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Uber CTO resigns amidst 5400 employee layoff

176 points by dzonga 7y ago

busymom0 7y ago
The title says "5400 employee layoff" but the article doesn't seem to mention that. It only mentions that they expect a big layoff. Am I missing some other news or is this title wrong? > Uber’s 27,000 employees I am curious why Uber has 27,000 employees and whether tis is reasonable? Does this number include their other app UberEats too? And do they consider their branches for driver registration verification etc in each city to be employees? I feel like a lot of this can be trimmed down.
- irjustin 7y ago
  Offline/online takes a lot of people. Global logistics is nothing to scoff at. I'm actually more surprised they have 3,800 engineers. Probably one of the biggest cost centers will definitely get trimmed.
- cvaidya1986 7y ago
  20%
- aprdm 7y ago
  Yeah, me too. It is insane the amount of people developing software those companies have. If they can keep afloat while having such a big tech body paying high salaries hats off to them! It still amazes me.
  - bathtub365 7y ago
    That 27,000 number isn't all software developers.
- avree 7y ago
  It includes the number working on their Eats, Driver, autonomous driving, internal products, etc. It's the employees of Uber, the company, not Uber the ride share app.
- vitus 7y ago
  Article states: > The outlet suggests the discussed cuts could impact upwards of 20 percent of Uber’s 27,000 employees which checks out -- 20% of 27,000 is 5400.
  - busymom0 7y ago
    Ah thank you!
- wpietri 7y ago
  Given Uber's high level of internal competitiveness, their culture issues, and their grow-at-all-costs ethos, I would be totally unsurprised that they have a lot more people than you'd see at a hypothetical saner company delivering the same value. Even if that's true, it doesn't mean that a large cut like this will help anything. It's totally plausible that this will the make culture worse, get staff into a scarcity mindset, and reduce the levels of collaboration and value focus. Losing weight can be good, but just cutting off a limb is not the best way to go about it.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    A criticism of the "grow at all costs" mindset: they aren't even executing on that efficiently. Per their GitHub account, they have 162 open source libraries. That's 162 open source solutions they could have found elsewhere and moved on to more pressing business needs.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Perhaps the thing didn’t exist and they had to create it? Perhaps the open source thing didn’t fit their needs?
      - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
        Perhaps not perfect substitutions, but business acumen is seeing a solution that's 90% of what you're looking for is more than adequate. It seems unlikely the organization identified 162 truly novel problems. It appears some needless reinventing of the wheel may have occurred. It's a common problem that certainly isn't exclusive to Uber. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here
        saagarjha 7y ago
        Licensing can also be an issue sometimes.
- mattbillenstein 7y ago
  They've definitely over-hired at times -- if you raise a lot of cash, you have to spend it somewhere.
  - daveslash 7y ago
    This is true. I've seen startups spend huge amounts of money on things like lavish game-rooms, lavish-company-outings, lavish-xyz.... It really is because they have to spend the money. It sounds crazy (and maybe it is), but a company doesn't always raise money because they need it. They often sell stock at price $Y so they can say X shares at $Y price means that we are valued at $Z - wanna buy us out? They have to spend money that they brought in selling pre-ipo stock at price $Y so that they can show (on paper) that they're worth $Z for buyout (or maybe more stock splits). But when they raise the money and they want to raise more (to raise their company value), then they have to demonstrate that they need it; you don't need money if you already have some in the bank. Gotta get rid of that money first, then show why you need it and how much you'll be worth some day. Source: Done-it (to a small degree).
