So far, my taxes look pretty good. I'm already working as a contractor so this isn't exactly new news, and I already set aside a percentage that will go towards taxes. If you don't - as I learned long ago, you'll be hit with a nasty tax bill.

 

Uber, though its Uber Partners app, does allow you to easily manage this.

I don't understand the comment about "devastating federal taxes." First, everyone has to pay federal taxes (theoretically) so what difference does it make if you're a W2 or 1099. And second, on the top of my head, Uber/Lyft drivers can write off maintenance, standard mileage rate, cleaning and car washes, cell phone and wireless plan, car insurance, rental or leasing payments or depreciations if you own, etc.

 

And I don't know how many bartenders can make $50-$60k if not higher (probably helps if you're an attractive girl in certain cities), but there's no way pizza drivers hit those numbers, even if they pocket all tips.

I don't understand the comment about "devastating federal taxes." First, everyone has to pay federal taxes (theoretically) so what difference does it make if you're a W2 or 1099.

 

A very large portion of the population lacks the fiscal discipline to handle 1099 employment. They don't save the money for taxes and don't buy health insurance. Or their weekly and monthly bills due to kids and whatnot are so big that they eat up any savings that are set aside for taxes.

I don't understand the comment about "devastating federal taxes." First, everyone has to pay federal taxes (theoretically) so what difference does it make if you're a W2 or 1099. And second, on the top of my head, Uber/Lyft drivers can write off maintenance, standard mileage rate, cleaning and car washes, cell phone and wireless plan, car insurance, rental or leasing payments or depreciations if you own, etc.

 

And I don't know how many bartenders can make $50-$60k if not higher (probably helps if you're an attractive girl in certain cities), but there's no way pizza drivers hit those numbers, even if they pocket all tips.

 

All of the newer POS systems automatically claim credit card tips for servers, bartenders, and delivery drivers.  So the only tips you can get away with not claiming is cash, which these days often comprises well under 50%.  What people don't get about serving and bartending vs. pizza is that pizza guys are out there getting $70-130 in tips Sun-Weds night while servers and bartenders are rolling silverware or talking to the same old regulars.  There are definitely huge nights for servers and bartenders on most Fri and Saturdays but the money from pizza is much more consistent throughout the week. 

 

Uber suffers from the same dilemma.  There is okay (yet very unpredictable -- much wider range than serving or bartending or pizza) money to be made late night on Fridays and Saturdays but the rest of the week is usually pretty dead with only the occasional 2.5X surge for a concert or bad weather or something like that.  Also, you put a truly astounding number of miles on your car -- at least 2X as many as the same period of time delivering pizzas.  No way does driving for Uber 40 hours per week put less than 1,000 miles on your car.  So 50,000 per year minimum, far more if you are driving for Uber and Lyft and driving 60 hours per week.  So you're destroying $10,000 in car, at least, per year. 

 

 

 

 

It's not as if the car doesn't depreciate - it just happens faster. On a bad week, I can put 350-500 miles. It depends on the event - after a recent concert, I had two trips that totaled 60 miles round trip each (but came with 2.5x surge, which made it totally worthwhile). What's sad is that these same folks could just as easy carpool to a RTA station and take the train into the city and save so much money.

When Their Shifts End, Uber Drivers Set Up Camp in Parking Lots Across the U.S.

 

When it’s too pricey and tiring to go home, some drivers find alternative spots to sleep.

by Eric Newcomer  and Olivia Zaleski

January 23, 2017, 5:00 AM EST

 

In the 1970s, the Safeway grocery store in San Francisco’s gleaming Marina neighborhood, known as the Social Safeway, was a cornerstone of the pre-Tinder dating scene. Armistead Maupin made it famous in his 1978 book, Tales of the City, calling it “the hottest spot in town” to meet people. For years afterward, locals called it the “Singles Safeway” or the “Dateway.”

