You imply that unethical behavior was helpful to Uber defeat awful local transport lobbies in some cities and improve transportation for the people.

I strongly disagree with both assumptions. I believe he was ousted for legitimate reasons that he is 100% individually responsible for and I believe that unethical behavior at Uber did nothing to help them win the battle against local lobbies (only to win against competitors).

Anyway, it's not hard to imagine that Travis, despite being aware of how his actions resulted in consequences, may feel hurt, and maybe even remorseful.

It would be a mistake to believe that people who act poorly all lack empathy.

It would be more properly stated that I do not personally feel bad for Travis being ousted (because is, IMO, a deserved consequence of his acts). And in this case it is not actually a disagreement, just a difference of our reactions.

Yeah, I don't feel bad for the guy either. I hope he feels discomfort for the wrongs his enacted. That would, at least, make him human.

”Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done” - Bryan Stevenson

Edit: I should have used the word valuable instead of impactful. I’m leaving it in because the Uber critics responding below have all jumped on my use of the term, and those replies would no longer make sense if I change it. That said, I do believe Uber has been a very impactful company and will continue to be.

I don't think Uber is this, even if 'impact' is purely taken as a morally neutral statement. It's just clearly not the case. Train companies, underground, shipping, airlines, have all had a much bigger impact and that's just looking at transport.

Uber also wasn't worth $70B in the last round, investors didn't know that sexism was rampant and the culture horrible, which would have surely made them not invest if they had talked to female employees at uber.

However, they didn't know that the culture is horrible and not able to grow another 10x under these conditions and conquer the autonomous driving market.

They also didn't know that Uber had all these patent problem, but they did.

Now, investors have invested at a $48B valuation, but they still overpaid, because they don't know all the information. Maybe they didn't care, because Uber told them, they will definitely be able to bloat up the company to $100, so that SoftBank makes their 2x. Surely they also have liquidation preference.

So, they actual valuation of Uber, including all the bad that no one knows, is probably only at $10B.

It could also only be $1B, since Uber probably won't compete in the autonomous car market and can only make $50M profit per year after stripping away all its overhead. But most people don't know this.

I really don't think a marginal improvement on taxis qualifies for that title.

Airbnb was born out of Craigslist spam. Facebook only grew because of a contact spammer that is still in use to this day. In Facebook’s early days, Hotmail temporarily blocked Facebook invite spam and their growth instantly dropped by 90%. Uber used Greyball to avoid giving rides to those in violation of its terms of service, some of whom were undercover law enforcement personnel looking to disrupt its business.

These big businesses don’t come to fruition by accident, and the one thing they seem to have in common is that most of them broke the rules to get where they are. It may not be pleasant or politically correct, but it’s a fact of life.

Uber used Greyball to evade municipal laws.

Look, I'm a fan of Lyft and Uber. They shook up an ossified taxi industry. But let's not sugarcoat what Uber did - they broke laws and constructed systems to aid breaking those laws.

He spent his time building THAT place I just described

Besides, ride shares isn’t that novel. The math exists. The market itself already exists! It’s just poorly managed

He found rich people to invest in “doing it at scale in the cloud.”

I don’t really give credit for outcomes that anyone with a bachelors in math, and web dev skills could come up with conceptually if not scale

The trickiest bit is getting money and navigating the administrative shitshow that is our society. But that’s easy when you just bribe ...pay... sycophants to do it

He even said himself he has a lot of growing up to do. No need to defend him as simply misunderstood

I don’t really give props for his accomplishments. He lived a contemporary life and got handouts from vultures who saw $$$ while looking at Travis

Are you talking about Uber? More convenient, cheaper taxis? Sure, I like that as much as the next person, but it's hardly one of the most impactful companies in history.

If he is not responsible, then who is? I'm sorry but CEOs can't have it both ways. If you want to be paid at the (insane) current levels you have to take responsibility for the outcomes of your actions. The only other entity that might have some responsibility is the board for not getting rid of Kalanick sooner.

Befehl ist Befehl.

"I was only following orders."

The person following the orders certainly shares some of the responsibility, but the person giving the orders bears even more of the responsibility.

To me "morally reprehensible" implies something quite extreme, like, say, genocide, callous violent crime, rape, etc.

