Exactly. This proposal is absolutely soul-crushing for most people. Having extended daylight hours when people are actually awake in the evening is critical for positive mental health.
There's so many issues with large companies demanding people to return to the office, so it's at least somewhat refreshing to hear "do it because I said so", but this just isn't going to work in the long run. The toothpaste can't be put back into the tube. And this is because anyone who worked in-person at the office of a large tech company knows it's markedly worse.
For meetings, the process typically was:
1. Try to book a meeting room for a group large enough, succeed about 80% of the time and scramble at the last minute other times.
2. Wait for someone to finish up their call. If someone super senior was in the room, my meeting was guaranteed to start whenever they felt like ending their meeting, which would be 5-10 minutes late.
3. Inevitably dial into a video conference because at least one member of the team is working in a different office, so not even everyone was in person anyway
4. Run out of time at the end and having to dash to my next meeting room late.
And this doesn't even account for the fact that getting quality heads-down time in an open office floor plan was nearly impossible.
Just take the good with the bad. Make in-person meetings mandatory for important events that require in-person collaboration like design sprints, brainstorming, launches, etc.
May 31, 2020 attempting to breach White House perimeter: "More than 60 Secret Service officers and agents were injured near the White House ... when protesters threw “projectiles such as bricks, rocks, bottles, fireworks and other items,” according to the statement. “Personnel were also directly physically assaulted as they were kicked, punched and exposed to bodily fluids."[1]
July 22, 2020: "As they have for the past 53 days, violent anarchists continue to riot on the streets of Portland as federal law enforcement officers work diligently and honorably to enforce federal law by defending federal property and the lives of their fellow officers.
Attacks on federal personnel and property overnight have included attacks on Law Enforcement officers with commercial grade fireworks, hard projectiles, and lasers – which can cause permanent blindness. Last night violence was even more aggressive than previous nights as rioters once again tried to set fire to the federal courthouse and actively tried to breach the entrance of the courthouse. Rioters are also employing tactics that force federal officers to leave the Hatfield Federal Courthouse, setting them up to be attacked with lasers and projectiles."[2]
Perhaps these do not meet your narrow definition, yet violent attacks on our other branches of federal government seem fairly analogous if not of the same magnitude as Wednesday's assault. Are you suggesting Apple would/should allow apps where users organized violent assaults such as these on the executive and judiciary - just not against the Capitol building as Congress is in session?
I think this is a different beast. I personally loved shopping at Whole Foods because the food is high quality and their employees are treated well. These tenets are totally incompatible with Amazon's culture. Sure, now they say they will run it independently, but if Amazon were to struggle with Whole Foods, the first thing they do will be to lower labor costs and food costs.
Unions to protect workers are now more important than ever in this new age of monopolies.
Or, Amazon + Whole Foods can afford to run less profitably than Whole Foods alone... in WF's core in-store grocery business.
Because Amazon can better monetize WF: backing with Amazon's logistics chain, expanding grocery delivery, cross-marketing with customer's existing Amazon purchases, and using WF's real estate for warehousing stock closer to affluent customers for one hour deliveries.
I absolutely agree they'll be tempted to squeeze costs, but I think there's a viable financial option to run WF as-is and still accrue benefits to the greater-Amazon.
Amazon is a tech and logistics company. I doubt very much that their strategy is "buy random company, lower pay of employees, profit". This was a very strategic move for them and I am sure they intend to use their tech and distribution platform to increase the profit, rather than slice and dice the store experience and quality at the local level. This is what differentiated WF from many other grocery stores that I'm sure Amazon could have bid on, why would they want to ruin the one thing it had going for it?
"
Online delivery of groceries so far has been tough for any company to pull off because of customers' concerns about the quality of meat and produce, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said. But if customers know that what they are getting is the same as what they'd get at the local store, they are more likely to try it out.
