Islamic Terrorists Take Hostages in Sydney

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

I know you're not fond of Seedy's socio-economic analysis, but I do think there's some truth to his contention that Silicon Valley is full of dumbass nerd-bros in love with their own egos and shallow randist libertarianism.

They've never been outside their bubble before they were validated with millions of dollars through the start-up bonanza, so they assume the world actually functions the way they envisioned when having profound stoned conversations in first year uni after taking Econ 101.

http://www.reddit.com/r/programmingcirclejerk/

That's, like, a good 25% of our material.

[CountDeMoney]

@Jacob - I guess so. It is harder for me to wrap my head around as those that I knew never struck me as so offensive(?) / seemed that they had enough sense to know where their talents lay and their limits.

Sense and limits go out the window when they're getting buried in obscene amounts of cash.

[CountDeMoney]

I wonder how is it that Uber is so tone deaf? Where are their marketing and PR people?

I know you're not fond of Seedy's socio-economic analysis, but I do think there's some truth to his contention that Silicon Valley is full of dumbass nerd-bros in love with their own egos and shallow randist libertarianism.

They've never been outside their bubble before they were validated with millions of dollars through the start-up bonanza, so they assume the world actually functions the way they envisioned when having profound stoned conversations in first year uni after taking Econ 101.

Careful, Jake, lest Hurricane Berkut makes landfall at Cat 5 on your ass.

[Jacob]

Because, geeks can't hire staff to perform functions that they can't handle?

Only once they know they can't handle them, and if they have the charisma and insight to get millions of dollars in funding, they obviously know what's what.

I think it's believing in their own pitch (which is highly tuned to appeal to Venture Capitalists) to such a degree that they don't realize the that whole world doesn't think like VCs.

@Jacob - I guess so. It is harder for me to wrap my head around as those that I knew never struck me as so offensive(?) / seemed that they had enough sense to know where their talents lay and their limits.

There are plenty of good people there as well, but my impression from my exposure (some) and reading (more) is that they're facing a bunch of the same issues that any demographically narrow highly focused group of people will have when they get plenty of validation and little negative feedback from anyone who can actually touch them. Lots of issue around sexism, unexamined racism, age- and class- issues, and just general lifestyle assumptions. It seems Uber is exemplifying a bunch of them recently.

It's not that they're particularly bad as individuals or it's some exceptional thing, I don't think, it's just that they've built up this particular kind of bro-culture and only recently have they even begun to be cognizant of the fact that there may be some potential problems with that. And you don't hire PR people to manage those potential problems if you don't know they might exist at all - I bet most of the PR people they have have been hired from within that culture.

[Admiral Yi]

I know you're not fond of Seedy's socio-economic analysis, but I do think there's some truth to his contention that Silicon Valley is full of dumbass nerd-bros in love with their own egos and shallow randist libertarianism.

They've never been outside their bubble before they were validated with millions of dollars through the start-up bonanza, so they assume the world actually functions the way they envisioned when having profound stoned conversations in first year uni after taking Econ 101.

The basis of their model is an increase in price will bring more drivers into the pool, thus accomodating more passengers.  Do you have any reason to believe this is not in fact what happens?

[Jacob]

Careful, Jake, lest Hurricane Berkut makes landfall at Cat 5 on your ass.

I've got some disaster readiness plans. It's been a while since I put them to the test.

Besides, I think he's more fierce on you than on me - I think he reckons you're one of his own who's gone astray whereas I'm just a write-off. Same reason I go off on Ide more than most here.

[Jacob]

The basis of their model is an increase in price will bring more drivers into the pool, thus accomodating more passengers.  Do you have any reason to believe this is not in fact what happens?

That is apparently what happens. What also happens is that nakedly engaging in that practice during natural disasters and terrorist attacks does not make for positive PR.

So their economic model is, it seems, correct, but their PR model is not. garbon was asking how that state of affairs had come to pass, and my theory is that they're so in love with their economic model that they thought it was an adequate PR model as well.

[Admiral Yi]

That is apparently what happens. What also happens is that nakedly engaging in that practice during natural disasters and terrorist attacks does not make for positive PR.