    - BrandonM 7y ago
      You don’t have to be out of money to raise funds, so I question that you have to spend the money. You can raise with years of runway, provided that you have a compelling story about how you’re going to put the additional funds to use creating value.
      - daveslash 7y ago
        I agree that you don't have to be out of money, and some companies do take the approach that you describe. Honestly, I wish that the world worked more like that...I really do. In my experience, though, that's not how the majority of the dot-com startup-world works. Maybe it was just the decade and location in which I had my run at it (this past decade 2010-2020, SoCal) that's left me jaded. That said, I don't think that a compelling story about how you're going to add value is always enough - in a lot of competitive spaces, in order to be compelling you must have either (a) existing Intellectual Property (IP, aka Patents) that will keep competitors out of market or (b) enough "might-makes-right momentum" (aka money) to keep competitors out of the market. But... in scenario (b), you can't really get money unless you ask for it (or earn it the old fashioned way by having a profitable business model), and you can't ask for money unless you can demonstrate a need.... and you don't need it if you already have some money... It easily and quickly becomes a Catch-22 where you are spending money so that you can show that you don't have any; simultaneously, you can base your company value (and how much investors can should give) on how much you've earned (i.e. your stock price). I'm not refuting your point so much as I'm suggesting that there's a darker underside to how things often work. You're right -- you don't have to be out of money to raise funds; but smoke and mirrors is a lot easier than hard work...and many people/companies choose the latter path.
- ezoe 7y ago
  I don't know the correct answer but is it that surprise? Uber offers their service in 63 countries. The nature of their business model requires the presence of physical branch office in these 64 countries. In the Tokyo, even the restaurants run by very old people who don't understand what the Internet is support UberEats. That means somebody physically visit these restaurants, negotiate to support it, hand them the tablet with SIM and patiently teach how to use it. I doubt they could do that tasks with just a bunch of contractors.
  - busymom0 7y ago
    That's actually what I was wondering whether they have those presence in the countries and UberEats as employees or contractors/third party. I feel like things like background checks can easily be done via third parties.
- tanilama 7y ago
  The information article says they are going to layoff 800 tech staff from 3,800 in total.
trackofalljades 7y ago
This sounds made up, everyone knows Uber doesn't have any employees. That's how they make so much money from all the slave contractors with no benefits or protections. (maybe kidding a little but not really)
teruakohatu 7y ago
> and offering only a carp over their heads Is this an American term? Or is it a typo for 'tarp'.
- partomniscient 7y ago
  I wondered the same thing. Sleeping under a fish just seems kind of odd.
- StrangeDoctor 7y ago
  I’m an American and was highly confused by this statement.
- labster 7y ago
  Not an American term. Just a typo that, like everything about Uber, is a little too fishy.
  - PakG1 7y ago
    You made me click. They fixed it to tarp. And here I was about to go on a wild goose chase to see if there might have been a reasonable explanation for why a carp was used. :)
    - pcmonk 7y ago
      Maybe related: in Spanish, "carpa" means both "carp" the fish and "tent". I never thought to ask why they're the same, but Wikipedia says "carpa" as "tent" comes from Quechua and as a fish comes from Latin.
    - ryandrake 7y ago
      Sounds like they're floundering around looking for the right word.
      - labster 7y ago
        If this is your sense of humor, can I recommend an inkredible anime called Squid Girl ika?
jchook 7y ago