 

Forty years later, German Tugas, a 42-year-old Uber driver, got to know it for another reason: Its parking lot was a safe spot to sleep in his car. Tugas drives over 70 hours a week in San Francisco, where the work is steadier and fares are higher than in his hometown, Sacramento. So every Monday morning, Tugas leaves at 4 a.m., says goodbye to his wife and four daughters, drives 90 miles to the city, and lugs around passengers until he earns $300 or gets too tired to keep going. (Most days he nets $230 after expenses like gas.) Then, he and at least a half dozen other Uber drivers gathered in the Social Safeway parking lot to sleep in their cars before another long day of driving. 

I read that and it's pretty much true. I've been put out of town by about 40 miles on more than one occassion, very late at night, where it made more sense to sleep in the back of the Subaru and Uber in the morning than to go home and collect no fares on the return drive.

 

FWIW, I had to stop Ubering. I used to be able to pull a decent second living off of Ubering, especially on game nights (and especially last year when we had Cavs and Indians going strong), but I've seen my pay cut practically in half.

The problem with Uber as compared to a cab company is that the cab company internalizes its repairs and maintenance rather than having to pay shops like an individual does. A cab company has many of the same exact vehicle and extra parts galore from retired cars. Most cab cars take really cheap parts. Everything about the car has been maximized for taxi service.

The problem with Uber as compared to a cab company is that the cab company internalizes its repairs and maintenance rather than having to pay shops like an individual does. A cab company has many of the same exact vehicle and extra parts galore from retired cars. Most cab cars take really cheap parts. Everything about the car has been maximized for taxi service.

 

I think Uber is a disaster for various reasons, but this along with the insurance are the glaring ways in which the costs of Uber are being carried by speculative investors and the drivers themselves.  It is widely reported that Uber is subsidizing most rides by 40% with investor cash, which means switching to a fleet of autonomous vehicles will have razor-thin margins at current fare levels.  They've been cutting driver pay for years in order to minimize the cash burn but they're not going to be able to keep doing this for ten years.  They can't have crappy drivers driving crappy cars for the next ten years. 

 

 

Uber and Lyft freaking because Trump might turn off the faucet on the cheap labor that they scam as part of their business model:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/29/why_users_deleted_uber_in_response_to_trump_s_executive_order.html?wpsrc=sh_all_mob_fb_top

Uber is a very reckless company.

 

Just another .com

So Uber took the customer-service oriented route and suspended surge pricing at JFK during those protests/taxi strike, benefiting both stranded travelers and the people trying to get to the protest, but this resulted in lots of bad PR across the country, from people who weren't there.

 

Meanwhile Lyft makes a $1 million donation (pocket change for a company backed by so much investor cash) to the ACLU and gets tons of good PR. They probably stand to get more bang for the buck off of that than they would with any type of ad buy or promotion.

These companies don't care about human rights or any of that -- it's about maintaining a steady supply of new drivers to take over for the tens of thousands who quit every day. 

As opposed to the honorable taxi companies? The people they hire seem to take pride in being abusive and hostile to customers.

 

I use Uber quite a bit and won't be caught dead in a taxi unless I can expense it. Whatever problems there are pale in comparison to the customer experience.

 

Also, this whole boycott Uber nonsense is as retarded as Pizzagate. People looking for a false narrative to get riled up.

I think another big problem is that Uber is turning out to be a very right-wing company that mainly serves large cities full of Democrats and liberals. So there is a disconnect between the customers and the company. It's not like the iPhone where if you are a Democrat and are seen by iPhone-using Democrats using an Android they think you're a secret Republican.

Uber "partnering" with Metro to provide "free" rides home:

 

https://newsroom.uber.com/us-ohio/cincinnati-metro-guaranteed-ride-home/

^ I like that you have to mail-in your rebate form to get reimbursed. I remember doing that back in the early 00s when buying PC components. Nothing like wasting a stamp, envelope, and 20 minutes of your time to get that $10 check mailed back to you 6 months later.

^ I think it's being done to limit the amount of people who actually take the time to ask for the refund.

