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Uber was actively poaching from our team when I was at Edmunds.com a few years ago; hope my ex-teammates that jumped ship are doing alright. Uber is in a preca

by dvt 7y ago

Uber was actively poaching from our team when I was at Edmunds.com a few years ago; hope my ex-teammates that jumped ship are doing alright. Uber is in a precarious position and I can't help but wonder what would be different if Travis Kalanick were still in charge. I know it might be an unpopular opinion, but I think his leadership and vision were really instrumental to Uber's early success.

paulddraper 7y ago
> I know it might be an unpopular opinion, but I think his leadership and vision were really instrumental to Uber's early success. I don't think that's an unpopular opinion at all. Never heard someone say otherwise. EDIT: From the the downvotes I can tell I am wrong. Please help educate me: Honest question: Who or what was "really instrumental to Uber's early success"?
- dvt 7y ago
  From my experience, singing Travis Kalanick's praises (at least on HN) has generally been met with resistance. I remember everyone piling on him about that (what I thought was a relatively innocuous) company retreat memo a few years ago.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - MegaButts 7y ago
    There's a big difference between admiring Kalanick as a person, and admitting he created the über startup. (I think) most people on HN realize that questionable ethics are strongly correlated with success.
- bagacrap 7y ago
  > Honest question: Who or what was "really instrumental to Uber's early success"? Using VC funding to bankroll an unprofitable business model, undercutting existing industry players who didn't have multiple billion dollar rocket boosters, mostly. Ignoring laws and other unethical practices no doubt helped.
  - landryraccoon 7y ago
    To be fair, most people wouldn’t be able to pull all of that off but Travis did.
    - majewsky 7y ago
      Yeah, people should give him more credit for being as good a con-man as he is!
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    Don’t forget the industrial scale tax evasion
  - chrischen 7y ago
    For non techy startup nerds, it was probably the fact that the Taxi industry was almost universally loathed, expensive, and unreliable. The on-demand rides industry (Lyft, Uber, et al) managed to not only lower pricing, but also bring Karma (bi-lateral user ratings) to the whole industry so that a driver can't just say "fuck you" to a passenger without consequence (nor could the passenger to the driver). If this didn't improve the world, I'm not sure what does.
paxys 7y ago
Unless Travis could have pulled off a miracle with self driving cars, Uber would be in exactly the same place it is today. If anything the company is executing better than it did under his leadership. It just cannot win the battle against basic economics, which everyone saw coming.
- landryraccoon 7y ago
  I don’t get why Uber isn’t profitable. Their marginal cost is only higher than zero because they choose to lose money. Their fixed costs are servers and engineering. If they set their prices higher than what drivers are willing to accept they should make money. I don’t see how “basic economics” is the enemy. Their enemy is setting expectations too high. If they were happy with a profit of $100M a year they would be sustainable forever.
  - appleshore 7y ago
    Uber should just increase their rates dramatically, increase the driver’s share and offer discount subscriptions to loyal customers. Spontaneous riders pay more, others pay less.
    - outside1234 7y ago
      The driver's share is already something like 110% of what they charge.
  - throwaway66920 7y ago
    They’re valued on growth, so if they decide to stop growing their valuation will plummet. If they raise prices then quantity of rides will go down. If quantity of rides goes down, it becomes harder to earn a living as a driver. If it is harder to earn a living as a driver, there are fewer drivers. If there are fewer drivers, then the cost of drivers goes up. Not to mention the fact that if uber becomes 10% more expensive a large chunk of those customers will just go to lyft.
    - 7y ago
AgloeDreams 7y ago
I mean resistance to his ideals and methods are based on his relative carelessness towards anything but his and the company's goals. Incredible leader, amazing CEO with the raw ability to move mountains for the company's growth. Remarkably bad at human and helping humankind. If burning the Amazon rainforest helped Uber's goals he would have it torched in the most efficient and rapid method possible by morning light. Perfect CEO for the shareholders and maybe for keeping the lights on, not so much for the rest of us.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  > CEO with the raw ability to move mountains for the company's growth. Perhaps to a fault. He seemed to be so singularly focused on increasing revenue that, when it became clear that people would line up around the block to buy crisp new dollar bills for $0.75 apiece, he didn't hesitate for a second.
  - mrnobody_67 7y ago
    ... and it worked, he and Garret are each worth $10b.
- repomies691 7y ago
  > Remarkably bad at human and helping humankind. I would say that the way how Uber aggressively expanded throughout the world has massively helped humankind. Because of Uber, many countries have changed their taxi laws, and many local competitors have sprouted up. More efficient taxi and ride-sharing services help save the environment and make cities nicer. Of course this is quite theoretical but I believe Uber was the needed company to push the mass transit development forward.
  - miohtama 7y ago
    Uber and Lyft are not necessarily efficient. This SF study claims increased pollution levels https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/5/eaau2670 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/5/eaau2670 (More empty cars cruising around)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jobu 7y ago
He was absolutely instrumental to the early success. In some places they were actively breaking the law just to operate there, and Kalanick was able disrupt the system and make Uber important enough to change the laws. However, that doesn't mean he should still be CEO. Kalanick also created a company culture that became more and more toxic as it grew larger. Lyft was arguably on the ropes and might've failed without the #DeleteUber movement caused by all of the Uber scandals. Without Lyft for competition Uber might actually have the pricing power to be profitable now, but as it stands I'm not sure how viable they are in the long-term.
- edw 7y ago
  You've reminded me of an observation I made recently about Star Wars: the behavior of Han Solo (pre-Greedo-shoots-first-bs) and Darth Vader aren't that different. It's the context that matters. If you're small and scrappy, antisocial behavior makes you a charming scoundrel. If you're big, the same behavior makes you evil.
  - outside1234 7y ago
    It was still ugly when Uber was small.
  - csb6 7y ago
    But the difference is that Han came around at the end of A New Hope, joined the Rebellion, and saved Luke’s ass, which lead to the Death Star’s destruction. This proved he wasn’t a complete scoundrel and had good within him. Uber’s corporate culture was ugly and toxic from the start. And it never got better or “came around” to a good cause. A better analogy would be Anakin moving from small-time massacres of Sand People to blowing up planets as Vader. The scale changed, but it was still evil all along. I think it’s misleading to defend Travis as some misunderstood scoundrel whose enabling of sexual harassment didn’t “scale”. He’s just a shitty person who initially had less power to be shitty.
    - Apocryphon 7y ago
      Not to mention the stories of early stage Uber engaging in shady tactics like hailing and cancelling Lyft rides as a manual DDOS, or ripping mustaches off parked Lyft cars.

