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Day Man posted:gently caress you. Stay off the goddamned roads. *fiddles with radio while putting on tie or makeup and eating fast food*
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Apr 13, 2016 15:39
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Coolness Averted posted:These are the exact legal dickings I love and I hope Uber gets ruined for it, "Oh you thought you were clever and could define yourself out of the responsibilities of a seller or employer? Then congratulations you get the protections offered to neither."   Shifty Pony posted:It gets better. The antitrust case against Apple regarding their ebook price fixing is precedent in the NY federal court in which the Uber case was filed. That is not good for Uber/Kalanick because it basically unambiguously says that a lot of pre-Leegan precedent is still applicable post-Leegan, including findings that say that hub and spoke pricing agreements (with a bunch of supposed competitors organizing a fixed price by all agreeing with a third party) are always illegal. The decision is not ambiguous about it and quotes old Supreme Court precedent: "any conspiracy “formed for the purpose and with the effect of raising, depressing, fixing, pegging, or stabilizing the price of a commodity . . . is illegal per se,” and the precise “machinery employed . . . is immaterial.” ". It also includes this wonderful quote 
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Apr 13, 2016 15:40
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mastershakeman posted:*fiddles with radio while putting on tie or makeup and eating fast food* Actually, I ride a motorcycle and don't do any of that stuff. Nearly every day on my commute, though, I see people weaving in and out of their lane in heavy traffic with all of the other cars having to give them a huge amount of space. I used to think "drunk driver", but it's inevitably always someone on their phone. Here's a tip, if you think you're good at driving and using your phone, you aren't. You're just so distracted you don't know how bad you're doing. It's like how incompetent people don't realize they are incompetent. If you realized you were doing terribly, you wouldn't continue to do terribly. The Dunning-Kruger effect, I think it's called.
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Apr 13, 2016 15:48
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Day Man posted:gently caress you. Stay off the goddamned roads. Day Man posted:Here's a tip, if you think you're good at driving and using your phone, you aren't. You're just so distracted you don't know how bad you're doing. It's like how incompetent people don't realize they are incompetent. If you realized you were doing terribly, you wouldn't continue to do terribly. The Dunning-Kruger effect, I think it's called. 
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Apr 13, 2016 15:56
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A Buttery Pastry posted:The pot calling the kettle black. Ha ha ha ha ha
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Apr 13, 2016 15:59
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http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/stuck-in-1950s-suburbia/ This is a pretty fascinating article about the proliferation of suburban office campuses. They were built in response to the growing urbanization (read: blackness and unionization) of the country. The side-effects of being suburban means that the company owns your mindspace even while you commute. If your life is wake-up, drive to work, work, drive home then you'll never have time to interact with your community and experience the world at large. So your civic interests are limited to making roads better, focusing on transportation (for you), and your job. There's no sense of belonging to your town.
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Apr 13, 2016 16:10
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Trevor Hale posted:http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/stuck-in-1950s-suburbia/
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Apr 13, 2016 17:39
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cheese posted:Good read, thanks for the link. I think your point about the mindspace is spot on and the control over your time that so many tech workers experience might be one of the more fascinating threads in 2016 silicon valley. corollary: to feel a sense of belonging to/responsibility for your community beyond work and commute also requires you to have free time after work and on the weekend. Free time spent outside the company ballpit, that is.
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Apr 13, 2016 17:49
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Trevor Hale posted:http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/stuck-in-1950s-suburbia/ Cicero fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Apr 13, 2016 |
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Apr 13, 2016 18:24
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cheese posted:I love legal sick burns. Ohhh, you say that buses, riding your bike and even walking are all clear substitutes for Uber's service? Then please, by all means, arrive at future proceedings by walking - after all, its a clear substitute right? Also Uber's insistence that their drivers are acting as independent entities is what lets them bypass Uber's mandatory arbitration agreement by suing Kalanick directly. The agreement only covers disputes between users and Uber - not users and drivers (who are "not Uber" according to Uber).
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Apr 13, 2016 18:26
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A Buttery Pastry posted:The pot calling the kettle black. Looks like somebody has a case of the donkey brains!
