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Oracle’s Larry Ellison Calls Uber and WeWork ‘Almost Worthless’
- trey-jones 7y agoHe isn't the only ones to make that assessment either. I think you will find this to be a common opinion among people who are paying attention.
- jgwil2 7y agoNeither of these companies is actually adding any value at all as far as I can tell. Uber is undercutting taxis/transit with investor-subsidized rides and still has no idea how it's going to turn a profit unless it becomes the only ride in town. WeWork is pure middleman with some good branding. It amazes me that people believe these valuations. However, I can't agree with the cat comment; I'm sure Uber engineering are tackling tough technical problems.
- conanbatt 7y agoDude..Uber changed the world.
- weare138 7y agoIt's an unlicensed taxi. The only thing Uber has done is somehow make taxi's worse.
- conanbatt 7y agoA billion rides a day in almost every single country in the world.
- buboard 7y agoI dont think uber is very useful outside the US
- conanbatt 7y agoOnly HN's can think their opinion is worth more than millions of people spending and earning money in more than 50 countries.
- buboard 7y agoUber has little traction in Europe for example. It seems to be a huge deal in the US though https://www.forbes.com/sites/samshead/2019/05/10/ubers-rocky-road-to-growth-in-europe-regulators-rivals-and-riots/#4abd66a55c67 https://www.forbes.com/sites/samshead/2019/05/10/ubers-rocky...
- conanbatt 7y agoUber has significant traction in Europe, thats why they got banned from several places, and Taxi cabs drivers have attacked people and set cars and places on fire. Nevertheless globally it triumphed.
- daveed 7y agoI mean, it's been very useful while travelling in countries where taxi drivers rip you off after the ride, and I don't speak the local language.
- ellyagg 7y agoMy wife's family lives in a slum in Caloocan City in the Philippines. When we stayed with them for a visit, it was amazing that I could just pull up my Uber app and get a ride to BGC, which took 1 1/2 hours. There is no other way I could have pulled this off otherwise. It was also amazing it only cost $8.
- favorited 7y agoAnd losing money with every one of them!
- celim307 7y agoIdk what taxi's you used but outside of a handful of cities, getting a taxi was terrible. Even when I lived in Chicago I had to call the dispatch, who would give me a 10-15 minute wide estimate of their arrival time, and often idled at a random spot in my building and I would have to walk back and forth across the complex to find it. Uber and Lyft are insanely better than that.
- WhompingWindows 7y agoYeah, I recall calling up asking for a ride in Chicago. It'd be someone who spoke very unclearly on the phone, "You want a pickup for 6am going to the airport? Okay" and hangs up. So...did you get that? Did you schedule it? Email confirmation? It was not great service.
- weare138 7y agoI lived in Chicago for over 15 years and never had a problem getting a taxi. Plus it had the added bonus of up-front flat rates, a professional driver that knew what the hell they were doing, proper commercial driver insurance and not having to let some app harvest all my personal information and track me where ever I went.
- celim307 7y agoCounter point. I've been 'scammed' by a taxi multiple times over living there 6 years, usually around new years or any big event. Things like circling the block to run up the fair, missing exits and feigning ignorance, and of course their card machine is ALWAYS down? Imagine being a tourist in a new medium to small city and having to deal with the local taxi company. Sure you're gonna get an ok experience at some, even most, but a good portion are going to suck ass and often have no recourse. With uber/lyft I have a GPS-backed history of my route and metrics down to wait time to use as evidence and I've been refunded with no question. Imagine trying to do that with a taxi driver, yelling at each other in a cab at 2 am, calling the taxi company who will tell u to fuck off, or calling the city and filing a case that is pending for 4 months.
- ousta 7y agoyeah because taxi was such a wonderful experience and that is why they lost their market.
- technofiend 7y agoI moved into an economically depressed area and let me tell you: it was hit and miss taking taxis. It didn't matter if I called dispatch repeatedly or booked ahead of time even with the more expensive car service, I could never count on a taxi to show despite the fact I was very clear about this being a coveted airport ride. Nobody wanted to pick up a fare at 4 AM in the ghetto and I nearly missed my plane more than once. I eventually punted and had my wife drive me to the closest hotel with a cab stand. But that meant she had to get up and drive me around at 4 AM just because the cab company was unreliable. Now with Uber not only is the car there within minutes but the charge against my corporate card is automatically sent to my corporate expense system. So no from my perspective Uber is far better! And this is despite the uber app wanting to spy on users between and after use. But that's what location permissions are for. Or just uninstalling the app entirely when not in use.
