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Comment by setgree | Hacker News Reader

It's gauche to say it on the day a bunch of people lost their jobs (and there's no need for the schadenfraude) but I think the underlying point is sane. Uber's business model is replacing FTEs in a a hidebound, regulated industry with gig workers (& good UX!).

If you were forecasting how this company in particular would deal with a downturn, it's a reasonable guess that they'll try to do the same thing to their own workforce, if they can find engineers willing to take on gig work. It's in their DNA.

To be charitable, the grandfather comment is a warning to think about the broader effects of the work we do, driven home by the possibility of a "what goes around comes around" situation.

EDIT: as many have pointed out, taxi drivers don't get benefits either (I originally said one of the margins Uber competes on is not providing benefits).

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The reason why software companies don't generally hire contract software developers rather than bringing them on as FTEs is that they're less effective. Software development is a high-communication, high-trust activity; it's very helpful to be able to explicitly direct and manage the activities of your workforce, because otherwise they don't produce anything useful. For specific tasks that don't need to be high-trust and high-communication (eg. writing an iOS app for a non-critical part of the business that uses a public API), companies are already inclined to hire contractors.

The bigger risk with getting a job at Uber is "will they be in business in 2 years?" Tech company success tends to be binary: either you're growing and on top of the world, or you'll be out of business in a couple years. Just ask DEC, Symbolics, SGI, Sun, Yahoo, AOL, Netscape, etc.

"You're either a one or a zero. Alive or dead." Gary Winston from AntiTrust

Exactly, Uber's business model only applies to (highly) fungible labour markets. As past experience shows, you (usually) can't swap out 10 devs here with 10 devs there and expect similar results (although who knows in the future)

I think the even bigger risk with getting a job at Uber will be that some of the future employers may not be willing to consider you due to sketchy reputation Uber has as a company.

This is something I see employees worry about all the time, but I have never seen a business owner or person with hiring authority consider it. People who get to that position within a company learn to inhabit shades of grey; unless you personally did something illegal, they're not going to hold the company you worked for against you, except to the extent that they may think that people working at that company are incompetent.

I see ex-Facebook and ex-Uber employees popping up all the time at high positions within hot (and sometimes even ethical) growth companies within the valley.

Not a thing I’ve ever considered on a hiring front unless you’re famous as a sexual harasser or for pulling a Damore. Literally never heard of anyone doing this either.

>The reason why software companies don't generally hire contract software developers

Have you ever been inside a FAANG? Sometimes it feels like red badges outnumber FTE 2:1 so I have no idea what you're talking about.

Worked for Google for 5 years. Red badges were largely confined to QA testers, physical security, and the kitchen, along with a few UI designers or engineers that didn't want to be employees because they liked the freedom that being a contractor allowed (eg. being able to work for someone else on the side). Basically everyone I interacted with on a daily basis was a FTE. Product area could have something to do with it: I was on a core product (Search), it's possible red badges are more common in peripheral products.

Your comment downplays the number of contractors at Google as if they are rare, but in reality, Google employs ~100k FTEs and ~120k contractors. It's definitely more than just QA testers and kitchen staff.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/technology/google-temp-wo...

You may really have just been on a team that doesn't interact often with contractors, but the reality for the broader company is that contracting is a way of life for much more than just Uber.

My understanding is that a lot of those are jobs like street view driver, autonomous vehicle tester, search quality rater, contract recruiter, content moderator, con-ops (help forums & customer support), etc. That's a big portion of the company but not a big portion of core engineering teams. I'd acknowledged the existence of them in my original comment, but this article is specifically about layoffs of software engineers within Uber's core products. I maintain that someone in that position is far more likely to come in contact with other FTEs than with contractors.

I'm not sure about Google, but I know that many companies segregate contractors into other buildings. At one of my previous employers pretty much everyone I interacted with was a full time employee as well, but that was only because contractors largely did not have badge access to the office and worked somewhere else.

> either you're growing and on top of the world, or you'll be out of business in a couple years. Just ask DEC, Symbolics, SGI, Sun, Yahoo, AOL, Netscape, etc.

I think rather than looking at those names we might ask ourselves about the ones that managed to survive: Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, as an example

Sure, we might argue that they have not always been the most ethical companies out there, but it doesn't mean they haven't had to reinvent themselves here and there

How come Oracle and IBM got more money from Java than Sun? Windows is now "free" but MS continues to make money.

Those companies that went away seems to be mostly good examples of the Inventor's dilema. Especially SGI.

> The bigger risk with getting a job at Uber is "will they be in business in 2 years?"

what's median job duration for a software engineer in startup-land anyway? I'd be surprised if it was much over 2 years...

I'd think that if your famous company goes under, folks won't generally hold that against you. Heck, I'd think people who watched it all fall apart would would have the most interesting stories (and valuable lessons about mistakes to avoid).

I don't think this is accurate. I've worked several contracts in my life, often working alongside the company's FTE developers. In every situation, we were fully integrated into the team, with the same level of access, etc. We fully participating in meetings and planning. The contracts were several months. (one as long as 18 months; it only was cut short due to 9/11) I will admit these weren't strictly software companies, and in every one of these roles, I was a w2 employee of a staffing company, not a 1099. However, I was at least as effective as their regular team members; probably more so because I could be released far more easily.

You seem to not know how taxi companies work. They are independent contractors except they are even more at a disadvantage. They need to pay money upfront for their shift and spend half their time earning that money back before they even make money. And they have no benefits.

> Uber's business model is replacing FTEs

Where are taxi drivers employees with benefits? At least in New York, they're mostly independent contractors. (A minority are sole proprietors.)

Look more at car service companies (Uber's original service), not taxis.

Why? For the vast majority of people, Uber is a taxi service.

The reason is that car service drivers are also being replaced and they are more likely to have been FTEs.

Great, I think you came up with the simplest solution: Uber should make whatever single digit percentage of total drivers that comprise their Uber Black drivers FTEs.

This might be a good selling point for the higher levels of Uber service: You're getting a full-time, professional driver who's been thoroughly vetted. It's not just some random person with an app.

I think for the vast VAST majority of riders, the "random person with an app" is good enough. In the age of turn-by-turn directions, rides are commoditized. A hundred crimes per year divided by billions of trips per year represents decimal point percentage crime rate — which is a risk not all that different from aircraft crash statistics, or even car crash statistics.

I know I definitely prefer to save tens of dollars per ride vs the services provided by some platonic ideal of a "professional driver".

NL.

Check where they unionized more?

New York is probably one of the most union heavy places in America. Checking where they are unionized more isn't an accurate reflection of the rest of the world.

> one of the margins on which they can undercut competition is not paying benefits

You think minicab firms paid benefits before Uber?

A large portion of taxi drivers are independent contractors.

and they dont' pay % of their revenue to the 'base station entity'.

This Uber trick: taking % of the revenue for the fixed cost service (they provide to the taxis drivers ) is the master trick making uber money.

So far, in Europe, all taxi corporations charge taxi driver FIXED (quite small 100..200 usd/month) amount for operating telco/web/radio and coordinating fleet of taxis.

Uber's ability to push bulshine here is really business milking 101 course: Fixed costs, uncaped incomes.

> and they dont' pay % of their revenue to the 'base station entity'.

Unless they own their own medallion, they pay "medallion rent". They'll also pay dispatch fees. Many taxi drivers switched over to being Uber drivers because they could earn (and keep) more money, not less.

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