's initial reimbursement and are now seeing the rules change and grossing far fewer profits than expected (and prices still have a ways to go). One can argue that these small business owners / contractors should have had the foresight not to do business on someone else's platform, but this strikes me as a bit Malthusian. Going through bankruptcy is no small price to pay for this lesson. Hopefully the next Facebook or Uber will have to promise some degree of stability (the same way I am very wary of working with SaaS startups), but I'm not optimistic - there's a fool born every minute.
- pjwal 10y ago
  The problem with this is that it ignores the economic realities that went into the decision of Uber to lower fairs and assumes that their demand would have remained the same with or without doing it. Drivers would have not been happy with higher fairs if they couldn't, well...get a fair because of lowered demand.
- deleted 10y ago
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- omarchowdhury 10y ago
  Do you have a link to that Facebook thread?
pfarnsworth 10y ago
How is this video not illegal, especially in California? And sure rates went down, but it's still 3X the price of UberX. It didn't go down precipitously. From $4.90/1.25 to 3.75/0.65 won't cause someone to lose $97k and probably he got more activity overall. I agree with the CEO that this guy sounds like he's blaming Uber for his problems, when there are plenty of UberBlack drivers making hand over fist otherwise the drivers wouldn't be there. My wife's last UberX driver said he was making $3k/week.
- KirinDave 10y ago
  > How is this video not illegal, especially in California? You agree to surveillance when you enter the car. Just like a taxi, a bus, a train or a trolley. You actually don't have an "expectation of privacy" in these spaces either. So a drone cam or telephoto lens is okay too. That's where state law is interesting. California is actually surprisingly permissive for photographers and videographers.
  - erdojo 10y ago
    Unless Uber has that in its terms of service, that may be open to interpretation. Even if an Uber is considered a public space, that's not the sole determining factor in two-party consent cases. http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law
    - KirinDave 10y ago
      Not sure why you're being downvoted. Your read is absolutely right.
  - ddrmaxgt37 10y ago
    Doesn't California require 2 party consent? So all parties have to consent to the recording for it to be lawful. Which state laws are you reading?
    - KirinDave 10y ago
stagbeetle 10y ago
This seems like a slam piece following the #DeleteUber bandwagon. 1). The title doesn't match the contents. Instead of reporting on the specifics of the fare changes, Newcomer rehashes the more prominent Uber scandals and some short commentary on TK's "short temper." 2). A very short paragraph (around 1/20th the article) breifly elaborates on the fares: > And the gig has gotten harder for longtime drivers. In 2012, Uber Black cost riders $4.90 per mile and $1.25 per minute in San Francisco, according to an old version of Uber's website. Today, Uber charges $3.75 per mile and $0.65 per minute. Black car drivers get paid less and their business faces far more competition from other Uber services. 3). The video transcription selectively takes out parts and fudges others: > "Kalanick begins to lose his temper." > Omitting the civil conversation preceding "But people are not trusting you anymore" The following is just my personal anecdote: I have an immigrant in my family who's just like the driver. He's not interested in "fighting over a good idea, which sometimes means admitting that his isn’t the best one," but looking to assert his ideas onto anyone who takes his argument-bait. Additionally, it's plain rude to engage in this sort of thing with a stranger.
- pjwal 10y ago
  So, let me get this straight. Uber has lowered the fair once on Uber Black to $3.75/mile, yet it seems that this driver was falsely insisting it was $2.75/mile. That would be frustrating to me too.
- idiot_stick 10y ago
  >I have an immigrant in my family who's just like the driver. He's not interested in "fighting over a good idea You may want to rephrase that, because it sounds an awful lot like you're attributing "stubbornness" to the fact that this guy's an immigrant. >Additionally, it's plain rude to engage in this sort of thing with a stranger. He's not a stranger. He's the boss.
  - stagbeetle 10y ago
    > You may want to rephrase that, because it sounds an awful lot like you're attributing "stubbornness" to the fact that this guy's an immigrant. I am. This sort of behavior is common among older people from the country my family member -- and I -- emigrated from. > He's not a stranger. He's the boss. That's a bit of an exaggeration. Travis isn't directly overseeing this specific driver's operations (ignoring the whole "Uber is a contractor not an employer").
falloutx 10y ago
1. Uber should really put up a policy against drivers using cockpit cameras to record passengers. Most of them do it without any consent. I usually give them 1 star if someone uses cockpit camera. 2. I have been a big Supporter of Travis Kalanick since last 2-3 years, just for the fact that he's willing to take harsh steps to win. This ultimately helps Uber. Uber's Drivers are not its employees, it doesn't want them to treat them like employees. As more drivers enter the market, supply starts increasing faster than demand and therefore prices must decrease. Since Driving is low barrier profession, its relatively easy to replace them and accumulate them with Uber's model. In this conversation Kalanick is seemingly busy with friends, therefore much less interested in discussing details of his decisions.
- AlexandrB 10y ago
  > I usually give them 1 star if someone uses cockpit camera. Why would you do that? These drivers are just "taking harsh steps" to ensure their safety and the safety of their property. I thought you were all for that. Edit: also why should Uber be allowed to dictate what equipment its "not employees" can and can't use in their own car?
  - falloutx 10y ago
    Drivers are contractors, so Uber can dictate the "terms" for contracts it is part of. Drivers are in a contract with Uber. Uber should be trying to protect its costumers from privacy violations, so it should take steps to ensure drivers are not using anything that would hurt costumers physically or by any other way. I understand the some of the recent privacy issues in Uber have come from its employees and not from drivers, so It should also be trying to get rid of destructive employees as well.
- emilsedgh 10y ago
  I have been a big Supporter of Travis Kalanick since last 2-3 years, just for the fact that he's willing to take harsh steps to win. Sir/Madam, I don't really want to be offensive. And I know that this is a stupid comparison, but I cannot help myself and I need to ask: Would you apply the same logic to Hitler? He took really harsh steps to win. And it would've ultimately helped Germany. Other people were not German citizens after all (like drivers are not Uber's employees so who the hell cares). Right? I mean, I understand Travis. He has a billion dollar business now. I totally get that he might decide to say you know what, fuck the drivers, I'm doing this. There are huge interests for him to make this decision. Maybe (probably) you and I would've done the same. But I don't understand why would you be a big supported of him? Why would you cheer for someone who is mal intended to win? You have 0 stakes in his winning. Again, I didn't mean to offend. I genuinely want to understand why would someone with 0 stakes support an ill intended person. Edit: I'm not necessarily saying Travis is ill intended. But the parent says he supports him only because he is harsh, therefore not caring about any other point.
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erdojo 10y ago
I believe the driver was itching for a confrontation (he stopped Kalanick as he was getting out of the car to start the conversation). It was only after being berated for a minute or two and interrupted that Kalanick's composure started to crack. Before then, I don't think anything Kalanick could have said would have mollified this driver. He had an axe and he was going to grind it. Kalanick could have handled it better, but he didn't totally melt down either. And I think the guy is pretty terrible in general.
- lambdasquirrel 10y ago
  You have to admit there's a bit of karma in it. If you want happier drivers, head over to Lyft where we tip better. :P
  - erdojo 10y ago
    I used to use Lyft and Uber interchangebly depending on where I was, but since the Susan Fowler allegations I've defaulted to Lyft. And I love the in-app tipping :), so much less awkward and more convenient. However, I've had more borderline experiences with Lyft than Uber, mostly related to basic cleanliness of the car. Drivers have always been great though.
- frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
  Where else should he grind it? Kalanick is the CEO. He made a decision which affects this mans livelihood. Kalanick certainly gets paid enough to face up to people like this. And if he wants to stop facing up to it, maybe he can do something about their pay.
  - erdojo 10y ago
    Right person, wrong time, wrong approach. Kalanick was off the clock, clearly on his way home and in a social setting. The driver could have really capitalized on the moment. He could have opened a productive and respectful conversation by saying he was a very early driver and had some feedback - good and bad - asking to sit down at a more appropriate time. That had far more likelihood of achieving any progress. But maybe he didn't want progress. Maybe he just wanted the satisfaction of venting to the CEO.
st3v3r 10y ago
Why is this guy allowed to continue leading a company again?
ProfessorLayton 10y ago
I hope that at the end of all this, we as a society realize that we need to actually enforce, as well as update the rules we set regarding employment. We're effectively subsidizing companies that find loopholes, or simply ignore laws. - Contractor-not-a-contractor employment merely pushes costs and risks on to the worker. We all end up paying for the worker's social safety net, and costs of doing business (Such as insurance premiums, for example). - Not Uber-specific, but technically-not-full-time employment that just barely allows employers to bypass benefits owed to full-time employees needs to be fixed. See Walmart and how they help employees sign up for government benefits as part of their on boarding in some areas. In the end, somebody is paying for these costs. Why shouldn't it be the companies doing business? Interesting how it ends with "Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own actions"
- AlexandrB 10y ago
  > In the end, somebody is paying for these costs. Why shouldn't it be the companies doing business? Exactly. We have allowed companies to externalize entirely too much risk/responsibility onto the public - from "too big to fail" banks to companies that use "creative" labor classification to save money on health plans and benefits to advertisers that collect reams of sensitive information but are not held to account when that information leaks.