Uber did lots of, if not ethically grey, completely unethical (and unlawful) things. Least of which includes tracking regulators and government inspectors, and also surveillance on their users and celebrities based on the rides they'd take. That's not even counting all the bro culture and sexual harassment that seems to have been rampant.

It does come from the top. A lot of those people that were fired, were hired by Kalanick.

Nobody's shedding a tear for a jerk like Kalanick, especially not after his multi-billion dollar payout. He'll be just fine. In fact, by any stretch of it, he's being HANDSOMELY rewarded for his behavior.

He has simply no reason to change.

What? I didn't say that it was "fine". I'm just trying to get a handle on the scope here. When I think of things that are morally reprehensible, I think of the things I mentioned in my post.

Clearly, I don't think Uber is there, so I disagree with the notion that they acted in a "morally reprehensible" way.

Do I think that they behaved unethically, even criminally so? Yes, I think that you can make a strong case for that.

Maybe I'm making a semantic argument? If so, I think I'm getting weary of our constant 24/7 media stream of outrage, and for that I apologize since that's neither here nor there...

How about we improve public transport? I know it’s unpopular to propose “socialist” ideas, but public transport works elsewhere in the world, why does it have to be so horrible here? Why does someone have to profit for something that you agree is a “pain?”

And for the record, if the United States as a society decides that gun ownership is important enough to let the mass shootings continue that's OK with me. What bugs me more is the perennial argument that gun control wouldn't solve anything or that it's impossible for the US to address its gun violence problem even if it wanted to.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/upshot/compare-these-gun-...

No one holds Germany responsible for EU partner Croatia's outcomes, yet USA wide outcomes are - despite massive local variations. In a lot of areas of US policy (excluding defence) local budgets will dictate results much more than federal ones.

That's the real challenge for the USA, how to cope with inequality that is as much a factor of geography as politics.

At which point you talk about incentives against driving, at which point you piss off millions of people, and potentially punish those who legitimately couldn't use rail due to work or scheduling circumstances.

You're really blowing off something incredibly difficult, more difficult (politically and financially) than putting someone on the moon. And your snark isn't even conceptually consistent; we thought we were a snowflake in the 60s, we just really were one of the greatest countries in the world. Firearm issues are there but over hyped/more complex than you want to admit, and if anything, we really should let states take the reins at healthcare, because it'd be a lot easier for regional governments to pull something off and get the ball rolling than to constantly fight at our crippled-by-two-national-parties Congress.

You're probably right, but I also think that the main roadblocks are political, not financial. The US has one of the highest GDP/capita in the world but consistently fails to apply this economic power to helping its own citizens or does so in extremely wasteful ways like creating jobs through military spending.

Edit: Also public infrastructure isn't just transport. There are cities in the US that do not have safe drinking water. It's shocking.

In places that have good rail systems, most people get to the rail station by walking. In the other places, it is usually because they have disallowed dense construction near transit stations through zoning.

That’s actually a pretty great point. They also weren’t devised for internet, flight, or dna sequencing. Time to roll those back as well.

If You think Taxi's are a mafia, the public transport (bus) system in Mexico is ten times as dirty and corrupt. It is a real shame.

Subways and buses usually have schedules that don't always line up with when you happen to need it. Also, there is a mental tax in having to navigate it.

For instance, I really have a hard time reading subway/train maps and schedules, and God forbid I need to connect to a different line during the route.

Sure, plenty of people are totally comfortable navigating it, but you could make the same case to advocate the Imperial system over metric.

In those cases, Uber and the like not only provide an option that is cheaper than traditional taxis, but also a way to travel that doesn't involve wasting hours because you're visiting somewhere and ended up taking the wrong train.

I like the idea of public transport, but even the best ones are not necessarily the best option in every context.

There's no need for any difference between navigating by car in Google Maps or navigating by public transport in Google Maps.

Meaning, in Netherlands Google Maps show the estimated arrival times of everything, transfers, etc. It'll take into account delays, cancellations, service announcements, etc. All easily within Google Maps (plus a few other apps; the information is publicly available).

Traveling by bike/car/foot/public transport is all the same complexity.

Sometimes there are routes that take significantly longer with PT, and in those scenarios it's just another argument for taking my bike.

There are a few scenarios in which I take taxis, but they're rare and usually when it's the only reasonable option (caused by time or availability of PT like at night).

It also depends on where you live in NL. Every 10 min a train to Ehv is neat, and I got a bus from Ams to my home city every few minutes whole day long, but the rural areas don't have such luxury. The joke for the trains goes, that "they don't drive on time, they drive on rails."

