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I used to go back to my university and speak at the ethics class in my recruiting trips. I stopped after people’s questions changed to “Uber, Airbnb, etc all su

I used to go back to my university and speak at the ethics class in my recruiting trips. I stopped after people’s questions changed to “Uber, Airbnb, etc all succeeded because they broke the law. Why are ethics important?” and I had no real answer.

teachrdan 7y ago
What might your answer be now? Does commercial success necessarily mean that ethical violations are unimportant? (not trolling, just curious how you'd articulate the importance of ethics in the vacuum of legal or economic consequences)
jfim 7y ago
They succeeded at building companies, but they also externalized a lot of issues. Tenants being evicted to turn rentals into Airbnb hotels, additional traffic in cities, jobs turning into precarious gigs, etc. Ethics are important, because they change the criteria for decisions from being only dollars matter to "what's the right thing to do." A society full of ethically challenged dollar maximizers is not that good a place to be in.
Judgmentality 7y ago
Well, obviously this is a complicated subject, but if they're going to cherry-pick the offensive, you can cherry-pick the defensive. Theranos is an obvious counter-example where being unethical didn't really work out for anybody. uBeam will likely go the same route, and there are some other less well-known examples. A much more interesting debate is directly between Uber and Lyft, because most people (even many investors) would argue the main difference was that the founders of Lyft weren't as morally reprehensible as Kalanick. The sad reality is it seems like poor ethics is rewarded by those who know how to exploit it properly. What most people are really interested in is where is the line? Because let's be honest - most people aren't studying ethics in entrepreneurship because they care about ethics. Most people want to know what they can get away with and still get rich.
throwaway_law 7y ago
>I stopped after people’s questions changed to “Uber, Airbnb, etc all succeeded because they broke the law. Why are ethics important?” and I had no real answer. You should go back to it, as those are examples of why ethics are needed more than ever. As someone in the "trenches" and who sees the damage done by them everyday, I'd suggest you can point to the trail of damage they left in their wake and the real lives that have been negatively effected. In the case of Uber I would simply start with highlighting the number of drivers who now have criminal records as a result of doing nothing more than driving for Uber. How Uber as a matter of policy would fire drivers who were charged criminally for illegally operating rides for hire for Uber. Perhaps most shockingly for these students perhaps informing them of the reality they are far more likely to become an Uber driver than the founder of the next Uber.
- DenisM 7y ago
  > In the case of Uber I would simply start with highlighting the number of drivers who now have criminal records as a result of doing nothing more than driving for Uber Do you have a link? I found nothing of the kind on google.
  - throwaway_law 7y ago
    Here is a news article that maybe mentions a few arrests back in 2015 in Pensacola, FL. https://www.newsherald.com/article/20150309/Business/303099954 https://www.newsherald.com/article/20150309/Business/3030999... However, there are additional facts not included that are pretty egregious, including Uber being aware of the law and local law enforcement's position (I think they previously operated there and stopped), then in anticipation of spring break Uber recruited drivers from outside the county (including monetary payments for drivers to do this), they never disclosed the status of the law to the drivers, and within a day the first driver was arrested.
- amyjess 7y ago
  I would also recommend hanging out on subreddits like /r/uberdrivers, /r/lyftdrivers, or /r/lyft and look for every instance of drivers using "we're independent contractors" to justify abusive behavior towards customers that would get them fired if they were actual employees and in some cases behavior that is straight-up illegal. Some things I've actually seen on those subreddits: * Give three-star ratings (or worse, one-star) to any passenger who has a wheelchair or a service animal to make sure you're never matched with them again. Straight-up ADA violation. * When you mark that you've arrived, keep your doors locked until the destination shows up, and if it's a "sketchy" (read: majority black) neighborhood, keep your doors locked, wait five minutes, call them, immediately hang up, report them as a no-show, and collect a $5 no-show fee from them (waiting five minutes and calling is a requirement to collect the no-show fee). Redlining is illegal, and this is straight-up fraud. * If you get a request to pick someone up at a supermarket, drive just close enough to the supermarket that the "arrive" button becomes pressable, then do the above and collect your no-show