Hacker News Reader

Comment by dangxiaopin | Hacker News Reader

I am long on Uber: taxis are dead, it will not go anywhere. The only problem is that the board made a strategic mistake that felt good short term. They tried to retain users by pushing the founder out, and hiring a diversity CEO. This failed long term as any populist board move does. But they still have a chance to have their NeXT moment and bring Travis back.

View on HN

You are long on the new transportation model for taxi like rides but is Uber the right horse to bet on? I personally think not.

At the current share price, no, it's probably not. It's the weak version of WeWork. The company is wildly overvalued based on growth expectations it can't possibly meet after a history of investor-driven mania. But the business model is solid. Pervasive gig-sourced drivers across the world with a universal interface is absolutely what the market wants.

Uber the company may be in trouble, but Uber the brand will be driving people around for decades to come.

I still wouldn't buy them right now, though.

They don't need Travis. They need an adult in charge who will shed about 80% of their payroll. Managing a cloud-based mobile logistics service for taxis shouldn't require 22,000 people.

I think they have kinda giant customer service requirements. They must get a lot of complaints in a day.

For many purposes they seem to have automated/script-based customer service that requires little manpower.

I reported a bug in their app in a review I left on the Play Store. Uber responded saying to report it on their website instead. I did so, they told me it wasn't valid because I didn't include screenshots. (Even though there was a clear description of repro and expected/observed behaviour). After a few days I got around to sending them screenshots, and received an auto-reply that the issue had been closed and my reply rejected.

Yes, let's totally bring back the frat bros, that will solve most any business model problem.

I'm not oppossed to frat bro culture tout court. As long as employees aren't being harmed and productivity is high, then the choice to work at a place with just such a culture is like the decision to choose to work anywhere. Pretty standard stuff.

However, people can mistake a frat bro culture with actually high productivity (leaving aside questions of whether employees are harmed by the culture). Zenefits pre-Parkers-leave might be an example. Employees can't be getting drunk and having sex in stairwells during office hours and retain a high level of productivity.

The real problem is that Uber's lawbreaking and unethical behavior stems directly from the "bro culture".

That's a rather strong claim. What's the causal relationship here? All frat bro cultures necessarily create lawbreaking and unethical behavior?

From my perspective, that would be prima facie wrong. I've witnessed frat bro cultures that led to that and ones that haven't. Just like every other type of culture.

Maybe we aren't talking about the same thing.

The tech "bro culture" values being extremely aggressive, competitive, and ignoring norms of behavior. That sort of mindset leads directly to lawbreaking and unethical behavior.

Yeah, I think we might be talking about different things.

What I have in mind is a culture where personal boundaries are a bit relaxed, people are abnormally loud when communicating, etc. There is a sort of shallow resemblance to general sports culture.

Travis was removed for (among other reasons) being a rather massive legal liability.

They were too risk averse then (probably a consequence of the gigantic funding). Maybe the risk is lower now.

i'd probably stay away from investing tbh

I'll ignore whether or not it's morally sound to bring him back, since in the US putting reprehensible men in positions of leadership is par for the course these days. What moves would Travis make to attain profitability?

Remember that Steve Jobs helped Apple by killing a lot of products and simplifying their offerings. In the latest numbers release, rides were "profitable"; Uber Eats wasn't. I would agree that if Uber focused on the core product, and eliminated all the side projects, in the long run it would work best.

Uber is taxis without regulation, nothing more.

There are other apps comings, and there is regulation coming as well.

> taxis are dead

Not where I live. Where I live, taxis are beating the pants off of Uber and Lyft. This certainly isn't true everywhere, but it does show that taxis absolutely can compete with Uber and Lyft if they have their acts together.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com