I think your custom link title gives far more relevant context than the TC title, and in far fewer words. My last submission got on the front page then they edited the title back to the (IMO opaque) original title, citing the guidelines[1]: > If the title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids." > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
amatecha 7y ago
Is the resignation actually related to layoffs or the title just clickbait? Because "amidst" means nothing concrete. It would seem the actual article title is: "Thuan Pham, who fled Vietnam as a child and became Uber’s CTO in 2013, is leaving the company". Maybe it changed after posting, maybe not. But the clickbait we have now is a bit disingenuous. The article TechCrunch cites as its source has far less ambiguous wording: "Layoffs of that magnitude, which haven’t been finalized but could be announced in stages in the coming weeks, could result in more than 5,400 of Uber’s 27,000 employees losing their jobs. Separately, Uber’s chief technology officer Thuan Pham—who joined Uber in 2013 and is the longest-serving senior executive at the company—has resigned from the company, said a person with knowledge of the situation."
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  This is a pernicious problem with journalism in general(or really, any writing that wants to convince you of some point of view). Whenever I see the weasley language of "X happens amidst Y" or "As Y grows, X happens", I just assume that X has nothing to do with Y unless I am given evidence otherwise.
  - PakG1 7y ago
    I think I should probably do that, but it feels so unnatural for me to be suspicious or cynical of so much at face value and assume that people are always trying to manipulate my thinking at some level. I may end up being more intelligent by doing this and have better outcomes in everything I do, but I'm not confident that I'd feel happier in the process.
    - oh_sigh 7y ago
      If you were looking to maximize happiness, not reading anything beyond local news once every day or two and national/international news every 5-7 days would probably go a long way.
- wpietri 7y ago
  I think what they mean is that they don't yet have proof it's related, but it's a factor reasonable people could think relevant. And personally, I'm sure it is. There's no way that that discussions around his resignation didn't involve the pandemic. Even if he had planned 6 months ago to leave now, execs still should have said, "Hey, it looks really bad for you to leave right now, and your people would benefit from stability. Could you stay longer?"
SilasX 7y ago
Oh wow, and we just had this story, I'm not sure if it's similar enough to merge: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23011146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23011146
dang 7y ago
This article lifts from https://www.theinformation.com/articles/uber-discusses-plan-to-lay-off-about-20-of-employees?&pu=hackernews0hocd3&utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=unlock https://www.theinformation.com/articles/uber-discusses-plan-..., which is discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23011146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23011146. That thread was buried because of the hard paywall (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html), but The Information sometimes unlocks their articles for HN readers, and they agreed to do so with this one. Thanks! We'll merge the relevant comments thither. It's a bit tricky, as we don't want the supercapitary carp to end up in the wrong thread.
- wdr1 7y ago
  FWIW, I'm getting the paywall. EDIT: Ah, if you click from this article, you get the paywall. But if you follow dang's link to the other thread, and click from there, the paywall is removed.
  - dang 7y ago
    Sorry for the confusion. I'll try to fix this link too.
- BerislavLopac 7y ago
  I have no idea what "supercapitary carp" is, but I just love the sound of it... :D
  - dang 7y ago
    I couldn't think of an adjective for the carp that is over our heads (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23014677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23014677), so I made one.