by dvt 7y ago

paulddraper 7y ago

> I know it might be an unpopular opinion, but I think his leadership and vision were really instrumental to Uber's early success. I don't think that's an unpopular opinion at all. Never heard someone say otherwise. EDIT: From the the downvotes I can tell I am wrong. Please help educate me: Honest question: Who or what was "really instrumental to Uber's early success"?

dvt 7y ago
From my experience, singing Travis Kalanick's praises (at least on HN) has generally been met with resistance. I remember everyone piling on him about that (what I thought was a relatively innocuous) company retreat memo a few years ago.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- MegaButts 7y ago
  There's a big difference between admiring Kalanick as a person, and admitting he created the über startup. (I think) most people on HN realize that questionable ethics are strongly correlated with success.
bagacrap 7y ago
> Honest question: Who or what was "really instrumental to Uber's early success"? Using VC funding to bankroll an unprofitable business model, undercutting existing industry players who didn't have multiple billion dollar rocket boosters, mostly. Ignoring laws and other unethical practices no doubt helped.
- landryraccoon 7y ago
  To be fair, most people wouldn’t be able to pull all of that off but Travis did.
  - majewsky 7y ago
    Yeah, people should give him more credit for being as good a con-man as he is!
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  Don’t forget the industrial scale tax evasion
- chrischen 7y ago
  For non techy startup nerds, it was probably the fact that the Taxi industry was almost universally loathed, expensive, and unreliable. The on-demand rides industry (Lyft, Uber, et al) managed to not only lower pricing, but also bring Karma (bi-lateral user ratings) to the whole industry so that a driver can't just say "fuck you" to a passenger without consequence (nor could the passenger to the driver). If this didn't improve the world, I'm not sure what does.

paxys 7y ago

Unless Travis could have pulled off a miracle with self driving cars, Uber would be in exactly the same place it is today. If anything the company is executing better than it did under his leadership. It just cannot win the battle against basic economics, which everyone saw coming.