Google has improved here with their offline maps, but even then, it's not 100%.

I'm not saying that PT is worthless or that we shouldn't improve it, but IMHO, Uber and the like fill a very critical "last mile" kind of problem that I think pairs nicely in cities with public transportation.

That sort of costs money, hence taxes. Which no one can agree upon, as everyone has their own list of what's important for them.

>>Why does someone have to profit for something that you agree is a “pain?”

Because people have to get paid, infrastructure and operations have to be expanded and world needs to run.

Indeed. And Uber is no different. The cost of our cheap rides is still paid by the wealthy, in this case VCs and other investors.

> powerfully entrenched politicians (DeBlasio of NYC as an example)

DeBlasio is entrenched because he was elected by a majority of his constituents. The people get to write the rules, called laws. Who voted for Kalanick? What gave him the right?

What I can't understand is the moral grandstanding, e.g. "What gave him the right?" Are taxicab medallions worth it? I never take it seriously when someone starts talking like this about the marriage between taxis and local governments, like it was some holy industry that didn't deserve to be disrupted.

Imagine how long it would have taken for local governments to "fix" something like that. Can you explain to me what it would take for a city council to (1) identify a problem (and in a timely manner, instead of twenty years of "if it ain't broke don't fix it"), (2) come up with a solution, and (3) somehow prioritize this ahead of all of the other important things they work on?

You are correct, no one handed Travis Kalanick the "right" to change something, but I'm okay with the fact that he took it upon himself.

I'm in favor of the rule of law. If I was in favor of the rule of law when it did good things and not when it did bad things (and I ready admit that the medallion system is one of the bad things), and wanted outside companies with private capital to ignore the rule of law to fix the bad things... I wouldn't be in favor of the rule of law at all.

The ultimate question is who we choose to decide whether things are good or bad. If you support the rule of law in a democracy, you have the democratic process. If you support companies outspending and outmaneuvering local governments, you're entrusting capital with making these decisions, and they probably won't reflect the will of the people. It is, to be clear, an entirely legitimate political perspective to believe that we'll get a better society by letting the holder of the most capital make decisions instead of letting the people each have one vote. But that's a very strong claim that should be made clearly, and those who believe in democracy even when democracy happens to produce occasional bad outcomes are not particularly grandstanding, just believing in democracy.

How do you know if "more people agree"? Has there been a public debate and a vote?

If there was a vote, it would be direct democracy, which has some serious drawbacks. One is that most people have very little time to become informed on these issues; that's why they elect representatives to deal with them.

Finally, straight majority rule is just mob rule. Someone said, 'democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner'. What if the majority wanted to take your house away? Take your business away? Stop someone from speaking? Stop the minority party from accepting donations? That's why we have the rule of law, not the rule of the majority.

I agree that not every law is just, but some are less just than others.

So I'm fine with rule of law, and fine with getting fined for violations of medallion regulations.

Which ever way it goes, its fine and fair.

In Australia, after the local regulator/government started fining UberX drivers for illegally operating a taxi service (rightfully so IMHO), Uber told the drivers not to worry, continue driving and they’ll pay their fines for them.

Any person, other than a person holding a driver's license issued pursuant to section 19-505 and a New York state class A, B, C or E license, neither of which is revoked or suspended, who drives or operates for hire a licensed vehicle in the city except a commuter van, shall be guilty of a violation, and upon conviction in the criminal court, shall be punished by a fine of not less than five hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars or imprisonment for a term not exceeding thirty days, or both such fine and imprisonment.

Obviously courts can impose fines - do you honestly think the only thing a court can do is throw someone in jail? Fines are not for torts - penalties are, and there's very strict rules around penalties (they can't be punitive and can only be used to recover costs incurred by failure to perform a contract). You have no idea what you're on about.

The process of fining you is literally a court procedure. The city official doesn't have any authority to fine you - they bring a prosecution against you in court, and provide you with the details by which you can either plead guilty in front of that court (possibly via mail or an online form) and take the sentence that the court gives you (which is most likely to be a fine unless the judge has more information), or plead not guilty and make a defense. Anything else would be a violation of due process.

Again, try looking outside your bubble of the US. This is certainly not the case in countries outside the US.