I have a love/hate relationship with Uber, especially after the #DeleteUber movement, which was based off of one false tweet (https://qz.com/898159/why-are-people-deleting-uber-a-trump-backlash-the-company-didnt-deserve/).

 

I've noticed that since the #DeleteUber movement surged, leading to 200,000 account removals, finding passengers has been incredibly difficult. Most of the deletions were passengers, who switched to Lyft, not drivers. There is now a surge of drivers and surges have all but disappeared. When I was in Pittsburgh last weekend, I stopped at a Giant Eagle GetGo and saw an Uber driver who was looking incredibly bored and restless. I started a conversation with him who complained that he's gotten half the passengers that he had since the #DeleteUber movement started.

 

All it did was hurt the drivers who receive far fewer rides and ultimately less money due to a surplus in drivers. The cut to Uber stays the same, although ultimately if there are far fewer riders, then their revenues will drop.

 

To their credit, Uber did donate $3 million to start a fund to help drivers with immigration and translation services, but that's a PR move. It went to no official account and it seems to be an internal fund that will probably never reach its goal or intended audience. Lyft donated $1 million directly to the ACLU - spread over four years (that part has been omitted in a lot of media stories).

 

And it's not if Lyft is innocent (http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/30/uber-boycott-boosts-carl-icahn-lyft-investor.html).

 

"In 2015, financier Carl Icahn made a $100 million investment into Lyft. His interests are represented on its board of directors through John Christodoro of Icahn Capital.

 

Icahn did a lot more than Kalanick to help get Trump elected. He was an early and vocal supporter of Trump during the campaign, claiming that the businessman would be much better for the economy than Hillary Clinton, and Trump appointed Icahn as a special advisor on regulation in December.

 

Icahn isn't the only Trump advisor with a connection to Lyft. Founders Fund, the venture capital firm founded by Trump advisor Peter Thiel, led Lyft's B round and invested in the next two rounds as well."

 

Pick your poison. I let my insurance cards on Uber lapse and haven't looked back.

I'm increasingly skeptical that we'll see Uber and Lyft survive as more than name brands that are bought out by other entities.  By all accounts each is burning through huge amounts of money but ridership growth is stalling:

https://skift.com/2016/10/12/uber-and-lyfts-growth-is-slowing-in-most-major-u-s-cities/

 

At least half of the US population lives in low-density areas where the current business model can't possibly work.  Nobody's going to sit around in their car in a rural county waiting for a ping, then drive 15 miles to pick someone up and drive them 5 miles.  Then wait around for a half hour for another ping that forces them to drive across the county once more for yet another short drive and low fare.  It's these money-losing rides that turn drivers off to the entire enterprise.  Robot cars won't care but their existence and widespread acceptance by the public is decades away. 

^That's why rural on-demand transit systems are so ridiculous in cost per passenger-mile.

^That's why rural on-demand transit systems are so ridiculous in cost per passenger-mile.

 

Yeah most rural counties have paratransit vehicles for ADA people and the elderly.  They are horrendously expensive services. 

 

Uber/Lyft need to cut out the cutthroat competition for peanut rides and raise minimum fares from $4 to $10 and cancelled rides from $5 to $10.  Getting rid of peanut fares and ride request misbehavior (drunk rider requests car, never comes out of bar/party) will do a lot to reduce driver irritation. 

 

Also, Uber needs a local drop-off point for missing phones.  Expecting drivers to return phones left in their cars is a huge nuisance since these people are often drunk and don't tip the drivers for driving 10+ miles to return their $600 phones. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's also why I don't mind when some of those services get cut, like what has happened with the RTA in Cleveland. While I am not arguing for cuts, it allows agencies to look at the services they offer and make service reductions based on usage and revenue per passenger mile. Many of these services, such as On-Demand Rides for seniors or the disabled, and buses into far flung locales, are serious money losers and benefit very few. Instead of encouraging density, it only coddles the mentality that you can live anywhere. It's become an issue in many suburban towns that can't afford their own transit service, especially as a population ages.

 

At any rate, agencies should be looking into maximizing their benefit as often as possible, just not when cuts happen.