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Apr 13, 2016 19:59
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Shifty Pony posted:Also Uber's insistence that their drivers are acting as independent entities is what lets them bypass Uber's mandatory arbitration agreement by suing Kalanick directly. The agreement only covers disputes between users and Uber - not users and drivers (who are "not Uber" according to Uber). So how long until mandatory arbitration gets attacked in court too? I kind of feel like all of this LOL SO DISRUPTIVE!!!1!11ONE!!! crap startups are getting up to is going to end in an avalanche of lawsuits that is going to piss off a lot of judges.
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Apr 13, 2016 20:11
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ToxicSlurpee posted:So how long until mandatory arbitration gets attacked in court too? It already won: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility_LLC_v._Concepcion http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/american-express-co-v-italian-colors-restaurant/ These are probably some of the worst decisions in SCOTUS history, IMO.
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Apr 13, 2016 20:14
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Radbot posted:It already won: Huh, and a 5-4, funny that.
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Apr 13, 2016 20:19
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AmEx vs. Italian Colors alone makes me want to dig up Scalia's corpse and burn it on the steps of the Court. The amount of damage that ruling has done and will do is probably up there with Plessy vs. Ferguson.
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Apr 13, 2016 20:24
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http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/13/11423694/cms-elizabeth-holmes-theranos-ban-fine-sanctions-sunny-balwaniquote:
rut roh
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Apr 13, 2016 20:52
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cheese posted:Good read, thanks for the link. I think your point about the mindspace is spot on and the control over your time that so many tech workers experience might be one of the more fascinating threads in 2016 silicon valley. It is a pro-read. This quote in particular: quote:Today, this segregation isn’t only aided by architecture—it’s also a function of the tech-enabled lifestyle, with its endless array of on-demand services and delivery apps that limit interactions with people of differing views and backgrounds (exposure that would likely serve to increase tolerance). A protective bubble of affluence also reduces the need for civic engagement: If you always rely on ride-hailing apps, why would you care if the sidewalk gets cleaned or repaired? Slick, streamlined convenience with the added benefit of never having to interact with strangers outside of your heavily monitored work environment. If there's a better way to smother worker organization and civic consciousness in its crib I'm not aware of it.
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Apr 13, 2016 20:56
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Cultural Imperial posted:http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/13/11423694/cms-elizabeth-holmes-theranos-ban-fine-sanctions-sunny-balwani
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Apr 13, 2016 21:09
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I still find it pretty weird how Elizabeth Holmes became a business goddess and a (near-?)billionaire when the only product she ever presided over was a complete failure. That's America for you, I guess.
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Apr 13, 2016 21:12
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Radbot posted:I still find it pretty weird how Elizabeth Holmes became a business goddess and a (near-?)billionaire when the only product she ever presided over was a complete failure. That's America for you, I guess. She's probably not a billionaire. She owns what was asserted to be worth 1b of theranos stock.
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Apr 13, 2016 21:19
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Spazzle posted:She's probably not a billionaire. She owns what was asserted to be worth 1b of theranos stock. Ok, sorry, hundred-millionaire.
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Apr 13, 2016 21:20
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I didn't really follow it much but it was similar to Uber in that the status quo left a lot to be desired. Also a lot of VC investors talk about how they bet on people and Elizabeth Holmes is supposedly v. impressive in person, is a prodigy etc.
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Apr 13, 2016 21:21
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At least Uber's product works, though? How can you be a prodigy if your product has never worked?
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Apr 13, 2016 21:24
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Baby Babbeh posted:Frankly, I think we'll see widespread adoption of self-driving cars before we see adequate public transportation in Silicon Valley. You're more right than you know. quote:“When cars are actually autonomous and speak to each other, they will be packed more densely on the roads, and they won’t be creating that congestion,” said Whittum. “So the idea of spending huge amounts of money on concrete to do this, it’s not a futuristic 21st century idea, it’s actually a very 20th century idea.”
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Apr 13, 2016 21:25
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mastershakeman posted:You'd be amazed at how easy it is to drive while using a smartphone because of how well peripheral vision works for the minimal amount of events happening on the road. And if you shift into park at a stoplight, it's legal in some states to use the phone! I'm calling the Cops
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Apr 13, 2016 21:25
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Radbot posted:At least Uber's product works, though? How can you be a prodigy if your product has never worked?
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Apr 13, 2016 21:35
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I get that you didn't personally decide to make her rich. I'm just shaking my head in awe of a system that allows a person who has never made a working product to become richer than most people's wildest fantasies.
