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Comment by jessriedel | Hacker News Reader

Uber could have built some new buildings for the university and paid for new student scholarships too. But they didn't because they are a business, not a philanthropic foundation.

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Google is a business as well, but seems to operate with a much lower "tool" factor than Uber somehow.

EDIT: Being innovative doesn't mean "at all costs".

Hiring smart people is now considered a 'tool' move?

In case you're genuinely unaware of the various criticisms of Uber: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_%28company%29#Criticism_an...

No, I'm referring to the other issues in the wikipedia page posted by ceejayoz.

Two examples:

When I see news about Tesla, I have a positive reaction. They constantly release new technologies, open sourced their patents, and so on.

When I see a news piece about Uber, I think, "What'd they fuck up this time?".

News pieces about how Uber was attempting to encrypt/destroy data remotely in their Canadian office while a law enforcement raid was in progress......does not help their case.

Luckily in this case all of that has nothing to do with hiring smart people to try and improve their product.

I expressed similar confusion in the last discussion of this, and a poster tried to make the case that Uber could have done this in a more responsible way, that preserved the private benefit but didn't destroy institutional seed corn in the process. I don't endorse it, but it's the best case I've seen against this move.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9606773

However, other comments suggest that the lab wasn't true academia anyway, but an applications-only wing that is non-profit in name only.

I don't think any money paid to NREC would end up in any academic program at CMU. NREC is owned by CMU, but is operated completely independently.

If they are operated completely independently, then why conflation with CMU/academics when churning sympathy? The fact is, NREC and Uber are both businesses.

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