- ellyagg 7y agoOn a personal note, I hope you're wrong, because Uber has added a ton of value to my life.
- trillic 7y agoYes it has, mine too, I love cheap, easy rides. What makes that possible though is because Uber is essentially selling $1 bills for 75 cents. Uber at the prices it currently charges in most markets is not sustainable.
- WhompingWindows 7y agoWill they eventually just charge that $1 or $1.10 for profitability? If so, would you still use them?
- totalthrowaway 7y agoSince Uber will predict the fare, I can occasionally AB test in NYC. The rates are basically the same as taxis now, so far as I can tell.
- sokoloff 7y agoI think Uber (and Lyft) are absolutely adding value. I now regularly take ride shares when I would previously have driven or extremely reluctantly taken cabs. I also talk to my rideshare drivers and the platforms provide some much needed cashflow (and perhaps day-filling) for people who seem genuinely happy to avail themselves of the income opportunity provided. I see no reason to think that those two companies couldn't be quite profitable in their core businesses in their established cities. (I think they already are.) That said, their valuations in the market are comically/insanely/unjustifiably high, but that's quite different from saying they "add no value".
- WhompingWindows 7y agoThey may add value vs taxis, but would Uber or Lyft add value vs any other startup taxi service? Expanding further, How about a taxi-app you and I could sit down and hack out? How much value-add is there in an Uber or Lyft vs what we could do?
- Apocryphon 7y agoDoesn't Flywheel already own that space?
- berbec 7y agoBe careful, you're suspiciously close to saying the uber is nothing more than FTP, curlftpfs and CVS. [1] I'm not arguing that Uber is worth it value, but dismissing the tech & usability involved is a treacherous road to go down. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
- JohnFen 7y agoIn my area, they add no real value over the standard taxi companies. Literally the only advantage to them is that they're cheaper (which is an artificial and unsustainable difference). Everything else they do is also done equally well by the cab companies. That may be why there aren't an increasing number of Uber and Lyft drivers here, but the taxi companies are expanding.
- perseusprime11 7y agoEllison's cat seems straight out of a Murakami novel.
- JamilD 7y ago> I'm sure Uber engineering are tackling tough technical problems They definitely are, but I think the point is that those technical problems aren’t core to the service. The value that Uber provides to you is a platform for independent, cheaper taxis – the routing algorithms and ML add to that, but the technology isn’t core to the product or the value of it.
- overcast 7y agoIt's always been my personal opinion that they should sell their software as as service to taxi companies through integration agreements. Besides the nicely subsidized prices, the act of easily being able to hail a ride is a game changer.I really don't give a shit what car I'm getting into, as long as I'm not calling some sketchy number, talking to someone I can't understand, and having it actually show up.
- opportune 7y agoIn some markets it is absolutely possible to summon a regular taxi via uber
- nugget 7y agoUber is the reason I no longer need to take out local currency when I am traveling in Europe. I'd happily pay a 50% or greater premium to avoid the hassle of dealing with local taxi companies.
- spelunker 7y agoDo you remember what getting a taxi was like before Uber/Lyft? Uber is a cash burning machine for the investor, but it's definitely adding value as a customer.
- jmpman 7y agoI’ve been using Uber for years. From my perspective, the experience hasn’t changed dramatically. I request a ride, a ride shows up, when I get to my destination, I’m billed. I’ve wondered why ride hailing companies haven’t dramatically slashed their engineering teams if the engineers aren’t able to map their efforts directly back to lowering ride costs. For some reason, >100% the cost of an Uber isn’t being passed on to the drivers and yet the company remain unprofitable. Where are the costs besides engineering and drivers?
- crispyambulance 7y agoUber got to where it is today because Taxi companies weren't able to adapt and ignored the threat until it was too late. Really, all people want from a Taxi is an easy, reliable way to summon transport and take you to wherever. Everyone hates calling a taxi company on the phone, speaking to a surly dispatcher, giving an address verbally and then waiting for an indeterminate amount of time for the taxi to show up-- and then you had to have cash to pay. By the time the Taxi companies figured that out, they were already gutted and in a downward spiral because of Uber's brutal, calculated competitive practices.
- billhathaway 7y agoTaxis in Las Vegas were adding a $3 fee for paying with credit card. That was so frustrating.
