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.

Comments

Re:Failure is always an option

[silentcoder]

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.

Re:Failure is always an option

[mrvan]

>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.
(2) 60MPH in San Francisco is going to get you some pretty bad fines most of the time :). 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.

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...