57 ms·
Uber is laying off 3,700, as rides plummet due to Covid-19
- 0xB31B1B 6y agoThis is the first in a series of cuts, and this cut didn’t effect anyone in tech, it’s mostly the front line service agents. We expect 800 eng layed off globally as has been reported in leaks.
- alephnan 6y agoEng is not part of tech?
- bsimpson 6y agoRead the comment again.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Nextgrid 6y ago> front line service agents Given the customer "service" I've had from Uber Eats, the only explanation I have is that they employed monkeys and I don't consider them a big loss (even though the most likely explanation is that Uber paid them too little for them to give a shit about their job).
- vvladymyrov 6y agoYeah. Previous round of layoffs in 2019 had 3 distinct phases: non-technical (i.e. marketing) first, then engineers in Uber Prime, and then Uber ATG
- noad 6y agoIt's starting to feel like we just built the Borg from Star Trek. Everything bigger, everything more centralized, everything more efficient and streamlined and outsource everything you're not good at. Economies of scale so massive you can argue they are just monopolies. Every new venture needs to scale to billions or it's not worthwhile. Some competition and innovation, but mostly just growth throw acquisition and assimilation. Wasn't the Borg devastated by a virus? TNG was such a good show.
- jachell 6y agoWho's "we"? Uber?
- twomoretime 6y agoSociety, I imagine
- wpietri 6y agoWe as in the audience here, I think. The tech industry.
- TallGuyShort 6y agoWe humans and our economies, I'd imagine. Because the problem isn't just Uber. It isn't even just tech. The fear of meat shortages is because we've condensed to very few, very large meat distributors, and a couple of them had outbreaks. I know less about this first-hand, but previous comments on HN have detailed how optimized the toilet paper supply chain is such that it can't absorb people working from home all of a sudden. Bigger, more standardized, more efficient, ruthlessly so, and then can't handle a virus. Borg-like.
- PopeDotNinja 6y agoHerd immunity is a questionable strategy, so I guess you could say... resistance is futile. XD
- Ididntdothis 6y agoI agree. Somehow we should discourage large companies and create a system that favors more smaller companies. I really don't see the value in having huge companies like Apple or Amazon that need to absorb more and more businesses to keep growing. They hinder innovation, trample over smaller companies but have the power to shape countries' policies to their advantage. In the past there was a size limit to managing a company but unfortunately technology allows for more and more central control so the trend to ever bigger companies will probably continue.
- 6y ago
- waterfowl 6y agoSeems technology sparing. One of the big things that this crisis has made me realize about uber/lyft/airbnb and other disruptive entrants in regulated spaces is that they have to have footprint in pretty much every market they operate in - their staff scales more w/ use than a pure software operation. Explains their "bloated" staff counts better than just "oh they're venture backed and blitzscaling" imo.
- sida 6y agoEng layoff is also coming. This looks to be just for service workers and contractors (like recruiters)
- luckylion 6y agoEngineering will likely be hit on the team/project-level, I suppose? If you need some amount of tech people to run your operation, it's hard to say "well, we're doing fewer rides, we can now fire 50% of tech". But they may well be cutting back the side-projects and exploratory R&D.
- trollski 6y agosay bye bye to next years refreshers
- blaser-waffle 6y agoCore product will probably be alright, though there may be some trimming. Secondary stuff like internal tool teams, BIs, etc. will probably catch the brunt of it. If you're an under-performer or on a PIP and didn't get cut already I'd start looking. Uber was already a long-term market capture play. They were losing money but grabbing the market with the hope that they'd be able to get automated cars on the road in time. That was kind of sustainable (for a while, anyway), but now they're getting even less cash and will likely have to cut back to the must-haves.
- bsimpson 6y agoWhy would you stagger them like that? Layoffs have got to be terrible for morale. I'd expect you'd want to minimize the anxiety by getting all the uncertainty out of the way.
- soulofmischief 6y agoIs the writing on the wall? First Lyft, then Airbnb, and Uber... are all unicorns taking this kind of hit right now?
