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When I was at Uber, the vast majority were extremely moral people who felt strongly that we were empowering people to work for themselves in a well paying job.

When I was at Uber, the vast majority were extremely moral people who felt strongly that we were empowering people to work for themselves in a well paying job. Everyone I worked with had the drivers and riders at the top of their minds and it's the only company where I strongly believed in the mission. Yes, there were problems with incentives where some bad actors would do whatever it took to get into Zone 1 and get a 10X multiplier for a bonus, but the sad fact is that happens in every company. And yes, things that happened to Susan Fowler were horrible and the idea that it actually happened when everyone was trying to create a very progressive environment was extremely demoralizing. But her experience at Uber was definitely uncommon, all the women I worked with felt strongly that Uber was a principled and progressive company.

Eisenstein 4y ago
I hate to say it but intentions mean fuck all when the results are bad. People working at Facebook in the early 10s thought they were bringing people together and fostering openness in communication and helping the world, and instead we got a toxic hotbed of misinformation, conflict, and enabling genocide and the greatest increase in adolescent mental health problems and depression in recorded history. The people working for the company might have the best intentions, but when the ultimate goal is to extract as much value from the users of the platform as possible and monetize it, by way of technology which upends long establish social and economic mechanisms, you are playing with fire and anyone with a little but of judgement can see that the end result is going to be disaster for everyone but the investors. Seriously, I don't care if you think you are a good person -- you helped destroy an established industry by subsidizing with loss-leading fares and payouts and created a culture of contract work which has workers grinding all the time with absolutely no network of support to rely on. On top of this the business model of 'not our fault, you are dealing with a 3rd party' platformization which washes its hands of any fault or support is currently wreaking havoc right now.
- myhrvold 4y ago
  Nah the taxi industry was a lot worse than Uber. Most of the arguments over whether Uber drivers are employers to me are baffling; most taxi drivers took set, long hourly shifts from the medallion owners -- a much greater hallmark of an employee/employer relationship -- and were mafia backed and run quite crookedly. Many taxi drivers to this day have much worse working conditions and pay rates. On the rider side, many people of color, especially Black, were not able to get taxi rides because they drove right by them. Look this up if you don't believe me -- there are innumerable examples of documentations of this, and this basically was altogether eliminated with Uber rides. Uber was a game changer and a great equalizer for a great many people in society who didn't own their own cars (i.e. visitors, but also people who lived in major cities.) In fact many taxi drivers became Uber drivers and have made a much better living this way. Of course, there are also many more Uber drivers than at the start... and so it is kind of a race to the bottom with respect to an equilibrium achieved where it's now just an OK job instead of the $30+/hr like in the early days for uberX drivers...
- lhorie 4y ago
  > you helped destroy an established industry The latest news on this is literally the opposite (Uber integrating w/ various taxi companies as their lead generation and dispatch provider) FWIW, I've talked with a number of drivers over the years, and there's people using Uber as a flex source of income while some other pursuit hasn't gotten off the ground yet, people using it to supplement FTE income from elsewhere, people that made bank post pandemic, people doing it to be active in retirement, people who complain about platform issues, people that give it praise, and everything in between. I think if one is going to be outraged on behalf of drivers, it behooves them to try to understand how diverse the driver population is in the first place. On a similar note, I think people often get hung up on some pet notion but fail to realize there's a lot of stuff going on that makes it hard to keep tally in an ethical bean counter. For example, there's efforts to support Ukraine[0], there's one about increasing women's workforce participation via government-subsided commutes in the middle east, there's the electric vehicle incentives, etc. Do these offset some ideological notion of how the transportation industry ought to work? I don't know, but I think only looking at the ideology side isn't going to tell the whole story of what's happening on the ground. [0] https://www.uber.com/newsroom/support-for-ukraine-2022/ https://www.uber.com/newsroom/support-for-ukraine-2022/
