Man, I don't know if Uber is evil or if most tech companies are evil and Uber just doesn't drop the kind of money on PR strategery that an evil company need to drop in order to seem normal. But either way, holy cow does that company come off as toxic. They've completely revolutionized the drive-for-hire industry and all anyone ever hears about it what a D-bag their CEO is or how toxic and mysogonist their work environment is or how hard they work to spy on their employees and customers (to the point that the CEO of Apple had to have a Come To Jesus talk with the CEO of Uber) or how their employees feel like they are getting screwed or, now, how they are concealing massive data breaches. It's like how I imagine Uber would be if it was run by Magneto instead of Tony Stark.
>and all anyone ever hears about it what a D-bag their CEO is or how toxic and mysogonist their work environment is or how hard they work to spy on their employees and customers
I don't think the average Joe is up to date with this news, or even care about.
Nope, they don't know. My non-tech friends are all using Uber / UberEats with no clue about the company, and the CEO. They just see an easy to use app to get what they want quickly.
> My non-tech friends are all using Uber / UberEats with no clue about the company, and the CEO
Just like we don't know anything about the CEO of the product making your detergents, the CEO of the brand of clothes you purchase, the CEO of your oven at home... Not knowing about CEOs is rather the norm, not the exception, and ultimately if the product/service is good, the CEO does not matter for most people, or they are only going to care about it in passing and then return to their old habits. GoDaddy is still in business.
Speaking of politics, media influence and tech, a fair number of average joes have a terrible opinion of Musk/Tesla/SpaceX; but these same people are unaware, or maybe vaguely aware the US Gov spent >10billion, just in direct financial losses, bailing out GM.
If everyone in the country was told "write a check to GM for $50 or go to jail," and conservative media wasn't berating Tesla/Musk, public opinion would be a lot different... Take it all with some healthy skepticism.
This is news to me, I've never come across an average person having a negative opinion of Musk. On the contrary they think of him as some iron-man like figure.
Most "average people" I know (admittedly on the other side of the world) have some name recognition for Tesla the company (they make expensive cars and batteries right?) and would probably struggle to tell you who elon musk is, let alone have an opinion on him. The tech bubble has thick walls sometimes...
How many people do you know that listen to Rush Limbaugh or read Breitbart? Apparently none.
Personally, I like him quite a bit, but to be fair I know that outside of my own echo chamber of my news and social media feeds, that there are a lot of people who don't like him, and where that negativity is coming from.
HN is a community. If users don't have some consistent identity for others to relate to, we may as well have no usernames and no community at all. That would be a different kind of forum.
Anonymity is fine, and throwaways for a specific purpose are ok. Just not routinely.
I think it's more the "anti-fact" wing of the media (which does mostly overlap "conservative" on the Venn diagram). Unabashed alt-right agitprop outlets like Breitbart news, for instance, or climate change deniers.
There are a couple different things at play.
First, one plank in their infowar strategy is to combat anything that even indirectly propagates any understanding of climate change among the proles. They take positions even against more-efficient-than-incandescent light bulbs, so this line of attack certainly includes targeting electric cars and solar. Musk is obviously a celebrity of sorts in these areas. Any government help to build solar plants or subsidize non-fossil-fuel alternatives (e.g. electric vehicles) is portrayed as deeply corrupt, a betrayal of American values and working families, etc. Ergo, Musk is bad.
Two, Elon Musk and John McCain have a strong association. Musk has supported McCain and in turn McCain has supported Musk and his business ventures. This is the kind of invest-in-politicians-who-can-help-you relationship that is pretty much a fundamental building block of how the American government works, but it always looks bad to somebody inclined to see it that way. (It's probably also objectively bad that this is how the system works, but anyway it is.) So I think a lot of conservative media that doesn't like McCain (because he is too "establishment" or whatever the reason) have repeatedly brought Musk into it, implying corruption on the part of McCain to help Musk use Russian rocket engines at SpaceX, for example. McCain is bad, ergo his sleazy buddy Musk is also bad.
