Necessary is a loaded word....

None the less, let's not pretend yellow cab other taxi livery companies never mistreated any of their employees (male, female, lgbtq, etc.)

Mistreatment is not an uber only specialty.

How does that excuse how Uber acted in any way?

It's not excusing it. Just putting things into perspective. As bad as Uber might be, they might be less bad than the alternative. In those terms, one may not want to champion the legacy system as better.

Users got a better experience from Uber, but it's not clear it was at the expense of the service side of the population being treated worse than they were treated by the incumbents, therefore all other things being equal Uber would still be a net positive.

> As bad as Uber might be, they might be less bad than the alternative. In those terms, one may not want to champion the legacy system as better.

The alternative isn't the legacy system, which nobody's saying is better. The alternative is an Uber with decency (even if still bold to break into regulated markets). Or an Uber competitor.

Necessary is the wrong way to look at it, it was a consequence of the growth above all strategy.

They broke into markets with disregard for the law, often it backfired, often it didn't.

Allegedly(as it is being investigated) they also "stole" IP from Alphabet in an attempt to get ahead in the self-driving gold rush.

They repeatedly ignored several sexual harassment reports in order to protect someone who they referred to as a "high performer", in the name of growth, they could not afford to lose a high performer.

In the startup/VC/unicorn hype world growth is king, it comes before profit, revenue, employee wellbeing, customer satisfaction, business and work ethics.

Uber is not the first guilty of this, it's just the extreme case.

Cornelius Vanderbilt got his start by breaking a monopoly given to ??? to offer ferry service between New York and New Jersey underbidding holder of the monopoly. He broke the law to do it and was sued. It actually was judged by the Supreme Court and the monopoly was thrown out because of Interstate Commerce (I think it decided this entire area of law, IIRC).

There are many entrenched, incumbent interests that try to make money not through healthy wealth creation but by trying to appropriate wealth through politics (e.g., granted monopolies) which to some degree the taxi industry was.

Uber and its competitors did a great service to many people and ultimately really angered monopolistic incumbents.

The sexism isn't the only problem within the company. It's the easiest to criticize, because it's obvious how stupid and absurd it is--and how there is no excusing it, but I Uber has done a bunch of other things that reflect this same mindset.

> stuff like treating women like shit was NECESSARY to provide a good "taxi" service?

No, but its possible they were two facets of the same quality. While the aggressive, see-what-we-can-get-away-with attitude is useful (and probably necessary) in fighting the entrenched local monopolists who have local government protecting their vested interests, it turns out to be a serious liability with respect to workplace norms and stealing of trade secrets.

im not here to scold you, but this comment is kind of revealing. it shows a need to explain a bad thing by saying that a good thing caused it. while i wont deal with the substance of the argument (which i personally reject), its my experience that this argument's format shows up an awful lot when there is a bias that someone has to bend reality to preserve.

its also revealing that you would even bother entertaining this idea. why not just say "yea. they shouldn't do that."? im pretty sure there are companies that have "disrupted" industries that were not filled with toxic culture.

> im not here to scold you, but ...

In other words you're here to scold me.

> it shows a need to explain a bad thing by saying that a good thing caused it.

It does no such thing. It explains the nuance of someone else's argument which I thought was being misconstrued. That is, a thing can have positive and negative aspects.

> while i wont deal with the substance of the argument (which i personally reject), its my experience that this argument's format shows up an awful lot when there is a bias that someone has to bend reality to preserve.

Huh? That is to say "I will ignore your argument (but dismiss it) and jump ahead and make value judgements about your motivation and biases."

> its also revealing that you would even bother entertaining this idea. why not just say "yea. they shouldn't do that."? im pretty sure there are companies that have "disrupted" industries that were not filled with toxic culture.

What I find revealing (and amusing) is that you admit you are ignoring the plain meaning of my post, but prefer to look for thoughtcrimes in the subtext.

i mean, your not wrong to get annoyed at someone for kind of guessing whats going on in your head. it just struck me as odd that someone would even bother to make the point at all.

Not caring about what other people think is necessary for doing pioneering work.

That's completely wrong headed. What people think is entirely the reason that something is "pioneering" or not. How businesses comport themselves and treat their various constituencies is part and parcel of their ongoing success.

"i have to be an asshole to succeed!" - people who are assholes who are making excuses for themselves.