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From the Bloomberg article - > In 2012, Uber Black cost riders $4.90 per mile or $1.25 per minute in San Francisco, according to an old version of Uber's website. Today, Uber charges $3.75 per mile and $0.65 per minute.

The least a CEO could have said is to thank the driver for his feedback and promise to look into it.

Just because you're disrespectful doesn't mean the CEO of a consumer facing company can treat its partners like that.

I spent the last half hour thinking about this on and off, trying to shift my perspective. I feel sort of guilty. Advocating for objectivity and dispassionate truthseeking is the second easiest way to curry favor on HN, and it feels cheap. (The easiest is still outrage, never to be topped anywhere :))

If anything, I find it sort of funny that Travis got mad. He handled it pretty well at first; they were just having an honest disagreement. Then it was like he just decided, "fuck it, I've had a bad day, and I don't need to take this guy's shit." He might meditate on the fact that this guy spends his evenings being the reason that Uber's business model works.

The whole thing reminds me of when Tommy Carcetti becoming mayor scene from the Wire. The old outgoing mayor is giving him some advice and he basically explains that when you're mayor you have to smile and eat shit from everybody- the unions, the lobbyists, the press, the teachers, the churches... and smile and act gracious while you're doing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjzqO6UOPFQ

Travis should have just smiled and eaten this guys shit, because that's just part of being CEO. "Thank you for your feedback, we'll look into it. Keep up the good work and thanks for the ride!"

Even then, at some point, you're off stage so to speak when it comes to managing that "impression" for others. You can't always be fake all the time, it gets draining.

Eh, I think that just means the role of the CEO is not one you're cut out for. I know people who spend their entire workday and their entire work-related interactions outside of the workday being fake, because that's what they need to do to succeed at their job. They come out of it completely exhausted, and they have friends they can recharge with, privately. But if they get an urgent email or IM on the weekend, it's back to being fake. And they're not even CEO-level.

It's a job skill. The job of CEO requires a lot of skills, almost none of which are the ability to come up with and execute on a great initial idea.

But of all places, the CEO of Uber should be considered "on stage" in an Uber.

>Advocating for objectivity and dispassionate truthseeking is the second easiest way to curry favor on HN, and it feels cheap. (The easiest is still outrage, never to be topped anywhere :))

Observational humor has to be #3.

I think it's great that you can both feel a bit of guilt about your position (it's totally understandable; I wouldn't get carried away with guilt...) and also find humor in it.

> And saying that some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit is, well, true?

It's true, but also I think it's also a massive amount of impromptu projection on the part of Travis!

Does it work? You know, without subsidies and with competition?

> The least a CEO could have said is to thank the driver for his feedback and promise to look into it.

saying "thank you, I'll look into it" is politics. I think many appreciate honesty more. In this case that honesty costs.

It's not politics if he actually looks into it. There is no shame going back to find out more when you don't have all the facts at the moment.

What is there to "actually look into"? The driver added exactly 0 new information to Travis' view on the business. His entire job is basically a constant process of "looking into" this question. Acting as if the driver's complaint was some revelation that exposes some previously-unconsidered drawback of Uber's strategy would have been pure political ass-kissing of the type that HN usually detests.

Direct feedback is a data point. "Thanks for your feedback, I'll think on that" would be better than "I'll look into it". As you say, there's nothing to look into, but considering the impact policies have on staff is useful.

CEOs of multinational companies with tens of thousands of employees (or contractors - whatever) are politicians, I think.

Is there any evidence provided that the per-mile amount paid to drivers of Uber Black cars has gone down? I saw the article mention that the price to customers has gone down from $4.90 to $3.75, but is there any evidence of this actually flowing through to the drivers? Just a thought.

Actually, this is a good point.

Uber subsidizes fares ~20% or so currently. Assuming they didn't used to do this, the payout to drivers seems like it would be about the same:

3.75 / 0.8 => 4.6875 (vs $4.90 originally)

The per-minute fees are still quite a bit lower, admittedly:

0.65 / 0.8 => 0.8125 (vs $1.25 originally)

And even then, there's 0 indication or evidence that there's any link between the price paid to drivers and the price paid by riders. For all we know Black car drivers could be receiving more right now than they were when Uber came out, but from what I've seen there's no evidence anywhere in any of these articles about what the historical and current driver rates are?

Not taking sides (and I'm more of a Lyft guy than an Uber fanboy), but there's really no way to work out whether this whole argument is valid without more information.

There's also the move where Uber Black drivers are forced to take Uber X fares. Refusing pickups has consequences after a certain number. In that case, the driver is certainly being paid less.

https://pando.com/2014/09/04/uber-continues-to-screw-its-par...

I think it's a valid complaint. He invested in the car based on a business model that changed underneath him. Uber may not be legally liable for that, and may have had valid reasons, but it still sucks. I would want to vent as well.

Oh for sure - I don't doubt the guy is upset, and clearly something caused that, there just seemed to be some kind of consensus that the actual driver receipts per mile/per minute on Uber Black had gone down given the numbers in the Bloomberg article which seemed to be drawing conclusions.

If the guy had yelled "You are making me accept Uber X fares which is making me make less money" then it would be easy to see where he's coming from if TK pushed back on that - anyways, it's just a technicality but it seems that TK may have actually been correct if all the guy was upset about was the reduction in Uber Black time/distance fees to drivers.

It appears that the Uber fare cuts do directly affect what drivers are paid.

"Lower fares mean that drivers make less per ride. Uber said lower fares will attract more riders, which should increase the number of trips per hour. 'We care deeply about driver earnings,' Macdonald said. 'We actually find that a lot of drivers understand why we do this. They’ve been through price cuts before.'"[1]

So, they try to explain it away by saying the drivers will get more rides, but pretty clear that Uber concedes it's less money per ride.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-09/uber-drop...

No mention of Black in that article though?

No. Just Uber saying that the pattern of lowered fares means lowered payouts is something drivers are used to.

It's not because he's a billionaire, it's because he's the CEO of Uber talking to an Uber driver about Uber. Even if the guy isn't making particularly solid points or is being accusatory, it shouldn't be that hard to hold it together, be conciliatory, and avoid saying something nasty. This should be child's play for a CEO discussing/defending their company.

(That said, on the whole, I agree that it's being blown pretty out of proportion.)

The Fowler post is grounds for questioning Kalanick's leadership; this just shows that he's not in PR mode 24/7. Being kind-of-a-dick is tolerable, as long as you're good at your job. The bigger leadership issue is that he can't seem to maintain happy drivers (or employees.)

> Being kind-of-a-dick is tolerable, as long as you're good at your job

It's hard to believe someone would say this today. It seems you missed the whole point of the "but he's a high performer" excuse that Uber has (allegedly) been making when not addressing harassment and worse.

I think there's a difference in being "kind of a dick" and criminal discrimination and harassment.

Obviously the general statement "some people don't take responsibility" is in this context not a neutral general observation, but rather a personal implication of the driver.

It's called noblesse oblige.

He did clarify:

Fawzi: We started with $20.

I believe that being rich is more important than being a dispassionate truthseeker.