- manuelflara 6y agoWell, it makes a lot of sense that companies that make money in hospitality and transport would be taking a big hit. Other unicorns like Dropbox, Stripe etc that work pretty much exclusively online, however, are doing fine.
- johntiger1 6y agoDropbox cancelled its internship program, so not sure if they're doing "fine"
- CydeWeys 6y agoThat may have more to do with the difficulties of hosting remote internships though.
- whafro 6y agoIs that because of financial straits, or because they didn't think they could support an impactful and valuable internship program remotely? I could certainly understand the latter...
- robjan 6y agoI doubt Dropbox have seen a significant drop in paying subscribers or increase in costs in the wake of the coronavirus.
- ssharp 6y agoStripe is a different situation than Dropbox. Besides being predominantly online, Stripe is also directly involved in online transactions, including ecommerce. Shopify, which is 100% ecommerce, just reported record numbers. With quite a bit of retail shutdown as well as many people not wanting to leave their home, lots of money is shifting online, and these ecommerce enablement companies are going to benefit a lot.
- johntiger1 6y agoDoes this signal the start of something like a recession in tech?
- wpietri 6y agoWith the scale of the recession in the rest of the economy, it's certain that we'll feel in in tech. Maybe less, in that it's easier for us to work and deliver value at at a distance. But perhaps more, in that a lot of what we do is an investment, and recessions aren't a great time to be investing. A lot of software's value is essentially in reducing the cost of labor to achieve some result. But with the unemployment rate going from historic lows of ~4% to somewhere around 20% [1], reducing labor costs is less urgent. [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/millions-of-lost-jobs-may-push-unemployment-rate-to-highest-since-great-depression-2020-05-02 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/millions-of-lost-jobs-may-...
- rswail 6y agoReducing labor costs will remain as urgent because companies have to deal with a very low demand. So they will layoff and automate. It will accelerate automation. What's needed is demand, the way for that to happen is for government to pay for things and to create jobs.
- wpietri 6y agoI suspect it depends a lot on the employer. Fewer will go out and hire (expensive) software engineers as part of a long-term project to (hopefully) decrease labor costs. Some still will, but lower capital availability and increased uncertainty means a lot of things seen as long-term investments will get put off until things are clearer.
- asdff 6y agoIt doesn't matter that you can work remote if the vast majority of the population has no disposable income to buy your product or service.
- techslave 6y ago
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago> In an SEC filing dating back to last week, Uber disclosed plans to layoff 3,700 employees. The figure amounts to around 14% percent of the ride hailing giant’s total workforce. Do drivers count as employees in states like California, but as independent contractors elsewhere? The answer would provide greater context to these numbers.
- wpietri 6y agoYou can bet that Uber is not counting them as employees, as they're still fighting over AB5.
- sp332 6y agoNo, California is still fighting it. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/05/california-sues-to-make-uber-and-lyft-drivers-employees/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/05/california-sues-to-make... In New Jersey they are though https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/nyregion/uber-new-jersey-drivers.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/nyregion/uber-new-jersey-... as well as the UK https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/31/uber-loses-appeal-against-landmark-uk-workers-rights-ruling.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/31/uber-loses-appeal-against-la... and France https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-05/trump-pushes-virus-from-china-lab-theory-that-divides-u-s-spies https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-05/trump-pus...
- nojito 6y agomasquerading as a "tech" company when you're nothing more than a physical service company is the biggest realization here. This is definitely a wizard of oz moment for many "tech" companies.
- pb7 6y agoTech or not, what difference does it make? Lots of tech companies hurting equally due to loss or reduced business. Everything is connected these days.
- dbancajas 6y agocan you explain what a "wizard of oz" moment means?
- ashtonkem 6y agoIt’s a reference to the man behind the curtain being smaller and less impressive than what their original image made them look like.
- pstuart 6y agoI suppose it's the moment when Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal the great wizard is merely a man operating a machine.
- topkai22 6y agoIn the wizard of oz, the “great and powerful wizard” is actually a tiny old man with no powers who uses stage magic tricks, which is revealed at the climax of the movie by a tiny dog pulling back a curtain. It means that something is revealed to be fundamentally weaker than it appears.