- harryh 10y ago
  > Why shouldn't it be the companies doing business? Why should it be the companies doing business? Just because someone happens to work for Walmart/Uber/whoever, I don't see why it means that employer suddenly becomes responsible for meeting any particular set of needs that person might have. If we, as a society, decide that there should be minimum standard of living for citizens than we should fund that from taxes paid by all.
  - AlexandrB 10y ago
    > If we, as a society, decide that there should be minimum standard of living for citizens than we should fund that from taxes paid by all. I agree, this is the other - perhaps bette - solution. But the corporations that reap huge benefits from public education, infrastructure, healthcare, etc. (and those who currently disproportionately profit from those corporations) need to start contributing their fair share.
camillomiller 10y ago
Typical and unfortunate outcome: there is a serious problem with a company's policies. Suddenly everything slightly controversial coming from that company is newsworthy. In doing so, the original well-founded and important criticism is diluted. This is just a more refined form of clickbait.
noobermin 10y ago
Watching as someone who already doesn't like Kalanick due to recent news, but at first, I didn't really take sides. The driver engaged first, and his tone was a little more tensive than Kalanick's. Moreover, Kalanick's argument seems sensible[0] regarding why he might have had to lower rates. However, once Kalanick's retort essentially becomes "you're not taking personal responsibility and blaming others (ie., me)" he loses me. It's a fair discussion up till that point and each party's argument is reasonable (even if the tone isn't polite). What does Kalanick know about the driver's situation that he can say that? When taken along with current news regarding Uber's culture, this doesn't look very good for Uber and Kalanick as a person. [0] I'm not judging it based on its merits because I am not in the know regarding the numbers of the issue.
- pjwal 10y ago
  I don't consider it a fair discussion when the driver falsely insists the fair is $2.75/mile, when it is $3.75/mile and continues to pound the theme when Kalanick had already given his explanation. What is the driver expecting? For Uber to go back and raise fairs on Uber Black?
  - noobermin 10y ago
    As I admitted, I am not privy to the details you refer to. For all we know, he merely misquoted or forgot. The point I'm making is it is just a discussion until Kalanick accuses the driver of playing victim when he has no right to do so. It's a matter of degrees.
  - moogly 10y ago
    1) He didn't "insist" it was $2.75. He mentioned the figure once. 2) When he quoted the figure, he said "and it's now what, $2.75?" clearly implying that he's not entirely sure about the current rate.
    - pjwal 10y ago
      It seems like the driver should know these basic facts before he engages on the matter.
rockarage 10y ago
Travis is right on a technicality they did not lower Uber Black prices much if any. What they did instead was coerced Uber Black drivers to take Uber X request. Yes drivers can reject Uber X request, but if you reject a certain amount of Uber rides, they kick you off their system. Probably why the driver is complaining about going bankrupt, you need a luxury car to drive Uber Black, but if you're stuck picking Uber X fares you'll lose money.
- unityByFreedom 10y ago
  Thanks for the explanation. This sounds a lot like mortgage crisis. There, borrowers said they didn't understand the terms of loans that had changing rates (ARMs), and banks said they didn't mislead anyone because the terms were in the contract. These fights explain why we have government regulation and education to sort things out. We can't have the rich constantly taking advantage of the poor, and we can't have the poor be so uneducated as to not understand the risk of a NINA loan. It isn't good for the growth of the country.
- erdojo 10y ago
  Are you sure they still do this? I haven't gotten a Black Car for an X fare in several years. Used to be fairly common, now never. Before the Susan Fowler allegations, I was a 2-3x per day rider (I'm now mostly using Lyft).
  - rockarage 10y ago
    Yes they do, however in some cities there are so many Uber X drivers so Uber does not have to send Uber X request to Uber Black drivers.
    - erdojo 10y ago
      Got it. I'm usually in San Francisco, LA or Reno, so that makes sense.
  - randyrand 10y ago
    Not all Lyft employees are saints either. I'm worried when the next Lyft scandel happens, ill have no good taxi options.
seertaak 10y ago
This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but I actually thought the driver was exceedingly rude. He clearly took advantage of Kalanick being in the public eye, and thus a "target". Filming him without acknowledging it was totally immoral, it should reduce any fair person's bayesian priors as to the credibility of the driver. I'm no fan of Kalanick, but I thought he comported himself reasonably, taking the time to explain things from his perspective. He could have just said: "sorry no time". Instead he shook the driver's hand, tried to explain the logic of his moving down the luxury scale. The fact that the footage of him with two women wasn't cut out is frankly disgusting and a total invasion of his privacy. He didn't do anything wrong except flirt a bit. How tawdry of Bloomberg to show that material. What is wrong with newspapers nowadays? It seems the press decides someone's "fair game" and they just engage in the most blatant character assassination.
- wopwopwop 10y ago
  > This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but I actually thought the driver was exceedingly rude. He clearly took advantage of Kalanick being in the public eye, and thus a "target". Filming him without acknowledging it was totally immoral, it should reduce any fair person's bayesian priors as to the credibility of the driver. Why? If I were a driver, you can be sure I would be filming everyone. Does that mean I would have no credibility? Here in London I've assumed that cabs are always filming.
  - beejiu 10y ago
    They would not be able to publish the video, however. That would be illegal.
    - chickenfries 10y ago
      Why?
      - oculusthrift 10y ago
        look up 2 party consent laws in California.
moogly 10y ago
"You know what? You know what? Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit. They blame every single thing in their life on somebody else". Less than a minute after having blamed the lowering of prices on his competitor(s). That delicious irony.
- zazpowered 10y ago
  taking action is different from just blaming and talking
shruubi 10y ago
Honestly, as much as I don't like Kalanick and would love a reason to dislike him even more, to some degree I have to side with him on this situation. The footage with the girls, while incredibly awkward, is nothing more than a flirtatious conversation. Now, fair enough that the driver realises he has the CEO of Uber in his car and wants to talk about his situation as a driver, and I give props to Kalanick for actually taking the time to listen and explain. Did the ending clip not paint Kalanick in the best light? Sure, but keep in mind that in this situation he is a guy in his private life who has been blindsided and accused of ruining this guys life, with, what it seems like from other posts here, lies. If telling the guy he needs to take responsibility for his own choices instead of looking to blame someone else is the worst thing that Kalanick could say to anyone, then there really isn't a story here from my point of view. Also, Bloomberg should really take a good hard look at themselves for posting that video without cutting out the conversation with the women. Posting that section of the video is the kind of disgusting shit that TMZ and other gossip rags would pull.
- jzl 10y ago
  > Sure, but keep in mind that in this situation he is a guy in his private life who has been blindsided and accused of ruining this guys life, with, what it seems like from other posts here, lies. Oh come on, he's the CEO of Uber and he took an Uber. Probably every single Uber driver in the country if not the world knows who he is. If he doesn't have an expectation of being recognized and asked about the business he should hire non-Uber private cars. This isn't someone tracking him down on the street and sticking a mic in his face. It's completely fair game.
  - jimmywanger 10y ago
    > Oh come on, he's the CEO of Uber and he took an Uber. And if he took a Lyft, a private limo, or drove himself, that would be even worse publicity. Right now no matter what he does he'll get people sniping at him, just like on this board. It's a herd mentality where you pick on perceived weakness, and it's always ugly. > Probably every single Uber driver in the country if not the world knows who he is. Does every single McDonald's worker in the world know what the CEO looks like?
thkim 10y ago
This is a terrible jab at Uber. I expected Bloomberg for higher journalistic standard than this. 1. What does "two female friends" have to do with driver's argument with Kalanick? Should've cut that out. I read it as slimy ad hominem to reinforce bias on Uber's culture. Uber might have some culture problem, but it is completely unrelated with driver's issue. 2. Does driver's argument have any basis? The piece merely draws attention to Kalanick and driver's tension - is Bloomberg now a TMZ for business world? I'm very disappointed in Bloomberg.
grandalf 10y ago
I always ask the drivers how they like Uber, whether they have considered Lyft (most use both), etc. The only group of highly disgruntled drivers are the ones who lived in the overpriced period of black cars that existed before Uber came into the market. The driver probably spent $97K on a luxury car expecting to be able to make the prevailing black car driver wage at the time. Uber did a great service to consumers by democratizing driving services, and now money flows to so many other people and does tremendous benefit to society. I'm glad Travis stood up for himself. Maybe if that driver had been more rational and less inclined to gripe about other people's successes causing his life to be miserable, he might have started Uber. He likely had a big advantage over Travis in terms of familiarity with the industry and would have made fewer mistakes early on.
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timthelion 10y ago
This is a kind of categorical thinking, which is sometimes misatributed as being "autistic". You have a clear logical distinction, I'll grant you that. You have a declaration of your opinion, which on its face seems resonable. But you fail to examine the details of the situation. You are reducing your morality to a few simple and rigid rules. Those rules can be seen as something akin to a computer program. If your moral rules are simple, they are like a simple computer program. Are simple computer programs inteligent? Do you want to decide what is right and wrong based on a few lines of "moral code"? Or do you want to use the entirety of your brain power to analyse each sitauation and think whether something is right or wrong in a given concrete case?
