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0 pointsbtown8y ago0 comments

Not to defend his actions, but to consider his possible mindset in doing them: His actions could be explained as pushing hard to build a defensive moat against a world allied against Uber as quickly as possible. If regardless of what you do you lose a bit of PR here and there, you get kicked out of cities here and there, and you have to pay a few hundred million in settlements here and there, you might as well throw caution to the winds so that you still have plenty of market share left when you lose those things, right? It would seem that's the Uber way. Of course, breaking laws and conventional morality to do so is a slippery slope, and he severely underestimated how much those extremes would splash back on him personally. I hope that other excessive CEOs treat this as a wake-up call - limits and laws are there for a reason.

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8 comments · 3 top-level

matt40778y ago· 3 in thread

What ultimately got him wasn't his "maverick rule-bending to compete against the establishment".

He created this bro-themed caricature of a corporate culture, and he did so for no reason other than enjoying that sort of atmosphere, or being incompetent to stop it. Or both.

Let's not start some sort of myth of martyrdom around Kalanick by conflating these two. Although, yes, this strategy of braking local regulations and expecting to win a power struggle with every government anywhere was also on its last leg when he left, and would've gotten to him as well, sooner or later.

monknomo8y ago

"maverick rule-bending to compete against the establishment" seems like a really complementary way to say "lawbreaking company".

I mean, their whole model was to go places, ignore the law and continue operating until they either got thrown out, or they pumped money to the right places to get the law changed.

Scofflaw corps get nailed sooner or later, and a corp the is built on breaking laws might break some laws investors care about...

fapjacks8y ago

Perhaps, but I've heard politicians on the national level talk about this as just business as usual. If the system creating the laws sees "move fast and break things (like laws)" as the norm, then we can scold and shame all we want, but it's not going to change things. Regulatory capture and law-breaking startups seems to be what's expected out of American business by the very people doing the legislation.

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cookiecaper8y ago

I haven't really paid close attention. Are we basing our assumption that Uber was a "bro-themed caricature of a corporate culture" off the sexual harassment claim that kicked off the uproar a few months back?

While sexual harassment is, of course, indefensible, that story didn't really make Uber sound like the frat house implied by "bro-themed caricatures", it just makes them sound dryly indifferent to the employee's complaint. Are there other events that gave Uber that title?

uhhhhhhh8y ago· 2 in thread

I would disagree with the order of events here. His actions and business practices directly led to 'a world allied against uber', and getting kicked out of cities. That wasn't incidental, it was a direct result of their choices and behavior. You can't use the results of his actions to explain his actions.

btownOP8y ago

The alternative would be licensing as a taxi company everywhere, which would invite the same political battles with entrenched operators (only with less leverage, since you'd be fighting the battles before you had the user base). So conflict is inevitable with this business model.

uhhhhhhh8y ago

Ubers legal battles were because they didn't license, and thus got kicked out of multiple cities by violating their requirements.

By working with licensed drivers/companies or licensing their drivers, they would have avoided much of that problem, admittedly that would add to their revenue vs profit/yearly loss issues they have now. Lyft is in a similar boat, trying to lower loss-per-ride and get to a profitable state. It appears based on media reports that Lyft, despite not sharing many of the conflicting business approaches Uber used, is actually ahead of Uber at working its way to profitability.

dozzie8y ago

> If regardless of what you do you lose a bit of PR here and there, you get kicked out of cities here and there, [...]

...which is because the company was built on ignoring laws and regulations to the detriment of both employees (not called employees by the company) and outsiders (competitors) from the very start, so no wonder that nobody is sympathetic to the company.

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