- person5 6y agoSpoiler Alert The wizard isn't actually a super powerful wizard. It's literally just a dude behind a curtain talking into a microphone and operating some contraption. [1] If you hear someone use the phrase "man behind the curtain" this is what it's referring to. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyCCJ6B2WE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyCCJ6B2WE
- tinyhouse 6y agoExpected. Uber/Lyft will get through it but have to prepare for a though time ahead. I'm pretty optimistic that things will soon start getting back to normal, gradually of course. However, business travel (and personal) will take a while to recover. Companies already canceled all large events for the year. All academic conferences this year are remote, etc. Most tech employees were already told to keep working remotely until at least Sep/Oct. So even with very optimistic projections, things will start looking better for these companies only next year.
- rswail 6y agoNo one is driving around, other than Uber Eats and deliveries, there is nowhere for people to go. There's no one flying, so no airport traffic. There's no sports events, there's no entertainment districts active. If anything, Uber will save money by not operating. Their cashburn should be substantially lowered if they are not subsidizing rides.
- komali2 6y agoMaybe on San Francisco. Houston for example is opening right back up, grandma's health be damned. Traffic is heavy on i45 again. All those people are driving somewhere.
- tinyhouse 6y agoWell, that's true for where you live right now, which I assume it's the US. Many places around the world start reopening. US is probably 1-2 months behind, at least some states like NY and MA. But obv things won't go back to normal immediately.
- karthikb 6y agoThis is older analysis [1] but Uber is profitable on each ride in their biggest markets until you deduct the OPEX of the main co. The burn of sales, marketing, engineering, support, their rider safety team, the driver inspection and on boarding centers, leases, etc all continue on with or without riders. [1] https://benjamintseng.com/2019/04/lyft-vs-uber-a-tale-of-two-s-1s/ https://benjamintseng.com/2019/04/lyft-vs-uber-a-tale-of-two...
- fredley 6y agoIs this the same Uber from the story yesterday about putting $170m into Lime? https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-reportedly-considering-emergency-funding-to-lime-2020-5?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-reportedly-considering-...
- alexeichemenda 6y agoUber burning money on opex and Uber investing in Uber's future (through Lime) are two very different ways to spend money. Don't expect Uber to stop spending money, it'll simply do that differently.
- rockarage 6y agoThis is a failure in leadership at UberEats. Uber has more than one revenue source and delivery is in high demand, UberEats is severely losing to DoorDash in food delivery, despite Uber having significantly more resources than DoorDash. Uber has billions in the bank, Doordash only has hundreds of millions. At the time of this posting, Doordash is currently number #13 in the App store, UberEats is sitting at #62. Uber has access to capital and reserve in the bank. Reserves are often used for a rainy day, well it is pouring now. They should be using their position to gain market share during this time of peak demand for deliveries, should not be losing to DoorDash.
- tinyhouse 6y agoWell, DoorDash focused on food delivery since day 1. It wasn't Uber's focus until recently. Even if they are doing a great job now, it will take time to close the gap.
- rockarage 6y agoUberEats was founded in August 2014, easy to Google.
- sokoloff 6y agoWould you say though that Uber's focus was on food delivery in the five and a half years leading up to March of 2020?
- rockarage 6y agoYes, food was and is a major focus for Uber, it's part of their pitch for growth: they just don't do taxi/rideshare, they do deliveries one of the reasons they're valuation dwarfs Lyft.
- madeofpalk 6y agoI’m not sure what it’s like in the US, but at least in the UK I understand that food delivery demand has plummeted. I initially thought it would be higher due to people isolating and now shopping, but a lot of people now have less disposable income to spend on expensive food delivery. Also less availability (restaurants closing down)
- hajderr 6y agoSo now I can ride my bicycle
- dublinben 6y agoNon-Techcrunch article: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/uber-to-lay-off-3700-employees-about-14percent-of-workforce.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/uber-to-lay-off-3700-employe... The SEC filing: https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1543151/000155278120000325/e20313_uber-8k.htm https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1543151/0001...