- kinkrtyavimoodh 10y ago
  It's funny that you seem to be insinuating that I am using simplistic decision trees instead of analyzing a concrete situation when you were the one who made sweeping arguments about classism and about the rich and the poor. I did 'use the entirety of my brain power to analyze this situation and think whether something was right or wrong in this given concrete case" and I reached the conclusion that while I am not sure about the legality of it, I'd definitely consider it a dick-ish move.
- dnautics 10y ago
  it's not even categorical! A true categorical distinction requires a formal trigger to make such distinctions, what is the underlying factor that makes one public and the other not besides "the speaker says so"; otherwise it's arbitrary binning, not categorization.
- dang 10y ago
  That's unduly personal. Please don't do that on HN. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13758473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13758473 and marked it off-topic.
  - timthelion 10y ago
    Would my reply be acceptable without the first sentence? Or is the entire thing too personal?
em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
This is why we need a distributed p2p ridesharing system, like http://libretaxi.org/ http://libretaxi.org/
- lupin_sansei 10y ago
  How does Libre Taxi uniquely identify a driver for ratings and kicking them off the system if they are too bad?
  - em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
    I doesn't yet, but you make a good point that it desperately needs a reputation system. There are a few feature requests to this effect.
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CodeWriter23 10y ago
That's funny Kalanick still thinks he's beaten Lyft. The TNC lot at LAX tells a much different story. I've been working it for Lyft since December. The lot has about 170 spaces. Lyft and Uber can each queue up 100 vehicles so some would have to park on streets. Before #deleteuber, I would come in with 90+ drivers ahead of me. I'd have to wait an hour. I would watch Uber drivers arrive after me and leave before me. And the lot was always full while the airport had arriving passenger traffic. Since #deleteuber, it's much different. LAX seems to be in Prime Time much of the time. But here's the weird thing, the lot is like half empty. There's like 20 cars in the lot that fly only the Uber branding (and plenty flying both logos on their Uber-leased Priuses). I haven't waited more than 10 minutes to get dispatched, except at like 2AM when the passenger air traffic tapers off. On most of my LAX dispatches in the last week, I couldn't even reach a parking space and park before getting dispatched. And this arriving with sometimes as low as 50 drivers ahead of me, and typically 80 or more. The most incredible time, I arrived at LAX. It was Prime Time in the airport. The app told me the queue was full and to leave. I drove slowly down Jenny Street, the app flipped to 98 ahead of me. I entered the lot, followed the traffic jam of Lyft drivers trying to get to the designated parking area. It took like three minutes. I was dispatched as I entered the parking area. I took the short cut through the fence to exit the lot and picked up my fare. But here is the clearest indication to me that Lyft completely owns LAX now. I arrived, parked, ran to the porta potty and took a leak. 3 Uber drivers were hanging out near that end of the lot, talking to each other. I got my dispatch while walking to my car. I picked someone up, took them to Marina Del Ray, came back, got dispatched again and those same 3 drivers were still killing time talking to each other.
- prostoalex 10y ago
  Lyft is always cheaper out of LAX for some reason. It's always some small amount, like 25-30c on a $45 fare, but quite consistent. My rides to LAX are usually a mishmash of providers, but rides out of LAX, when optimized for price, tend to be exclusively Lyft.
peternilson 10y ago
No one seems to be discussing this, but is Travis personally responsible for the loss of the drivers 97k? The driver sure thinks he is. Perhaps he played some roll in it. But the driver certainly made the decision to take out that loan. And I guess the driver had enough sense at the time to understand the risks involved with credit when he took out the loan. Well then you might say it's not the most compassionate thing to say to someone who clearly is suffering from financial loss. But I think it only seems like a mean thing to say because it's true. And it's really these truths that people don't want to accept about themselves. That they themselves are responsible for their own suffering.
koltaggar 10y ago
Why is healthcare coverage relevant
horsecaptin 10y ago
I smell an expert PR move!
jannettee 10y ago
That's some serious manspreading he's got going on there.
- skeletonjelly 10y ago
  The middle seat typically does this due to the axle running down the center
rebelidealist 10y ago
1. Add more chars 2. Acquire medium or add their on blogging container. https://medium.com/@hungrycharles/3-things-twitter-can-do-to-make-it-the-most-popular-social-network-c62d0d7695e6#.t87svr6m6 https://medium.com/@hungrycharles/3-things-twitter-can-do-to...
- umeshunni 10y ago
  Wrong topic? Perhaps you meant to post it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13746549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13746549 ?
rhizome 10y ago
Just because someone happens to work for Walmart/Uber/whoever, I don't see why it means that employer suddenly becomes responsible for meeting any particular set of needs that person might have. You would have been the "awful" kind of slaver back in the day.
- dang 10y ago
  Did you really just attack someone the way this comment sounds like you did? That's dismaying. If I've read it correctly, it's the kind of attack we ban accounts for, so please don't do that here. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13758241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13758241 and marked it off-topic.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    I thought it was apt. The only problem is that I myself imply that there's a such thing as a "good" slaver, but to assert that an employer is justified by their existence and corporate strategy to reduce their employees to chum is comparably distasteful. GP's point at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13757973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13757973, where they illustrate a few externalized costs, which also seem reasonable to criticize, received pushback that companies don't have to do nothin' for their employees but reap the profits, which is a bad position to take, IMO. People use the term "un-American" too much these days, but the person I was responding to went way beyond that into anti-civilization. There is no way that the person I was replying to could possibly be a slaver, so I wasn't attacking them personally. I was connecting their position to that of slavers who would just as soon let their slaves die in the fields from overwork, dehydration, or any number of other things that "shouldn't be the boss' responsibility."
sksareen1 10y ago
Seems like bad reporting: trying to make a mountain out of molehill. It's the opinion of one driver who happened to get his boss on tape, and had a pretty productive discussion wherein the driver pushed and became rude, more so than Travis. The article painted an inaccurate picture of what happened - it's entirely a non-issue imo.
calvinbhai 10y ago
disclosure: I dont like Uber since 2010. I have always felt Uber has used the wrong means to achieve its success, and because of that I dislike Travis. (most of my HN comments about Uber are either neutral or negative). I feel bad for all those drivers who bit the Uber bait and bought expensive cars, with an expensive / sub prime loan. But it is the similar entitled attitude that lead people to hate the cab/taxi drivers/fleets. With that said, I still think, in this video, the driver was on the wrong side and Travis was not. In fact, Travis starts replying in a fairly equanimous way, and loses it only after the driver starts blaming Travis for everything. If the driver has such a problem with Uber, he should not be driving for it!
danielrhodes 10y ago
I've been reading through these comments and find it quite interesting because both the driver and Kalanick are correct, but as is usual in these confrontations, they weren't communicating properly with each other. On Kalanick's side, he is entirely correct that Uber has to compete in a very competitive market and most of that competition is in price. If Uber didn't compete on price, they would sign their own death warrant. On the driver's side, he took a risk in going for an Uber black car and he probably wasn't fully aware of that risk. He seems justified in feeling upset at how exposed he is to market forces that are outside of his control. Given that, perhaps Uber should better inform drivers of that risk and offer some way that drivers can buffer themselves from that risk. For example, Uber could offer drivers some sort of insurance against rate changes. This would incentivize Uber to be more careful about rate changes since they would pay a penalty if the delta is too big and it would stabilize the rate for drivers -- there are a lot of variables to play with here to make the outcome mutually beneficial.
nstj 10y ago
The article says that the Uber customer price went down for Black ($4.90 to $3.75 etc) but does anyone have any evidence that the amount paid to drivers has gone down (given there's a large disconnect between Uber customer prices and what is paid to drivers).
stillsut 10y ago
If DeleteUber succeeds, that's then end of the American dream as we know it. Starting a tech business with better ideas, and working harder and smarter than the Old Boys with Money (and taxi medallions) is the one of the last ways anyone, like a Zuckerberg, can climb the ladder, without selling out their own hacker spirit as we call it. The fact that the CEO would sit and dish strategy in a frank manner is something I find commendable, and seems to part of this guy's nature. But if Uber goes down in flames for this petty PR play after burning through billions in VC money to acquire the market share they are rapidly losing, no young founder, heck no man or woman who hasn't trained in corporate lawyer dark arts is going to be allowed to run these innovative startups who need huge amounts of capital to be sunk initially for a long term payout. Welcome to the world of "cool program! the grownups will take it from here kiddo."
s0me0ne 10y ago
In this day and age of the NSA, let them record it and put it all over the internet. I have a dash cam myself, but not for inside the car, although it does record the audio inside, (which can pick up some outside audio).