fee. Again, straight-up fraud. * One-star every passenger who doesn't tip. Retaliating against people who don't tip would get you fired from any other service job. * One-star every passenger who orders a shared ride, no matter what. Again, that kind of retaliation would get a real employee fired. (Yes, shared rides suck for everyone involved, but retaliating against a customer for ordering the most annoying thing on the menu wouldn't be tolerated at a restaurant, yet Uber and Lyft are a-OK with it.) * One time, a woman complained about how a Lyft driver kicked her out of his car in the middle of the ride because she just nodded along to his stories and didn't engage him in conversation, and he told her "if you don't want to talk, order an Uber instead". The response on the subreddit was universal: he's an independent contractor, so he has every right to kick her out for any reason, and Lyft isn't even allowed to fire him for it because that would count as interference in how an independent contractor does their job. At any other job, flipping out on a customer for not making enough conversation with you would get you in huge trouble, and advertising your employer's biggest competitor would get you fired in a heartbeat. * This came from the Rideshare Guy blog and not Reddit: since repeatedly cancelling rides after accepting it will get you in trouble, drivers used cancel rides by putting their phones in airplane mode because a loss of connectivity would auto-cancel without penalties. When Uber started detecting that a few years ago (2014-5 maybe?) and counting it against a driver's cancellation rate, drivers started picketing Uber's local hubs over it. In the rest of the service industry, lying to your employer over this would get you in huge hot water, and publicly complaining about it even more so. Every single one of these was justified by saying "we're independent contractors, we can refuse service to anyone for any reason". Again, a few of these are straight-up illegal, but since only the contractor is liable and not Uber/Lyft, enforcement is exceedingly difficult, and for the ones that aren't illegal, they're still unethical, and any reputable employer would fire an employee engaging in that kind of behavior, but Uber/Lyft drivers get to hide behind "we're contractors and not employees, so Uber/Lyft firing us for how we treat customers would violate our rights". Unethical behavior is actively harmful to customers.
simplify 7y ago
As a side note, ethics and legality are not the same thing. Something could be legal and still be ethically questionable.
- cookie_monsta 7y ago
  Not to mention the many things that can be ethical but legally questionable.
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> “Uber, Airbnb, etc all succeeded because they broke the law. Why are ethics important?” and I had no real answer. I'll try my hand at an answer. First, what is legal and what is ethical are not the same. New York City's pre-Uber taxi industry was racist, exploitative and ripe with fraud. Uber disrupted that cesspool. As recently as 2015, Uber was popular enough among average New Yorkers that it could mobilize grassroots support to rival the mayor [1]. Second, there are degrees of lawbreaking. Jaywalking is lawbreaking. Civil municipal regulation violation, which encompasses most of Uber and Airbnb's early mischievousness, is lawbreaking. Sexual harassment and fraud, on the other hand, are criminally illegal. We have different bands of consequences for different bands of infractions for a reason. Lumping together fraud and jaywalking is facile. When Uber was busting taxi trusts, they were popular and powerful. When it abused that trust with their god mode and promotion of workplace harassment and overrunning of drivers' rights, their CEO got axed. Society innately and politically recognizes ethics, particularly if the public (e.g. activists, journalists, et cetera) document gross violations. [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90237321/the-inside-story-of-how-uber-won-over-new-yorks-mayor https://www.fastcompany.com/90237321/the-inside-story-of-how...
- magduf 7y ago
  This is a really great post and restores a little bit of my faith in humanity.
r00fus 7y ago
You could cite many powerful politicians and heads of state as far more unethical and impactful than AirBnB or Uber. Do we still need to strive for ethics in government? Perhaps your response should have been for accountability for unethical behavior.
apsanz 7y ago
The regulations that Uber and Airbnb violated were in a grey area. In addition, the violations were largely supported by the general public. The generous spirit of the regulations on taxis where to protect the general public. Uber were for the most part just as safe as taxis. The not so generous reasons for taxi regulations was to increase the income of taxi companies. In many ways, Uber and Airbnb had the moral high ground of forcing governments to remove regulations that benefit a select few at the expense of the general public. https://stratechery.com/2017/the-uber-conflation/ https://stratechery.com/2017/the-uber-conflation/