They cite passenger safety concerns, but there's been not-too-subtle protests by Black Cab drivers who simply refuse to change their archaic business model and a very stark lack of actual Uber users concerned about safety. Not only is it far less convenient than Uber, calling a Black Cab means you need to venture onto the street and if you're not in central London you're basically stuffed. There's also the matter of cabbies being many times more expensive than Uber - a £20 Uber would be £50, at least.

The Black Cab drivers are being petulant children about it. I'm sorry their livelihoods are under threat but they either need to evolve or die. They literally blocked off a major London road right outside my offices in protest against Uber a few months ago; right off Blackfriars Bridge they parked horizontally in the middle of the road, causing absolute mayhem. Usually I'm fine with people striking, but there was no legitimate grievance here - a better competitor came along and instead of embracing change (and progress) they simply threw their toys out of the pram and demanded the politicians (who are in their union's pocket) simply get rid of their competition.

The politicians didn't take much persuading, and just like that we rolled back to Black Cabs (which half of Uber users were priced out of in the first place). Unions are generally a force for good, but this was just a shameless attempt by the Black Cab union to have the competition erased, where previously they operated in what could easily have been described as a monopoly - previously they only faced competition from minicabs and Addison Lee, which largely had an entirely different customer base.

The fact is that Uber came in, heavy handed, and used it's usual "fuck the rules, we're here" attitude towards running its service. It's hardly surprising that it fails to get license renewals when it's not only shown scant regard for the rules and regs, but open contempt about changing so that they fit them.

The majority of New Yorkers did not appear to support his views in respect of taxis. That is why Uber was able to organise a grassroots opposition.

> What gave him the right?

The Constitution and culture of civil society that gives the EFF “the right” to organise constituencies of grassroots support.

Under the law, which is how every modern society is governed, the mayor makes these decisions irrespective of majorities (if they exists) on particular issues; that's on purpose.

> EFF

The EFF does not violate laws and claims no right to do so. It does claim a right to organize people and speak about issues; Uber has that right too. Uber does not have the right to break laws it doesn't like.

You could say people voted with their wallets.

Money should never overwhelm the will of the people. I say this even though I hated the way taxis used to work, with the artificial limitation, and I love a chance to take a much more convenient app based ride, I really despise how they got away with violating at least any standard of reasonable behavior, but also they were apparently violating the law literally - one example being paying the hackers not to hack and not telling anyone.

It’s like the quote from the Chronicles of Riddick, “sometimes the only way to stop evil is not with good. You must confront it with another kind of evil”.

So the identity of the rent seekers at the top hasn't even changed. But you use an app now... so, yay?

I think anybody who takes a rent seekers' side over even the most despicable politician doesn't deserve to live in a Democracy.

This really turns taxi service into some great horror. Uber didn't cure cancer or even invent the Internet (nor is it cheaper than cabs in cities I've been in); they just made a marginal improvement in one form of transportation, partly by using massive wealth to take on losses and by imposing externalities on others: The cost of cars on the drivers, safety on the passengers, traffic on the rest of the city (a big reason for medallions, afaik, was to avoid the traffic jams that Uber creates in cities). Cabs worked fine for many years, and still do.

> It’s like the quote from the Chronicles of Riddick, “sometimes the only way to stop evil is not with good. You must confront it with another kind of evil”.

Evil? Cabs are evil? If we're getting our philosophy from the Chronicles of Riddick, it suddenly all makes sense. The better sources of philosophy would disagree.

So should anyone who wants be able to break laws and abuse people? If the only justification you need is that cab service isn't great, what good are laws?

You could say it, but that's not how democracy or legitimate government and lawmaking works. And in Uber's case, the wallets voting are a few investors who subsidized the customers.

Markets don't have elections and most politicians/bureaucrats don't exactly have the competency to decide what should be good for everyone. Letting people vote with their wallets has largely worked.

Of course no system is perfect, but this is as fair as it gets.

This issue has nothing to do with central planning. Free market theory does not support legal anarchy. It really should work that businesses can do whatever they want, irrespective of the law? Can they murder? Steal? Damage your property and life? It's absurd.

The excellent Cuban health system achieves the same for roughly 1/10th the cost.

Which part of "double the price same product" counts largely "worked" and why do you want me to give up my cheaper system for yours?

If only I could walk into a health care facility and see the prices posted on the wall for various procedures, or get an estimate upfront, the way I can at any auto garage...