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Apr 13, 2016 21:44
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Rhesus Pieces posted:If there's a better way to smother worker organization and civic consciousness in its crib I'm not aware of it. Weirdly, technology is currently facilitating civic consciousness for me. Nextdoor.com (and I have no idea how it's going to be profitable) has catalyzed people in my town to research the town's planning code, compare/contrast it with neighboring towns' building codes, and take the information to the next planning committee meeting. Others will go just to protest. Before this site existed, I had absolutely no contact with my community.
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Apr 13, 2016 21:44
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Radbot posted:I get that you didn't personally decide to make her rich. I'm just shaking my head in awe of a system that allows a person who has never made a working product to become richer than most people's wildest fantasies. That stock is only of theoretical value until she is able to sell it. Maybe she was able to offload it to cash somehow at some point, but if not then 
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Apr 13, 2016 21:56
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pangstrom posted:Uber doesn't have better cars per-se This element of Uber's business is what bothers me. If the company had started with a different focus, like optimizing and improving taxicab logistics for existing fleets and starting out on the ground floor, either by opening new franchises in cities or taking over existing ones within the framework of the laws, it might have an argument for being a technology company, applying all of that programming and data management and whatnot to solving a problem. It would also have had some leverage, possibly, to get the medallion systems reformed. But that would have involved both adhering to existing regulations and (and I think this might be even more crucial) being a company involved in the wholly un-glamorous world of taxicab operation. Ultimately, it's not sexy or exciting, and I think that's a core element of what Uber is trying to sell itself as: a sexy transportation company. They manage contractors, man, they write phone apps and run servers, they have a hip branding and succinct company name and...what? What kind of real, productive company are they? As was recently linked to and discussed in this thread, a lot of the service-based tech companies seem to ultimately be about isolating the people who use them from having to deal with the different and sometimes icky realities of the world. And while Uber's contractor model is ultimately about trying to sidestep employment and transportation regulations, I can't help but suspect that a small amount of it is also distancing the company from the decidedly unsexy reality of what it actually is - an unlicensed taxi company, not really any different some guy in the Bronx with a beat-up passenger van illegally carrying passengers to their jobs into the core of the city. Uber's a "tech company", you see - they're not directly involved in all that low-class transportation nonsense, with low-paid drivers, vehicle exhaust, weatherworn garages, and customers that are drunk and/or vomiting all over everything (not to mention, ugh, the poor and low-income). That's for the contractors to deal with, who totally aren't part of Uber, because otherwise they would be actual employees in the ball pit with everyone else, hacking and coding and all that jazz. Basically, I think Uber's own seeming obsession with image, along with its willingness to try and flout laws to puff itself up and seem bigger and more important than it is, might be part of what drives the tech bubble. While actually owning up to being a company involved in the "dirt under the fingernails" aspects of the industry is counter to that. So all these VCs, essentially, are investing in hot air. And that's probably why bubbles inevitably collapse; once the glamour wears off, once the distancing from the actual work becomes too great, and once companies finally succumb to the dueling dichotomies in their head as to what they actually are and what they do, poo poo hits the fan. Would Uber have gotten where it was if its business proposition was like I mentioned at the start of this post? Probably not, because despite being a reasonably solid idea, it's not spinnable as something from the whiz-bang future.
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Apr 13, 2016 22:01
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Isn't Holmes at least allowed to trade her stock on a secondary market of some sort? And if she could she must be at least some sort of multimillionaire.
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Apr 13, 2016 22:18
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Cultural Imperial posted:Isn't Holmes at least allowed to trade her stock on a secondary market of some sort? And if she could she must be at least some sort of multimillionaire. I don't think selling stock is usually allowed once you get some investors on board, they probably want to make sure the core team continues to own all their stock and is thus incentivised to work hard etc rather than abandoning the ship. Not sure about the details but they're probably complicated. But yeah, if I were a startup founder I'd certainly want the option of selling some small fraction of my stock, so I could do that after a gigantic valuation but before the poo poo hits the fan (as it very often does). I just don't know if that's usually allowed. Edit: some Googling turns up this article saying that it's the investors who decide the rules of selling stock and some of them might allow it: http://businessinsider.com/startup-founders-are-getting-rich-before-they-exit-2014-12 quote:Whisper's founder, Michael Heyward, has raised $60 million. He, unlike the Secret and Snapchat founders, hasn't kept a penny for himself. Heyward says he has no need for millions of dollars right now. He doesn't have a family to support or loans to pay. He also says he believes in his product so he doesn't want to swap equity for cash. It wouldn't be smart since he believes his company will be worth much more in the future. 2014 that's a good vintage, you can really taste the bubbles jaete fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Apr 13, 2016 |
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Apr 13, 2016 22:58
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Everyone dreams of being Zuckerberg and taking out hundreds of millions through board fees and dividends after the IPO.
