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Re:Uber lays off 435 people by bagacrap on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @03:14PM (#20932266)
> Honest question: Who or what was "really instrumental to Uber's early success"?

Using VC funding to bankroll an unprofitable business model, undercutting existing industry players who didn't have multiple billion dollar rocket boosters, mostly. Ignoring laws and other unethical practices no doubt helped.

Re:Uber lays off 435 people by landryraccoon on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @03:26PM (#20932470)
To be fair, most people wouldn’t be able to pull all of that off but Travis did.
Re:Uber lays off 435 people by majewsky on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @03:44PM (#20932757)
Yeah, people should give him more credit for being as good a con-man as he is!
Re:Uber lays off 435 people by chrischen on Wednesday September 11, 2019 @01:01AM (#20936702)
For non techy startup nerds, it was probably the fact that the Taxi industry was almost universally loathed, expensive, and unreliable.

The on-demand rides industry (Lyft, Uber, et al) managed to not only lower pricing, but also bring Karma (bi-lateral user ratings) to the whole industry so that a driver can't just say "fuck you" to a passenger without consequence (nor could the passenger to the driver). If this didn't improve the world, I'm not sure what does.

Re:Uber lays off 435 people by goatinaboat on Tuesday September 10, 2019 @05:08PM (#20933760)
Don’t forget the industrial scale tax evasion