>the capacity to cause problems for the rest of the world is much greater.
And none of these problems should cause us to lose sleep. A few bad yelp reviews. Uh oh. Carbon emissions should cause us to lose sleep but nuking Lyft and Uber back to the stone age would probably have net zero effect on this.
>Stories about early-stage Uber telling its drivers to drip off mustaches from competing Lyft vehicles come to mind, presaging the much more excessive and extensive abuses that later resulted.
If you think this is bad you should read about how fire departments used to operate. Fierce competition is one thing that even critics of capitalism should support. Maybe not fire departments brawling, but consumers generally win when competition is fierce. The mustache things sounds hilarious but can't say I've heard of it. Can you link me? Did Uber HQ order its people to vandalize Lyfts?
>It would seem like in some of these examples, the promise of big dumb money, coupled with incentives to pursue cash flow-negative business models, coupled with the problems resulting from having to make good on the big dumb money investments while digging themselves in deeper with said half-baked business models, leads to them engaging in even more risky and externality-creating behavior. And generally promotes a toxic business culture that excuses bad behavior.
I don't see how this is any worse than the externalities and behavior of cash flow positive businesses. Are you arguing that Bechtel and Blackwater and Facebook and Amazon and Exxon have fewer positive externalities or better behavior?
Capitalism has problems. But Silicon Valley and dumb money aren't it. Destroying the planet is it, but you'll see that with 99.99% of companies. Absolutely nothing to do with SV or dumb money. "Smart money" often invests in planet destroying things because they happen to be really profitable a lot of the time.
>If they had less money to play around with and lower expectations and thus less incentive to desperately flail around trying to justify their crazy valuations, could this behavior be preempted, or at least lessened?
I mean, none of the behavior you're describing is really offensive to me. I find the pizza arbitrage story funny and cute and probably a sign of running a sloppy business. I don't really care other than that because I don't own shares of Doordash.
>And yet, their losses were mounting pre-pandemic:
So your distaste for Airbnb arose precisely when their losses mounted? Or is it fair to say that your dislike of Airbnb has nothing to do with their income statement? Trying to make sure we're not getting two conversations mixed up. I understand you don't like Airbnb but that's not a very interesting conversation. I'm more interested in people taking personal offense to cash-flow negative businesses.
>You don't need to be livid with rage to mention someone is contributing to a larger problem, however proportionally small. You don't even need to mention climate change as a reason to blame ridesharing for driving up traffic; the increase in traffic is inconvenience enough, let alone its influence on public policy wrt urban planning, decrease in investment for transit, etc.
You don't need to do anything sure. It's just kind of silly to scream and shout about some dumb investors when a bunch of people are silently killing the planet and I rarely see these sensational news stories or comments about them. I see 10x attention about Airbnb causing rent prices in trendy neighborhoods.
>Great idea!
It's a horrible idea actually! This kind of thinking is why people hate investors that are only interested in quarterly returns.
>Will they?
If I were an owner, I would absolutely hope not! I guess I'm one of these strange investors that cares about long term value rather than short term returns.
If they can take over taxis around the world for the next 30 years, I don't really care if they had a few unprofitable quarters.
>Can they?
Sure. If they just started charging the actual price for a ride, they would be making a lot of money. But that's not the business that investors wanted to buy.
> And none of these problems should cause us to lose sleep. A few bad yelp reviews. Uh oh. Carbon emissions should cause us to lose sleep but nuking Lyft and Uber back to the stone age would probably have net zero effect on this.
The bad Yelp reviews is the tip of the iceberg, as restaurants are being squeezed out by the extinguishing embrace of food delivery apps and their fees. (This was covered in some of the links you've elided) The point is that the power of some tech companies backed by big money can lead to destructive effects on other industries. Ridesharing has also been criticized for more than their environmental impact, including points that I've mentioned.
https://www.today.com/food/viral-post-raises-questions-about-how-much-restaurants-earn-delivery-t180675a https://www.today.com/food/viral-post-raises-questions-about...