- betaby 6y agoThat's bad. Fired employees now going to bring toxic culture of leetcode style interviews to the other companies + NIH on top. Before such things were mostly contained in 'FAANGAULURU' companies. Now that will planted in more sane companies. Sad indeed.
- pb7 6y agoWhat makes Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, Netflix, Uber, Lyft, etc not sane? Your envy?
- betaby 6y agoAs I said - toxic culture of leetcode style interview and NIH syndrome. On top of that constant scandals https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-company-scandals-and-controversies-2017-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-company-scandals-and-co... So my fear that all that now going to be spilled over other companies by ex-employees.
- pb7 6y agoThese top tier engineers from Airbnb, Uber, and Lyft aren’t going to suddenly downgrade to your average mom-n-pop shop because of business-related failures. You have nothing to worry about.
- luckydata 6y agoMostly that they confused being successful with being good. Once you think everything you do is good because you're making money, you end up in pretty ridiculous places before you open your eyes and realize there was little correlation between what you THOUGHT matters and what actually does.
- pb7 6y agoWhat I’m hearing you say is that you know better than millions of consumers? Millions of people find value in the services that these companies provide and voluntarily exchange their disposable income for them. And here you are saying they’re wrong and you know better. Who are you to say these things?
- ahmedfromtunis 6y agoOut of curiosity, why would a company like Uber employ 26.5k employees? Does this number include drivers (which I doubt)?
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoThey have a presence in every country they're active; likely a big chunk of it is customer services, both for consumers and drives. Administration as well, they are handling a lot of money after all between a lot of people. See https://www.uber.com/us/en/careers/ https://www.uber.com/us/en/careers/ for what positions they hire for.
- manquer 6y agoCustomer service is rarely in-house in these kind of companies, The bulk of it is usually done by contractors and staffing firms . It is cheaper as they don’t have to pay the same kind of benefits and of course of-shored
- robteix 6y agoSales, marketing, legal in every market they operate in. Remember they don't have to deal only with different countries, but different states and municipalities in each of them, each with their own laws and ordnances and lobbying needs.
- calvinbhai 6y agoI refuse to use any of these delivery apps, which are kind of useless already. Here in Toronto area, most of the big food outlets are closed, because they are not able to get workers. The ones that are open, are these mom&pop restaurants, that run on a skeletal workforce. So with fewer restaurants operating, and delivery apps having a limited radius for delivery, I'd rather go and get the order myself, and let the neighborhood restaurer keep more of the money I give instead of losing 30%-40% of the amount as commission (I tip on top of it even though it's a pickup). I'll use delivery apps only if: - They charge the restaurant less than 5% total fees - They charge me 5% - 10% for delivery and processing fees whatever (lets say a minimum of $5 or $10, whichever is higher). Problem is at this rate, Uber Eats or Door Dash or GrubHub wont survive. I understand using these apps is more of a necessity if you have kids and larger number of people at home. But this is not for me. Uber drivers who got cars on subprime loans cannot survive with deliveries only. I'm curious to how they'll get through this storm. At least in this case, Uber has fewer liabilities (all head ache borne by the driver).
- toomuchtodo 6y agoWe use Uber Eats for discovery. We'll use it to find new establishments, and on the first order, I'll tip cash to make up for what Uber Eats takes from the restaurant. If we decide to patron the same restaurant again, we order directly from them to avoid the Uber tax for them (edit: as many are aware, margins are slim [3-5% typically] for restaurants and the delivery service tax is onerous on them). Has worked pretty well. Be the change y'all.
- gambiting 6y agoYes, be the change and stop tiping. That's the change that everyone needs to be doing, then the prices would increase to match what the market should actually be, rather than rely on charity of customers. >>I'll tip cash to make up for what Uber Eats takes from the restaurant So you've just allowed Uber Eats to operate another day, because the restaurant can now justify using them and their shitty rates.
- 6y ago
- sudhirkhanger 6y agoShould you hold it against companies which are laying off people or doing pay cut? I have an emotional reaction to this. Maybe I should be equally needy and switch jobs as soon as I get a better offer.
