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Anyone who defends Uber's behavior is shouted down. Are Uber's actions an example of necessary assholish behavior? In particular their Hell application for trac

Anyone who defends Uber's behavior is shouted down. Are Uber's actions an example of necessary assholish behavior? In particular their Hell application for tracking Lyfts, which required using Lyft's APIs? The problem with this vague advice is it leaves it to the reader to interpret what is and isn't ok. And readers are notoriously bad at this.

lisper 9y ago
> Are Uber's actions an example of necessary assholish behavior? No, I don't think so. But I have a conflict of interest here because in 2008 I made my own attempt at starting an Uber-like thing (I called it iCab). It failed before launch because we were unable to get any of the local cab companies to work with us. The idea of using black cars never occurred to us, so Travis gets props for that. I think he's gone way too far towards the dark side. But on the other hand, he succeeded where I failed so take that into account when deciding how much weight to give my opinion. > The problem with this vague advice Well, the problem is more fundamental than that: it's a judgement call, one which always depends on a totality of the circumstances at the time. I can't give you a formula for how to decide how ass-holey to be, just as I can't give you a formula for making any of the other myriad decisions it takes to successfully build a successful company. If I could do that, I'd be running my own successful company instead of wasting time hobnobbing on HN.
- vxNsr 9y ago
  I would argue that you were simply too early to market, now that Uber succeeded there are a ton of cab hailing apps trying to keep cabs relevant.
  - lisper 9y ago
    iCab started almost a year after Uber (it was called Ubercab back then). And there were half a dozen other also-rans that started about the same time.
    - sah2ed 9y ago
      You seem to be contradicting yourself then if you say "iCab started almost a year after Uber" when you wrote above that: " But I have a conflict of interest here because in 2008 I made my own attempt at starting an Uber-like thing (I called it iCab). Uber was not yet a thing until 2009.
      - lisper 9y ago
        Yeah, sorry, my mistake. iCab started in late 2009.
  - sah2ed 9y ago
    Anyone can say they were too early to market as the main reason for their failure. The idea of hailing cabs electronically is not new. A confluence of factors helped Uber figure out how the idea could work, in hindsight. > "The idea of using black cars never occurred to us, so Travis gets props for that." lisper is right: using blacks cars was a much better strategy than trying to negotiate with local cabs in trying to gain traction

lisper 9y ago

> Are Uber's actions an example of necessary assholish behavior? No, I don't think so. But I have a conflict of interest here because in 2008 I made my own attempt at starting an Uber-like thing (I called it iCab). It failed before launch because we were unable to get any of the local cab companies to work with us. The idea of using black cars never occurred to us, so Travis gets props for that. I think he's gone way too far towards the dark side. But on the other hand, he succeeded where I failed so take that into account when deciding how much weight to give my opinion. > The problem with this vague advice Well, the problem is more fundamental than that: it's a judgement call, one which always depends on a totality of the circumstances at the time. I can't give you a formula for how to decide how ass-holey to be, just as I can't give you a formula for making any of the other myriad decisions it takes to successfully build a successful company. If I could do that, I'd be running my own successful company instead of wasting time hobnobbing on HN.

vxNsr 9y ago
I would argue that you were simply too early to market, now that Uber succeeded there are a ton of cab hailing apps trying to keep cabs relevant.
- lisper 9y ago
  iCab started almost a year after Uber (it was called Ubercab back then). And there were half a dozen other also-rans that started about the same time.
  - sah2ed 9y ago
    You seem to be contradicting yourself then if you say "iCab started almost a year after Uber" when you wrote above that: " But I have a conflict of interest here because in 2008 I made my own attempt at starting an Uber-like thing (I called it iCab). Uber was not yet a thing until 2009.
    - lisper 9y ago
      Yeah, sorry, my mistake. iCab started in late 2009.
- sah2ed 9y ago
  Anyone can say they were too early to market as the main reason for their failure. The idea of hailing cabs electronically is not new. A confluence of factors helped Uber figure out how the idea could work, in hindsight. > "The idea of using black cars never occurred to us, so Travis gets props for that." lisper is right: using blacks cars was a much better strategy than trying to negotiate with local cabs in trying to gain traction