Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

But I think it is important to recognize both the bad and the good stuff that happened.

> powerfully entrenched politicians (DeBlasio of NYC as an example)

DeBlasio is entrenched because he was elected by a majority of his constituents. The people get to write the rules, called laws. Who voted for Kalanick? What gave him the right?

1. Operate in legal grey areas to get a product infront of consumers. Build a large enough network of riders and drivers to prove the product market fit.

2. By the time, politicians and the connected taxi cartels realize the magnitude of the change and seek to outlaw it, rally their own voters to back Uber.

3. Under pressure, have politicians clear the path for legalization. This has played out in more cities than I can remember.

Step #1 before #2 is what made TK and Uber different. The level of ruthlessness it requires, I’d have a hard time substituting others in his position.

Murdering people and stealing land turned out great for the murderer's ancestors so it's all ok? Not from the point of view of those who were murdered.

Using that logic - if space aliens came and murdered all the technologically inferior humans and took Earth for themselves, it would be all ok. After all, they are building a more technologically advanced and superior society on Earth for their children.

Wait what? What did he take the blame for exactly? Were the sexist comment making, the berating of his own Uber driver, or Greyball things that were necessary for ride sharing to become successful? I think most people are quite capable of being able to separate ride sharing the technology from a ride sharing technology company's CEO. Ill feelings for the latter do not imply ill feelings for the former.

>"We all sit comfortably in the Bay Area because our ancestors murdered and stole lands from Native Americans."

"We all?" Wow. You live in quite a bubble if you really believe that everyone who reads HN lives in the Bay Area or is an American. Or has ancestors that killed native Americans. What an incredibly outrageous statement and comparison. Speak for yourself.

Subways and buses usually have schedules that don't always line up with when you happen to need it. Also, there is a mental tax in having to navigate it.

For instance, I really have a hard time reading subway/train maps and schedules, and God forbid I need to connect to a different line during the route.

Sure, plenty of people are totally comfortable navigating it, but you could make the same case to advocate the Imperial system over metric.

In those cases, Uber and the like not only provide an option that is cheaper than traditional taxis, but also a way to travel that doesn't involve wasting hours because you're visiting somewhere and ended up taking the wrong train.

I like the idea of public transport, but even the best ones are not necessarily the best option in every context.

That sort of costs money, hence taxes. Which no one can agree upon, as everyone has their own list of what's important for them.

>>Why does someone have to profit for something that you agree is a “pain?”

Because people have to get paid, infrastructure and operations have to be expanded and world needs to run.

If You think Taxi's are a mafia, the public transport (bus) system in Mexico is ten times as dirty and corrupt. It is a real shame.

All he's saying is that he brought about the concept of ride sharing (debatable since there was, for instance, Sidecar before the advent of UberX) to the public and that he understands the pain of being ousted by your own company.

Had you posted other uncivil comments I'd ban you, but since you haven't, we'll treat it as an isolated lapse. Please don't do it again though. If you can't remain scrupulously respectful of the person you're replying to, please don't post.

If you'd read the HN guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site to heart, we'd appreciate it. That spirit is intellectual curiosity: considering things for the pleasure of considering them. That doesn't fit with flamewars and is incompatible with personal attack.

Anyway, it's not hard to imagine that Travis, despite being aware of how his actions resulted in consequences, may feel hurt, and maybe even remorseful.

It would be a mistake to believe that people who act poorly all lack empathy.

”Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done” - Bryan Stevenson

Edit: I should have used the word valuable instead of impactful. I’m leaving it in because the Uber critics responding below have all jumped on my use of the term, and those replies would no longer make sense if I change it. That said, I do believe Uber has been a very impactful company and will continue to be.

Knowing you messed up doesn't necessarily make it any less painful.

All this fake fighting for control over company. He certainly had me fooled.

In reality, I'm at a loss as to why anyone would join Uber right now. They cannot be still attracting the best talent, especially in the autonomous vehicle space. And I've seen no evidence that the current ride sharing business is defensible, particularly once you account for the equity infusions that subsidize that business.

