4 ms·

If you can't generate positive user perception, at least you can buy it. I'm glad this is happening, but it's hard to see it as a fulfillment of the company's m

If you can't generate positive user perception, at least you can buy it. I'm glad this is happening, but it's hard to see it as a fulfillment of the company's mission rather than a cheap ploy to get some positive media attention.

sebleon 9y ago
In general, how can you distinguish between heartfelt philanthropy and PR moves?
- evgen 9y ago
  Heartfelt philanthropy is usually starts before a company is mired in scandal. It is something that a company leader talks about before unpleasant videos of them being an asshole are on TMZ. People tend to be able to see through bullshit and this effort by Uber is completely transparent.
  - zethraeus 9y ago
    Uber employee here: Give some thought to what you'd expect to see over time if the company genuinely had changed internally. Hold Uber to it. I suspect it'll meet that bar.
- djcapelis 9y ago
  You don’t put a monetary value on non-cash donations in your press release for purely heartfelt philanthropy. Serious.
- jaredhansen 9y ago
  Fortunately, food purchased as a PR move tastes just as good and is just as nutritious as the same food purchased out of heartfelt philanthropy. We care about what people think because we care about what people do.
- ovao 9y ago
  In general, I don't believe it's necessary to distinguish one from the other. An organization can simply leverage the former to achieve the latter, can they not? Regardless of whether it's "heartfelt" or not, Meals on Wheels benefits equally.
- Fnoord 9y ago
  How can you distinguish either from a move to funnel money to avoid taxation?
kafkaesq 9y ago
Ploy or not, I'm not happy with TC blindly passing along the "$1M donation" meme, clearly meant to suggest a pure cash donation... when, when you read a few lines down, you find out that "a part cash, but part (read: presumably mostly) credits toward unused inventory" donation -- -- as the vast majority of BigCorp "donations" to noble causes reveal themselves to be, when you scratch the surface.
- koolba 9y ago
  I'm not sure of the split but say it's $X of cash an $1M - $X of non-cash credits. I'll take that over just the $X cash any day of the week. This isn't like out PCs to schools to market to the schools/students down the road, this is a pure charity where they happen to have a good that they can directly offer without long term commitment. It's no different than a sandwich shop sending their excess inventory to a soup kitchen at the end of the day.
  - kafkaesq 9y ago
    Oh the donation by itself is perfectly fine. It's just a bit disappointing that media outlets (like TC in this case) consistently allow themselves to get pulled into spinning a lot these as pure cash donations (by emitting headlines that say "XCorp donates $Y" with no other qualifiers), as if that's what they actually were. Which, most of the time, they quite plainly aren't.
lhorie 9y ago
(Disclaimer: I work at Uber) I received an internal email about this. It turns out there's more than just monetary donations. Employees have also taken the time to personally volunteer with meal deliveries themselves, and there's even been engineering effort put into the app to support this commitment. Say what you will about evil faceless corps, but in the short time I've been here, I've actually been pleasantly surprised that there's an unusually high number people here who genuinely care about their local community and helping people, compared to other places I've worked in the past.
- chii 9y ago
  It's a paradox to me, since everyone i meet at any place seems really nice and want to make the world a better place. And yet, at some point, a company's mandate causes externalities that harm (usually for a profit motive). It's not a single individual that "did it" - it's more a collective force, like the tide.
  - tmh79 9y ago
    I'm also an uber employee, have been for a while. I totally understand the bad will against uber, but things inside the company have changed an insane amount since the january '17 stuff (deleteUber and fowler blog post), and with Travis out the new CEO Dara in, it feels like much... better company. Happy to talk more if there are specific questions.
  - lhorie 9y ago
    I think there are two different aspects to this. The first is about what I'd call "active" vs "passive" caring (using the terms loosely, here). I'd say that passive caring is like when you, by principle, avoid looking for a job in the tobacco industry, or when your helping of people happens through your job. For example, I used to work in pharma marketing and you could say that it helped people find the right treatments or clinical trials for their conditions. But then there's active caring: for example, when people spontaneously organize a volunteer drive. I admit that I'm more of a "passive caring" type of person myself, and I think the vast majority of people I've worked in the past fell in that category. What I'm saying though, is that I literally hear people say they joined Uber _because_ they want to use the company's leverage to help people. This is something I'd never have heard in my previous jobs. The second aspect is about sense of ownership. I feel that in previous companies, it was often easy to fall into a state of complacency because it wasn't clear if anyone higher up was listening to employees' concerns. At Uber, we have weekly all-hands meetings where literally _anyone_ in the company can ask Dara _any_ questions. We definitely had times earlier this year where people were a bit doubtful of the leadership team (especially around the first half of this year) and there were times people felt that positive changes were happening too slowly, but I think that overall there is a feeling that changes are indeed happening and that employees that want to make things better do have the power to make it happen. Anyways. Not trying to toot Uber's horn. Just my personal opinion :)

sebleon 9y ago

In general, how can you distinguish between heartfelt philanthropy and PR moves?