landryraccoon 7y ago
I don’t get why Uber isn’t profitable. Their marginal cost is only higher than zero because they choose to lose money. Their fixed costs are servers and engineering. If they set their prices higher than what drivers are willing to accept they should make money. I don’t see how “basic economics” is the enemy. Their enemy is setting expectations too high. If they were happy with a profit of $100M a year they would be sustainable forever.
- appleshore 7y ago
  Uber should just increase their rates dramatically, increase the driver’s share and offer discount subscriptions to loyal customers. Spontaneous riders pay more, others pay less.
  - outside1234 7y ago
    The driver's share is already something like 110% of what they charge.
- throwaway66920 7y ago
  They’re valued on growth, so if they decide to stop growing their valuation will plummet. If they raise prices then quantity of rides will go down. If quantity of rides goes down, it becomes harder to earn a living as a driver. If it is harder to earn a living as a driver, there are fewer drivers. If there are fewer drivers, then the cost of drivers goes up. Not to mention the fact that if uber becomes 10% more expensive a large chunk of those customers will just go to lyft.
  - 7y ago

AgloeDreams 7y ago

I mean resistance to his ideals and methods are based on his relative carelessness towards anything but his and the company's goals. Incredible leader, amazing CEO with the raw ability to move mountains for the company's growth. Remarkably bad at human and helping humankind. If burning the Amazon rainforest helped Uber's goals he would have it torched in the most efficient and rapid method possible by morning light. Perfect CEO for the shareholders and maybe for keeping the lights on, not so much for the rest of us.

mumblemumble 7y ago
> CEO with the raw ability to move mountains for the company's growth. Perhaps to a fault. He seemed to be so singularly focused on increasing revenue that, when it became clear that people would line up around the block to buy crisp new dollar bills for $0.75 apiece, he didn't hesitate for a second.
- mrnobody_67 7y ago
  ... and it worked, he and Garret are each worth $10b.
repomies691 7y ago
> Remarkably bad at human and helping humankind. I would say that the way how Uber aggressively expanded throughout the world has massively helped humankind. Because of Uber, many countries have changed their taxi laws, and many local competitors have sprouted up. More efficient taxi and ride-sharing services help save the environment and make cities nicer. Of course this is quite theoretical but I believe Uber was the needed company to push the mass transit development forward.
- miohtama 7y ago
  Uber and Lyft are not necessarily efficient. This SF study claims increased pollution levels https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/5/eaau2670 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/5/eaau2670 (More empty cars cruising around)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jobu 7y ago

He was absolutely instrumental to the early success. In some places they were actively breaking the law just to operate there, and Kalanick was able disrupt the system and make Uber important enough to change the laws. However, that doesn't mean he should still be CEO. Kalanick also created a company culture that became more and more toxic as it grew larger. Lyft was arguably on the ropes and might've failed without the #DeleteUber movement caused by all of the Uber scandals. Without Lyft for competition Uber might actually have the pricing power to be profitable now, but as it stands I'm not sure how viable they are in the long-term.

edw 7y ago
You've reminded me of an observation I made recently about Star Wars: the behavior of Han Solo (pre-Greedo-shoots-first-bs) and Darth Vader aren't that different. It's the context that matters. If you're small and scrappy, antisocial behavior makes you a charming scoundrel. If you're big, the same behavior makes you evil.
- outside1234 7y ago
  It was still ugly when Uber was small.
- csb6 7y ago
  But the difference is that Han came around at the end of A New Hope, joined the Rebellion, and saved Luke’s ass, which lead to the Death Star’s destruction. This proved he wasn’t a complete scoundrel and had good within him. Uber’s corporate culture was ugly and toxic from the start. And it never got better or “came around” to a good cause. A better analogy would be Anakin moving from small-time massacres of Sand People to blowing up planets as Vader. The scale changed, but it was still evil all along. I think it’s misleading to defend Travis as some misunderstood scoundrel whose enabling of sexual harassment didn’t “scale”. He’s just a shitty person who initially had less power to be shitty.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    Not to mention the stories of early stage Uber engaging in shady tactics like hailing and cancelling Lyft rides as a manual DDOS, or ripping mustaches off parked Lyft cars.