- WaylonKenning 7y agoAnd unlike the network effect where winner takes all, I doubt we'll all forget about taxis, and think, man, if only there was this yellow car I could stick my hand out to, and they'd give me a ride for cash. There's always the thread of competition for Uber. Ironically, the thread from the very market they disrupted! I'm guessing Taxis 2.0 won't have medallions to worry about anymore, just the same regulations as any other ride sharing firm, with only one car. But hey, I'll take subsidised rides from Uber for as long as they're offering them!
- opportune 7y agoUber is absolutely adding value, in my opinion. Disclaimer: I’ve invested a paltry amount in them Uber is a taxi dispatcher and provides a rating system that provides a vastly improved product to the end user. Seriously Uber is so much better than taxis. You can hail it from your phone, track its arrival in real time, know the fare before you book it. It arrives in 10-20% of the time of a dispatched taxi, costs less, and has much better drivers on average both in terms of skill/not being aggressive, not being assholes, English, and cleanliness. Uber freight is frankly just a good idea. They already have a huge fleet of drivers and a lot of the tech backend in place to start doing last mile delivery. Lots of value add in that, and in combining last mile delivery with concurrent user transportation. Uber also has a lot more international exposure than Lyft. The only issue I have with them as an investor is in Uber eats. It’s costing too much money to subsidize, has too much competition, and food delivery just isn’t something I think can work in the US. But regardless, when you look at Uber’s core product, I think you would have to have either forgotten about taxis or never have taken Ubers/taxis to begin with to think it’s not a vastly better product.
- jfengel 7y agoThe biggest thing that Uber added was the ride-summoning app. I gather that these are beginning to come into existence for taxi companies, but especially at the time, it was a huge boon to download one app and be able to summon a ride wherever you went. Instead, you often had to place an actual voice phone call -- or multiple calls, since different companies had different dispatchers. You would get no feedback on when your taxi might arrive -- or even if it was. I've answered plenty of panicked phone calls from friends whose prearranged taxis didn't arrive and were desperate to get to an airport before their flight. If the taxi companies had acted professionally about it, Uber might not have been able to take off. As it was, using Uber was simply a better experience than taking a taxi -- except perhaps right in the middle of the most taxi-heavy cities, where you could stick out an arm. It wasn't so much about price as about just knowing that the ride was coming, and not really caring who precisely provided it. The taxi companies were not competing on anything I cared about. The actual car-sharing aspect of their service is of dubious merit, and I prefer Lyft to Uber anywhere I can. But I'll take either to having to actually phone a dispatcher, or having to download Waave in New York and myTaxi in London and god only knows what in Cinncinnati.
- ErnestedCode 7y ago> I gather that these are beginning to come into existence for taxi companies There is a lot of value in having only one or two major players in this space. I often travel and use Lyft or Uber to get around. If you have to Google 3 companies every time your plane lands in a new city and create a new account and add your credit card, that is a tremendous hassle.
- jdoliner 7y agoHave you ever used Uber? Did you ever use Taxis back when they existed? It's astonishing to me how much better Uber is than Taxis, there's no question that they're adding a ton of value compared to what they're replace, at least for me as a consumer. But I hardly think I'm alone in this. On the other-hand will they be able to profit from this value? That's at best tbd, and likely already a conclusive no, they've built a valuable commodity, that people aren't even used to paying commodity prices for because it's been VC subsidized for so long. So I can't agree with the adding no value comment, but I don't think the valuation is correct.
- JohnFen 7y ago> Have you ever used Uber? Did you ever use Taxis back when they existed? Yes, and yes, but (at least where I live), the Uber/Lyft "experience" is not superior to the taxis at all.
- jdoliner 7y agoFair enough, and sorry if that came off as condescending. Everywhere I've lived (SF and Chicago) Taxis are completely unusable, I'd call dispatch to request one and maybe get one an hour later. The value of Uber/Lyft to me is mostly just that it's a Taxi that works.
- JohnFen 7y agoYes, I know from experience that there are parts of the US where taxis are simply awful. But that's not true everywhere. Where I live, the taxi companies have their own apps that you can use if you prefer (complete with being able to see where the cab is in realtime), and when you call, you'll usually get a cab within 15 minutes. Aside from price, there literally isn't anything that Uber or Lyft does that the cab companies don't do at least equally well.
