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Comment by _xhok | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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

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!

>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.

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