Also, even if these problems are not insomnia-inducing, they are at least larger and more significant than if these companies didn't have the level of resources to create bigger problems, nor the incentive to cut corners and create these problems.
> The mustache things sounds hilarious but can't say I've heard of it. Can you link me? Did Uber HQ order its people to vandalize Lyfts?
Point is that the road to an unending stream of ethical violations and scandal can sometimes be seen by the earliest of underhanded cheating. That behavior is indeed hilarious in that it's almost cartoonishly evil and low, like a schoolyard bully. Fire departments are a non sequitur. Can't find an anecdote yet, but here's one early report of Uber's growth-at-all-costs strategy incorporating dirty tricks.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ubers-operation-slog-against-lyft-2014-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/ubers-operation-slog-against...
> Capitalism has problems. But Silicon Valley and dumb money aren't it. Destroying the planet is it, but you'll see that with 99.99% of companies. Absolutely nothing to do with SV or dumb money. "Smart money" often invests in planet destroying things because they happen to be really profitable a lot of the time.
This excuses poor behavior by suggesting it is fine when larger bad actors exist, which is a fine attitude for you to have, but others may disagree. That said, it's also possible to examine the current VC-boosted culture within tech- or tech startups- itself; are there more ethically questionable startups with flimsier, even scammy business models, than in the past? Other comments have argued that this is a progression on a trend, and not how things have always been. (Though one would think the dot-com bubble was also a time of similar widespread fraud.)
Even if the tangible economic impact of modern Silicon Valley and dumb money is negligible in the grand scheme of things (which is a debatable point), it's still possible for those working in tech to critique the business culture, which does change and isn't a static thing. The '80s were remembered as a particularly greedy and excessive time on Wall Street; certainly industry practices can change over time and the shared cultures of those businesses can change for the worse, to the dissatisfaction of those who disagree with it.
None of this is even necessarily criticisms of capitalism as a whole; rather it's criticism of a development of how capitalism is practiced, or even a specific capitalist culture. For instance, can both be for free enterprise and a critic of financialization.
> I mean, none of the behavior you're describing is really offensive to me. I find the pizza arbitrage story funny and cute and probably a sign of running a sloppy business. I don't really care other than that because I don't own shares of Doordash.
That's fine as it is your opinion, but that is a subjective judgment and seemingly based on limited data.
> It's just kind of silly to scream and shout about some dumb investors when a bunch of people are silently killing the planet and I rarely see these sensational news stories or comments about them. I see 10x attention about Airbnb causing rent prices in trendy neighborhoods.
Then's plenty of coverage about other bad actors, tech is just a highly visible target.
> I guess I'm one of these strange investors that cares about long term value rather than short term returns.
The question is, what is that long term endgame? Waiting for Google to both invent a viable self-driving car AND push through the relevant amount of lobbying and marketing to engender the legal and social acceptance of widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles? Til then, it just looks like they're burning through a lot of money trying to grow for the sake of growth. And making good on their valuation is still a technological and societal quantum leap away.
Replying here since HN cuts us off.
>The bad Yelp reviews is the tip of the iceberg, as restaurants are being squeezed out by the extinguishing embrace of food delivery apps and their fees. (This was covered in some of the links you've elided) The point is that the power of some tech companies backed by big money can lead to destructive effects on other industries. Ridesharing has also been criticized for more than their environmental impact, including points that I've mentioned.
Ok, so your complaint is that you don't like technology. That's fine but again nothing to do with cash flow. A cash flow positive business can still be an abusive food deliverer.
I'm not trying to defend startups. I'm trying to point out that cash flow negativeness is not the problem.
>Point is that the road to an unending stream of ethical violations and scandal can sometimes be seen by the earliest of underhanded cheating. That behavior is indeed hilarious in that it's almost cartoonishly evil and low, like a schoolyard bully. Can't find an anecdote yet, but here's one early report of Uber's growth-at-all-costs strategy incorporating dirty tricks.
