Comment by chrisseaton
4 years ago
> They are not really pumping that money into workers and economy
Uber pays thousands of engineers hundreds of thousands of dollars. They all live and spend in their local communities.
> The measure of a successful business is whether it can support itself.
Well this is the major difference - in the US they’re happy to invest and work for the long term, not short-term profits.
> Because those 20 billion dollars are better spent on actual businesses.
Why do you care or have an opinion on where someone else invests their money?
I’ve had to work my whole career for North American companies because European ones can’t even begin to compete. It’s madness to say Europe is better off with our bargain basement tech sector.
> Uber pays thousands of engineers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It's not even close to "thousands of engineers". It's ~23k employees, not engineers.
The absolute vast majority of its employees are not engineers. And their salaries are of course laughable. It's barely median U.S. salary for employees, and below median for drivers [1]
So much for "investing in economy", "pumping money into workers’ hands" and other bullshit. It's a yet another unbelievably unprofitable American "unicorn" driving wages down and passing all costs onto its employees.
> Well this is the major difference - in the US they’re happy to invest and work for the long term, not short-term profits.
10 years and loss of 20 billion dollars is not "working for the long term".
> Why do you care or have an opinion on where someone else invests their money?
Ah yes. I'm not allowed to have an opinion. It's not as good of an argument as you think it is
> I’ve had to work my whole career for North American companies
Good for you. It's still not as good as argument as you think it is.
[1] https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Uber/salaries
> It's not even close to "thousands of engineers".
Uber was up to 2000 engineers as early as 2016.
Is that the only thing you can find to respond to? They raised a perfectly valid point about how Uber is not at all profitable but you did not respond to it at all