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    To be clear, I am not fond of the taxi industry. My point was that destroying things and replacing them with a subsidized temporary solution with no plan for what to do when the money runs out is irresponsible and the people who run these companies clearly don't care.
    - lhorie 4y ago
      I mean, the latest earnings guidance was saying Uber was expecting to be GAAP profitable on an operating basis by the end of year (it already was profitable on an EBITDA basis for a while, and it was technically GAAP profitable on an overall basis in Q1 due to some equity appreciation). It's currently rolling out ads, which is known in the tech industry to be a high margin source of revenue, and if you google Uber in the news these days you'll see a plethora of other things coming to fruition that would simply never have happened under the taxi oligarchy. I think latching on to the talking points from 8 years ago is not doing enough justice to how much Uber changed since then.
- blindriver 4y ago
  > I hate to say it but intentions mean fuck all when the results are bad First off, your opinions are completely meaningless to me. > you helped destroy an established industry LOL my other comment rings so true about how HN loves to bend over backwards to defend the taxi monopoly. 1) Taxi drivers were not employees they were independent contractors. 2) Taxi drivers had to pay for gas, rent the taxi, and clean the taxi at the end of their shift 3) Every shift they had to pay for the use of the car/medallion and they started the shift OWNING money. Once they earned enough to pay for the fees, they earned everything after that. If they had to end their shift early due to illness or family emergency, they LOST money for the day. This is the "established industry" that you are protecting? I'm happy to be a part of dismantling this immoral monopoly that abused their workers. Uber drivers can turn on and off their apps whenever they want, they can work at Uber and Lyft at the same time, they can withdraw their earnings at the end of the shift, etc. They can stop working whenever they want and they can start working whenever they want. My time at Uber something I'm deeply proud of.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Eisenstein 4y ago
    You obviously care about my opinions or you wouldn't be upset and defensive and accusatory. I would ask you to point out in my response where I am protecting anything. I am decrying the destruction of things by underhanded means (subsidizing to make costs artificially low and payments to workers high) which is irresponsible and completely indicative of a business model that has no concern for externalities or contingencies for failure. 'Oh the business didn't work' is a terrible line when in the process of failing you destroyed an entire working system, even if that system did suck in a lot of ways. It is great that you are proud of your work, but I hope that in your current and future endeavors you may be able to use your talents for something a bit better.
    - blindriver 4y ago
      > You obviously care about my opinions or you wouldn't be upset and defensive and accusatory. Nah, I really don't. I enjoy having discussions where I educate people. It wasn't underhanded, not in the least bit. Defending the status quo monopoly that exploits its workers is really strange. Destroying entrenched rent-seeking monopolies is doing the world a great service. Uber has been a public company since 2019. The fact that it's a viable business is beyond question at this point.
KyeRussell 4y ago
Oh please. In that case, it sounds like you were a bunch of naive idealistic tech kids that bought the lie. SV is very justifiably seen as a group of naive overconfident kids taking on the world and making a mess of it all, just as much as it is very justifiably seen as a group of ancap money men using computers to concentrate wealth and power. If you want to “believe in a mission”, there are plenty of ethical jobs out there. It’s just a shame that so many smart people on this website are hooked on the high-TC go-go startup lifestyle.

