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Comment by defen | Hacker News Reader

You know, I remember posting on this site years ago that the Uber CEO was a terrible person (Based on a few interactions I had with him back when UberCab had about 5 employees) and being told by some prominent people that I was wrong. This was back when YC was talking about how "niceness" was a key quality in successful founders. Feels good to have my instincts vindicated.

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Uber is the prototypical example of what happens when you give a pack of fratbros too much VC money. The exact same thing happened in the late-1990s dotcom boom (And bust, 2000-2001), people have not learned their lesson.

beenz

flooz

webvan

pets.com (albeit, their business model has been vindicated by amazon many years later)

I think it was roughly 3 years ago that some people were saying Uber would be the first trillion dollar company...

Kalanick's first startup was a P2P that was sued for 250 billion. He filed bankruptcy and made another P2P startup that got acquired and then started Uber

Every startup he's run has been built around breaking the law

I agree with you. 2 or 3 years ago I posted how I dislike Uber as they are shady and unethical and how some of the drivers do unethical stuff as well. Got downvoted every time because "cab drivers don' do that?"

Exactly. People like Uber for "breaking the taxi cab monopoly"... by building their own monopoly.

Yes. And to pile on the "I told you so" stack, I also have been saying here for years that Uber is actually worse and the way they're fighting the "taxi mafia" implies that we'll be worse off when they win.

Exactly. One of Uber's main boasts is that they're "creating jobs" while actively trying (by stealing other Google's tech) to eliminate their drivers.

You should dig that up! Sounds like an interesting read.

Unfortunately I think I substantially edited/deleted it because I didn't want to post personally identifiable information, but that meant my post was effectively an anonymous attack on a person's character. So in that regard I don't begrudge people for not believing me / not thinking I should post it.

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