 

Then you have this: https://qz.com/904744/pittsburgh-officials-are-criticizing-ubers-one-way-relationship-with-the-city/

Cities are often too expensive these days for the MRDD crowd while the rural areas and small towns just keep getting cheaper.

as seen on an Escalade on the Upper East Side :laugh:

This article has been making the rounds, and honestly, I don't know if I should post it in the "Ridesourcing" or "Bros" thread.

 

https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber

 

I'm posting it here even though most of what I've heard that makes it sounds fairly credible to me vis-a-vis the general proclivities of the Bay Area tech sector generally and Uber specifically comes to me by way of the Bros thread.

It's also why I don't mind when some of those services get cut, like what has happened with the RTA in Cleveland.While I am not arguing for cuts, it allows agencies to look at the services they offer and make service reductions based on usage  and revenue per passenger mile. Many of these services, such as On-Demand Rides for seniors or the disabled, and buses into far flung locales, are serious money losers and benefit very few. Instead of encouraging density, it only coddles the mentality that you can live anywhere. It's become an issue in many suburban towns that can't afford their own transit service, especially as a population ages.

 

At any rate, agencies should be looking into maximizing their benefit as often as possible, just not when cuts happen.

 

Then you have this: https://qz.com/904744/pittsburgh-officials-are-criticizing-ubers-one-way-relationship-with-the-city/

 

It sounds like you're very much pro-service cutting. You don't think it's important that poor, elderly and disabled people are able to get around and go to their appointments or jobs? It saddens me knowing that so many people feel the same way that you do. It's easy to think that way if you make a good living and have a car or can afford frequent Uber rides but if not, it can be pure hell trying to get around Cleveland.

 

I think there's a difference between bussing people from one podunk small town to another and buses traversing Cleveland's urban core to not-very-distant suburbs. There's so many suburban nodes - huge employment centers and areas with good population density that are only like 7 miles from downtown and are absolutely not even close to being accessible via any form of public transit. It's ridiculous that there's no sort of express busses to places like Westlake/Crocker Park.

 

Even in areas where I know you'd agree that good bus service makes sense, the service that does exist is horrible. It seems like all of the buses that run along dense, main thoroughfares (outside of the Health Line on Euclid) literally only run once an hour, even during rush hour and at least from personal experience with the routes I've taken, it's pretty rare that I have the privilege of actually sitting down. It's like RTA doesn't even pay attention to ridership with each route. I see the drivers let the buses go beyond max capacity with riders because they can't tell people to wait for the next one - they'd be waiting another hour!

 

You know how bad Cleveland's public transit is? In addition to a cavity fill and cleaning, my new GENERAL dentist in Cleveland Heights actually fixed my fractured root canal and pulled my two wisdom teeth (I got nothing but referrals to an oral surgeon and endodontist from my previous dentist) and when I was blown away and asked him how he manages to be a one-stop shop despite not getting the formal training, he said that he's gotten so many patients over the years in pain who literally have no way to get to the suburbs to a specialist and needed his help, so he just had to work up the confidence and go for it.

^ You basically answered your own question.  The expensive and low-yield paratransit services are one reason that the core routes are so crowded and poorly scheduled.  There's only so much funding to go around, but proper route triage isn't happening because coverage/accessibility are prioritized over ridership/efficiency.  http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/08/14/jarrett-walker-empty-buses-serve-a-purpose/

Oh get a grip David[/member]. I never said that the elderly, poor and disabled are not important. But when you have limited number of funds, you have to maximize efficiency and ridership so that the most amount of people can be served given constraints.

 

Houston reimagined its bus routes with algorithms and data to utilize its buses more effectively. About 93% of the former riders were still covered after the bus changes went into effect, but the new routes were optimized. That saves taxpayers money and serves basically the same amount of people.

 

Long-term, effective urban planning will resolve those issues of the "poor, elderly and disabled" that cannot utilize services that are often on the chopping block. User choice will also resolve many of those issues. You can't reach 100% of the population - even in an ideal world with vast amounts of funding which can result in employee bloat (and long-term legacy expenses), empty buses and inefficient routes.