On your first point, I don't think most (fiscal, small-gov't) conservatives would have much problem with tax incentive for electric vehicles, or anything that generally reduces taxpayer burden. But they are typically vocally against subsidies and grants that favor particular individuals or companies over others -- which is not only unfair, but also adds to more spending. It does little, but to help justify a bigger gov't.
Secondly, SpaceX have been spending millions in political lobbying and McCain's political campaign is among many who benefited from such largess (and his own McCain institute) from Musk. Most Americans don't see this kind of lobbying activities with millions dollars spent on politicians as a "fundamental building block" of a well-functioning gov't, but a corrosive force that serves interests of a few at the expense of the majority, however well-meaning in the eyes of Musk supporters. I personally don't see any problem with organizing an interest group to better represent their views -- or lobbyists -- but when it involves so much money and the final outcome ends in lopsided legislation favoring one particular individual or company over others, it's probably a good time to question their "invest-in-politicians-who-can-help-you" relationship.
Ideologically, McCain's views are aligned with those of the "neoconservative" wing of the republican party -- he's mostly known for aggressive foreign policies, American democracy everywhere, and subsequently pro-Military Industry Complex (MIC) which inevitably all leads to a bigger gov't. While most conservatives are also for strong national defense, not everyone is necessarily on board with permanent warfare and welfare (and police) state and that's why "other" conservatives are so annoyed with McCain.
So, once you put these together, it's not too difficult to see why the holy alliance between Must and McCain is criticized by those on the right. They are not necessarily grounded on "anti-facts" or alt-right views as you mischaracterized here. It's just too bad that your pathetic, uninformed comment had to start with the poisoning the well logical fallacy.
I personally mostly don't agree with conservative media either, and I even mostly agree with you here, but to be fair the left also has their anti-fact narratives & outlets, and wrongthink, just the same as the right--just on different issues.
I completely agree with you, and didn't mean to imply otherwise.
Although I do think there tends to be a broader overlap on the "conservative" side, for reasons for that are complicated and don't necessarily have a lot to do with being conservative, the "liberal" side does indeed have its vaccine deniers, MSG paranoiacs, and so on. (However, they don't have TV networks dedicated to these things, available in every hotel and airport in the country...)
I try to judge media organizations (and people) based on their commitment to truth and openness to empirical evidence and new information. Their political leanings may be interesting, but are a (much) less significant data point.
That used to be the tendency, yes, but according to Jonathan Haidt at https://heterodoxacademy.org, "the left" has caught up to "the right"/conservatives in the number of scientific topics they deny outright, and it has happened in the last 5 years.
So very recently, and unless you've been to college in those years, you won't be aware of it.
I forget where he said it, or I would link to it. It might have been in a recent conversation he had with Jordan Peterson.
I don't know. I've received a lot of flak for even using Uber from non-tech friends/dates recently. I think the continual tide of negative publicity is definitely having a material effect on their brand image.
Funny, they opened a satellite office right near my apartment and I'd considered applying. Then I heard pretty disconcerting stuff about the environment, and now this. Dodged a bullet, I guess.
And testing their self driving cars without getting the proper permits. And hiding shit like this from investors so they’ll lose a lot of money later.
I would never work as an engineer for a company like that. How can I trust that it will honor any deal I make and not screw me? I have to think about that with every company but this one in particular can’t even spell ”integrity”.
Nobody's getting screwed yet. Nobody had their data stolen then covered up either, until they did. No investors were lied right into their face about this either, until they were. No women were harassed and had the events covered up either, until they were.
If the company views engineers as better than other people and someone they wouldn't want to screw with, I'm not working there either on principle.
Google and Facebook are publicly traded companies and stock can be sold immediately; I'm not sure we can say Uber is not screwing employees until there is a liquidation event (not counting the internal buy back program)
I never quite know how to think about them. On the one hand, they’d changed an entire industry in a way that people wanted but was getting serious resistance from the entrenched players. They had to break a lot of rules and go around a lot of people with a whole lot of connections to get where they are and in the process made a lot of enemies.