Pure speculation but I'm guessing their strategy here has a few elements:
- they need to get to meaningful scale on the buy side of the grocery business which they weren't able to do on their own
- Whole Foods is already a "tech friendly" grocery brand (Instacart, Apple Pay)
- Whole Foods has a lot of premium/value add and non-grocery products (prepared food and organic underpants and such) that offer more profit margin than just groceries
It probably also doesn't hurt that Whole Foods is the only grocery store within walking distance of Amazon HQ and about 1000 employees eat lunch there every day.
> Amazon were to struggle with Whole Foods, the first thing they do will be to lower labor costs and food costs.
They'd do what any company that doesn't want to end up bankrupt to do. Attack the easy parts first (overly expensive infrastructure, etc) then hit the two major cost centers: labor and food costs.
If it comes down to two options: lower wages/quality of food or a company that no longer exists, the former is probably the better alternative, no?
A huge part of lower home prices in Japan is that they treat housing as a depreciating asset in their economy. So it's more like buying a car than making an investment.
That is an asian thing. Im seeing it with chinese buyers in Vancouver. They dont want a "used" house. New houses are being built to low standards on the assumption that any future buyer will rebuild anyway. Give me a 35yo house with a proven track record over some new thing that could be leaking come winter. Houses are not cars.
And as that Freakonomics episode notes, there's at least an argument that disposable houses have been a factor in the Japanese economic slump. There are good reasons to rebuild housing from scratch (and some Japanese history that probably played into the disposable housing dynamic). But compared to the US, rebuilding housing every 35 years means that you're destroying a lot of capital.
Much depends on specifics. Any 35yo house will have been built to radically different codes. It will probably not be near the maximum square footage now allowed on its lot. So, purely from an investor's point of view, the house is holding back the price. Pulling it may actually makes the land worth more. In my neighbourhood it isnt easy to get a permit simply to replace a small house with a larger one .... unless something catastrophic happens and the old house is doomed. There have been too many leaky roofs left for years, and a few fires, which conveniently lead to the house being declared unliveable or unsafe, the first step to getting a new permit. In such situations the house is definitely worth more down than up.
The Freakonomics podcast referenced upthread does mention earthquake codes and some other factors that have helped lead to houses becoming disposable. Nonetheless, I'd note though that it's not really the case in, say, the Bay Area. It's a behavior that seems to have evolved beyond practical reasons to become a cultural pattern.
There are also good reasons to junk old cars but it would be pretty inefficient if it became a societal taboo to drive a car over five years old or to purchase a used model.
Serious question - why hasn't the Uber board replaced Kalanick yet? While it is indisputable he successfully brought Uber to where it is now, it doesn't seem like he has the good judgement to be leading Uber at this stage of the company's lifecycle. Wouldn't the best thing for the company at this point be a complete overhaul of leadership?
Because kalanick and early investor control the class B stocks, which means they control the voting power. Additionally kalanick has been outspoken about running uber himself so its unlikely that he'll step down.
If that is true, then I really need to drink my ethics out of my conscious, just grab that 'free' money, burn it on foosball tables, beanbag chairs, blow, trips to Goa, etc. and ride the late 'teens wave to a 'remorseful' book deal and the inevitable Scorsese film. Gosh, what is wrong with me?
Because the boards act in structural manner, rather than by spur of emotion.
The new CEO will most likely get some key performance objectives related to current problems as well as revenue (or margin) growth.
If there's a reason to believe TK can commit and be evaluated against the same indicators, the incumbent CEO is a better choice since no time is wasted on onboarding and getting familiar with the business. If he refuses to commit or commits and is then unable to execute, now that stipulates a much more productive board discussion on how the current CEO should step away to let a "more mature" or "more tenured" CEO that can execute against those objectives.
So if any resignation is imminent, expect it in 3-6 months, not now.
I agree with respect to the behavior of boards, but the public relations imbroglio could prompt a more rash action. Interim executives could perform his duties for 3-6 months. I believe that.
