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Uber lays off hundreds more, this time from its engineering and product teams
Uber announced even more layoffs on Tuesday, following an earlier round in July. The ride-hailing company confirmed it's letting go of hundreds of employees in its engineering and product departments to "reset and improve how we work day to day." The total number of staff it laid off this time was 435 people, or about 8% of each department.
"We need to shift how we design our organizations: lean, exceptionally high-performing teams, with clear mandates and the ability to execute faster than our competitors," an Uber spokesman said in a statement. "Today, we're making some changes to get us back on track, which include reducing the size of some teams to ensure we are staffed appropriately against our top priorities."
The layoffs, first reported by TechCrunch, come during a rough period for Uber as it attempts to gain footing as a public company. After debuting on Wall Street in May, the company has seen plummeting stock prices, quarterly revenue loss and an exodus of high-level executives. Three of Uber's board members have stepped down since then, along with its chief operating officer and chief marketing officer.
[...] With this latest round of layoffs, the Uber spokesman said Khosrowshahi asked his management team if they were satisfied with the design of their organizations.
"After careful consideration, our engineering and product leaders concluded the answer to this question in many respects was no," the spokesman said. "Previously, to meet the demands of a hyper-growth startup, we hired rapidly and in a decentralized way." That worked in the past, the spokesman said, but it doesn't anymore.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 11 2019, @10:45PM (7 children)
Maybe, at this point in the game, after having played the incipient asshole long enough, you're obligated to follow through.
With a gradual pivot to higher end user costs, and higher net pay for their drivers, they could make a sustainable business out of the brand they have built. Plenty of people would "hail an Uber" instead of calling a taxi, even if the Uber cost twice as much, just because it has a better image. Like paying for fruit on your phone, it doesn't make sense, it makes dollars.
Unfortunately, swinging the big Silicon Valley dick with self driving car development and other "valuation multiplier" schemes really is a very fast way to burn through cash.
I'm dumb enough to invest in Tesla, and Canadian Cannabis growers (possibly US based growers, soon...) but Uber? Yeah, no. Hard pass.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 11 2019, @11:08PM (6 children)
All that it take for a fast death is the various municipalities to release the artificial scarcity introduced by limiting the number of cabs. Competition will do the rest.
Nope, at least not necessarily and, if momentarily true, not for long.
Without limitation on the number of taxies in a city, there will be companies that will make sure their service is even more flashy, with stable fees and predictable time to pick-up. I saw this in at least one East-Europe capital, needed a ride for my old parents - I booked the ride over the Internet; chose a stylish people-mover van with wheel-chairs and driver assistance as the most appropriate for the situation; the 'business class' options, fast large Beemers and the all that blitz was also available.
Do you really think that a mobile application to hail a ride and monitor the progress is such a big deal? Because it seems that's the only "technological platform advantage" that Uber prides itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 11 2019, @11:32PM (2 children)
Manhattan has had this for 50+ years, central London limits the total number of cars period taxi or no... however, the rest of the world seems disinclined to go this route for whatever reasons.
Back in the '90s some friends and I tried to dream up ideas for a zero-investment capital required internet based business. We came to something like InstaCart as a pretty good scheme, as long as you could manage to ride herd on the drivers well enough. Somebody threw out the idea of a taxi service and our group shot it down as "too regulated" - well, I guess Uber has bigger balls than anyone in our group.
iPhone came out around about 12-13 years ago. Within a year or so, the Android phone market caught up with iOS in terms of features, yet now, over a decade later, 40% of the US market still pays 4-5x multiples for their fruity phones as compared to nearly identical, sometimes superior, Android products offered by every vendor in sight.
Sure, but you notice that the uberApple diamond encrusted designer phones with their Italian leather accents tend not to sell nearly as well as the hip, popular, well established premium brand. Same can be observed in sales volumes for Mercedes/BMW vs Aston/Maserati - there's always a higher price point product out there, somewhere, but the brands with the right positioning take the bulk of the profit from the market by keeping their sales volume and their prices high. Good marketing people do earn their money, even if it's luck, liquor and guessing - if you do it poorly, you will become the next Jaguar.
No, and neither do I think that mixing up a bunch of nasty chemicals including lavender scent and a dark brown coloring in carbonated sugar water is hard to do, but top two brands in that market have made Billions, if not Trillions more than the also-rans and local market competition. They'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony, they'd like to buy the world a Coke - and keep that money coming, which they still do to an impressive extent today, even after being rightly branded as a major underlying cause of the western obesity epidemic.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday September 11 2019, @11:41PM (1 child)
Yeap, I concede you have a point.
However, there are many places in which Uber didn't caught or the presence is less that what they'd like. And I don't think it's a coincidence those places are un-/less- restricted on the number of cabs that can function.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 12 2019, @02:02AM
Oh, yeah - definitely, but they didn't really catch fire at least around here until the last 5 years or so - room to grow, it takes time to replace a commodity like Taxi with a brand like Uber / Lyft / also-ran.
And, with all the crazy unicorn behavior, they may well tank the company before reaching escape velocity, but they do have a legitimate shot at long term greatness, if their management aren't really the turd-stains they appear to be acting like at the moment. Their best hope might well be to sell the brand to a group that knows what they are doing.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 12 2019, @01:25AM (2 children)
The places that have this problem could have done it decades ago. They won't until the cab companies are broken which I doubt will happen. There's too many stories like the above where the cartel players are using the law to protect their business models and succeeding. After all, it's more important to protect Uber drivers from themselves rather than having a functioning riding hailing transportation system, wouldn't you agree?
Tens of millions of people use it for some reason. I bet a fair number of them find it is a big deal.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 12 2019, @02:30AM (1 child)
To vague a statement for me to decide if I agree or not.
Let's make the thing clear in my intended meaning: "big deal = requires billion of dollars and hundred engineer*years to develop".
Do you think that the "entry level for a local market is set so high that only the kind of Uber/Lyft enterprises can break through it"? Personally, I really doubt it and I can see many "Uber/Lyft-like apps" made available by small taxi businesses acting in a city that doesn't artificially restrict the number of taxis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 12 2019, @11:41AM
In many places, yes.
Note the phrase "in a city that doesn't artificially restrict the number of taxis".