SAN FRANCISCO — Uber has for years engaged in a worldwide program to deceive the authorities in markets where its low-cost ride-hailing service was being resisted by law enforcement or, in some instances, had been outright banned.
The program, involving a tool called Greyball, uses data collected from the Uber app and other techniques to identify and circumvent officials. Uber used these methods to evade the authorities in cities such as Boston, Paris and Las Vegas, and in countries like Australia, China, Italy and South Korea.
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Uber’s use of Greyball was recorded on video in late 2014, when Erich England, a code enforcement inspector in Portland, Ore., tried to hail an Uber car downtown as part of a sting operation against the company.
At the time, Uber had just started its ride-hailing service in Portland without seeking permission from the city, which later declared the service illegal. To build a case against the company, officers like Mr. England posed as riders, opening the Uber app to hail a car and watching as miniature vehicles on the screen made their way toward the potential fares.
But unknown to Mr. England and other authorities, some of the digital cars they saw in the app did not represent actual vehicles. And the Uber drivers they were able to hail also quickly canceled. That was because Uber had tagged Mr. England and his colleagues — essentially Greyballing them as city officials — based on data collected from the app and in other ways. The company then served up a fake version of the app populated with ghost cars, to evade capture.
(...)
In a statement, Uber said, “This program denies ride requests to users who are violating our terms of service — whether that’s people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret ‘stings’ meant to entrap drivers.”
lmao
2) that thing where they were targeting journalists for blackmail
3) strike breaking during trump immigration executive order
4) CEO yells at a worker who says the fares are too low and blames driver
5) systematically avoiding officials in order to use drivers in unsanctioned areas
6) sexual harassment scandal
7) saudi arabia is major shareholder
Uber has produced 18 episodes of a podcast warning drivers about the dangers of joining a union
i also highly recommend the 4 part series of uber posts on nakedcapitalism that someone posted on the rhizzone recently, which go into the economics of uber (its monopoly or bust for them).
I'm sorry. GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE ARE YOU KIDDING ME https://t.co/kgDJOsL4hM pic.twitter.com/Xi9lv1BpER
— Katie Drummond (@katiedrumm) June 7, 2017
For almost all the V.C.s, however, it’s about the money. After a wave of negative press seized Uber over the past few months, the company’s valuation fell by several billion dollars on the secondary markets. While there is still a huge appetite for the stock, investors don’t like when their money goes in the wrong direction, and they certainly don’t like how it could affect the long run up to an I.P.O. Kalanick, for his part, wanted to keep the company private for as long as he could, but firms that invested in the business—including Benchmark, Fidelity Investments, First Round Capital, Menlo Ventures, and Lowercase Capital—are set to make many billions of dollars from the company’s I.P.O. And it’s representatives from those companies who wrote the now-infamous letter to Kalanick asking him to resign. And that’s all that really matters in this story.
this is the first time im closely watching the details of a single current Shit company, its interesting to learn about finance capital stuff a bit. waiting for everything to finally crumble is agonising though... feel the same way about the australian housing bubble.
Ninety-plus percent of professional drivers in New York City are immigrants and driving can be one of the few opportunities they have to earn money. The auto dealers Uber partners with target people with poor credit who otherwise might not be able to buy a car or get a loan. Uber, through its ads and signup process, has given drivers every reason to believe that these lease and rental contracts are a good choice. The reality can prove otherwise.
“Uber tells you, you can do this job when you feel like,” said Marion Wolfe, a former Uber driver and lessee in New York. “That’s not true. When you’re locked in with these leasing companies, you’ve got to go out there and make that money. You have to be out there and hustle to make that rent money for the car.”
Edited by Chthonic_Goat_666 ()
another older nakedcapitalism post, this time on autonomous driving technology.
Critics of the city council have proposed that we cut costs by replacing them with a streamlined phone app interface whereby the rich can fill their bank accounts and fuck over the city with just the simple click of a button.
With the election of Google OmniCounsillor as AI-administrator of Badmington, Canada, the public transport system has been replaced with a 6-month spotify subscription and social care with 60Gb of free storage for everyone with a pre-existing Gmail account.
shriekingviolet posted:Instead of revitalizing its ailing public transit system, Edmonton's extremely intelligent city council has proposed that we cut costs by replacing it with Uber. This follows their decision to give hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and free land to a sleazebag billionaire so that he could blight our downtown with a redundant bloated tick of an arena.
Critics of the city council have proposed that we cut costs by replacing them with a streamlined phone app interface whereby the rich can fill their bank accounts and fuck over the city with just the simple click of a button.
lots of governments are falling for this rideshare thing. gonna be egg on their faces later.
anyone know anything much about finance capital? if uber does IPO or whatever what does the endgame look like? investors making big bucks (maybe) on stupid public... then what? if uber continues down its current path then i think its done within 4 or 5 years, maybe sooner... only wildcard i can see is going public.
Edited by Chthonic_Goat_666 ()
tears posted:the future of local government is replacing councillors with apps that you vote for.
With the election of Google OmniCounsillor as AI-administrator of Badmington, Canada, the public transport system has been replaced with a 6-month spotify subscription and social care with 60Gb of free storage for everyone with a pre-existing Gmail account.
good example of the inability of news outlets to understand uber's financial situation.
