6 ms·

It never fucking ends with this company, does it?

enraged_camel 9y ago
It will end when they run of money. Which is too bad. They make me wish there was such a thing as corporate death penalty. Corporations are people after all, aren't they?
- dmix 9y ago
  > Corporations are people after all, aren't they? This was an effort to protect the economy from being ground to a halt by destructive litigious action and make courts more efficient. Not to increase liability and accountability within the corporation. Which is why nearly every western country has done the same... it wasn't a conspiracy to protect wealthy people from being punished. Like many regulations that fail to affect idealistic change, it was done with good intentions and there hasn't been a strong enough support for an alternative to solve this issue... or, less likely, maybe no rational alternatives really do exist. The simple fact is shit rolls down hill in all big organizations and I'm not convinced it won't happen if corporations weren't singular legal entities. Top tier executives have a way of protecting themselves, while the lower staff tend not to have such protections. Removing this 'corporations = people' legal structure would incentivize internal deflection to lower levels as a legal strategy instead of the company uniformly fighting back against allegations - making it risky to be a low-level manager and highly disincentivizing employees from taking any real responsibility that would involve legal exposure (aka a huge percentage of management and entrepreneurial jobs). Ultimately, the tough reality is that it might actually make sense to treat the company as a singular whole, as potentially there are hundreds of people involved in any major corporate incident. Which would be a nightmare in the bureaucratic mess that is the modern justice system. That said, I'm not 100% convinced that courts can't use common sense to figure out direct liability and involvement within the company, at an individual level. But common sense has never been something the courts or government policy have been known for, at least in the last half-century. The modern justice system has entirely been modeled around the lowest common denominator. Which is very apparent if you've ever tried to challenge something as simple as a traffic ticket in court. Given that legal/regulatory environment which it currently exists within I could see such a change being abused and being massively inefficient. Especially considering how difficult it is to prove a single persons involvement in a normal crime, let alone trying to sue a company then figuring out 100 individuals culpability...
  - enraged_camel 9y ago
    >>it wasn't some conspiracy to protect wealthy people from ever getting punished. That has been the result, however.
    - dmix 9y ago
      Regardless, my point is that it's entirely possible that without this current legal structure the alternatives will only increase low-level employees legal exposure, while having a marginal impact on the behaviour of wealthy top level executives (which is what people really care about, isn't it?), and while simultaneously flooding the courts with massive inefficient cases, consuming finite resources which could be better spent elsewhere. Just because you can point out the current system's flaws doesn't automatically mean a comparable better one exists. Plenty of systems in our economy and legal system are a matter of lesser-of-evils. It's easy to complain but unless you can propose a better alternative, an alternative that won't end up being worse for the poor/middle class average person, then you aren't really helping the situation. This disconnect from the on-the-ground reality is one of the big reasons I don't support many of these populist activist causes... and yes I've seen "The Corporation" film many times.
      - enraged_camel 9y ago
        >>Just because you can point out the current system's flaws doesn't automatically mean a comparable better one exists. The flip side of the coin is we should never stop looking for improvements. IMO if executives were held personally liable for gross negligence, for instance, they would suddenly become more interested in things like security best practices (referring to the recent Equifax disaster).
