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jonknee | 5 years ago

They're a global company that operates in 900 cities. I don't understand why so many people on this site seem to think it should be a few programmers and some suits to sign the checks.

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Barrin92|5 years ago

because for the past 11 years, and people tend to forget how long this company has existed, they have been burning through money faster than star athletes after retirement while inventing increasingly convoluted metrics to claim to be actually profitable.

Many people are just tired of seeing glorified sales and taxi companies disguising themselves as tech companies.

The defining feature of a technology firm is reduction of marginal costs at scale. If you're adding human labour with every city you expand into you might have a problem on your hands if your banking on making facebook margins.There is an underlying exhaustion among some people, myself included, who want to see investments into basic research and real technological advances rather than yet another app delivering pizza being valuated at 50 billion dollars.

hckr_news|5 years ago

Uber’s engineering infrastructure is nothing to scoff at.

randomsearch|5 years ago

(Serious questions, seeking clarity in my own mind)

Is Netflix a tech company?

Is a company that sells ebooks a tech company? What about scientific journals? Are they tech companies?

Is Instagram a tech company? What about ad brokers?

dave5104|5 years ago

That's 30 employees per city, for those who didn't do the mental math. Seems way more reasonable considering for each given market, you'll need a number of support staff + supervisors, marketing people, staff to support drivers and their enrollment, and staff to support an office if one exists. Divvy up corporate HQ heads (engineering, exec team, etc.) and I can see that number hitting 30 per city.

oblio|5 years ago

Don't forget people that deal with all sorts of compliance issues.

munificent|5 years ago

Most programmers are completely oblivious to the world of sales and how large it is.

aazaa|5 years ago

> I don't understand why so many people on this site seem to think it should be a few programmers and some suits to sign the checks.

I don't, either, but then again I never said that. I'm merely wondering how the jobs break down.