I expect blowback. I expect negative news. They essentially pulled it off by looking at every day as combat where fighting dirty was rewarded.
Yea, probably a good idea. I only even need them when I travel but all the cars I saw at the last airport had Uber and Lyft stickers anyway.
The biggest part of the comment was seeing the taxi driver protest in Seattle when I was there on business. My hotel room window had a view of city hall and I watched a bunch of cabs with a news crew pull up for about 45 seconds and start honking their horns. Then they all left and went back to taking fares.
When I watched the local news that night, the broadcast made it look as if they'd blockaded city hall for the day in protest.
It's the things like that that give me pause when I see bad press around a company that has upset entrenched interests.
AirBnb had to fight a very similar path and the only bad press I can remember about them was that tone deaf/ offensive political marketing campaign they had.
AirBnb have their own issues, and plenty of bad press about cities popular with tourists crumbling under the load AirBnB are causing on their communities.
There's been several articles about them shafting apartment owners, offering very little from their "insurance" for trashed apartments. In most cases the renters are sane people, but if you get the drug-fueled orgy, you can probably safe in betting that AirBnB will not compensate you for the cleanup.
Plenty of companies have disrupted plenty of industries by now, but without this kind of behavior. I don't see how the way they dealt with the data breach was required to disrupt the local ground transportation industry, nor was the way they've treated employees (including drivers) and customers.
As much as I hate blaming the victim, but giving your personal info just to get a Taxi ride is utterly moronic. I don't want to have any relation of any sorts with a Taxi, I ride I pay and bye.
Uber is like the Donald Trump of corporations. It sets new ground in how openly vile you can be without any consequences. Just like Donald Trump the real danger is not in Uber itself but in whatever it will be that uses it as a role model.
You can't say anything approaching positive about Trump. You will be down voted. The vehement supporters of freedom of speech doesn't support this. Well, the irony.
User starik36's comment was in a downvoted state. Which is what prompted me to write that comment. I didn't think what he said deemed a down vote because from general observation what he stated seems true.
There isn't any irony. Freedom of speech is about preventing government censorship of citizens and has absolutely nothing to do with shielding people from the social consequences of saying unpopular things. It's about being legally allowed to say unpopular things, not about stopping people from disliking what you say.
I agree. That's all I meant too. Stating the obvious - As in, if you say anything in support of this Trump fellow, you will be down voted. And this is true as exemplified by the "down votes".
Just yesterday, I got some serious flak for suggesting that changing one person in leadership wasn't enough to make them not evil. I'm sad to see just how bad this is/was, but I'm not one bit surprised.
I think it's progress. Culture does tend to come from the top down - and just like dogs companies do have a habit of resembling their upper management.
Looks like they fired two people over this, pretty immediately at that. Uncertain if the new CEO was aware of the cover-up until (presumably) contacted for comment by a news org.
The fact that the cover-up persisted this long is bad, but on the other hand the Kalanick-era Uber probably would've gone to war with the journalists breaking the stories rather than admit fault, so there's that.
I'm not sure if that's an accurate analogy. Few politicians would want to find themselves working in the climate Trump has found in Washington, (if anything, he has proven that a groundswell of popular support can't unseat a party establishment). Also, it simply would be inaccurate to describe Uber's actions as impotent.
Edit: allow me to replace the word "found" with "created." I was just using a figure of speech.
If you think the current sitting POTUS is an innocent victim of politics, then I have a bridge to sell you. Uber has used similar PR tactics in the past to deflect/detract from their actions.
> If you think the current sitting POTUS is an innocent victim of politics, then I have a bridge to sell you. Uber has used similar PR tactics in the past to deflect/detract from their actions.
I think the point that the great great? grandparent top post was making is that whoever is in charge of dealing with the media at Uber is doing a horrible job.
Also, I am sad that we don't talk about the policies and rather focus on the personal flaws. I think there would be a chance of a compromise if we debated on policy. I mean if we talk about just personality, what makes our Honorable Governor of New Jersey eligible for office? Not a fan of 45 but really I think politics has become too polarized.
