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Recently-reported rapes by traditional taxi drivers that haven't been on the front page of HN: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/12/11/cab-dri

• pekk 12y ago
  They don't involve a "startup" whose raison d'etre is to bypass regulation and break laws in order to achieve competitive advantage.
  • wyager 12y ago
    It's not like they're dumping toxic waste. I'm extremely grateful that Uber has the balls to break taxi laws, because taxi laws used to have a distinctly negative impact on my life (namely that I was forced to take taxis).
• lkrubner 12y ago
  This is entirely the fault of CEO Travis Kalanick who should be fired immediately. Once a narrative develops around a company (such as "Exxon hates the environment" or "GM makes dangerous cars") then the narrative takes on a life of its own, and it takes many years of hard work for a company to dispel that narrative from the mind of the public. For a young company like Uber to already develop a narrative like that suggests very bad public relations management on the part of the CEO of Uber. Kalanick allowed a great many separate threads (sexism in the workplace, in Kalanick's personal life, in the relationships of the drivers to the passengers, etc) to coalesce. This is from his interview with GQ magazine: "Not to make assumptions, but Kalanick probably wasn’t the first kid in his class to lose his virginity. But the way he talks now—which is large—he’s surely making up for lost time. When I tease him about his skyrocketing desirability, he deflects with a wisecrack about women on demand: “Yeah, we call that Boob-er.” " It's funny up until the moment that it isn't. Kalanick should go, and Uber should get a CEO who can credibly promise to take issues of safety seriously.
• deleted 12y ago
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