To me, that the perception of Uber as a toxic company has not abated indicates that, even if the board and investors have tried to ameliorate the situation, they have little control over Kalanick. I'd be fairly upset to see my return hang in the balance over something like that, but I suppose your return is always hanging in the balance over something.
If I were an investor in Uber I would be more concerned about the Waymo/Otto business. If some injunction comes down with that, a huge amount of the value of Uber could evaporate. If their self-driving business stays on course and they oust Kalanick, I'm reasonably certain that they can deliver on a large portion of their valuation.
Interesting...The FBI seems to be praising her for her actions in that space.
"Mayer exhibited 'great leadership and courage while under intense pressure from many entities,' FBI San Francisco Division Special Agent in Charge Jack Bennett said on Wednesday"
Yeah that'll be a great resume padder "Ignored and pretended not to know about one of the largest breaches in history, but it's ok because the FBI said I was a real trooper"
Why replace him? He's publicly unpopular but the company is worth more than ever, and the investors care most about money.
Why get rid of him when they're plenty of ways to spin the narrative. Like making unrelated but scandalous sounding press releases, and finding an occasional fall guy
Because when you have an unpopular leader making decisions that are unpopular with customers you lose those customers. I no longer use Uber and don't see myself using them again until he leaves.
More recently I've been considering closing my Amex card now that they've partnered with Uber.
A surprisingly large number of seemingly-unconnected people I know have switched to Lyft. The switching itself isn't the issue, it's that these people come from several different social groups and they are all surprisingly vocal about switching.
The fact that my friends still pile up at Chick-Fil-A makes me want to disagree. No matter how principled people claim to be, they always end up back with what they know and like, in this case Uber.
Not true, Uber can be 40-60% cheaper. I've stopped taking public transit in the Bay Area because of Uber, I don't think I could do that with Lyft alone. Is there another competitor with cheaper pricing?
I don't know about the US, but in India, Ola offers cheaper prices than Uber (about 30 - 60%) and people are switching to it. Uber hasn't been deleted, but it's losing customers (at least the ones using cab services regularly) to Ola.
I'd guess that a large fraction of people that deleted the Uber app and installed a competitor have not reinstalled. Once you've gone through that there isn't much point in reinstalling Uber. However, I don't know how many people did this vs just uninstalling Uber without a replacement or leaving it installed but not using the app. Those two groups probably had higher rates of people going back to Uber.
I disagree - I've had Uber and Lyft for years, and I check both to compare prices and ETA. For the past 6 months, I've noticed that Uber can be 40-60% cheaper than Lyft. I doubt former Uber users will forget what prices are like.
Uninstalling provides an additional barrier to returning. I mentioned that I expect users that didn't uninstall to return at a higher rate than users that did.
It's also not just about the price. A new benefit to having an Amex platinum card is $200 per year in Uber ride credits. I do not plan to return to Uber to use the credits. In fact, this is making me seriously consider not renewing that card when the annual fee comes up in a few months. I don't want Uber getting money from me, even indirectly.
How exactly do you perform this price comparison? In my experience you only find out what the ride cost after it's over. Or do you regularly travel the same routes often enough that you can run a personal A/B test?
It probably depends on their alternatives, so cities are probably going to have more viable competitors to use than rural areas.
60% seems extremely high to me. I'm sure it's happening at some level, but it would have a significant impact on Uber's growth and it opens the door for the 2nd and 3rd place competitors to get traction.
Also, the rates will drop every time there's a new scandal, so there's a compounding effect to the waves of bad press they've had.
You say that -- and externally the place looks like a catastrophe -- but we don't know what's going on under the covers. If they saw him as a true risk he'd be gone by now.
Do you really think the Uber board is going to risk bursting that bubble with an IPO? I'd expect them to keep doing funding rounds on the basis of "it's an XX billion dollar company and its valuation is growing at YY billion/year" and try to keep the Ponzi scheme running until they get their self-driving tech working (since that's their only realistic chance of actually becoming revenue-positive).