383 points by coloneltcb 10y ago

brotherjerky 10y ago

Perhaps they need to hire Sally Yates or John Ashcroft to get to the bottom of this now?

jforman 10y ago

Travis and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Quarter for PR

VMG 10y ago
Maybe they are flushing out the bad stories that are out there?

envy2 10y ago

Unfortunately, that driver is about to find out what "two party consent" for recordings means.

koolba 10y ago
Does that apply to being recorded in a public location (and would the driver's cab count)? Also, for all we know there could be a sign in the black car that says, "Smile you're on candid camera!".
- ericcumbee 10y ago
  I think the answer is maybe. http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law
- loeg 10y ago
  Inside of a private car with the windows up isn't public. I don't know whether California is a two-party consent state, and the specifics of what that requires are different state to state anyway.
  - koolba 10y ago
    > Inside of a private car with the windows up isn't public. If it was your car and someone got in and recorded you, then I'd say that's more clear cut. But if you get into someone else's car do you have a reasonable expectation of privacy?
    - user5994461 10y ago
      Dunno about the USA but for the few EU countries I known the law of, the answer is yes, there is an expectation of privacy.
    - loeg 10y ago
      If you go to someone's house, do you expect to be recorded there? I'm not a lawyer, in any case :-).
    - dkonofalski 10y ago
      Since you're technically hiring that person and their car to provide you a service, they have to disclose up-front if you're being recorded. In addition, just because you were being recorded doesn't mean the driver has the right to publicize the video. That requires additional consent unless it's a matter of public record.
coloneltcb 10y ago
No, I think Travis has enough bad PR now. He doesn't need to punch down and sue a driver he's already bankrupted
- myblake 10y ago
  Your reading of Travis strikes me as wildly optimistic.
- envy2 10y ago
  I'm not sure about that. This isn't a 'scandal' in the way Uber's treatment of its female engineers is; it's just a driver leaking what was thought to be a private conversation, albeit one that isn't particularly flattering for Travis. As a passenger, I think I'd be happy to have an example made of a driver who recorded and then published video and audio of a private conversation without consent. I've said and done plenty of things in the back of an Uber/Lyft/taxi that I wouldn't want the whole world to see. Having issues with Uber's practices is fine, and talking about them publicly is fine—but a driver who makes and leaks illegal recordings is not someone I want to ride with. Throw the book at him, IMO, and frame it as standing up for riders' privacy.
RandomInteger4 10y ago
I'm ... fare-ly ... certain certain this law does not apply to recordings for security purposes in a place of business; the vehicle being the place of business of the Uber driver. EDIT: Er, scratch that. Didn't realize there was audio attached. I think audio might be the incriminating factor in the two party consent thing. I mostly just wanted to make a bad pun.
- jimrandomh 10y ago
  There are separate laws for video and for audio. Recording video is allowed in most places; audio recording is much more restricted, and as far as I know making this recording was not legal if it was in California. However, litigating it would cause so much more PR damage that it will almost certainly won't be.
  - KirinDave 10y ago
    You agree to surveillance when you use these cars.
    - carniaclaly 10y ago
      No you don't. Show me where that's in the terms?
    - PeterisP 10y ago
      Intent matters - as soon as the recording is used (and published!) for a clearly different purpose, the legal situation is quite different. For example disclaimer similar to classic "your call may be recorded for quality control purposes" may allow the recording (depending on the location, etc) but generally will still land you in hot water if the company publishes that for an unrelated reason.
- carniaclaly 10y ago
  Some states make exceptions for recordings that take place for business security purposes. California does not. However, CA does make an exception for recording "in any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded." You could certainly make an argument that this douchebag might reasonably expect audio to be recorded in his company's driver's cars. Not so sure you could make that argument for the other passengers. Interestingly, Bloomberg could be sued (or prosecuted; $5000 fine) for distributing the recording if it indeed falls under CA's wiretapping laws.
save_ferris 10y ago
Granted, this is all still speculation, but what would such a lawsuit do to the Uber brand? They'd basically be telling all of their drivers in two-party consent states not to not use dashcams because of the liability, which seems tenuous given some of the terrible videos of riders abusing drivers we've seen. Legal liability over safety seems like a hard sacrifice for people who make so little as it is.
fudged71 10y ago
I bet he was kicked off Uber because of this exchange
- quickdraw46 10y ago
  If he was, I'm sure there would have been a big hue and cry about it already.

deleted 10y ago

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B1narySunset 10y ago

This guy comes across as a quintessential douche.