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Apr 13, 2016 23:16
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quote:As Business Insider reported in July, the founders of Secret took $6 million off the table during a $25 million funding round just six months after the company launched. Now, Secret has lost traction and it's pivoting its business. Should add that this guy was smart as his company folded in April of last year despite being "valued" at 100 million 
cheese fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 13, 2016 23:50
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Cultural Imperial posted:Isn't Holmes at least allowed to trade her stock on a secondary market of some sort? And if she could she must be at least some sort of multimillionaire. Yes, but it's complicated. The thing you have to understand is that stock in a pre-public company is an extremely illiquid asset. It's closer to owning a table than owning a stock. While there are secondary markets (most notably SecondMarket, a company now owned by Nasdaq), they're less NYSE and more Craigslist. You kind of post that you have stock that you want to sell, and people make offers. These markets aren't open to everyone — you have to be an "accredited investor", which basically means a rich person — so it's not really a massive volume of trades that happen. And you might not get any offers at all if your startup isn't well known or it's perceived as risky. I imagine the market for Theranos stock right now is non-existent. And of course, it's not uncommon for early executives to need board approval before they sell shares. When you consider that with the usually pretty negative optics of a CEO unloading a big chunk of stock, it's pretty common for startup executives to have relatively modest real money earnings prior to an exit event. They aren't poor — they tend to be paid like the low end of executives which is still a fortune by the standards of most people. But they're usually paper millionaires rather than actual millionaires.
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Apr 14, 2016 01:05
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pangstrom posted:I didn't really follow it much but it was similar to Uber in that the status quo left a lot to be desired. Also a lot of VC investors talk about how they bet on people and Elizabeth Holmes is supposedly v. impressive in person, is a prodigy etc. The more you bet on somebody the bigger loss you have to eat when it goes bad. This is her sole thing that she's done so why her instead of any other Stanford grad? She also could have bailed relatively early in the process and sold her parents to the existing biomedical companies. The CMS threat would be an almost instantaneous bankruptcy for the company.
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Apr 14, 2016 04:56
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Radbot posted:At least Uber's product works, though? How can you be a prodigy if your product has never worked? It really isn't that surprising. The VCs probably didn't know jack about medical testing or any of the processes you have to go through in order to get a new medical test accepted by regulatory agencies. Maybe they did some cursory research, but it isn't their wheelhouse. Just another instance of people with too much money giving their money to another person who looked good at first glance. Heck, I see this sort of thing all the time at my current job. People just don't do their due diligence.
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Apr 14, 2016 05:18
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One interesting note on secondary markets is that there is a limit to the number of shareholders a privately held company has before they have to publish financial reports similar to what a publicly traded must, by SEC regulations. It's one of the reasons Facebook went public, they passed that threshold and decided may as well just IPO now if we have to do the legwork anyway.
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Apr 14, 2016 09:25
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Radbot posted:At least Uber's product works, though? How can you be a prodigy if your product has never worked? Biotech/Pharma is basically the most extreme high risk/high reward industry out there. Making a drug/test/medical device is really loving expensive at all stages of the process, so companies wanting to get into the game have to raise a bunch of money from investment before they are anywhere near putting out a product, a process that has a lot of hurdles that companies can and do trip up on. There are a vast amount of small medical companies that go bankrupt after never putting out a product, but people do it because if you get good & lucky you could end up with the next Sovaldi and make $1.1 billion dollars in your first quarter of sales. The main deal with Theranos is that like Uber, they tried to pass themselves off as a 'cool tech' company instead of a traditional medical company, and were trying to flout all the standard rules that these companies have to follow.
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Apr 14, 2016 12:29
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Was Theranos' flouting essential to their business model, as Uber's is, or just reckless operation?
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Apr 14, 2016 14:26
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