176 points by dzonga 7y ago

The title says "5400 employee layoff" but the article doesn't seem to mention that. It only mentions that they expect a big layoff. Am I missing some other news or is this title wrong? > Uber’s 27,000 employees I am curious why Uber has 27,000 employees and whether tis is reasonable? Does this number include their other app UberEats too? And do they consider their branches for driver registration verification etc in each city to be employees? I feel like a lot of this can be trimmed down.

irjustin 7y ago
Offline/online takes a lot of people. Global logistics is nothing to scoff at. I'm actually more surprised they have 3,800 engineers. Probably one of the biggest cost centers will definitely get trimmed.
cvaidya1986 7y ago
20%
aprdm 7y ago
Yeah, me too. It is insane the amount of people developing software those companies have. If they can keep afloat while having such a big tech body paying high salaries hats off to them! It still amazes me.
- bathtub365 7y ago
  That 27,000 number isn't all software developers.
avree 7y ago
It includes the number working on their Eats, Driver, autonomous driving, internal products, etc. It's the employees of Uber, the company, not Uber the ride share app.
vitus 7y ago
Article states: > The outlet suggests the discussed cuts could impact upwards of 20 percent of Uber’s 27,000 employees which checks out -- 20% of 27,000 is 5400.
- busymom0 7y ago
  Ah thank you!
wpietri 7y ago
Given Uber's high level of internal competitiveness, their culture issues, and their grow-at-all-costs ethos, I would be totally unsurprised that they have a lot more people than you'd see at a hypothetical saner company delivering the same value. Even if that's true, it doesn't mean that a large cut like this will help anything. It's totally plausible that this will the make culture worse, get staff into a scarcity mindset, and reduce the levels of collaboration and value focus. Losing weight can be good, but just cutting off a limb is not the best way to go about it.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  A criticism of the "grow at all costs" mindset: they aren't even executing on that efficiently. Per their GitHub account, they have 162 open source libraries. That's 162 open source solutions they could have found elsewhere and moved on to more pressing business needs.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Perhaps the thing didn’t exist and they had to create it? Perhaps the open source thing didn’t fit their needs?
    - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
      Perhaps not perfect substitutions, but business acumen is seeing a solution that's 90% of what you're looking for is more than adequate. It seems unlikely the organization identified 162 truly novel problems. It appears some needless reinventing of the wheel may have occurred. It's a common problem that certainly isn't exclusive to Uber. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        Licensing can also be an issue sometimes.
mattbillenstein 7y ago
They've definitely over-hired at times -- if you raise a lot of cash, you have to spend it somewhere.
- daveslash 7y ago
  This is true. I've seen startups spend huge amounts of money on things like lavish game-rooms, lavish-company-outings, lavish-xyz.... It really is because they have to spend the money. It sounds crazy (and maybe it is), but a company doesn't always raise money because they need it. They often sell stock at price $Y so they can say X shares at $Y price means that we are valued at $Z - wanna buy us out? They have to spend money that they brought in selling pre-ipo stock at price $Y so that they can show (on paper) that they're worth $Z for buyout (or maybe more stock splits). But when they raise the money and they want to raise more (to raise their company value), then they have to demonstrate that they need it; you don't need money if you already have some in the bank. Gotta get rid of that money first, then show why you need it and how much you'll be worth some day. Source: Done-it (to a small degree).
  - BrandonM 7y ago
    You don’t have to be out of money to raise funds, so I question that you have to spend the money. You can raise with years of runway, provided that you have a compelling story about how you’re going to put the additional funds to use creating value.
    - daveslash 7y ago
      I agree that you don't have to be out of money, and some companies do take the approach that you describe. Honestly, I wish that the world worked more like that...I really do. In my experience, though, that's not how the majority of the dot-com startup-world works. Maybe it was just the decade and location in which I had my run at it (this past decade 2010-2020, SoCal) that's left me jaded. That said, I don't think that a compelling story about how you're going to add value is always enough - in a lot of competitive spaces, in order to be compelling you must have either (a) existing Intellectual Property (IP, aka Patents) that will keep competitors out of market or (b) enough "might-makes-right momentum" (aka money) to keep competitors out of the market. But... in scenario (b), you can't really get money unless you ask for it (or earn it the old fashioned way by having a profitable business model), and you can't ask for money unless you can demonstrate a need.... and you don't need it if you already have some money... It easily and quickly becomes a Catch-22 where you are spending money so that you can show that you don't have any; simultaneously, you can base your company value (and how much investors can should give) on how much you've earned (i.e. your stock price). I'm not refuting your point so much as I'm suggesting that there's a darker underside to how things often work. You're right -- you don't have to be out of money to raise funds; but smoke and mirrors is a lot easier than hard work...and many people/companies choose the latter path.
ezoe 7y ago
I don't know the correct answer but is it that surprise? Uber offers their service in 63 countries. The nature of their business model requires the presence of physical branch office in these 64 countries. In the Tokyo, even the restaurants run by very old people who don't understand what the Internet is support UberEats. That means somebody physically visit these restaurants, negotiate to support it, hand them the tablet with SIM and patiently teach how to use it. I doubt they could do that tasks with just a bunch of contractors.
- busymom0 7y ago
  That's actually what I was wondering whether they have those presence in the countries and UberEats as employees or contractors/third party. I feel like things like background checks can easily be done via third parties.
tanilama 7y ago
The information article says they are going to layoff 800 tech staff from 3,800 in total.

trackofalljades 7y ago

This sounds made up, everyone knows Uber doesn't have any employees. That's how they make so much money from all the slave contractors with no benefits or protections. (maybe kidding a little but not really)

teruakohatu 7y ago

> and offering only a carp over their heads Is this an American term? Or is it a typo for 'tarp'.