NTDF9 10y ago

How can a driver lose $97000? Not asking in support/opposition of uber. Genuinely curious about what are some ways drivers could get into so much trouble?

jbob2000 10y ago
He probably took out a loan to buy a nice car/limo to do Uber Black work. Since the rates dropped, he probably can't make the monthly payments, let alone maintenance and gas.
arprocter 10y ago
I'm guessing he multiplied his total miles driven by the old $20 rate mentioned and the current $2.75 rate and the difference is his 'loss'
dkonofalski 10y ago
He more than likely purchased multiple cars in order to run a business using the Uber infrastructure. He may even have family or friends involved as drivers. If he purchased a luxury car outright, he could also have dropped $97k just for that vehicle alone since Uber Black requires a certain type of vehicle in exchange for higher fare rates.

jbob2000 10y ago

But was the driver right? Did uber black fares drop?

deleted 10y ago
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inverse_pi 10y ago
I think what the driver is arguing is that Uber changed its business model from black car only to including UberX and UberPool which drove the price of a trip down and less people using black car. I think this is perfectly reasonable, it's just maybe the way Travis responded was not very nice.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago

To me this illustrates one of the biggest problems we have in america which is the crazy firewall between rich and poor. Kamel wanted to have a serious discussion with Kalanick about how his decisions as CEO were affecting Kamel's life and Kalanick gets upset about this. That's your job! At least it should be. If you can't even handle light criticism from the people you employ, you shouldn't be at the top.

dswiese 10y ago
This is driven by the argument that drivers are not employees. He has no vested interest in the drivers circumstances.
- nilved 10y ago
  As far as he is concerned drivers are not humans.
  - simplehuman 10y ago
    How did you reach this conclusion?
    - nilved 10y ago
      I saw a video of the CEO talking to a driver.
      - simplehuman 10y ago
        You are contradicting yourself. The video then proves that he thinks the driver is capable of intelligent conversation. Unless you have seen videos of Travis talk to rocks, trees and bots. If so, please do share.
- atomical 10y ago
  I showed up to uber to pick up a phone that my girlfriend at the time had left in an uber. They told me to wait in line behind the drivers. "Sir, we are all customers here."

aioprisan 10y ago

Does Travis have the temperament to lead this company to a public offering? Given how much baggage he has and how responsible he is for Uber's current sexist culture, I hope investors give keeping Travis on some thinking. Responsibility for a terrible culture that shields sexist management starts at the top.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

dokein 10y ago

A bit of a tangential point: last week there was a post here about Facebook "changing the rules" and a significant number of small businesses disappearing as a result. Whether or not Uber's black car reimbursement really did change, it strikes me that drivers probably made business decisions (e.g. car purchases) based on Uber's initial reimbursement and are now seeing the rules change and grossing far fewer profits than expected (and prices still have a ways to go). One can argue that these small business owners / contractors should have had the foresight not to do business on someone else's platform, but this strikes me as a bit Malthusian. Going through bankruptcy is no small price to pay for this lesson. Hopefully the next Facebook or Uber will have to promise some degree of stability (the same way I am very wary of working with SaaS startups), but I'm not optimistic - there's a fool born every minute.

pjwal 10y ago
The problem with this is that it ignores the economic realities that went into the decision of Uber to lower fairs and assumes that their demand would have remained the same with or without doing it. Drivers would have not been happy with higher fairs if they couldn't, well...get a fair because of lowered demand.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
omarchowdhury 10y ago
Do you have a link to that Facebook thread?

pfarnsworth 10y ago

How is this video not illegal, especially in California? And sure rates went down, but it's still 3X the price of UberX. It didn't go down precipitously. From $4.90/1.25 to 3.75/0.65 won't cause someone to lose $97k and probably he got more activity overall. I agree with the CEO that this guy sounds like he's blaming Uber for his problems, when there are plenty of UberBlack drivers making hand over fist otherwise the drivers wouldn't be there. My wife's last UberX driver said he was making $3k/week.

KirinDave 10y ago
> How is this video not illegal, especially in California? You agree to surveillance when you enter the car. Just like a taxi, a bus, a train or a trolley. You actually don't have an "expectation of privacy" in these spaces either. So a drone cam or telephoto lens is okay too. That's where state law is interesting. California is actually surprisingly permissive for photographers and videographers.
- erdojo 10y ago
  Unless Uber has that in its terms of service, that may be open to interpretation. Even if an Uber is considered a public space, that's not the sole determining factor in two-party consent cases. http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law
  - KirinDave 10y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted. Your read is absolutely right.
- ddrmaxgt37 10y ago
  Doesn't California require 2 party consent? So all parties have to consent to the recording for it to be lawful. Which state laws are you reading?
  - KirinDave 10y ago

stagbeetle 10y ago

This seems like a slam piece following the #DeleteUber bandwagon. 1). The title doesn't match the contents. Instead of reporting on the specifics of the fare changes, Newcomer rehashes the more prominent Uber scandals and some short commentary on TK's "short temper." 2). A very short paragraph (around 1/20th the article) breifly elaborates on the fares: > And the gig has gotten harder for longtime drivers. In 2012, Uber Black cost riders $4.90 per mile and $1.25 per minute in San Francisco, according to an old version of Uber's website. Today, Uber charges $3.75 per mile and $0.65 per minute. Black car drivers get paid less and their business faces far more competition from other Uber services. 3). The video transcription selectively takes out parts and fudges others: > "Kalanick begins to lose his temper." > Omitting the civil conversation preceding "But people are not trusting you anymore" The following is just my personal anecdote: I have an immigrant in my family who's just like the driver. He's not interested in "fighting over a good idea, which sometimes means admitting that his isn’t the best one," but looking to assert his ideas onto anyone who takes his argument-bait. Additionally, it's plain rude to engage in this sort of thing with a stranger.

pjwal 10y ago
So, let me get this straight. Uber has lowered the fair once on Uber Black to $3.75/mile, yet it seems that this driver was falsely insisting it was $2.75/mile. That would be frustrating to me too.
idiot_stick 10y ago
>I have an immigrant in my family who's just like the driver. He's not interested in "fighting over a good idea You may want to rephrase that, because it sounds an awful lot like you're attributing "stubbornness" to the fact that this guy's an immigrant. >Additionally, it's plain rude to engage in this sort of thing with a stranger. He's not a stranger. He's the boss.
- stagbeetle 10y ago
  > You may want to rephrase that, because it sounds an awful lot like you're attributing "stubbornness" to the fact that this guy's an immigrant. I am. This sort of behavior is common among older people from the country my family member -- and I -- emigrated from. > He's not a stranger. He's the boss. That's a bit of an exaggeration. Travis isn't directly overseeing this specific driver's operations (ignoring the whole "Uber is a contractor not an employer").

falloutx 10y ago

1. Uber should really put up a policy against drivers using cockpit cameras to record passengers. Most of them do it without any consent. I usually give them 1 star if someone uses cockpit camera. 2. I have been a big Supporter of Travis Kalanick since last 2-3 years, just for the fact that he's willing to take harsh steps to win. This ultimately helps Uber. Uber's Drivers are not its employees, it doesn't want them to treat them like employees. As more drivers enter the market, supply starts increasing faster than demand and therefore prices must decrease. Since Driving is low barrier profession, its relatively easy to replace them and accumulate them with Uber's model. In this conversation Kalanick is seemingly busy with friends, therefore much less interested in discussing details of his decisions.