The extraordinary part is that there is no suggestion this plunge was the result of any short-term deterioration in revenue. It was a series of scandals, ranging from the alleged theft by an Uber engineer of Google's driverless car technology, to bullying, sexual harassment and accusations of passenger abuse by drivers.
Poor governance allows a toxic culture to fester, and Uber provides clear evidence of how a good business model and value can be undermined.
bullshit. they never had a good business model. their riduclous valuation was entirely based off the utopian hopes of a taxi monopoly. investors don't care about 'toxic corporate culture' lol.
"What kind of clue do you have? Have you seen any city whose Uber rate went up so far?
Uber is not competing against taxi but public transport just as Coca Cola is not competing against Pepsi but the water."
Edited by Chthonic_Goat_666 ()
poster 1: Why would a dr want to / have to Uber is the real story here.
poster 2: Depending on the market you may NEED to be a doctor to afford to drive for Uber.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/7/10/12127638/uber-ergo-investigation-lawsuit-fraud-travis-kalanick
When a young labor lawyer named Andrew Schmidt first filed suit against Uber in December of last year, he couldn’t have predicted it would make him a target. Schmidt’s suit was a legal long shot, alleging that Uber CEO Travis Kalanick coordinated surge pricing in violation of anti-trust laws — but those legal arguments would soon be overshadowed by something much stranger.
A few weeks after the case was filed, Schmidt found out he was being investigated. According to a court declaration made by Schmidt and his colleagues, someone had called one of Schmidt’s lawyer friends in Colorado to ask some strange questions, claiming it was for a project "profiling up-and-coming labor lawyers in the US." What was the nature of his relationship with the plaintiff? Who was the driving force behind the lawsuit? Calls were also allegedly made to acquaintances of Schmidt’s client, Spencer Meyer, with a similar proposal to profile "up-and-coming researchers in environmental conservation."
Schmidt reached out to Kalanick’s lawyers, but they said Uber wasn’t involved, writing back, "Whoever is behind these calls, it is not us."
A month later, those same lawyers called back to admit that wasn’t strictly true. Schmidt and his client were being investigated by a secretive research firm, staffed by veterans from the CIA and the National Security Council, on behalf of Uber’s top executives. As soon as the lawsuit was filed, those executives took an interest in Schmidt and his client, sending out operatives to dig up what they could find on Uber’s new antagonists.
tears posted:lol
poster 1: Why would a dr want to / have to Uber is the real story here.
poster 2: Depending on the market you may NEED to be a doctor to afford to drive for Uber.
theres so many good/funny posts:
"
You have to ask: who calculates Uber's value? JP Morgan? Bloomberg? Or Sesame Street?? How is it that the company's reported value goes up while it's operating losses get worse? An agile economy star being turned into a fat cow for sale? Or lucky geek boys who haven't got a clue about growing revenue in markets they artificially mature with stupidly low prices and sausage factory driver employment practices? I don't want to tax anyone's brain working out answers to these questions. Simply assert that the fact that they are hard to answer points to Uber being an impending train wreck.
{...same driver a few days later...}
I have been telling it like it is to every pax who asks and last night went up several notches with two different sets of pax who were obviously well-heeled from Malvern and Toorak {CG666 ed: rich Australian suburbs}. Your unsustainable cheap and exploitative ride now comes with a large serve of unpalatable truth whether you like it or not.
"
Tesla (TSLA) finished the quarter up 30% to $361.61. TSLA bulls look at Elon Musk, think of Steve Jobs, and decide TSLA is the next Apple. We have read many critiques of TSLA and we won’t repeat them here, but we will offer a few distinctions from Apple:
• When Apple launched the iPhone, it was immediately profitable. Apple has always cared about profits. TSLA does not make money selling cars, and Mr. Musk shows little interest in profits.
• When one person buys an Apple product, it makes the experience for other Apple customers better by supporting the developer ecosystem. This network effect attracts a stable and growing user base. TSLA is unlikely to sustain a competitive advantage by having a network of charging stations or by accumulating driver data.
• Competition was very slow to develop for Apple. Its peers (most famously Microsoft) publicly dismissed the iPhone as a threat. By contrast, every major car company in the world intends to compete with TSLA in electric vehicles. Consortiums are installing competing charging networks, and many competitors (including possible new industry entrants) are investing in autonomous driving.
• Steve Jobs attracted and retained a senior team of loyal lieutenants who implemented his vision, and Apple continues to have a deep bench. Mr. Musk is a one-man show (and one distracted with many ventures at that).
While we do not pair trade and do not view our TSLA short as related to GM, we have a few observations about the two companies:
• GM is capitalized to survive any foreseeable downturn. It has $20 billion of cash and a $14.5 billion undrawn revolver. Meanwhile, it is currently generating billions of dollars in free cash flow. TSLA is capitalized to survive only the next three quarters. While its cars do not burn gasoline, the company burns more than enough cash to compensate, and behaves as if it will have access to nearly free capital for the foreseeable future.
http://www.valuewalk.com/2017/07/greenlight-q2-letter-2017-elon-musk-is-no-steve-jobs/
Edited by Chthonic_Goat_666 ()
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/a-repellent-musk
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/is-bozoma-saint-john-the-woman-who-will-save-uber-20170723-gxh5xj.html
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2945817/telematics/uber-will-buy-all-the-self-driving-cars-that-tesla-can-build-in-2020.html
please let both companies be bust by 2020 for extra schadenfreude