^Columbus' new realignments go into effect May 1. http://www.cota.com/Projects/TSR/TSR-Bus-Network.aspx This means that suburb-to-suburb trips besides say, Upper Arlington to Grandview don't all have to go down High between Nationwide Blvd. and Livingston Ave. A friend of mine used to ride from Hamilton and Livingston to 270 and Westerville Rd. 2 hours each way.

Uber is a wife-beater, upset because she actually moved out:

 

http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/23/technology/delete-uber-sexual-harassment/index.html

Ha, this company is way Bro.

I saw a dude last weekend wearing an UBER shirt.  It looked like an Under Armor shirt you'd see somebody wearing to let everyone know they do CrossFit.  I asked him where he got it.  He said he worked for Uber in 2014 in LA, not as a driver, but as a contractor who helped organize Uber's service to Coachella.

 

Dude was pleasant enough, but you knew he could go full bro if the situation warranted. 

  He said he worked for Uber in 2014 in LA, not as a driver, but as a contractor who helped organize Uber's service to Coachella.

 

Ahhhhh the 10 Douchebag Express.  Very popular mode of transportation in the LA spring...

Tonight I saw two party girls jump out of a nice circa-2012 Mercedes that stopped mid-block.  I coasted past it and YEP it was a middle-aged white uber driver.  So either the guy is divorced and desperate for cash or he's divorced and figured out driving drunk college women around is a great way to meet drunk college women. 

 

 

No, I'm not your Uber car!

Jake,

 

You said Uber is subsidizing rides by 40% with investor cash. Why on earth would they do that? The only reason I can think of is that it's a short-term plot to put many other transportation companies out of business as everyone switches to Uber but it doesn't seem sustainable even for a short period of time. Even if they did get rid of much of the competition, new competition would sprout up after the inevitable fare increase. They'll also probably face a huge backlash from consumers who feel betrayed, once fares go up. I remember when everyone was up in arms when Netflix announced they might raise the subscription price by a dollar per month and it was only $6.99-$7.99 anyway.

 

Oh get a grip David[/member]. I never said that the elderly, poor and disabled are not important. But when you have limited number of funds, you have to maximize efficiency and ridership so that the most amount of people can be served given constraints.

 

Houston reimagined its bus routes with algorithms and data to utilize its buses more effectively. About 93% of the former riders were still covered after the bus changes went into effect, but the new routes were optimized. That saves taxpayers money and serves basically the same amount of people.

 

Long-term, effective urban planning will resolve those issues of the "poor, elderly and disabled" that cannot utilize services that are often on the chopping block. User choice will also resolve many of those issues. You can't reach 100% of the population - even in an ideal world with vast amounts of funding which can result in employee bloat (and long-term legacy expenses), empty buses and inefficient routes.

 

I completely understand that and agree. I just sensed a much different tone in your previous post.

Jake,

 

You said Uber is subsidizing rides by 40%. Why on earth would they do that? The only reason I can think of is that it's a short-term plot to put many other transportation companies out of business as everyone switches to Uber but it doesn't seem sustainable even for a short period of time. Even if they did get rid of much of the competition, new competition would sprout up after the inevitable fare increase. They'll also probably face a huge backlash from consumers who feel betrayed, once fares go up. I remember when everyone was up in arms when Netflix announced they might raise the subscription price by a dollar per month and it was only $6.99-$7.99 anyway.

 

Oh get a grip David[/member]. I never said that the elderly, poor and disabled are not important. But when you have limited number of funds, you have to maximize efficiency and ridership so that the most amount of people can be served given constraints.

 

Houston reimagined its bus routes with algorithms and data to utilize its buses more effectively. About 93% of the former riders were still covered after the bus changes went into effect, but the new routes were optimized. That saves taxpayers money and serves basically the same amount of people.