Furthermore, don’t ever say “excellent Cuban” anything. There’s a reason why people try to cross shark infested waters on dingy rafts from Cuba to Key West, Florida. People vote with their feet and wallets.

What makes Uber legit? People support it.

Although I guess a government doesn't need the support of the people to maintain legitimacy, it just needs to be able to maintain a monopoly on violence. And if Uber had a monopoly on the taxi industry maybe it wouldn't need the people's support either.

> What makes Uber legit? People support it.

Really? Uber has the legitimacy of government? Wow.

Problem is some wallets are empty and some are full, whereas in a democracy every vote has the same weight.

1. Operate in legal grey areas to get a product infront of consumers. Build a large enough network of riders and drivers to prove the product market fit.

2. By the time, politicians and the connected taxi cartels realize the magnitude of the change and seek to outlaw it, rally their own voters to back Uber.

3. Under pressure, have politicians clear the path for legalization. This has played out in more cities than I can remember.

Step #1 before #2 is what made TK and Uber different. The level of ruthlessness it requires, I’d have a hard time substituting others in his position.

Your description left out buying off politicians and breaking the law.

> taxi cartels

The picture of taxi owners as powerful doesn't at all match what I know. It's a shibboleth promoted by Uber.

You should read this then - https://priceonomics.com/post/47636506327/the-tyranny-of-the....

You may be confusing taxi drivers with taxi companies owning and selling medallions for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Taxi drivers have traditionally been thoroughly exploited from having to either put all their wealth at risk from buying an overpriced medallion, or through having to work the first x hours a day simply to break even from mandatory fees. Ask a former yellow cab driver in NYC who converted to Uber to understand which company treats them better.

No, I'm not. In cities I know, they are politically weak. Also, when I talk to drivers, they all would rather drive taxis where they make more money, but have little choice when Uber is taking all the business. They almost universally say Uber pays less, treats them poorly (e.g., they have to supply their own car), and leaves them powerless (Uber can change rates and increase the supply of drivers any time it wants).

> for hundreds of thousands of dollars

Is this big number supposed to be impressive? Let's not forget Uber's 40 billion dollars and lobbyists who used to advise Presidents, if we want to talk about political power. It's laughable to compare taxi companies with Uber.

That’s actually a bad example. Airbnb has tons of legal troubles just as Uber. In many cities it operates illegally. I have traveled around world and used Airbnb a lot and in about half the places I was told it is a grey area or straight out illegal.

Hotel lobby has been busy pushing governments to legislate against Airbnb. It’s just that sharing economy company like that is hard to fight as there is not a bunch of hotel buildings you can go and close down / inspect. It’s hundreds or thousands of either normal folk trying to make extra buck from their unused rooms or speculators buying flats just to rent them via Airbnb.

A very good parallel can be made between Uber vs entrenched taxi industry & Airbnb vs hotel industry. Both companies disrupting old industries using any gray area or straight illegality if it’s hard to enforce.

the city where i live (a 12 million people city) taxi cartels are so powerful, the leader of one of those has dinner with the governor. he has meetings with senators. there is recording of him calling for taxi drivers within his "association" to violently attack uber drivers and nothing was done.

also, taxi medallions are so damn expensive (with some coming to the price of a house) that the owners become powerful.

Do you think Uber's leaders might do the same?

And yes, voting with one's wallet is often the most effective form of voting we have.

And all the unethical, getting-their-hands-dirty shit you mentioned seems of dubious value and certainly moreso now that he's been fired from his company; seems like all the same could've been achieved without hiring a team of assholes and without being one himself.

The market doesn't care about the feelings of executives. He was a net liability for Uber by the end, and if he couldn't mamage to keep himself valued by the market, that's on him.

Knowing you messed up doesn't necessarily make it any less painful.

Life has an interesting sense of humor.

This is really strangely dismissive. Does the "paradigm shift" justify any and all of Uber's unethical actions? If so, why do you think breaking the law and harassing rape victims is either acceptable or laudable? If not, why bring it up, unless you're perpetuating some kind of entrepeneur business-worship over basic moral decency?

Jobs often took an “ask for forgivenss” approach. Copying Xerox [1], screwing Wozniak [2], the naming schtick with the Beatles, et cetera.

[1] http://www.mac-history.net/computer-history/2012-03-22/apple...

[2] http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atari...

