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Two More Executives Are Leaving Uber, Drivers May Unionize (nytimes.com)
First the resignations. "The beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber," the company's former president told Recode on Sunday, announcing his resignation. "The departures add to the executive exodus from Uber this year," writes The New York Times. An anonymous reader quotes their report.
Brian McClendon, vice president of maps and business platform at Uber, also plans to leave at the end of the month... Raffi Krikorian, a well-regarded director in Uber's self-driving division, left the company last week, while Gary Marcus, who joined Uber in December after Uber acquired his company, left this month. Uber also asked for the resignation of Amit Singhal, a top engineer who failed to disclose a sexual harassment claim against him at his previous employer, Google, before joining Uber. And Ed Baker, another senior executive, left this month as well.
Jones left Uber after less than six months, though McClendon's departure is said to be more amicable. "Mr. McClendon, in a statement, said he was returning to his hometown, Lawrence, Kansas, after 30 years away. 'This fall's election and the current fiscal crisis in Kansas is driving me to more fully participate in our democracy -- and I want to do that in the place I call home."
In other news, the Teamsters labor union plans to start organizing Uber's drivers into a union, after a Washington judge rejected Uber's attempt to overturn a right-to-unionize ordinance passed by the city of Seattle.
Jones left Uber after less than six months, though McClendon's departure is said to be more amicable. "Mr. McClendon, in a statement, said he was returning to his hometown, Lawrence, Kansas, after 30 years away. 'This fall's election and the current fiscal crisis in Kansas is driving me to more fully participate in our democracy -- and I want to do that in the place I call home."
In other news, the Teamsters labor union plans to start organizing Uber's drivers into a union, after a Washington judge rejected Uber's attempt to overturn a right-to-unionize ordinance passed by the city of Seattle.
I for one am glad to see the wheels starting fall off this libertarian corporate experiment. It's heartening to see signs of failure in an institution whose core principals are deeply entrenched in base human behaviours such as bullying, hypocrisy and total indifference to adverse impacts to others (including it's own people).
And/or you just hoped for someone to pull a Tyler Durden and "destroy something beautiful".
Some people just cannot recognize or accept progress...
I worked as I traveling consultant for 10 years, 80 to 100 flight segments per year, in major cities across the US, with the accompanying cab/uber rides to go with them, and I can unequivocally say that taxi/limo service before Uber was terrible. It was caused by cities artificially limiting supply/bullshit regulation/catering to special interests, all of which Uber/Lyft/etc need to continue to kill, for the good of all.
Would you still make that argument if you had to pay the real cost of the Ubers you took? Probably around 3x what they charged you for every ride.
"It's hard to find much of a precedent for Uber's losses. Webvan and Kozmo.com—two now-defunct phantoms of the original dot-com boom—lost just over $1 billion combined in their short lifetimes. Amazon.com Inc. is famous for losing money while increasing its market value, but its biggest loss ever totaled $1.4 billion in 2000. Uber exceeded that number in 2015 and is on pace to do it again this year [2016]."
Bloomberg
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
>There are plenty of people who haven't figured out how much money they're going to end up spending on vehicle maintenance as a result of all that extra driving.
The IRS mileage rate is supposed to be an average cost for operating a vehicle. It is 53.5 cents per mile. Uber pays about twice that per mile in San Francisco. So if you can go at 60 MPH you'll be making about 30 bucks an hour, which is not bad for unskilled labor.
You're ignoring the massive subsidation being done by the hoodwinked drivers. In South Africa the average Uber driver makes about R1400 per week. It is physically impossible in South Africa for the amount of driving you have to do to make that - to fuel and maintain a vehicle for less than R2000 per week. That's assuming the car was bought for cash.
Their workers are actually operating at a loss. And the company is getting away with it because badly educated (often barely literate) drivers don't realize the maintenance costs - especially since those tend to come in the form of lump sum expenses months down the line.
I don't have numbers for other countries but the odds of it being different elsewhere are somewhere between zero and fuckall.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Mathematically you are incorrect.
Milton Friedman published a proof on this with price settings theory. Capitalism benefits everyone. It is a 2 way street a buyer and seller.
Economies serve those who want to make money and those who want to buy products and services. Labor it is those who want to earn money and those who need a service provided.
If you do not like this then go to North Korea or Cuba and see how they live compared to your country. As the money moves through the market faster the higher the wages of those who want to work and those who sell things both benefit. Everybody is greedy man. Of course businesses want to maximize their value. Of course YOU want to maximize your value and work less. Consumers want cheaper products and more of them. The balance is achieved based on scarcity.
http://saveie6.com/
>There are plenty of people who haven't figured out how much money they're going to end up spending on vehicle maintenance as a result of all that extra driving.
The IRS mileage rate is supposed to be an average cost for operating a vehicle. It is 53.5 cents per mile. Uber pays about twice that per mile in San Francisco. So if you can go at 60 MPH you'll be making about 30 bucks an hour, which is not bad for unskilled labor.
(1) You're assuming all miles and hours are 'billable', while in reality you would be driving empty towards a pickup and waiting for the next pickup. :). But even if you drive only on highways that allow those speeds, your average speed is going to be much lower, probably closer to 30MPH for realistic cases.
(2) 60MPH in San Francisco is going to get you some pretty bad fines most of the time
So, let's assume you spend every hour waiting for 10 minutes, driving 30MPH to the pickup for 10 minutes, and driving a customer at 30MPH for 40 minutes, your average hourly gross income is 20$ (40/60*30*1$) and your expenses are $13.375 (50/60*30*.535), giving you a real income of under 7$ per hour. Good luck finding a house and food for that in SF area...
Drivers are NOT staff. They are independent contractors. It says so right in their contract. I don't understand why this is so hard to grasp for some people.
The law is a bit more complicated than that. Writing "you are not an employee" on an employment contract does not mean that you are magically not an employee.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Uber has been working on driverless car technology for years in Pittsburgh. They simply kept it quiet until recently. Their self driving technology is pretty awesome. An engineer from Uber hooked me up with a ride on my birthday this year and it was a very pleasant ride.