teachrdan 7y ago

What might your answer be now? Does commercial success necessarily mean that ethical violations are unimportant? (not trolling, just curious how you'd articulate the importance of ethics in the vacuum of legal or economic consequences)

jfim 7y ago

They succeeded at building companies, but they also externalized a lot of issues. Tenants being evicted to turn rentals into Airbnb hotels, additional traffic in cities, jobs turning into precarious gigs, etc. Ethics are important, because they change the criteria for decisions from being only dollars matter to "what's the right thing to do." A society full of ethically challenged dollar maximizers is not that good a place to be in.

Judgmentality 7y ago

Well, obviously this is a complicated subject, but if they're going to cherry-pick the offensive, you can cherry-pick the defensive. Theranos is an obvious counter-example where being unethical didn't really work out for anybody. uBeam will likely go the same route, and there are some other less well-known examples. A much more interesting debate is directly between Uber and Lyft, because most people (even many investors) would argue the main difference was that the founders of Lyft weren't as morally reprehensible as Kalanick. The sad reality is it seems like poor ethics is rewarded by those who know how to exploit it properly. What most people are really interested in is where is the line? Because let's be honest - most people aren't studying ethics in entrepreneurship because they care about ethics. Most people want to know what they can get away with and still get rich.

throwaway_law 7y ago

>I stopped after people’s questions changed to “Uber, Airbnb, etc all succeeded because they broke the law. Why are ethics important?” and I had no real answer. You should go back to it, as those are examples of why ethics are needed more than ever. As someone in the "trenches" and who sees the damage done by them everyday, I'd suggest you can point to the trail of damage they left in their wake and the real lives that have been negatively effected. In the case of Uber I would simply start with highlighting the number of drivers who now have criminal records as a result of doing nothing more than driving for Uber. How Uber as a matter of policy would fire drivers who were charged criminally for illegally operating rides for hire for Uber. Perhaps most shockingly for these students perhaps informing them of the reality they are far more likely to become an Uber driver than the founder of the next Uber.

DenisM 7y ago
> In the case of Uber I would simply start with highlighting the number of drivers who now have criminal records as a result of doing nothing more than driving for Uber Do you have a link? I found nothing of the kind on google.
- throwaway_law 7y ago
  Here is a news article that maybe mentions a few arrests back in 2015 in Pensacola, FL. https://www.newsherald.com/article/20150309/Business/303099954 https://www.newsherald.com/article/20150309/Business/3030999... However, there are additional facts not included that are pretty egregious, including Uber being aware of the law and local law enforcement's position (I think they previously operated there and stopped), then in anticipation of spring break Uber recruited drivers from outside the county (including monetary payments for drivers to do this), they never disclosed the status of the law to the drivers, and within a day the first driver was arrested.
amyjess 7y ago
I would also recommend hanging out on subreddits like /r/uberdrivers, /r/lyftdrivers, or /r/lyft and look for every instance of drivers using "we're independent contractors" to justify abusive behavior towards customers that would get them fired if they were actual employees and in some cases behavior that is straight-up illegal. Some things I've actually seen on those subreddits: * Give three-star ratings (or worse, one-star) to any passenger who has a wheelchair or a service animal to make sure you're never matched with them again. Straight-up ADA violation. * When you mark that you've arrived, keep your doors locked until the destination shows up, and if it's a "sketchy" (read: majority black) neighborhood, keep your doors locked, wait five minutes, call them, immediately hang up, report them as a no-show, and collect a $5 no-show fee from them (waiting five minutes and calling is a requirement to collect the no-show fee). Redlining is illegal, and this is straight-up fraud. * If you get a request to pick someone up at a supermarket, drive just close enough to the supermarket that the "arrive" button becomes pressable, then do the above and collect your no-show fee. Again, straight-up fraud. * One-star every passenger who doesn't tip. Retaliating against people who don't tip would get you fired from any other service job. * One-star every passenger who orders a shared ride, no matter what. Again, that kind of retaliation would get a real employee fired. (Yes, shared rides suck for everyone involved, but retaliating against a customer for ordering the most annoying thing on the menu wouldn't be tolerated at a restaurant, yet Uber and Lyft are a-OK with it.) * One time, a woman complained about how a Lyft driver kicked her out of his car in the middle of the ride because she just nodded along to his stories and didn't engage him in conversation, and he told her "if you don't want to talk, order an Uber instead". The response on the subreddit was universal: he's an independent contractor, so he has every right to kick her out for any reason, and Lyft isn't even allowed to fire him for it because that would count as interference in how an independent contractor does their job. At any other job, flipping out on a customer for not making enough conversation with you would get you in huge trouble, and advertising your employer's biggest competitor would get you fired in a heartbeat. * This came from the Rideshare Guy blog and not Reddit: since repeatedly cancelling rides after accepting it will get you in trouble, drivers used cancel rides by putting their phones in airplane mode because a loss of connectivity would auto-cancel without penalties. When Uber started detecting that a few years ago (2014-5 maybe?) and counting it against a driver's cancellation rate, drivers started picketing Uber's local hubs over it. In the rest of the service industry, lying to your employer over this would get you in huge hot water, and publicly complaining about it even more so. Every single one of these was justified by saying "we're independent contractors, we can refuse service to anyone for any reason". Again, a few of these are straight-up illegal, but since only the contractor is liable and not Uber/Lyft, enforcement is exceedingly difficult, and for the ones that aren't illegal, they're still unethical, and any reputable employer would fire an employee engaging in that kind of behavior, but Uber/Lyft drivers get to hide behind "we're contractors and not employees, so Uber/Lyft firing us for how we treat customers would violate our rights". Unethical behavior is actively harmful to customers.