- vorpalhex 6y agoIf the alternative is telling employees you suddenly can't pay them their paycheck, yes, you should cut early. More than a few restaurants have gone under with no warning and leaving all of their employees fully in the lurch. > Maybe I should be equally needy and switch jobs as soon as I get a better offer. If it's actually a better offer, yes you should. Your company doesn't have any loyalty to you outside the risk of replacing you.
- asdff 6y agoGreat advice for the former bull market, but this could backfire in a recession. Last in, first out. Hold on to your job for dear life for the next two years.
- Bang2Bay 6y agoin remote areas where cab drivers would heckle riders for trip charges, uber gave a predetermined number which helped. my only worry was they not having competition and that has been set right with at least one other ipo-ed company.
- werber 6y agoI’ve had several restaurants tell me to avoid any food delivery platform and they’re backing it up with great perks. I’d much rather spend extra tipping the person taking the risk than financing the middleman. But, I can see value in having a central verification system if I’m actually getting in the vehicle.
- stcredzero 6y agoI wonder if Tesla could modify their car models, such that the passenger compartment can be on a different HVAC system than the front compartment? Now that the world has a recent concrete demonstration of what it means to be in a pandemic, with all of the emergent problems revealed in gory detail, shouldn't we change some things so that we can cope better in case it happens again? Like I've said, no one buckles their seatbelt in expectation of getting into a high speed crash on their current trip, but we prepare for such a severe circumstance due to the cost/benefit.
- Reubachi 6y agoI admire your problem solving ideas, but engineering this to a point that is 1. effective at mutually/exclusively recycling two sets of air and 2. cost effective is impossible. Would be akin to putting twin turbochargers in a cheap car which already has extremely high engine compression. it could be done, but only a very select customer base would pay for it, and would likely not see any benefits they don't already see from "free" things like disinfecting, social distance, etc.
- stcredzero 6y agoI admire your problem solving ideas, but engineering this to a point that is 1. effective at mutually/exclusively recycling two sets of air and 2. cost effective is impossible. Pretty much the same things were said about seatbelts. Would be akin to putting twin turbochargers in a cheap car which already has extremely high engine compression. Why? Please quantify and back this up. Seems to me that such mods are not that extreme. Plenty of cars in the past were not built by default, but were rather modified to be taxicabs, such that there was a wall and window completely between the passengers and front compartment. I see no reason why making that airtight is cost prohibitive. Heck, I bet people would've said that making a car's HVAC system bioweapon-agent proof would be cost prohibitive. Tesla just went and did it, and is putting that system into cars designed to hit a lower price tier than they had previously. but only a very select customer base would pay for it, Same thing was said about seatbelts. I bet plenty of Uber drivers who couldn't work otherwise right now would sign up for some kind of lease deal. and would likely not see any benefits they don't already see from "free" things like disinfecting, social distance, etc. Well, for one thing, Uber would be able to operate a passenger "rideshare" business during a pandemic.
- olivermarks 6y agoCouple of points 1 Where we live Whole Foods in store purchases have been cheaper than Safeway, who they are trying to put out of business Walmart style. Prime home delivery has got very expensive per item (and a lot of the items ordered don't show up, shown as out of stock) in comparison to buying in store. 2 100 years ago it was normal in most Western world countries for small vendors to deliver food to homes. Milkmen in the UK had electric milk floats until the 1980's, delivery bicycles and tricycles were very common until the 1960's, and smaller local vendors almost invariably offered local delivery. I spoke to an Ocardo delivery van guy in February based in Coventry UK who told his route went into Wales 90 miles away. In the US we are consuming incredible amounts of packaging to buy small items from Amazon. I'm not seeing value in centralizing delivery through large entities via casual delivery people unconnected to the businesses they are delivering from, I see massive profits for a tiny number of people and zero oversight of our private business, what we order and from who. I'd like to see a return to local anonymous delivery via private arrangements with local vendors. As a seperate topic I'd also like to know that my every move in an Uber/Lyft etc is not being tracked, filed away by God knows who and sold.