Sure, they'll keep that going as long as they can. The point is, though, that narrative is slipping away from them. They need to make a convincing case that it's real, and do so soon.
100% agree. I carry a pair of Apple earbuds with me to use interchangeably with my phone and my Mac laptop. The new lightning headphones that come in the box won't be compatible with my laptop, so I'll either need to use the old earbuds with a phone adapter or the new earbuds with a laptop adapter or I need to carry around both sets of earbuds with me.
That said, their vision for the world to go 100% wireless is absolutely right. However, I don't think their execution is great in this area. Their AirPods don't hold a long enough charge quite yet and they are highly susceptible to being lost. Also, while I think Bluetooth has many many problems, I wish Apple spent time improving that standard instead of introducing their own standard.
The AirPods are bluetooth. I think that has been a point of confusion. Also, 5 hrs may not seem like much but 24 hours w/ the case is a lot more than comparable bluetooth earbuds. And I really love the idea of a battery case: extend battery life, no connector on headphones, keeping them in the case may make it harder to lose them.
Thanks for clarifying the point about the bluetooth - this definitely got buried for me. The case is a good stopgap for improving battery life, but I still think they need to last 10 hours on a single charge to be really useful. For instance, 5 hours won't be enough for a plane trip if you include the time it takes to get to the airport/arrive at your destination. If they can just last a little bit longer, I'd be more on board with the change.
Why can't we compromise a bit here? I don't think many people have issues with folks renting out their place for a few weeks during the year, but buying property and using it to attract vacationers to a residential area is very different. It can change the city by causing businesses to cater towards more tourists and to reduce available housing stock.
What if people could only rent out their primary residence for no more than half the year unless the property is exempt as a vacation home? Perhaps this could be a good compromise for cities to encourage Airbnb while effectively banning the practice of buying homes exclusively for Airbnbers.
Curiously, I grew up in NJ, where 40% [0] or more of certain shore towns are rented out at least part of the year. We vacation there and yet it doesn't seem to negatively effect the towns. There is mix of full time residents, part time residents, and 100% rentals, and it's the way it's been for decades. Yet Ocean City, Wildwood, etc are flourishing.
Considering these towns have been so rental focused for decades before Air BnB was a thing, it feels to me like the model works well for towns that embrace it. Am I wrong?
Force AirBnB to disclose data or else they'll be banned, and its users prosecuted with extreme prejudice?
SM could have a good start here. Also, if it would somehow force AirBnB to disclose the data, it would be a good precedent and all other cities could benefit as well.
Of course it ain't gonna happen, because it's not good for AirBnB business.
You'd need to force everyone to do & then the city would still have to consolidate all the data. Otherwise I could rent my home half the year on AirBnB & the other half on VRBO.
Santa Monica is also a big travel destination. I could probably rent my home out on AirBnB for the 3 summer months & cover my mortgage for the year. So arguably, it could still see a reduction in inventory.
It might still profitable to rent the house for the busy season and let it sit vacant the other half of the year. A friend who owns three VRBOs in Santa Cruz basically does that. (he's a decent guy but an opportunistic and terrible landlord)
It is possible to think through the law and write it well to avoid that sort of situation. In this case, a clause stating that 1) a primary residence can only be rented out x days a year while the owner is not present, but may be rented an additional x days a year with the owner present 2) A secondary or vacation home can only be rented out x days a year with a minimum of x days between rentals, and the owners must be present at least x days out of year. 3) A non-primary or secondary home may only be leased out x days of the year, with longer x days in between. 4) A unit that would otherwise be a unit for longer habitation can only be rented out a smaller x times a year, and must be offered for long-term renting at competitive prices in between times. 5) All other residences being rented out must be registered and liscenced as a resort or a hotel and uphold the regulations of those. 6. All must register their rentings with the city and obtain the appropriate permits (simple stuff for single home owners looking to supplement income, of course).