- xxs 7y agoI guess it depends where you live. I used (15y+ ago) to go to work and back by taxi every day for years. Recently (last 2-3y) I got taxi on occasionally; also living in a different area. No real difference with app based ones except for the payment methods. That's it, no need to pay anything for app-based ones (not uber) in the taxi, immediately. That makes the ride shorter and I don't need to care if the taxi will be equipped with a POS terminal as I seldom carry cash.
- optimuspaul 7y agoI work in WeWork (not for them, my company uses them) and I think that they provide tremendous value. I don't see how they are middleman at all. Having worked at many startups and small companies over the years I know that finding a good space to work is difficult. WeWork is making it very easy and provide a lot of services on top of that which make it worthwhile. Are they unique? No, but that doesn't mean they don't provide value.
- tinktank 7y agoYou obviously don't know Ellison's cat...
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- fabiofzero 7y agoI hate to agree with this asshat, but he's right.
- sam_lowry_ 7y agoOracle Linux, its flagship database and many of their products are utterly worseless.
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- hugofirth 7y agoI don't like Oracle any more than the next person, but this just isn't true at all. Oracle is a robust product which fills an important part of any technical stack. Building and supporting databases is hard.
- paggle 7y agoBoth of these companies provide a valuable service, and in Uber’s case a massively world changing one. Even if these companies only end up being worth single digit billions, they are still great companies independent of Saudi money pumping valuations into the absurd.
- rb808 7y agoNow that we've nearly migrated everything off Sparc & Oracle DB I'm ready to declare Oracle almost worthless too. At last.
- imglorp 7y agoConsidering how often they sue their customers, increase prices after lockin is established, triple their support fees, etc etc. one might consider Oracle less than worthless. Sometimes it's a liability.
- CaptainZapp 7y agoShortet some stock Larry, didn't we?
- rossdavidh 7y agoWell I've been pretty negative about Uber and WeWork up to now, but if Larry Ellison is against them, maybe it's time to reconsider. Kidding, I'm kidding. Sort of.
- jayess 7y agoI feel like many people don't remember a few short years ago when your options after a night of drinking were to call a friend, wait an hour for a taxi that might arrive and definitely doesn't take credit cards, or drive home drunk.
- Udik 7y ago> [Uber has] an app my cat could have written The other day on HN's frontpage was an article ("Software architecture is overrated") in which the author mentioned something that made me shudder: "Rewriting the Uber app was a project that a few hundred engineers worked simultaneously on, porting existing functionality to a new architecture." I keep not understanding how it is possible that companies whose core business is very far from IT (e.g. taxi and ride sharing for Uber, or television for Netflix) can be considered high-tech companies and take pride in investing inordinate amounts of money on engineering. What is the point? What is Netflix doing in the company of Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Google?
- paulsutter 7y agoAt first I thought Uber will be a great business charging 20% of rides if they can ramp up to many millions of riders. Now they squeeze drivers harder and harder for bigger and bigger percentages. Yet they are losing money faster and faster. The problem is they’ve hired armies of very talented people, each one-upping the next on initiatives to screw drivers a little worse, or create some lame promotion, and pretty soon you have a ruthless company that is also drowning in expenses and headcount.
- nunchuckninja 7y agoIsn't he a director of former?
- dshuang 7y agooutline https://outline.com/TfLjdh https://outline.com/TfLjdh
- rdlecler1 7y agoLast time I used Uber? this week. Last time I used coworking space? This week. Last time I used Oracle? ...
- sdinsn 7y agoAnd since Uber and WeWork are losing money for every ride and tenant, you are contributing to their downfall. Meanwhile, Oracle made $3.8 billion of net income in 2018.
- cjarrett 7y agoLast time you used a service backed by a service run likely by oracle? Multitudes of times this week.
- rdlecler1 7y agoAnd most of those are legacy companies that are in their sunset.
- mrweasel 7y agoThe is a valid point to Ellison comment regarding loyalty. If you don’t care about profit, like Uber, then you can undercut your competitors. Neither drivers nor customers would care if Uber suffers, if they can get a better deal else where. The technology also isn’t special enough that it alone can support the massive value of Ubers stock.
- sonr 7y agoUber provides great value to people like me who can't afford the burden of having a car and driving and only need a car maybe 20% of the time for various occasions. However, if Uber had to charge rates that would make them a real profit, people like me will simply no longer be able to afford it. We would go back to walking, biking, or taking the bus. Just my 2 cents here.
- simonblack 7y agoUber is good only for Uber itself and (temporarily till the collapse) the customers. It is a SCAM for drivers and investors. caveat emptor.