> Jobs often took an “ask for forgivenss” approach.

So we agree: He didn't break the law. Being a jerk to his co-founder is not at all comparable.

This is an unpopular opinion, but if it weren't for Jobs, Woz would have remained an unknown HP engineer.

I completely agree. I also think Steve Jobs was a great man. Part of his greatness was knowing which rules he could bend, which rules he could break, and deftly negotiating the aftermath.

Greatness isn't hurting other people, but finding ways to get things done that benefit all stakeholders, including society and community.

I think it’s too early to judge Uber’s “contribution to society” when the investors are basically footing the bill for all of Uber’s customers. Let’s see Uber make a profit and it still be less costly/better service to what consumers get now and then we can talk about their contribution to society.

However, the parents point is more general and I think you're talking past it. You can't evaluate Uber's societal contributions based on short term and possibly ephemeral benefits. For example, if ride sharing services suddenly disintegrate once VC funding dries up then they can't be said to have made a meaningful impact. Sustainability is actually crucial.

Far more than Kalanick's behavior, it is the company's practices that are the problem. They willfully broke the law and they also mistreated many people from employees to drivers to rape victims.

But I think it is important to recognize both the bad and the good stuff that happened.

We all sit comfortably in the Bay Area because our ancestors murdered and stole lands from Native Americans. They also build an entire ecosystem that gained wealth from exploiting laborers and immigrants. History is messy, but they did these things so their children can sit around in comfortable homes enjoying these highly philosophical debates without any physical danger

Wait what? What did he take the blame for exactly? Were the sexist comment making, the berating of his own Uber driver, or Greyball things that were necessary for ride sharing to become successful? I think most people are quite capable of being able to separate ride sharing the technology from a ride sharing technology company's CEO. Ill feelings for the latter do not imply ill feelings for the former.

>"We all sit comfortably in the Bay Area because our ancestors murdered and stole lands from Native Americans."

"We all?" Wow. You live in quite a bubble if you really believe that everyone who reads HN lives in the Bay Area or is an American. Or has ancestors that killed native Americans. What an incredibly outrageous statement and comparison. Speak for yourself.

It doesn't matter if your ancestors were Americans. The prosperity and safety of the Bay Area, which you enjoy, was made possible by people who murdered and stole land. You enjoy that privilege everyday without taking any of the blame.

The fact that you're outraged speaks to your privilege because you've no understanding of what a bloody mess history is, and the amount of indencency it took to get the U.S. to the prosperous nation it is today.

Murdering people and stealing land turned out great for the murderer's ancestors so it's all ok? Not from the point of view of those who were murdered.

Using that logic - if space aliens came and murdered all the technologically inferior humans and took Earth for themselves, it would be all ok. After all, they are building a more technologically advanced and superior society on Earth for their children.

I'm saying they did something NOT OK, and their children get to enjoy all the fruits of their immorality without any of the blames.

Exactly my point. They got punished for it, but their children lived to enjoy the fruits of their labor, without any blame or punishment.

1. You write as if Uber has solved the transportation problem sustainably. The end state of an Uber job is that it will pay less than minimum wage. Why? Because the barrier to entry is the same as most minimum wage jobs (assuming you have a car made in the last 10 years) and it is more desirable than minimum wage jobs (flexible hours, no boss). The pay may look better on paper, but when all the hidden costs are accounted for it will be less than minimum wage. Uber is operating in an unsustainable bubble. Sequoia and Softbank are subsidizing your trips.

2. My guess is that if your mom was raped in an Uber and one of Travis' lieutenants got (somehow, possibly by stealing/bribing - not by asking her permission) your mom's medical records to prove to himself that she really was raped (to determine Uber liability and that it wasn't staged by a competitor), then you might feel differently in your respect and admiration for Travis Kalanick.

Had you posted other uncivil comments I'd ban you, but since you haven't, we'll treat it as an isolated lapse. Please don't do it again though. If you can't remain scrupulously respectful of the person you're replying to, please don't post.

If you'd read the HN guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site to heart, we'd appreciate it. That spirit is intellectual curiosity: considering things for the pleasure of considering them. That doesn't fit with flamewars and is incompatible with personal attack.

All he's saying is that he brought about the concept of ride sharing (debatable since there was, for instance, Sidecar before the advent of UberX) to the public and that he understands the pain of being ousted by your own company.