Super Cali goes ballistic, Uber drivers are stocious (allegedly!) California is probing Uber for allegedly failing to ditch more than 150 sloshed drivers who picked up passengers using its dial-a-ride app. The US state's public utilities commission this week declared it "seeks to investigate and address Rasier’s safety culture and zero-tolerance policies and procedures" – Raiser being Uber's …
They are in a race trying to bankrupt taxi services in the areas they operate before they run out of other people's money.
The founders and early stage VCs have probably cashed in on private sales long ago, so at this point it is more of a Ponzi scheme than a company.
"Taking the investors to the cleaners while they can?"
Depends how they're reporting. Under GAAP (and most non-GAAP schemes) the key metric is net cash flow rather than P/L. The nature of the way the cost of equity-based compensation is recognised means the company recognises an on-paper loss of the compensation (i.e. the options and RSUs granted 4+ years ago) only when they vest and are exercised, and at their current valuation. Given the valuation of the company this ensures they will effectively never be profitable, even if their bank balance increases year-on-year.
This has the entirely coincidental effect of ensuring the company won't pay tax for many years to come.
Which way do you error here? Not suspending the driver immediately, even if not mandated by law, surely opens Uber up to all kinds of liability. If they have a driver that they get a warning on crash and injure his next client then things get very ugly for them very quickly.
And I would assume the driver knows this has happened right away via the app. If I were a driver being falsely accused of DUI I would drive right to the nearest police station and ask to be sobriety tested. That should resolve the investigation very quickly.
Any disgruntled customer can ruin the livelihood of anyone offering a service. You can swear you saw the waiter spit iny our soup. You can declare that the guy carrying your bags out to your car touched you in the wrong way. You can say a bank teller used racist words.
If I were a passenger in an Uber vehicle 9not that Iever would be), I would certainly be reporting it if my driver were drunk as a skunk or threatening me. I know, crazy and mean...
Do you really think having some Uber clown at a keyboard a zillion miles away is going to be able to determine the sobriety of the accused driver? They should suspend on the accusation, the way most taxi systems (in the US) do, pending investigation. The real question is "So how do they investigate?"
Yay, the regular Super Cali headline 8) It's the gift that keeps on giving. Combine that with a large US state that can be shortened to Cali where weird shit and lots of other stuff happens and it will be a regular for the foreseeable future.
It's up there with the Private Eye "does anyone have a picture of an older man with a younger lady" for longevity but this one needs a bit of imagination to contort the headline according to the formula.
Wedging "stocious" in there is a work of near genius.
@gerdesj
"does anyone have a picture of an older man with a younger lady"
Would this do?
Nobody's ever beaten the original newspaper headline recorded after Inverness Caledonian Thistle (AKA Caley Thistle) beat Celtic: "Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious".
Also this one doesn't match the song; it needs to drop a syllable in the second half. "Uber drivers stocious" works, as does "Uber hacks are stocious".
Now if you'll excuse me, the wind just changed and I need to go back to work.
..........we read something like this. 2Nick3 in his response to one poster's concerns about false allegations from a disgruntled customer where he writes "I would drive right to the nearest police station and ask to be sobriety tested" is of course entirely correct. The police will cooperate because they also want to be certain that the driver is sober.
On a separate issue the subbing was highly entertaining:
"Super Cali goes ballistic, Uber drivers are stocious.....
This app maker's policies are something quite atrocious"
Thumbs up for the Mary Poppins reference - that brings back childhood memories!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pu1adxqUAg
2.8B$ loss on 6.5B$ revenue? That's quite the cut, innit? What's the plan for profitability? What's driving this level of loss? It's not like they are building new cars or need massive fixed capital investments to get off the ground.
Yes, they could planning to pull a Netflix and use their existing name recognition to pivot into autonomous cabs when those come in (just like Netflix went from mailing DVDs to streaming). But is that guaranteed? That's assuming that a) autonomous cars become a reality in the near future, i.e. before they run out of other folks' cash b) they are accepted to provide passenger services - not obvious given all the regulatory hurdles those cars, and Uber, are already getting whacked by and c) no one else bypasses the first-mover advantage and leapfrogs them at that point, either globally or as a succession of local competitors that take away their business.
I don't automatically dismiss them as never-do-wells despite their arrogance, apparent sexism and lack of discipline - a lot of the bad press and pushback is coming from cities that have a vested interest to protect their very lucrative racket in unconscionably costly taxicab licenses. They could yet morph into a more competent and focused company.
But they are facing a lot of challenges and the above lack of discipline and worsening reputation makes them a risky bet in a business that is after all driven by consumer perception.
that even with all the negative reports, the tech blogs insisted on being supportive of the exploitative company that is Uber. Anyone bringing in concerns, raising awareness, or showing reports of negative behavior by drivers or the company was accused as being part of some Taxi Conspiracy.
Now over the last few months, it all changes. Suddenly all of the same stuff that got us called liars, shills and worse, is now accepted truth by the *same people* who defended Uber against all criticism.
The Cult of It's Just An App sure died suddenly.
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