So their economic model is, it seems, correct, but their PR model is not. garbon was asking how that state of affairs had come to pass, and my theory is that they're so in love with their economic model that they thought it was an adequate PR model as well.

On what basis do you judge their PR model is a failure, in that it offends your sensibilities?  My guess is Uber's target market is people who, when given the choice of a pricey ride at a busy time or nobly waiting in for a non-existent base price taxi, opt for the former.

[CountDeMoney]

That is apparently what happens. What also happens is that nakedly engaging in that practice during natural disasters and terrorist attacks does not make for positive PR.

So their economic model is, it seems, correct, but their PR model is not. garbon was asking how that state of affairs had come to pass, and my theory is that they're so in love with their economic model that they thought it was an adequate PR model as well.

What Uber's Sydney Surge Pricing Debacle Says About Its Public Image

[Jacob]

On what basis do you judge their PR model is a failure, in that it offends your sensibilities?  My guess is Uber's target market is people who, when given the choice of a pricey ride at a busy time or nobly waiting in for a non-existent base price taxi, opt for the former.

I base it as a failure based on their reaction to the public's response.

They used surge pricing during Hurricane Sandy and got serious backlash. Subsequently they instituted a US wide policy of no surge pricing during natural disasters.

In the case of Sydney, they later apologized, offered free rides in the area, and offered refunds to people who'd paid the increased pricing.

Now, I know you're notoriously hard to convince on this kind of stuff, but to me - and I believe to garbon as well - that indicates that the company thought they had a PR issue at hand and were attempting to address it.

Uber is currently facing some of the now usual issues on rolling out in Vancouver. Certainly the local people I've discussed their actions in Sydney with seem to put that down in the column against Uber, which makes me think it's not an isolated reaction.

Incidentally, I've not said anything about my sensibilities regarding this, nor, I believe about Uber in general, so it seems to me that you're reading positions into my words that aren't there. garbon is the one who's classified their actions as "that offensive".

[garbon]

That is apparently what happens. What also happens is that nakedly engaging in that practice during natural disasters and terrorist attacks does not make for positive PR.

So their economic model is, it seems, correct, but their PR model is not. garbon was asking how that state of affairs had come to pass, and my theory is that they're so in love with their economic model that they thought it was an adequate PR model as well.

What Uber's Sydney Surge Pricing Debacle Says About Its Public Image

That link seems to suggest that it was an automated accident of sorts, whereas Jacob's notes it as an intentional decision at the time that they then tried to correct once they got blowback.

I found this comment interesting / pretty much how I feel.

A significant part of the problem is that Uber offices in at least one city were caught telling drivers to stay home in order to inflate Surge fees. The company has also been credibly accused of deliberately hiring and canceling drivers from other services to make their competitors less available.

I believe both of those problems where in NYC, and Uber gives more latitude to its individual office operators than most companies would, but these contribute to the narrative of a deeply problematic company.

It's not just the surge pricing. It's that the company talking about surge pricing has also been caught openly discussing waging a PR war against journalists, attempts to argue that its drivers aren't taxi operators to dodge regulation, has had multiple on-record incidents of problematic interactions with women, doesn't offer any of the guarantees of a conventional taxi company, and THEN also has a pricing model many feel is predatory.

I think taxi companies are, by and large, an abusive cartel. Uber has had so many screw-ups and problems in the past 12-18 months, it's starting to make me root for them anyway.

[Admiral Yi]

Predatory pricing model.  For Pete's sake.

[garbon]

Ok well maybe not that part. I don't know enough about their pricing model to have a comment.

And nor do I think it necessarily bad to adopt such a model.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Looks to me like this was a case of a lone nutter (who happened to be a Muslim) rather than a further disturbing case ot terrorism. Interesting that it got so much more attention than this incident http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-30484534 , at least in the media outlets I use.

[Martinus]

I find it a sad testimony to modern media that the killer is given long bios while noone mentions two of the victims (the shop owner and one barrista) who apparently tried to stop him and were shot.

I find it a sad testimony to Languish that this has been derailed into a thread about Uber. But then it is Jacob and garbon so to them uber is clearly more evil than fundamentalist Islam.