I'm supposed to be mad that Uber is trying to hire its competitor's employees? I don't get it. That's not evil, it's just a pretty good idea as long as they are paying their cab fare. Evil would be thinking that once you hire one of these drivers for $5 an hour or whatever that they can't take a better deal with a competitor.
>Fire departments are a non sequitur.
Not at all. It's an example of one of a failure of capitalism. But it existed long before Silicon Valley. Cutthroat competition is both old and good. It seems like you're trying to say it's new (simply factually wrong) and bad (not really supported by the evidence). Competition gets us new technology, good prices, good service, etc. There is a very close correlation between high prices and bad service and monopolistic behavior.
>This excuses poor behavior by suggesting it is fine when larger bad actors exist, which is a fine attitude for you to have, but others may disagree. That said, it's also possible to examine the current VC-boosted culture within tech- or tech startups- itself; are there more ethically questionable startups with flimsier, even scammy business models, than in the past? Other comments have argued that this is a progression on a trend, and not how things have always been. (Though one would think the dot-com bubble was also a time of similar widespread fraud.)
Not at all. I'm not excusing anyone for anything. I am saying that your complaint is with all businesses that harm the environment or do scammy things. You don't have a particular complaint against cashflow negative businesses. I may be having trouble explaining this. Here's an analogy:
All baseball players use steriods. This has destroyed baseball. Some newer players also chew bubble gum. This has nothing to do with steriods or baseball frankly. People are out here with signs saying "Bumblegum chewers ruined baseball".
They're missing the point. Bubble gum didn't ruin baseball. Steroids did. Even if some juicers also chew gum, while true, it's irrelevant.
Cash flow negative businesses aren't the problem. Companies that ruin the environment are the problem.
>Even if the tangible economic impact of modern Silicon Valley and dumb money is negligible in the grand scheme of things (which is a debatable point), it's still possible for those working in tech to critique the business culture, which does change and isn't a static thing. The '80s were remembered as a particularly greedy and excessive time on Wall Street; certainly industry practices can change over time and the shared cultures of those businesses can change for the worse, to the dissatisfaction of those who disagree with it.
You might misunderstand me if you think I'm saying you shouldn't critique your own industry and culture. You are morally required to critique your own industry and culture IMO. But the critiques have to be meaningful. "Uber rapes people and should be punished" is a meaningful critique, based on facts, morality, etc. "Investors and managers tried a certain business model that lost revenue in the beginning to acquire customers" seems like a really bizarre thing to be upset about. No one is really getting fooled. The investors are smart enough to know what they're getting into. Especially investing in tech, especially in SV, especially in 2020. Most new businesses of any kind anywhere have a high customer acquisition cost and almost no businesses of any size are profitable in the first few years. This is not new or particular to SV.
>That's fine as it is your opinion, but that is a subjective judgment and seemingly based on limited data.
I love data. By all means, do you have some data to show that DD is distorting the food delivery market in a way that hurts consumers?
>Then's plenty of coverage about other bad actors, tech is just a highly visible target.
I don't see much. There should be headlines every day about how much oil Exxon and Shell have pumped that day and how much damage that will do to the environment. Why aren't there? Honestly these stories should be every hour of every day. We're watching the world be literally destroyed before our eyes and we're arguing about pizza arbitrage.
>The question is, what is that long term endgame? Waiting for Google to both invent a viable self-driving car AND push through the relevant amount of lobbying and marketing to engender the legal and social acceptance of widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles? Til then, it just looks like they're burning through a lot of money trying to grow for the sake of growth. And making good on their valuation is still a technological and societal quantum leap away.
So don't buy their stock, as I haven't. I don't see why it's a morality play to not buy into someone's business model. I'm pretty sure 99% of people including me don't own Uber stock. It's not a big deal if you want to join our ranks. I'm just saying its silly (to me) to be mad at Uber for engaging in exactly the strategy they told their investors they would engage in.