Eisenstein 4y ago

I hate to say it but intentions mean fuck all when the results are bad. People working at Facebook in the early 10s thought they were bringing people together and fostering openness in communication and helping the world, and instead we got a toxic hotbed of misinformation, conflict, and enabling genocide and the greatest increase in adolescent mental health problems and depression in recorded history. The people working for the company might have the best intentions, but when the ultimate goal is to extract as much value from the users of the platform as possible and monetize it, by way of technology which upends long establish social and economic mechanisms, you are playing with fire and anyone with a little but of judgement can see that the end result is going to be disaster for everyone but the investors. Seriously, I don't care if you think you are a good person -- you helped destroy an established industry by subsidizing with loss-leading fares and payouts and created a culture of contract work which has workers grinding all the time with absolutely no network of support to rely on. On top of this the business model of 'not our fault, you are dealing with a 3rd party' platformization which washes its hands of any fault or support is currently wreaking havoc right now.

myhrvold 4y ago
Nah the taxi industry was a lot worse than Uber. Most of the arguments over whether Uber drivers are employers to me are baffling; most taxi drivers took set, long hourly shifts from the medallion owners -- a much greater hallmark of an employee/employer relationship -- and were mafia backed and run quite crookedly. Many taxi drivers to this day have much worse working conditions and pay rates. On the rider side, many people of color, especially Black, were not able to get taxi rides because they drove right by them. Look this up if you don't believe me -- there are innumerable examples of documentations of this, and this basically was altogether eliminated with Uber rides. Uber was a game changer and a great equalizer for a great many people in society who didn't own their own cars (i.e. visitors, but also people who lived in major cities.) In fact many taxi drivers became Uber drivers and have made a much better living this way. Of course, there are also many more Uber drivers than at the start... and so it is kind of a race to the bottom with respect to an equilibrium achieved where it's now just an OK job instead of the $30+/hr like in the early days for uberX drivers...
lhorie 4y ago
> you helped destroy an established industry The latest news on this is literally the opposite (Uber integrating w/ various taxi companies as their lead generation and dispatch provider) FWIW, I've talked with a number of drivers over the years, and there's people using Uber as a flex source of income while some other pursuit hasn't gotten off the ground yet, people using it to supplement FTE income from elsewhere, people that made bank post pandemic, people doing it to be active in retirement, people who complain about platform issues, people that give it praise, and everything in between. I think if one is going to be outraged on behalf of drivers, it behooves them to try to understand how diverse the driver population is in the first place. On a similar note, I think people often get hung up on some pet notion but fail to realize there's a lot of stuff going on that makes it hard to keep tally in an ethical bean counter. For example, there's efforts to support Ukraine[0], there's one about increasing women's workforce participation via government-subsided commutes in the middle east, there's the electric vehicle incentives, etc. Do these offset some ideological notion of how the transportation industry ought to work? I don't know, but I think only looking at the ideology side isn't going to tell the whole story of what's happening on the ground. [0] https://www.uber.com/newsroom/support-for-ukraine-2022/ https://www.uber.com/newsroom/support-for-ukraine-2022/
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  To be clear, I am not fond of the taxi industry. My point was that destroying things and replacing them with a subsidized temporary solution with no plan for what to do when the money runs out is irresponsible and the people who run these companies clearly don't care.
  - lhorie 4y ago
    I mean, the latest earnings guidance was saying Uber was expecting to be GAAP profitable on an operating basis by the end of year (it already was profitable on an EBITDA basis for a while, and it was technically GAAP profitable on an overall basis in Q1 due to some equity appreciation). It's currently rolling out ads, which is known in the tech industry to be a high margin source of revenue, and if you google Uber in the news these days you'll see a plethora of other things coming to fruition that would simply never have happened under the taxi oligarchy. I think latching on to the talking points from 8 years ago is not doing enough justice to how much Uber changed since then.
blindriver 4y ago
> I hate to say it but intentions mean fuck all when the results are bad First off, your opinions are completely meaningless to me. > you helped destroy an established industry LOL my other comment rings so true about how HN loves to bend over backwards to defend the taxi monopoly. 1) Taxi drivers were not employees they were independent contractors. 2) Taxi drivers had to pay for gas, rent the taxi, and clean the taxi at the end of their shift 3) Every shift they had to pay for the use of the car/medallion and they started the shift OWNING money. Once they earned enough to pay for the fees, they earned everything after that. If they had to end their shift early due to illness or family emergency, they LOST money for the day. This is the "established industry" that you are protecting? I'm happy to be a part of dismantling this immoral monopoly that abused their workers. Uber drivers can turn on and off their apps whenever they want, they can work at Uber and Lyft at the same time, they can withdraw their earnings at the end of the shift, etc. They can stop working whenever they want and they can start working whenever they want. My time at Uber something I'm deeply proud of.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Eisenstein 4y ago
  You obviously care about my opinions or you wouldn't be upset and defensive and accusatory. I would ask you to point out in my response where I am protecting anything. I am decrying the destruction of things by underhanded means (subsidizing to make costs artificially low and payments to workers high) which is irresponsible and completely indicative of a business model that has no concern for externalities or contingencies for failure. 'Oh the business didn't work' is a terrible line when in the process of failing you destroyed an entire working system, even if that system did suck in a lot of ways. It is great that you are proud of your work, but I hope that in your current and future endeavors you may be able to use your talents for something a bit better.
  - blindriver 4y ago
    > You obviously care about my opinions or you wouldn't be upset and defensive and accusatory. Nah, I really don't. I enjoy having discussions where I educate people. It wasn't underhanded, not in the least bit. Defending the status quo monopoly that exploits its workers is really strange. Destroying entrenched rent-seeking monopolies is doing the world a great service. Uber has been a public company since 2019. The fact that it's a viable business is beyond question at this point.

KyeRussell 4y ago

Oh please. In that case, it sounds like you were a bunch of naive idealistic tech kids that bought the lie. SV is very justifiably seen as a group of naive overconfident kids taking on the world and making a mess of it all, just as much as it is very justifiably seen as a group of ancap money men using computers to concentrate wealth and power. If you want to “believe in a mission”, there are plenty of ethical jobs out there. It’s just a shame that so many smart people on this website are hooked on the high-TC go-go startup lifestyle.