evgen 9y ago
Heartfelt philanthropy is usually starts before a company is mired in scandal. It is something that a company leader talks about before unpleasant videos of them being an asshole are on TMZ. People tend to be able to see through bullshit and this effort by Uber is completely transparent.
- zethraeus 9y ago
  Uber employee here: Give some thought to what you'd expect to see over time if the company genuinely had changed internally. Hold Uber to it. I suspect it'll meet that bar.
djcapelis 9y ago
You don’t put a monetary value on non-cash donations in your press release for purely heartfelt philanthropy. Serious.
jaredhansen 9y ago
Fortunately, food purchased as a PR move tastes just as good and is just as nutritious as the same food purchased out of heartfelt philanthropy. We care about what people think because we care about what people do.
ovao 9y ago
In general, I don't believe it's necessary to distinguish one from the other. An organization can simply leverage the former to achieve the latter, can they not? Regardless of whether it's "heartfelt" or not, Meals on Wheels benefits equally.
Fnoord 9y ago
How can you distinguish either from a move to funnel money to avoid taxation?

kafkaesq 9y ago

Ploy or not, I'm not happy with TC blindly passing along the "$1M donation" meme, clearly meant to suggest a pure cash donation... when, when you read a few lines down, you find out that "a part cash, but part (read: presumably mostly) credits toward unused inventory" donation -- -- as the vast majority of BigCorp "donations" to noble causes reveal themselves to be, when you scratch the surface.

koolba 9y ago
I'm not sure of the split but say it's $X of cash an $1M - $X of non-cash credits. I'll take that over just the $X cash any day of the week. This isn't like out PCs to schools to market to the schools/students down the road, this is a pure charity where they happen to have a good that they can directly offer without long term commitment. It's no different than a sandwich shop sending their excess inventory to a soup kitchen at the end of the day.
- kafkaesq 9y ago
  Oh the donation by itself is perfectly fine. It's just a bit disappointing that media outlets (like TC in this case) consistently allow themselves to get pulled into spinning a lot these as pure cash donations (by emitting headlines that say "XCorp donates $Y" with no other qualifiers), as if that's what they actually were. Which, most of the time, they quite plainly aren't.

lhorie 9y ago

(Disclaimer: I work at Uber) I received an internal email about this. It turns out there's more than just monetary donations. Employees have also taken the time to personally volunteer with meal deliveries themselves, and there's even been engineering effort put into the app to support this commitment. Say what you will about evil faceless corps, but in the short time I've been here, I've actually been pleasantly surprised that there's an unusually high number people here who genuinely care about their local community and helping people, compared to other places I've worked in the past.

chii 9y ago
It's a paradox to me, since everyone i meet at any place seems really nice and want to make the world a better place. And yet, at some point, a company's mandate causes externalities that harm (usually for a profit motive). It's not a single individual that "did it" - it's more a collective force, like the tide.
- tmh79 9y ago
  I'm also an uber employee, have been for a while. I totally understand the bad will against uber, but things inside the company have changed an insane amount since the january '17 stuff (deleteUber and fowler blog post), and with Travis out the new CEO Dara in, it feels like much... better company. Happy to talk more if there are specific questions.
- lhorie 9y ago
  I think there are two different aspects to this. The first is about what I'd call "active" vs "passive" caring (using the terms loosely, here). I'd say that passive caring is like when you, by principle, avoid looking for a job in the tobacco industry, or when your helping of people happens through your job. For example, I used to work in pharma marketing and you could say that it helped people find the right treatments or clinical trials for their conditions. But then there's active caring: for example, when people spontaneously organize a volunteer drive. I admit that I'm more of a "passive caring" type of person myself, and I think the vast majority of people I've worked in the past fell in that category. What I'm saying though, is that I literally hear people say they joined Uber _because_ they want to use the company's leverage to help people. This is something I'd never have heard in my previous jobs. The second aspect is about sense of ownership. I feel that in previous companies, it was often easy to fall into a state of complacency because it wasn't clear if anyone higher up was listening to employees' concerns. At Uber, we have weekly all-hands meetings where literally _anyone_ in the company can ask Dara _any_ questions. We definitely had times earlier this year where people were a bit doubtful of the leadership team (especially around the first half of this year) and there were times people felt that positive changes were happening too slowly, but I think that overall there is a feeling that changes are indeed happening and that employees that want to make things better do have the power to make it happen. Anyways. Not trying to toot Uber's horn. Just my personal opinion :)