  - focusgroup0 9y ago
    Thanks for this, feel like there is too much FUD out there on Citizens United.
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    > it was done with good intentions How can anyone know the motivations of the Justices? > Like many regulations Isn't it a court decision, not a regulation? Are we all talking about Citizens United? > This was an effort to protect the economy from being ground to a halt by destructive litigious action and make courts more efficient. Is there evidence that such a thing was at risk of happening? I know industry advocates commonly make the claim, but I haven't seen evidence. IIRC, the court decision was to enable corporations to make political contributions based on their free speech rights as 'people'. How does that serve the purposes quoted above?
- philipov 9y ago
  That's some nice snark, but it is self-defeating: we should not be having the death penalty for people, because of its history of abuse against minorities, and the poor standards of evidence. A death penalty on powerful corporations makes more sense because these entities have the means to defend themselves. It is because they are not people that a death penalty is allowable.
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    Corporations are immortal, which violates the spirit of the original notion and definition of corporations as organizations with a limitied specific charter. Corporations need mortality.
j4ship 9y ago
it ends every time i get out of the car and give my driver 5 stars. And then it begins again with me being picked up damn near any where i want to at any time in the bay area. The scandals are for the company , the employees , and the gov to figure out. As a user (and Im also guessing for the drivers) its one of the best companies out there. Reliable , efficient, high quality.
- NelsonMinar 9y ago
  Lyft and Flywheel provide this service in the Bay Area too. As a bonus, they aren't infected with a rotten core culture.
  - KKKKkkkk1 9y ago
    When I was going from South Bay to SFO two weeks ago, Uber quoted me $40, while Lyft $300. So not quite.
    - Bahamut 9y ago
      Way to cherry pick. Usually it’s under $60 from the South Bay to SFO on either service, and I flew about 40 times last year.
- crpatino 9y ago
  You assume too much. Uber might be good for the customer, but it is a total jerk to the driver. Last scandal at my hometown, that is unlikely to reach the English speaking world, is as follows. Our airport, which lays on federal grounds, grants a monopoly of transportation services to certain well established company. Not even city taxis are allowed in (they can drop passangers, but cannot pick up anyone else while they are on premises). Uber attitude towards this situation is the standard one, basically an extended middle finger to every law, institution or authority of the land. The problem is that if airport security catches an unofficial taxi on premises, they call federal police, the car is taken to a seized and the driver cannot recover until he's paid a very considerable fine (think several months of blue collar wages). Uber strategy to deal with that is to swarm security, so they always catch someone, but the process to deal with the offender is very time consuming and all other Uber cars are free to do business while the guards are preocupied. Uber will punish any driver that refuses to take airport calls with bad karma, and will "gratiuouly" pay for your fine... once (if you get caught twice, it is on you), but they will not pay you any wages while your car is locked in federal grounds (a time that is measured in weeks, not days). They will also not pay for any damages to the car itself, which unfortunatelly is a rampant problem in this country when vehicles end up under the custody of the government. So, be very glad to have a car and a chauffeur at your fingertips beck and call, but please do not assume the driver is enjoying it as much as you do.
x0x0 9y ago
It seems likely kalanick encouraged this stuff. Combine that with weak controls and who knows what upper middle management has dreamed up across the company. I'm sure the CEO is grilling people about all the shit they're doing that will ruin his day when a newspaper reports on it as we speak...

