Uber – off on a tangent

Transportation technology and the unknown

Post published:June 12, 2018
Post author:philip

"When I was a kid" is the beginning of many a discussion on how things were better in past generations. Obviously, obviously, it was better to play outside than to watch television. The effects of technology on people, such as how using social media affects our brains is a common discussion point today. Are we living in a bubble or echo chamber? These are all interesting perspectives on the effect of new technology on our brains, but there's a more physically visible effect of technology on our lives, and perhaps it illustrates similar effects. One of the biggest categories of tech companies getting funded these days is transportation. Uber's $72 billion valuation may grab the headlines, but other companies like Lyft, Didi, Grab, Ola, Gett, and Go-Jek are all valued over a billion dollars and targeting the ride-hailing/taxi space. As an aside I wrote of the tendency of companies to compare themselves to Uber back when Uber was only an $18 billion company in Uber meets Pretty Woman. For anyone who lives in an area underserved by public transportation and/or taxi service, these ride hailing services have made many people's lives easier. One can argue if the lives of the…

Privacy in the age of technology

Post published:November 23, 2014
Post author:philip

The recent kerfuffle over Uber and Lyft employees being able to track the locations that individual customers get picked up and dropped off at reminded me of an incident back when I worked at WebTV Networks in 1996. WebTV, for those who don't remember, was a set-top box that allowed users to surf the web and send e-mail using a wireless keyboard and their television. It was truly a revolutionary device, and it was put together by some of the smartest people in Silicon Valley. It launched with devices manufactured by Sony and Philips, with the service run by WebTV. This was the early days of the Internet – the first mainstream browser Netscape was only introduced in late 1994, and Internet Explorer about a year earlier in 1995. These were dial-up days, when most people were not yet on the Internet, and those that were mostly accessed it via their telephone lines (at university were were able to access it via AppleTalk). The WebTV box had a modem inside and would dial-up to the WebTV Networks service, which was an ISP. Dial-up ISP Business Model The business model of dial-up ISPs was interesting in that they did not have the ability…

Uber meets Pretty Woman

Post published:June 28, 2014
Post author:philip

Uber Search on Product Hunt

Robert Altman's The Player, a 1992 crime drama that at the same time skewers Hollywood as an industry (the main character is a Hollywood producer), famously opens with a long shot listening to several people talking, including screenwriters pitching their movie to the main character, played by Tim Robbins. After trying to describe their film, one pair of screenwriters finally summarize it as "Out of Africa meets Pretty Woman". This type of summary, called a high-concept pitch, is a short easily-understood summary, usually based on a comparison to something well-known. Some people credit Barry Diller (later CEO of Paramount, Fox, and IAC/InterActiveCorp) and Michael Eisner (later CEO of Disney) with coming up with the high-concept pitch, when they both worked at ABC in the 1960s, and needed a way to draw attention to their programs from the brief descriptions allowed in TV Guide. This carries over not only to the description of movie or TV show, but the very concept – i.e. that the movie or show's concept be simple and easy to summarize quickly. The high-concept pitch is the sound-bite of the entertainment world. Ash Maurya in his Running Lean book, suggests using the high-concept pitch to distill one's company down to a…