France Is Right to Mistrust Uber | Bloomberg View

June 30, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

At first glance, Uber’s most recent troubles in France look like an especially violent case of a hidebound country’s reaction to technological disruption. I, too, was once tempted to see Uber’s legal problems in Europe in that light.

Now, I think there’s a valid reason for the French government to resist the spread of Uber. The company is not doing enough to convince governments or the European public that it isn’t a scam.

Uber’s troubles have been particularly acute in France. Last week, licensed taxi drivers blocked roads and airports, burned tires and trashed cars. Previously, President Francois Hollande demanded that the company’s UberPop service be “dissolved” and its vehicles seized. On Monday, police detained two of Uber’s top executives in the country for questioning. Thibaud Simphal, the company’s director general for France, and Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, its director for Western Europe, will have to appear in court in September to answer charges of fraud and illegal activity.

French Anti-Uber Protest Turns To Guerrilla Warfare As Cabbies Burn Cars, Attack Uber Drivers | TechCrunch

June 25, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ 1 Comment

Today’s taxi driver protest is getting out of hand. According to the police, 2,800 taxi drivers are protesting today against UberPOP, the European equivalent of UberX. With UberPOP, everybody can become an Uber driver — taxi drivers see the service as unfair competition as they have to get a special license. Yet, this doesn’t really explain why cabbies are now attacking Uber drivers, burning and breaking their cars.

The police have already arrested a taxi driver and an Uber driver. The cabbie was throwing projectiles toward the police, while the latter was attacking a cabbie. It is currently very difficult to go to Charles-De-Gaulle and Orly airports as taxi drivers are blocking the roads. Taxis are also controlling many parts of Paris, looking for Uber drivers.

There are other protests happening right now in Nice, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon and Lille. It’s the biggest protest so far against the urban transportation company in France as UberPOP has been expanding to new French cities.

A California Ruling Just Challenged Uber’s Entire Business Model | Bloomberg Business

June 18, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

California’s labor commissioner said an Uber Technologies Inc. driver who connects with customers through the company’s app must be considered an employee, a decision that strikes at the heart of its business model.

San Francisco-based Uber, like other “sharing economy” startups, has built a business around a flexible car fleet piloted by people it contends are independent contractors. If Uber’s drivers were treated as employees, the company would be required to guarantee them a minimum wage, compensate them for mileage and pay into social security.

“We see this as a problem that’s growing larger with each year, with employees lacking security and even basic rights when they are treated as independent contractors,” said Steve Smith, spokesman for the California Labor Federation, which has backed tougher regulations on ridesharing companies.

Tech Bubble? Maybe, Maybe Not | TechCrunch

March 25, 2015March 25, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

I’ve heard people wonder if we’re in a bubble with regard to startups. Is it as bad as the 2000 dot-com bubble? Might it actually be worse? I thought it would be worthwhile to look at the available data to see if we can figure this out with more than just a personal opinion. So I asked our engineering team at Google Ventures to dig into the bubble question and find out what the data say. In this post, I’ll share what I learned.

Back in the late 1990s, venture capitalists got very excited about the Internet. A whole lot of money was poured into some companies that failed rather spectacularly, and a lot of people lost a lot of money.

Fast forward to 2015. If you read the headlines about multi-billion-dollar valuations for companies like Uber (one of our portfolio companies), Airbnb and Dropbox, it’s easy to see why some people are feeling antsy. Is everyone irrationally excited about new platforms and economic models in the same way folks were excited in 1999? Or is this different? There are two sides to the case.