It will end when they run of money. Which is too bad. They make me wish there was such a thing as corporate death penalty. Corporations are people after all, aren't they?

dmix 9y ago
> Corporations are people after all, aren't they? This was an effort to protect the economy from being ground to a halt by destructive litigious action and make courts more efficient. Not to increase liability and accountability within the corporation. Which is why nearly every western country has done the same... it wasn't a conspiracy to protect wealthy people from being punished. Like many regulations that fail to affect idealistic change, it was done with good intentions and there hasn't been a strong enough support for an alternative to solve this issue... or, less likely, maybe no rational alternatives really do exist. The simple fact is shit rolls down hill in all big organizations and I'm not convinced it won't happen if corporations weren't singular legal entities. Top tier executives have a way of protecting themselves, while the lower staff tend not to have such protections. Removing this 'corporations = people' legal structure would incentivize internal deflection to lower levels as a legal strategy instead of the company uniformly fighting back against allegations - making it risky to be a low-level manager and highly disincentivizing employees from taking any real responsibility that would involve legal exposure (aka a huge percentage of management and entrepreneurial jobs). Ultimately, the tough reality is that it might actually make sense to treat the company as a singular whole, as potentially there are hundreds of people involved in any major corporate incident. Which would be a nightmare in the bureaucratic mess that is the modern justice system. That said, I'm not 100% convinced that courts can't use common sense to figure out direct liability and involvement within the company, at an individual level. But common sense has never been something the courts or government policy have been known for, at least in the last half-century. The modern justice system has entirely been modeled around the lowest common denominator. Which is very apparent if you've ever tried to challenge something as simple as a traffic ticket in court. Given that legal/regulatory environment which it currently exists within I could see such a change being abused and being massively inefficient. Especially considering how difficult it is to prove a single persons involvement in a normal crime, let alone trying to sue a company then figuring out 100 individuals culpability...
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  >>it wasn't some conspiracy to protect wealthy people from ever getting punished. That has been the result, however.
  - dmix 9y ago
    Regardless, my point is that it's entirely possible that without this current legal structure the alternatives will only increase low-level employees legal exposure, while having a marginal impact on the behaviour of wealthy top level executives (which is what people really care about, isn't it?), and while simultaneously flooding the courts with massive inefficient cases, consuming finite resources which could be better spent elsewhere. Just because you can point out the current system's flaws doesn't automatically mean a comparable better one exists. Plenty of systems in our economy and legal system are a matter of lesser-of-evils. It's easy to complain but unless you can propose a better alternative, an alternative that won't end up being worse for the poor/middle class average person, then you aren't really helping the situation. This disconnect from the on-the-ground reality is one of the big reasons I don't support many of these populist activist causes... and yes I've seen "The Corporation" film many times.
    - enraged_camel 9y ago
      >>Just because you can point out the current system's flaws doesn't automatically mean a comparable better one exists. The flip side of the coin is we should never stop looking for improvements. IMO if executives were held personally liable for gross negligence, for instance, they would suddenly become more interested in things like security best practices (referring to the recent Equifax disaster).
- focusgroup0 9y ago
  Thanks for this, feel like there is too much FUD out there on Citizens United.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  > it was done with good intentions How can anyone know the motivations of the Justices? > Like many regulations Isn't it a court decision, not a regulation? Are we all talking about Citizens United? > This was an effort to protect the economy from being ground to a halt by destructive litigious action and make courts more efficient. Is there evidence that such a thing was at risk of happening? I know industry advocates commonly make the claim, but I haven't seen evidence. IIRC, the court decision was to enable corporations to make political contributions based on their free speech rights as 'people'. How does that serve the purposes quoted above?
philipov 9y ago
That's some nice snark, but it is self-defeating: we should not be having the death penalty for people, because of its history of abuse against minorities, and the poor standards of evidence. A death penalty on powerful corporations makes more sense because these entities have the means to defend themselves. It is because they are not people that a death penalty is allowable.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  Corporations are immortal, which violates the spirit of the original notion and definition of corporations as organizations with a limitied specific charter. Corporations need mortality.

j4ship 9y ago

it ends every time i get out of the car and give my driver 5 stars. And then it begins again with me being picked up damn near any where i want to at any time in the bay area. The scandals are for the company , the employees , and the gov to figure out. As a user (and Im also guessing for the drivers) its one of the best companies out there. Reliable , efficient, high quality.

NelsonMinar 9y ago
Lyft and Flywheel provide this service in the Bay Area too. As a bonus, they aren't infected with a rotten core culture.
- KKKKkkkk1 9y ago
  When I was going from South Bay to SFO two weeks ago, Uber quoted me $40, while Lyft $300. So not quite.
  - Bahamut 9y ago
    Way to cherry pick. Usually it’s under $60 from the South Bay to SFO on either service, and I flew about 40 times last year.
crpatino 9y ago
You assume too much. Uber might be good for the customer, but it is a total jerk to the driver. Last scandal at my hometown, that is unlikely to reach the English speaking world, is as follows. Our airport, which lays on federal grounds, grants a monopoly of transportation services to certain well established company. Not even city taxis are allowed in (they can drop passangers, but cannot pick up anyone else while they are on premises). Uber attitude towards this situation is the standard one, basically an extended middle finger to every law, institution or authority of the land. The problem is that if airport security catches an unofficial taxi on premises, they call federal police, the car is taken to a seized and the driver cannot recover until he's paid a very considerable fine (think several months of blue collar wages). Uber strategy to deal with that is to swarm security, so they always catch someone, but the process to deal with the offender is very time consuming and all other Uber cars are free to do business while the guards are preocupied. Uber will punish any driver that refuses to take airport calls with bad karma, and will "gratiuouly" pay for your fine... once (if you get caught twice, it is on you), but they will not pay you any wages while your car is locked in federal grounds (a time that is measured in weeks, not days). They will also not pay for any damages to the car itself, which unfortunatelly is a rampant problem in this country when vehicles end up under the custody of the government. So, be very glad to have a car and a chauffeur at your fingertips beck and call, but please do not assume the driver is enjoying it as much as you do.

x0x0 9y ago

It seems likely kalanick encouraged this stuff. Combine that with weak controls and who knows what upper middle management has dreamed up across the company. I'm sure the CEO is grilling people about all the shit they're doing that will ruin his day when a newspaper reports on it as we speak...