AlexandrB 10y ago
> I usually give them 1 star if someone uses cockpit camera. Why would you do that? These drivers are just "taking harsh steps" to ensure their safety and the safety of their property. I thought you were all for that. Edit: also why should Uber be allowed to dictate what equipment its "not employees" can and can't use in their own car?
- falloutx 10y ago
  Drivers are contractors, so Uber can dictate the "terms" for contracts it is part of. Drivers are in a contract with Uber. Uber should be trying to protect its costumers from privacy violations, so it should take steps to ensure drivers are not using anything that would hurt costumers physically or by any other way. I understand the some of the recent privacy issues in Uber have come from its employees and not from drivers, so It should also be trying to get rid of destructive employees as well.
emilsedgh 10y ago
I have been a big Supporter of Travis Kalanick since last 2-3 years, just for the fact that he's willing to take harsh steps to win. Sir/Madam, I don't really want to be offensive. And I know that this is a stupid comparison, but I cannot help myself and I need to ask: Would you apply the same logic to Hitler? He took really harsh steps to win. And it would've ultimately helped Germany. Other people were not German citizens after all (like drivers are not Uber's employees so who the hell cares). Right? I mean, I understand Travis. He has a billion dollar business now. I totally get that he might decide to say you know what, fuck the drivers, I'm doing this. There are huge interests for him to make this decision. Maybe (probably) you and I would've done the same. But I don't understand why would you be a big supported of him? Why would you cheer for someone who is mal intended to win? You have 0 stakes in his winning. Again, I didn't mean to offend. I genuinely want to understand why would someone with 0 stakes support an ill intended person. Edit: I'm not necessarily saying Travis is ill intended. But the parent says he supports him only because he is harsh, therefore not caring about any other point.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

erdojo 10y ago

I believe the driver was itching for a confrontation (he stopped Kalanick as he was getting out of the car to start the conversation). It was only after being berated for a minute or two and interrupted that Kalanick's composure started to crack. Before then, I don't think anything Kalanick could have said would have mollified this driver. He had an axe and he was going to grind it. Kalanick could have handled it better, but he didn't totally melt down either. And I think the guy is pretty terrible in general.

lambdasquirrel 10y ago
You have to admit there's a bit of karma in it. If you want happier drivers, head over to Lyft where we tip better. :P
- erdojo 10y ago
  I used to use Lyft and Uber interchangebly depending on where I was, but since the Susan Fowler allegations I've defaulted to Lyft. And I love the in-app tipping :), so much less awkward and more convenient. However, I've had more borderline experiences with Lyft than Uber, mostly related to basic cleanliness of the car. Drivers have always been great though.
frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
Where else should he grind it? Kalanick is the CEO. He made a decision which affects this mans livelihood. Kalanick certainly gets paid enough to face up to people like this. And if he wants to stop facing up to it, maybe he can do something about their pay.
- erdojo 10y ago
  Right person, wrong time, wrong approach. Kalanick was off the clock, clearly on his way home and in a social setting. The driver could have really capitalized on the moment. He could have opened a productive and respectful conversation by saying he was a very early driver and had some feedback - good and bad - asking to sit down at a more appropriate time. That had far more likelihood of achieving any progress. But maybe he didn't want progress. Maybe he just wanted the satisfaction of venting to the CEO.

st3v3r 10y ago

Why is this guy allowed to continue leading a company again?

ProfessorLayton 10y ago

I hope that at the end of all this, we as a society realize that we need to actually enforce, as well as update the rules we set regarding employment. We're effectively subsidizing companies that find loopholes, or simply ignore laws. - Contractor-not-a-contractor employment merely pushes costs and risks on to the worker. We all end up paying for the worker's social safety net, and costs of doing business (Such as insurance premiums, for example). - Not Uber-specific, but technically-not-full-time employment that just barely allows employers to bypass benefits owed to full-time employees needs to be fixed. See Walmart and how they help employees sign up for government benefits as part of their on boarding in some areas. In the end, somebody is paying for these costs. Why shouldn't it be the companies doing business? Interesting how it ends with "Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own actions"

AlexandrB 10y ago
> In the end, somebody is paying for these costs. Why shouldn't it be the companies doing business? Exactly. We have allowed companies to externalize entirely too much risk/responsibility onto the public - from "too big to fail" banks to companies that use "creative" labor classification to save money on health plans and benefits to advertisers that collect reams of sensitive information but are not held to account when that information leaks.
harryh 10y ago
> Why shouldn't it be the companies doing business? Why should it be the companies doing business? Just because someone happens to work for Walmart/Uber/whoever, I don't see why it means that employer suddenly becomes responsible for meeting any particular set of needs that person might have. If we, as a society, decide that there should be minimum standard of living for citizens than we should fund that from taxes paid by all.
- AlexandrB 10y ago
  > If we, as a society, decide that there should be minimum standard of living for citizens than we should fund that from taxes paid by all. I agree, this is the other - perhaps bette - solution. But the corporations that reap huge benefits from public education, infrastructure, healthcare, etc. (and those who currently disproportionately profit from those corporations) need to start contributing their fair share.

camillomiller 10y ago

Typical and unfortunate outcome: there is a serious problem with a company's policies. Suddenly everything slightly controversial coming from that company is newsworthy. In doing so, the original well-founded and important criticism is diluted. This is just a more refined form of clickbait.

noobermin 10y ago

Watching as someone who already doesn't like Kalanick due to recent news, but at first, I didn't really take sides. The driver engaged first, and his tone was a little more tensive than Kalanick's. Moreover, Kalanick's argument seems sensible[0] regarding why he might have had to lower rates. However, once Kalanick's retort essentially becomes "you're not taking personal responsibility and blaming others (ie., me)" he loses me. It's a fair discussion up till that point and each party's argument is reasonable (even if the tone isn't polite). What does Kalanick know about the driver's situation that he can say that? When taken along with current news regarding Uber's culture, this doesn't look very good for Uber and Kalanick as a person. [0] I'm not judging it based on its merits because I am not in the know regarding the numbers of the issue.

pjwal 10y ago
I don't consider it a fair discussion when the driver falsely insists the fair is $2.75/mile, when it is $3.75/mile and continues to pound the theme when Kalanick had already given his explanation. What is the driver expecting? For Uber to go back and raise fairs on Uber Black?
- noobermin 10y ago
  As I admitted, I am not privy to the details you refer to. For all we know, he merely misquoted or forgot. The point I'm making is it is just a discussion until Kalanick accuses the driver of playing victim when he has no right to do so. It's a matter of degrees.
- moogly 10y ago
  1) He didn't "insist" it was $2.75. He mentioned the figure once. 2) When he quoted the figure, he said "and it's now what, $2.75?" clearly implying that he's not entirely sure about the current rate.
  - pjwal 10y ago
    It seems like the driver should know these basic facts before he engages on the matter.

