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Comment by AgloeDreams | Hacker News Reader

I mean resistance to his ideals and methods are based on his relative carelessness towards anything but his and the company's goals.

Incredible leader, amazing CEO with the raw ability to move mountains for the company's growth.

Remarkably bad at human and helping humankind.

If burning the Amazon rainforest helped Uber's goals he would have it torched in the most efficient and rapid method possible by morning light. Perfect CEO for the shareholders and maybe for keeping the lights on, not so much for the rest of us.

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> CEO with the raw ability to move mountains for the company's growth.

Perhaps to a fault. He seemed to be so singularly focused on increasing revenue that, when it became clear that people would line up around the block to buy crisp new dollar bills for $0.75 apiece, he didn't hesitate for a second.

... and it worked, he and Garret are each worth $10b.

> Remarkably bad at human and helping humankind.

I would say that the way how Uber aggressively expanded throughout the world has massively helped humankind. Because of Uber, many countries have changed their taxi laws, and many local competitors have sprouted up. More efficient taxi and ride-sharing services help save the environment and make cities nicer. Of course this is quite theoretical but I believe Uber was the needed company to push the mass transit development forward.

Was making more taxis on the road with more downtime and increasing congestion really an improvement in cities? A Recent study found that 50% of all cars in lower manhattan were rideshares. Is that really a better world? Ridesharing in cities has been absolutely proven to increase pollution rather than reduce while carpooling in rural areas helps reduce pollution. The problem with rideshares is that they are jobs based on time rather than efficiency. You drop someone off and then you are available to pick someone up, so you drive to them, drive them where they need to go and drive to the next person, the points between passengers are reductions in efficiency vs single cars and add to congestion in high congestion areas. In any case mass transit is much better in cities.

There is surplus value to the customer that you aren't accounting for. Mass transit is a far worse experience than Uber.

In most of the US, probably. It's not so clear cut in London. The tube is usually faster and more pleasant. (London's air quality is pretty bad, and many Uber drivers have an annoying habit of driving through heavy traffic with the windows open.)

Sure, but London has always had taxis, too, because sometimes they're the better tool. It's not like some people are taxi-takers and others are subway-takers. You use whatever's best at the time. When I lived in Boston I took the T every day -- but on some occasions, a taxi was the better choice.

I was responding to the claim that mass transit was "far worse" than Uber.

And the negative externalities of all those additional cars on the road are far worse than if you just have more people using the existing subway, too.

If you're going to do a full accounting of all the costs of all those additional cars on the road, and all that additional congestion, then rideshare doesn't come out looking so rosy.

Uber and Lyft are not necessarily efficient. This SF study claims increased pollution levels https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/5/eaau2670

(More empty cars cruising around)

more electric cars would help, but wouldn't decrease congestion

When most people talk about "Mass transit" I think they mean trains... subways... buses...

I hope!

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