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Comment by 659087 | Hacker News Reader

I question the sanity of anyone working at uber who isn't at least making preparations to abandon ship at this point.

I question the ethics of anyone choosing to work at Uber, period. It’s been blatantly obvious for at least two to three years that they are corrupt, not just “disruptive”. And that’s just based on the news we get in public; there were probably internal signs long earlier.

I speak as someone who once worked at a corrupt and unethical company (in Hollywood) and who got TF out of there within months, as soon as it became obvious internally.

Even five years ago, it was common knwoledge in the SF startup scene that Uber was run like a frat house. We used to laugh and hear about the Travis gang doing cocaine on his desk after work.

I know someone who worked with Travis at a previous company, not Uber, who has been saying for years that he was clearly a sociopath.

All it takes for a 22 year old to work for an unethical company, writing Linkedin style spamware, Facebook style ad tracking, etc., is around 120k combined compensation.

Why single out Uber, Google, Facebook and others appear to be neck deep in equally if not more shady activity. Infact most of SV is, Palantir come to mind and seem by media reports to be infinitely worse and a lot of this behavior has been normalized so many do not find it particularly objectionable.

The posturing about Uber is valid but the zeal seems a touch misplaced or this board would be full of similar opinions about others.

As an Uber employee, I respectfully disagree. I'd rather work on an improved and changed Uber than work on forcing ads and propaganda down people's throats.

You say that like those are the only options. They may unfortunately be the most common, but outside of the Silicon Valley brogrammer bubble there are companies working on real problems, and not just trying to expand corporate mass surveillance while patting themselves on the back for "changing the world".

If you have any desire to buy a house without a crushing commute in the bay area, FANGs are the only other alternative.

At this point, almost all the enablers of this culture -- up to the CEO -- have been wiped out of the company. Dara has no intentions of continuing any of this. Given this change, would you rather see me work on shoving ads down your throats or work at one of few companies in silicon valley that actually bridges the digital-real life gap and makes an impact enabling better transportation across the globe?

I assume you're forgetting the incident where Uber started following users around even when they weren't on a trip?

Also, take note of the fact that I said "outside of the Silicon Valley bubble". Believe it or not, there are other places on earth with companies that employ tech workers.

"If you have any desire to buy a house without a crushing commute in the bay area, FANGs are the only other alternative."

Meanwhile, ethical people either commute, don't buy house or work elsewhere. You are talking about it as if house in the most expensive city was some kind of entitlement or absolute need that absolves one of any ethical considerations. For that matter, neither does "I want fun work".

Meanwhile, thread about low paid workers being priced out of any living is full of people blaming them for pretty much everything.

I appreciate your sentiment, but many other people are wanting to know why there has not been significant punishment levied for the sins of the past.

If it helps, Uber is under several investigations for the sins of the past. To some extent, users voting with their dollars has also hurt Uber. Which brings to my last point that the most damaging aspect about all of this is that there is no reason for Uber to have acted like this. In the end we have built a service that’s helped countless people and the paranoia that Travis exhibited was completely misguided imo

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