rockarage 10y ago

Travis is right on a technicality they did not lower Uber Black prices much if any. What they did instead was coerced Uber Black drivers to take Uber X request. Yes drivers can reject Uber X request, but if you reject a certain amount of Uber rides, they kick you off their system. Probably why the driver is complaining about going bankrupt, you need a luxury car to drive Uber Black, but if you're stuck picking Uber X fares you'll lose money.

unityByFreedom 10y ago
Thanks for the explanation. This sounds a lot like mortgage crisis. There, borrowers said they didn't understand the terms of loans that had changing rates (ARMs), and banks said they didn't mislead anyone because the terms were in the contract. These fights explain why we have government regulation and education to sort things out. We can't have the rich constantly taking advantage of the poor, and we can't have the poor be so uneducated as to not understand the risk of a NINA loan. It isn't good for the growth of the country.
erdojo 10y ago
Are you sure they still do this? I haven't gotten a Black Car for an X fare in several years. Used to be fairly common, now never. Before the Susan Fowler allegations, I was a 2-3x per day rider (I'm now mostly using Lyft).
- rockarage 10y ago
  Yes they do, however in some cities there are so many Uber X drivers so Uber does not have to send Uber X request to Uber Black drivers.
  - erdojo 10y ago
    Got it. I'm usually in San Francisco, LA or Reno, so that makes sense.
- randyrand 10y ago
  Not all Lyft employees are saints either. I'm worried when the next Lyft scandel happens, ill have no good taxi options.

seertaak 10y ago

This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but I actually thought the driver was exceedingly rude. He clearly took advantage of Kalanick being in the public eye, and thus a "target". Filming him without acknowledging it was totally immoral, it should reduce any fair person's bayesian priors as to the credibility of the driver. I'm no fan of Kalanick, but I thought he comported himself reasonably, taking the time to explain things from his perspective. He could have just said: "sorry no time". Instead he shook the driver's hand, tried to explain the logic of his moving down the luxury scale. The fact that the footage of him with two women wasn't cut out is frankly disgusting and a total invasion of his privacy. He didn't do anything wrong except flirt a bit. How tawdry of Bloomberg to show that material. What is wrong with newspapers nowadays? It seems the press decides someone's "fair game" and they just engage in the most blatant character assassination.

wopwopwop 10y ago
> This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but I actually thought the driver was exceedingly rude. He clearly took advantage of Kalanick being in the public eye, and thus a "target". Filming him without acknowledging it was totally immoral, it should reduce any fair person's bayesian priors as to the credibility of the driver. Why? If I were a driver, you can be sure I would be filming everyone. Does that mean I would have no credibility? Here in London I've assumed that cabs are always filming.
- beejiu 10y ago
  They would not be able to publish the video, however. That would be illegal.
  - chickenfries 10y ago
    Why?
    - oculusthrift 10y ago
      look up 2 party consent laws in California.

moogly 10y ago

"You know what? You know what? Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit. They blame every single thing in their life on somebody else". Less than a minute after having blamed the lowering of prices on his competitor(s). That delicious irony.

zazpowered 10y ago
taking action is different from just blaming and talking

shruubi 10y ago

Honestly, as much as I don't like Kalanick and would love a reason to dislike him even more, to some degree I have to side with him on this situation. The footage with the girls, while incredibly awkward, is nothing more than a flirtatious conversation. Now, fair enough that the driver realises he has the CEO of Uber in his car and wants to talk about his situation as a driver, and I give props to Kalanick for actually taking the time to listen and explain. Did the ending clip not paint Kalanick in the best light? Sure, but keep in mind that in this situation he is a guy in his private life who has been blindsided and accused of ruining this guys life, with, what it seems like from other posts here, lies. If telling the guy he needs to take responsibility for his own choices instead of looking to blame someone else is the worst thing that Kalanick could say to anyone, then there really isn't a story here from my point of view. Also, Bloomberg should really take a good hard look at themselves for posting that video without cutting out the conversation with the women. Posting that section of the video is the kind of disgusting shit that TMZ and other gossip rags would pull.

jzl 10y ago
> Sure, but keep in mind that in this situation he is a guy in his private life who has been blindsided and accused of ruining this guys life, with, what it seems like from other posts here, lies. Oh come on, he's the CEO of Uber and he took an Uber. Probably every single Uber driver in the country if not the world knows who he is. If he doesn't have an expectation of being recognized and asked about the business he should hire non-Uber private cars. This isn't someone tracking him down on the street and sticking a mic in his face. It's completely fair game.
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  > Oh come on, he's the CEO of Uber and he took an Uber. And if he took a Lyft, a private limo, or drove himself, that would be even worse publicity. Right now no matter what he does he'll get people sniping at him, just like on this board. It's a herd mentality where you pick on perceived weakness, and it's always ugly. > Probably every single Uber driver in the country if not the world knows who he is. Does every single McDonald's worker in the world know what the CEO looks like?

thkim 10y ago

This is a terrible jab at Uber. I expected Bloomberg for higher journalistic standard than this. 1. What does "two female friends" have to do with driver's argument with Kalanick? Should've cut that out. I read it as slimy ad hominem to reinforce bias on Uber's culture. Uber might have some culture problem, but it is completely unrelated with driver's issue. 2. Does driver's argument have any basis? The piece merely draws attention to Kalanick and driver's tension - is Bloomberg now a TMZ for business world? I'm very disappointed in Bloomberg.

grandalf 10y ago

I always ask the drivers how they like Uber, whether they have considered Lyft (most use both), etc. The only group of highly disgruntled drivers are the ones who lived in the overpriced period of black cars that existed before Uber came into the market. The driver probably spent $97K on a luxury car expecting to be able to make the prevailing black car driver wage at the time. Uber did a great service to consumers by democratizing driving services, and now money flows to so many other people and does tremendous benefit to society. I'm glad Travis stood up for himself. Maybe if that driver had been more rational and less inclined to gripe about other people's successes causing his life to be miserable, he might have started Uber. He likely had a big advantage over Travis in terms of familiarity with the industry and would have made fewer mistakes early on.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

timthelion 10y ago

This is a kind of categorical thinking, which is sometimes misatributed as being "autistic". You have a clear logical distinction, I'll grant you that. You have a declaration of your opinion, which on its face seems resonable. But you fail to examine the details of the situation. You are reducing your morality to a few simple and rigid rules. Those rules can be seen as something akin to a computer program. If your moral rules are simple, they are like a simple computer program. Are simple computer programs inteligent? Do you want to decide what is right and wrong based on a few lines of "moral code"? Or do you want to use the entirety of your brain power to analyse each sitauation and think whether something is right or wrong in a given concrete case?

kinkrtyavimoodh 10y ago
It's funny that you seem to be insinuating that I am using simplistic decision trees instead of analyzing a concrete situation when you were the one who made sweeping arguments about classism and about the rich and the poor. I did 'use the entirety of my brain power to analyze this situation and think whether something was right or wrong in this given concrete case" and I reached the conclusion that while I am not sure about the legality of it, I'd definitely consider it a dick-ish move.
dnautics 10y ago
it's not even categorical! A true categorical distinction requires a formal trigger to make such distinctions, what is the underlying factor that makes one public and the other not besides "the speaker says so"; otherwise it's arbitrary binning, not categorization.
dang 10y ago
That's unduly personal. Please don't do that on HN. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13758473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13758473 and marked it off-topic.
- timthelion 10y ago
  Would my reply be acceptable without the first sentence? Or is the entire thing too personal?