 

Long-term, effective urban planning will resolve those issues of the "poor, elderly and disabled" that cannot utilize services that are often on the chopping block. User choice will also resolve many of those issues. You can't reach 100% of the population - even in an ideal world with vast amounts of funding which can result in employee bloat (and long-term legacy expenses), empty buses and inefficient routes.

 

I completely understand that and agree. I just sensed a much different tone in your previous post.

 

 

Uber forced Sidcar out of business and has been putting pressure on Lyft this whole time.  They're trying to burn through more investor money than their competitors, giving them a monopoly no one dares challenge.  If it were free from competition, Uber could in theory charge the full cost of a ride + 10% for all rides.  Right now people are too used to a $6 trip to the bar and a $30 trip to the airport.  The real costs are roughly double that, and more still if they want to pay drivers a respectable wage and collect a profit. 

 

 

 

 

 

Huh. Investors are aware of this unsustainable and impractical strategy?

 

I have a co-worker who typically takes an Uber home from work when no one is able to give him a ride home. It's a 5-6 mile trip to where he lives and no part of a trip involves highway access (so typical in Cleveland.) He said the price can vary significantly depending on if there's a surge but he typically pays $9 for an Uber ride home! His other option, if he doesn't have a ride, is to take two buses, and because it's Cleveland, it would be a 1.5-3 hour trip as the buses here run approx. once an hour. and involve a lot of walking to, in-between and after bus stops. Bus transfers don't exist up here and so a 1 way bus trip home for him costs $5. Yet he can order an Uber for $9 and be chauffeured directly to his destination 5-6 miles away. The Uber option means he can get home 20 minutes after getting off work and he doesn't have to walk at all. Considering the value of time and energy spent, Uber seems to be a much better deal than even subsidized transit systems. It'll be interesting to see how long that lasts , though.

Huh. Investors are aware of this unsustainable and impractical strategy?

 

 

Yep.  That's how Silicon Valley works.  Investors throw money at start-ups for pre-IPO ownership shares.  The individuals who have gotten super-rich (Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, etc.) maintained large percentages of ownership before their respective IPO's.  But the longer it takes a company to go public, the more a founder's percentage (or even type) of ownership erodes. 

 

The ace up Uber's sleeve is that they haven't gone public, and they might be waiting until they're pretty damn sure they gave AV's down-pat, and then they'll go public and use the $100 billion they raise to build a fleet of 100,000+ cars.  But I'm skeptical that Uber will be profitable even with robot cars because every kind of car is expensive and all of the gear will add significantly to the cost.  Plus, they will need a very expensive blanket policy for when they start driving off cliffs. 

 

Huh. Investors are aware of this unsustainable and impractical strategy?

 

Amazon still loses money almost every quarter. The stock market isn't about making a profit ... it's about raising the stock price. As long as you keep growing in market share with the promise that you will make money some day, your stock price will keep inflating. This is why so many tech companies never figure out a way to actually make money and end up being bought by a bigger company, who usually only intends to shut down their service and steal their talent.

^This

I highly recommend reading old stock investing books.  Through the 1970s people bought stock to collect dividends.  Capital gains were ancillary.  You had to pick up the phone and call a broker so buying and selling was a cumbersome and expensive act.  Plus, your broker knew if you lost money.   

 

So in the past, buying stocks was like buying a rental property.  There was a high transaction fee on the buying and selling end, so you sat on them for decades.  If they gained value when it was time to sell, then great.  But that gain was a fraction of what you earned from rent/dividends.  Plus, you were taxed at a much higher capital gains rate than we have been since Reagan and Bush II. 

 

I read a great book by my favorite sociologist, Richard Sennet, called Culture of the New Capitalism where he spoke about just that. People used to invest for the dividends but now investors are simply in it for the short term gains when they sell stock. Statistics show that people don't hold stock nearly as long as they used to. There's no sense of loyalty in business anymore. Instant gratification trumps stability, especially in regards to workers and their employers. Companies hire short-term contractors instead of hiring and investing in their own employees. Eventually though, people are going to seriously lose their a$$ when the stock plummets if they didn't buy and sell at the time time.