- sneak 6y ago> I'd like to see a return to local anonymous delivery via private arrangements with local vendors. Building a polished, stable, feature-complete mobile app for the two major platforms generally costs about a million dollars if you want it to be world class. Of course you can reduce scope or polish or pick only one platform, but that's roughly what it takes. Who's going to pay to develop the apps that these local businesses use to do online ordering, to sway customers away from Uber Eats et al? The reason these organizations are achieving market penetration is because their UX is polished. Yelp made a whole (predatory) business off of small business owners being bad at websites. I'd love to see it become more decentralized via private arrangements, but there are real costs to entering the market due to software developers not being cheap. I'd also love to see a resurgence in use of the web for such things, but despite being able to bookmark websites to one's homescreen, it's still not quite at the point where using a website feels like an app, and users care a lot about that stuff.
- 6y ago
- pseingatl 6y agoIf the drivers are independent contractors, they can't be laid off. They will just not get any more assignments for the moment.
- throwaway_1512 6y agoI think this is pretty amazing offense move played by the Uber CEO. As we enter the recession, with oil prices at all record low, driver earnings are automatically higher and riders are little more patient with sobering environment. In this mode, the support expectations are less than what they used to be before. There isn’t a desire for a super prompt response, and since support costs are linear (more reps -> faster ticket resolution), it’s quite wise to reduce the cost of both synchronous (for drivers) and asynchronous support agents (for riders). For the recruiting, since most of hiring is either frozen or happens through referrals, outbound hiring is going to be quite minimal and you only need recruiting co-ordinators for interview scheduling and admin. It doesn’t make much sense to have so many recruiters in such environment. For the GH hubs, if psychiatrists are moving online to telehealth, Uber green light hubs are way more simpler to be executed remotely via Zoom. I am classifying this as a offense move, because the defense would have been to raise more money through debts and so many companies are doing it, Uber could have played the same move. It’s pretty scary though, if this does set the precedent for other companies, unemployment recovery in HR/Support is going to very very slow.
- jasonv 6y agoI get that people use delivery, but I can't even remember the last time I got food delivered. I order for pick-up now (you know, now)... No judgement, just one of those "Wow, people do a thing that never occurs to me to do..." moments. (OK, I did get Thistle in SF.)
- asdff 6y agoThe delivery fee is like the price of another entree. I'll deliver the damn thing myself.
- lcfcjs2 6y agoThe delivery food options are so over-priced, I'd rather just get my fat arse off the couch, and pick up my food.
- cwhiz 6y agoWhy are all the top comments about UberEats or food delivery apps? UberEats isn't mentioned in the article at all and this has nothing to do with food delivery whatsoever. I thought I was in the wrong comment section at first... but nope.
- cwperkins 6y agoThis is unfortunate, but I also imagine that Uber may be one of the beneficiaries when it comes to re-opening later this summer if there are more people that choose to avoid taking mass transit. They have talented employees so I hope everyone lands on their feet.
- nixass 6y agoWell gig economy has to die some time, or at least in this form. Let's hope this is start of it
- mickotron 6y agoGlad. Couldn't have happened to a nicer company.
- rob_austin 6y agoI don't feel bad if Uber takes a bigger hit. Earlier, I loved the potential of Uber to make transportation better but it hasn't materialized (for me at least). I had an "animal farm" feeling about Uber when I was trying to find a ride from the airport around midnight. They would match me, then cancel the ride and then match me to a ride at a higher rate. This went on for an hour and I eventually paid the same as I was paying for a cab before. At least with a cab, I could have reached home quicker. So as a consumer, I lost in every way. Yes, I hate the cab drivers and their behaviors but Uber wasn't any better for my particular situation. I have also had similar experiences with UberPool. I was charged extra because the route was longer. It wasn't worth for me to complain about $10 but I stopped using UberPool later. I have tried food delivery a couple of times and the extra cost was so expensive that I just didn't feel like it was worth it. I get that they need to charge a certain amount for the service to be sustainable/profitable. I didn't find it to be worth it. They also played a lot of games with the Amex Platinum credits. So I closed the Amex Platinum card as well. It was not worth playing the games to save $15 a month.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- fourtonite 6y agoWhy can't a company just fail any more because it's never made a single cent in profit? And likely never will. The inside baseball of Uber doesn't really matter does it? Why dont they lay the whole company off?