em3rgent0rdr 10y ago

This is why we need a distributed p2p ridesharing system, like http://libretaxi.org/ http://libretaxi.org/

lupin_sansei 10y ago
How does Libre Taxi uniquely identify a driver for ratings and kicking them off the system if they are too bad?
- em3rgent0rdr 10y ago
  I doesn't yet, but you make a good point that it desperately needs a reputation system. There are a few feature requests to this effect.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

CodeWriter23 10y ago

That's funny Kalanick still thinks he's beaten Lyft. The TNC lot at LAX tells a much different story. I've been working it for Lyft since December. The lot has about 170 spaces. Lyft and Uber can each queue up 100 vehicles so some would have to park on streets. Before #deleteuber, I would come in with 90+ drivers ahead of me. I'd have to wait an hour. I would watch Uber drivers arrive after me and leave before me. And the lot was always full while the airport had arriving passenger traffic. Since #deleteuber, it's much different. LAX seems to be in Prime Time much of the time. But here's the weird thing, the lot is like half empty. There's like 20 cars in the lot that fly only the Uber branding (and plenty flying both logos on their Uber-leased Priuses). I haven't waited more than 10 minutes to get dispatched, except at like 2AM when the passenger air traffic tapers off. On most of my LAX dispatches in the last week, I couldn't even reach a parking space and park before getting dispatched. And this arriving with sometimes as low as 50 drivers ahead of me, and typically 80 or more. The most incredible time, I arrived at LAX. It was Prime Time in the airport. The app told me the queue was full and to leave. I drove slowly down Jenny Street, the app flipped to 98 ahead of me. I entered the lot, followed the traffic jam of Lyft drivers trying to get to the designated parking area. It took like three minutes. I was dispatched as I entered the parking area. I took the short cut through the fence to exit the lot and picked up my fare. But here is the clearest indication to me that Lyft completely owns LAX now. I arrived, parked, ran to the porta potty and took a leak. 3 Uber drivers were hanging out near that end of the lot, talking to each other. I got my dispatch while walking to my car. I picked someone up, took them to Marina Del Ray, came back, got dispatched again and those same 3 drivers were still killing time talking to each other.

prostoalex 10y ago
Lyft is always cheaper out of LAX for some reason. It's always some small amount, like 25-30c on a $45 fare, but quite consistent. My rides to LAX are usually a mishmash of providers, but rides out of LAX, when optimized for price, tend to be exclusively Lyft.

peternilson 10y ago

No one seems to be discussing this, but is Travis personally responsible for the loss of the drivers 97k? The driver sure thinks he is. Perhaps he played some roll in it. But the driver certainly made the decision to take out that loan. And I guess the driver had enough sense at the time to understand the risks involved with credit when he took out the loan. Well then you might say it's not the most compassionate thing to say to someone who clearly is suffering from financial loss. But I think it only seems like a mean thing to say because it's true. And it's really these truths that people don't want to accept about themselves. That they themselves are responsible for their own suffering.

koltaggar 10y ago

Why is healthcare coverage relevant

horsecaptin 10y ago

I smell an expert PR move!

jannettee 10y ago

That's some serious manspreading he's got going on there.

skeletonjelly 10y ago
The middle seat typically does this due to the axle running down the center

rebelidealist 10y ago

1. Add more chars 2. Acquire medium or add their on blogging container. https://medium.com/@hungrycharles/3-things-twitter-can-do-to-make-it-the-most-popular-social-network-c62d0d7695e6#.t87svr6m6 https://medium.com/@hungrycharles/3-things-twitter-can-do-to...

umeshunni 10y ago
Wrong topic? Perhaps you meant to post it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13746549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13746549 ?

rhizome 10y ago

Just because someone happens to work for Walmart/Uber/whoever, I don't see why it means that employer suddenly becomes responsible for meeting any particular set of needs that person might have. You would have been the "awful" kind of slaver back in the day.

dang 10y ago
Did you really just attack someone the way this comment sounds like you did? That's dismaying. If I've read it correctly, it's the kind of attack we ban accounts for, so please don't do that here. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13758241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13758241 and marked it off-topic.
- rhizome 10y ago
  I thought it was apt. The only problem is that I myself imply that there's a such thing as a "good" slaver, but to assert that an employer is justified by their existence and corporate strategy to reduce their employees to chum is comparably distasteful. GP's point at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13757973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13757973, where they illustrate a few externalized costs, which also seem reasonable to criticize, received pushback that companies don't have to do nothin' for their employees but reap the profits, which is a bad position to take, IMO. People use the term "un-American" too much these days, but the person I was responding to went way beyond that into anti-civilization. There is no way that the person I was replying to could possibly be a slaver, so I wasn't attacking them personally. I was connecting their position to that of slavers who would just as soon let their slaves die in the fields from overwork, dehydration, or any number of other things that "shouldn't be the boss' responsibility."

sksareen1 10y ago

Seems like bad reporting: trying to make a mountain out of molehill. It's the opinion of one driver who happened to get his boss on tape, and had a pretty productive discussion wherein the driver pushed and became rude, more so than Travis. The article painted an inaccurate picture of what happened - it's entirely a non-issue imo.

calvinbhai 10y ago

disclosure: I dont like Uber since 2010. I have always felt Uber has used the wrong means to achieve its success, and because of that I dislike Travis. (most of my HN comments about Uber are either neutral or negative). I feel bad for all those drivers who bit the Uber bait and bought expensive cars, with an expensive / sub prime loan. But it is the similar entitled attitude that lead people to hate the cab/taxi drivers/fleets. With that said, I still think, in this video, the driver was on the wrong side and Travis was not. In fact, Travis starts replying in a fairly equanimous way, and loses it only after the driver starts blaming Travis for everything. If the driver has such a problem with Uber, he should not be driving for it!

danielrhodes 10y ago

I've been reading through these comments and find it quite interesting because both the driver and Kalanick are correct, but as is usual in these confrontations, they weren't communicating properly with each other. On Kalanick's side, he is entirely correct that Uber has to compete in a very competitive market and most of that competition is in price. If Uber didn't compete on price, they would sign their own death warrant. On the driver's side, he took a risk in going for an Uber black car and he probably wasn't fully aware of that risk. He seems justified in feeling upset at how exposed he is to market forces that are outside of his control. Given that, perhaps Uber should better inform drivers of that risk and offer some way that drivers can buffer themselves from that risk. For example, Uber could offer drivers some sort of insurance against rate changes. This would incentivize Uber to be more careful about rate changes since they would pay a penalty if the delta is too big and it would stabilize the rate for drivers -- there are a lot of variables to play with here to make the outcome mutually beneficial.

nstj 10y ago

The article says that the Uber customer price went down for Black ($4.90 to $3.75 etc) but does anyone have any evidence that the amount paid to drivers has gone down (given there's a large disconnect between Uber customer prices and what is paid to drivers).

stillsut 10y ago

If DeleteUber succeeds, that's then end of the American dream as we know it. Starting a tech business with better ideas, and working harder and smarter than the Old Boys with Money (and taxi medallions) is the one of the last ways anyone, like a Zuckerberg, can climb the ladder, without selling out their own hacker spirit as we call it. The fact that the CEO would sit and dish strategy in a frank manner is something I find commendable, and seems to part of this guy's nature. But if Uber goes down in flames for this petty PR play after burning through billions in VC money to acquire the market share they are rapidly losing, no young founder, heck no man or woman who hasn't trained in corporate lawyer dark arts is going to be allowed to run these innovative startups who need huge amounts of capital to be sunk initially for a long term payout. Welcome to the world of "cool program! the grownups will take it from here kiddo."

s0me0ne 10y ago

In this day and age of the NSA, let them record it and put it all over the internet. I have a dash cam myself, but not for inside the car, although it does record the audio inside, (which can pick up some outside audio).