simplify 7y ago

As a side note, ethics and legality are not the same thing. Something could be legal and still be ethically questionable.

cookie_monsta 7y ago
Not to mention the many things that can be ethical but legally questionable.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> “Uber, Airbnb, etc all succeeded because they broke the law. Why are ethics important?” and I had no real answer. I'll try my hand at an answer. First, what is legal and what is ethical are not the same. New York City's pre-Uber taxi industry was racist, exploitative and ripe with fraud. Uber disrupted that cesspool. As recently as 2015, Uber was popular enough among average New Yorkers that it could mobilize grassroots support to rival the mayor [1]. Second, there are degrees of lawbreaking. Jaywalking is lawbreaking. Civil municipal regulation violation, which encompasses most of Uber and Airbnb's early mischievousness, is lawbreaking. Sexual harassment and fraud, on the other hand, are criminally illegal. We have different bands of consequences for different bands of infractions for a reason. Lumping together fraud and jaywalking is facile. When Uber was busting taxi trusts, they were popular and powerful. When it abused that trust with their god mode and promotion of workplace harassment and overrunning of drivers' rights, their CEO got axed. Society innately and politically recognizes ethics, particularly if the public (e.g. activists, journalists, et cetera) document gross violations. [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90237321/the-inside-story-of-how-uber-won-over-new-yorks-mayor https://www.fastcompany.com/90237321/the-inside-story-of-how...

magduf 7y ago
This is a really great post and restores a little bit of my faith in humanity.

r00fus 7y ago

You could cite many powerful politicians and heads of state as far more unethical and impactful than AirBnB or Uber. Do we still need to strive for ethics in government? Perhaps your response should have been for accountability for unethical behavior.

apsanz 7y ago

The regulations that Uber and Airbnb violated were in a grey area. In addition, the violations were largely supported by the general public. The generous spirit of the regulations on taxis where to protect the general public. Uber were for the most part just as safe as taxis. The not so generous reasons for taxi regulations was to increase the income of taxi companies. In many ways, Uber and Airbnb had the moral high ground of forcing governments to remove regulations that benefit a select few at the expense of the general public. https://stratechery.com/2017/the-uber-conflation/ https://stratechery.com/2017/the-uber-conflation/