partomniscient 7y ago
I wondered the same thing. Sleeping under a fish just seems kind of odd.
StrangeDoctor 7y ago
I’m an American and was highly confused by this statement.
labster 7y ago
Not an American term. Just a typo that, like everything about Uber, is a little too fishy.
- PakG1 7y ago
  You made me click. They fixed it to tarp. And here I was about to go on a wild goose chase to see if there might have been a reasonable explanation for why a carp was used. :)
  - pcmonk 7y ago
    Maybe related: in Spanish, "carpa" means both "carp" the fish and "tent". I never thought to ask why they're the same, but Wikipedia says "carpa" as "tent" comes from Quechua and as a fish comes from Latin.
  - ryandrake 7y ago
    Sounds like they're floundering around looking for the right word.
    - labster 7y ago
      If this is your sense of humor, can I recommend an inkredible anime called Squid Girl ika?

jchook 7y ago

I think your custom link title gives far more relevant context than the TC title, and in far fewer words. My last submission got on the front page then they edited the title back to the (IMO opaque) original title, citing the guidelines[1]: > If the title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids." > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

amatecha 7y ago

Is the resignation actually related to layoffs or the title just clickbait? Because "amidst" means nothing concrete. It would seem the actual article title is: "Thuan Pham, who fled Vietnam as a child and became Uber’s CTO in 2013, is leaving the company". Maybe it changed after posting, maybe not. But the clickbait we have now is a bit disingenuous. The article TechCrunch cites as its source has far less ambiguous wording: "Layoffs of that magnitude, which haven’t been finalized but could be announced in stages in the coming weeks, could result in more than 5,400 of Uber’s 27,000 employees losing their jobs. Separately, Uber’s chief technology officer Thuan Pham—who joined Uber in 2013 and is the longest-serving senior executive at the company—has resigned from the company, said a person with knowledge of the situation."

oh_sigh 7y ago
This is a pernicious problem with journalism in general(or really, any writing that wants to convince you of some point of view). Whenever I see the weasley language of "X happens amidst Y" or "As Y grows, X happens", I just assume that X has nothing to do with Y unless I am given evidence otherwise.
- PakG1 7y ago
  I think I should probably do that, but it feels so unnatural for me to be suspicious or cynical of so much at face value and assume that people are always trying to manipulate my thinking at some level. I may end up being more intelligent by doing this and have better outcomes in everything I do, but I'm not confident that I'd feel happier in the process.
  - oh_sigh 7y ago
    If you were looking to maximize happiness, not reading anything beyond local news once every day or two and national/international news every 5-7 days would probably go a long way.
wpietri 7y ago
I think what they mean is that they don't yet have proof it's related, but it's a factor reasonable people could think relevant. And personally, I'm sure it is. There's no way that that discussions around his resignation didn't involve the pandemic. Even if he had planned 6 months ago to leave now, execs still should have said, "Hey, it looks really bad for you to leave right now, and your people would benefit from stability. Could you stay longer?"

SilasX 7y ago

Oh wow, and we just had this story, I'm not sure if it's similar enough to merge: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23011146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23011146

dang 7y ago

This article lifts from https://www.theinformation.com/articles/uber-discusses-plan-to-lay-off-about-20-of-employees?&pu=hackernews0hocd3&utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=unlock https://www.theinformation.com/articles/uber-discusses-plan-..., which is discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23011146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23011146. That thread was buried because of the hard paywall (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html), but The Information sometimes unlocks their articles for HN readers, and they agreed to do so with this one. Thanks! We'll merge the relevant comments thither. It's a bit tricky, as we don't want the supercapitary carp to end up in the wrong thread.

wdr1 7y ago
FWIW, I'm getting the paywall. EDIT: Ah, if you click from this article, you get the paywall. But if you follow dang's link to the other thread, and click from there, the paywall is removed.
- dang 7y ago
  Sorry for the confusion. I'll try to fix this link too.
BerislavLopac 7y ago
I have no idea what "supercapitary carp" is, but I just love the sound of it... :D
- dang 7y ago
  I couldn't think of an adjective for the carp that is over our heads (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23014677 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23014677), so I made one.