 

It's a fascinating book. Here's an overview from Wikipedia:

 

Analysis[edit]

Based on the author's Castle Lectures at Yale, this book is a sociological study of the influence of the New Economy on human relationships. Sennett describes the transformations that have taken place in postmodern capitalism as corporations have become more diffuse, unstable, and decentered. Contrasted with the 'iron cage' bureaucracy described by Weber – those pyramid-like corporate structures in which individuals knew their place and planned their futures – modern corporations provide no long-term stability, benefits, social capital, or interpersonal trust.

Sennett first looks at bureaucracy in early capitalism. Most businesses were short lived and unstable. However, in the latter half of the 19th century, business was modelled on predictable military lines where all roles were defined and career progression could be mapped out. This new model aimed at social inclusion, that is, most would work at the base of the social pyramid, hopefully progressing to the tip.

 

Modern capitalism looks at this model with disdain – too many superfluous people are employed to remain competitive and people should constantly adapt and prove themselves to be assets. Therefore, in large modern businesses, the majority of workers face uncertainty and find it difficult to conceive of a life narrative. Due to mechanization and the need for upskilling, managers as well as their subordinates face the possibility of obsolescence. Concepts such as craftmanship and getting the job right are seen as wasteful and somewhat obsessive.

 

Capitalism's need for potential is increasingly reflected in the education system. SATs favour superficial and adaptive reasoning rather than deeper introspection on the meaning of things. Finally, comparisons are made between branding and politics. Products such as cars are physically very similar, but branding creates differences on minor issues revolving around appearance and emotion. Sennett views this same 'goldplating' process as having a largely negative influence on modern politics where presentation is key.

Fundamentalists, quants, and marketing pros all think each others' approaches are irrelevant. I know how to synthesize all three but I am weakest on the quant side. I am considered useless in the industry except as a salesman.

Uber does have enough self-awareness, unlike Tesla, to realize that they are not suited to be a publicly-traded company at this time. Meanwhile, Porsche knew not to be publicly-traded on its own for close to 100 years before being absorbed by VW only a few years ago.

Things change way too quickly in the tech world to grow slowly from reinvested profits (especially in the complete absence of profits).  In traditional industries, to actually pull off explosive growth with investor cash and loans is almost impossible.  Those guys who "succeeded" couldn't do it a second time, even with all they learned.  Because luck was the main ingredient in their formula but they can't admit to that.  I bring up White Castle repeatedly because for every cash-only family-owned company like White Castle there are 1,000 restaurant chains that have disappeared as quickly as they expanded.     

It seems like there is a bit of a campaign underway to keep bad Uber news in the news.  This is too good:

 

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/video-uber-ceo-argues-driver-203948442.html

 

So here is Kalanick unable to hide the fact that he's boring and still awkward with women while hitting the town with a pair of escorts:

 

But the larger point is that Uber tricked a bunch of people into buying cars in order to be full-time Uber drivers (be they Black or X) and now with the lower fares they can't possibly drive enough to beat the depreciation.  Unfortunately a lot of Black drivers didn't get the cheapest qualifying Black car (which I seem to recall was around $40k).  Instead they went out and bought brand-new $65k+ Lincoln Navigators and so on.  Poor gas mileage and horrendous repairs and depreciation.  A set of tires might be $1,500 or more. 

 

 

 

Things change way too quickly in the tech world to grow slowly from reinvested profits (especially in the complete absence of profits).  In traditional industries, to actually pull off explosive growth with investor cash and loans is almost impossible.  Those guys who "succeeded" couldn't do it a second time, even with all they learned.  Because luck was the main ingredient in their formula but they can't admit to that.  I bring up White Castle repeatedly because for every cash-only family-owned company like White Castle there are 1,000 restaurant chains that have disappeared as quickly as they expanded.     

 

Well that's the whole thing -- Tesla is in the Industrial sector rather than the Tech sector. But they try to appear that they are Tech so that investors throw money at them like Tech and let them lose money like Tech. They are not doing anything "new" whatsoever.