Jobs wasn't fired for serially violating the law, risking his company's survival, damaging its reputation (EDIT: and mistreating everyone from female employees to rape victims).

I haven't stopped using them. But then, I buy Apple products manufactured with suicidal slave labor, use fossil fuels in my car, eat meat, etc. I suspect you probably do plenty of things that are someone else's pet issue too. WRT Uber I have some minimal faith left in "the system" that whatever legal issues need to be taken care of will. In the meantime, I will continue to use products and services that provide a good value in my life.

However, that gray area wasn't the equivalent of dumping toxic waste into a river to build some product. The gray area was around how taxis were regulated in markets.

As a frequent Uber/Lyft/Taxi user in NYC I can say that the experience for the consumer has been fantastic. I never want to use a taxi again for many reasons.

1. There's very little recourse for lost items 2. You can't get one on-demand (now you can with apps but not before) 3. There's no recourse for having a bad driver or ensuring a good pleasant ride

So while it operated in the gray it was around archaic laws, it wasn't like it was destroying the environment.

Does Musk deserve his coin? What about Gates? The Koch brothers? Mostly other people have done the work for them.

I think he realizes he’s not going back and what’s the difference between 1.4 or 3B really? Especially given he’ll still have 71% retained.

I'll leave it up to you to conclude whether or not trading $0.60 for a $1 can last forever.

Uber made total sense in big cities when minimums were $15, the average ride was $40+, and all cars were staffed by professional drivers looking for extra income and hours between clients. It was win-win, complied with the law and really didn’t even have that big of an impact on the taxi industry because it wasn’t a race to the bottom.

None of these services make any sense with $7 rides and random people with a drivers license trying to make a living off of driving all day long.

Who throws the best parties is just a small piece, an effect rather than the cause. Its who hangs out with the best sororities, who has the most power on campus, who's the biggest, who wins the most sports (which really is a meathead metric IMO)

But its not all pompous crap, they also compete for the best grades and the most successful alumni.

Fraternities are very elitist which is both good and bad, they try to find the best members, the most powerful attractive and smart guys on campus. If you have nothing to offer you probably won't be allowed in. What's offerable is anything that would help the fraternity reputation or finances.

It's all pointless if you think about it too much, but that competition drove a ton of benefits to the school. IFC (Interfraternity counsil) ran most of the school events. Our attendance at official school functions like football games or president speeches was about 30% of attendees, even though 'greek life' was only 4% of the student population.

Over 50% of alumni endowment/donation money was from sorority/fraternity members even though they made up a single digits percentage of graduates since the 60s.

I don't understand why Greek life is attacked so judiciously on HN when it's clearly a net positive to schools and the students that join. Of course it's not for everyone but that's not a reason to vilify it.

The basic concept is to throw 40 twenty year old college guys (hopefully well chosen) into a 10000 sq ft house worth a mil, and they sink or swim.

You learn a ton. Keeping it afloat is a huge challenge, and the competition with other houses demands constant attention and good decision making.

I was president about two years after joining as a random guy in undergrad, and suddenly in charge of 300,000 a year budget. Our alumni pledges plus assets were almost a million and that's normal. Keep in mind I was just a guy elected by 23 of my 40 peers voting for me.

It was one of the best learning experiences in my life. If you know of something equivalent that's accessible for a random guy in college and not in the Greek system it would surprise me.

The activity fee thing is true too. Many universities have a student government of sorts, and some of them allow the student government to decide what happens with a significant amount of the school's budget. At my school it was 5% ish. At the school with 20k students that's a ton of money for 40 elected students to slosh around.

The Greek system would commonly ally as voting blocks to make sure their candidates were elected, so student government is frequently run by Greeks.

Watching other houses parties was really important too. You need to see how far other houses go in breaking the inevitably unenforcable rules for parties. If you stray from the pack the school will shut you down. Finding out how many people went to social events at other houses was probably the most accurate gauge of a house popularity and reputation.

I came from a school with a very competitive Greek system, so I'm sure a lot of this doesn't apply everywhere