Thanks for this great post. I'm an organizer of a local DevOpsDays conference with a very similar attendance goal and actual (300 planned, 130 final attendance including speakers, sponsors, organizers). We were touch and go for a while as to whether we'd put it on. Ultimately there were enough commitments to vendors that it was cheaper to put it on at a loss than to back out. Fortunately we had some pre-covid buffer money that kept us from being in real trouble.
All that to say, the conference was a fantastic time, even with the fewer people. We went in with the expectations of a much more intimate event than pre-covid, and we were totally energized and ready to kick it off next year. None of the people there complained about the groups being too small. The conversations that happened were the right ones; the people that had them were the right people.
Thanks for this. Looking at our attendee, sponsor and vendor lists, we can thankfully say that we're in the "quality over quantity" boat. My co-founder and I are splitting a pretty serious loss, but we knew the risks going in so it's not the end of the world.
We're also going to be recording each of the presentations and the speakers really are worth the ticket price and then some (as evidenced by either their own ticket prices or the other events they've spoken at), so we're hoping there will be some additional revenue generated from the video lessons.
We're really looking forward to experiencing the conference and making the best of it!
A third point is that "turn off your phone" is incredibly dismissive. A person shouldn't have to live without the Internet due to the actions of one, two, or twenty individuals.
But they don't have to be a part of Yik Yak, etc. If you walk into a bar and people insult you, don't go to that bar. You also ought not be demanding that the bar be shut down either. Go somewhere else.
Interesting. I feel like there is no way Uber would be on the brink of bankruptcy and not be able to fundamentally change the problems that have persisted so far.
I guess what I'm getting at is that a company valued at 69 billion dollars going out of business in less than 2 years should be a surprise to everyone.
Uber could be valued at a gazillion $, but if it can't make payroll in 90 days, it's got a problem that would be tough to fix, given the apparent lack of a profitable business model.
Revenue is growing but losses are growing too, so revenue is not growing fast enough.
7 billions of cash means Uber will be broke in less than two years depending how much faster losses are growing compared to revenue.
Investors might become hesitant until they know where the lawsuit with google is going.
My interpretation is that, unless Uber finds a way to reverse steam and become profitable they are still around today but are on the way out and might be gone tomorrow.
Yes, and even worse the 'auxiliary' services business seems to be doing very badly and is adding to cash burn, instead of increasing utilisation of their existing fleet.
UberEats for example is completely dying a death in London (this may be different for other markets). Speaking to a few restaurant chain owners they get virtually no orders through and the experience is terrible, because drivers get lost and the food gets cold. They then blame the restaurant and leave loads of bad reviews everywhere.
I genuinely think Uber has very limited network effects. The driver fleet can drive for other companies at the same time, the user will just use the app that is cheapest/works the best/has the best service. I don't see enormous stickiness there, and the other services they offer don't work well IMO.
nb. why on earth is ubereats a seperate app, for example? It should be in the same app.
Only if someone is actually willing to buy part of the company. The last person valuing it at a gazillion dollars doesn't mean that the next person will value it at a gazillion dollars.
A company fueled entirely by venture capital that has no proven ability to make a profit, valued at 69 billion dollars should be a surprise to everyone.
It would only a surprise to people who may believe that companies are worth what they're valued, people who do not understand that investments are bets.
Ever heard of bubbles ? Well they inflate until they burst in a poof where a few trillions disappear.
Remember the dot com bubble bursting at the beginning of the 2000's ? Expect something similar in a not so distant future as the bubble cycle repeats itself.
So yes a 69 billion dollars market valuation for a company does not mean anything other than investors made a bet this company would somehow pay them back their money plus extra at some point.
The answer might be yes and I'd go with yes, but if they're for some reason on what they see as a death spiral, they could return some investor money and call it quits.
Agreed. I imagine a more likely scenario is they slam on the breaks by raising prices and firing a bunch of people before they run out of money. This of course would tank the companies valuation and result in a big decline in ride traffic. I'd be really surprised to see uber completely go away. I think the worst case scenario would be for them to go public and have their valuation impload, I.e a groupon like outcome.
The surprise to me is the craziness of that valuation to begin with. And if they were able to make "fundamental changes", why wouldn't they have done it by now? Seems like the path to change will be more difficult with the loss of top execs, low internal morale, and difficulty hiring top talent moving forward. Maybe out of business in 2 years is agressive, but 5 years? Wouldn't surprise me at all.
Your proposed situation is exactly why regulations are needed; there are very strong incentives to do things incredibly anti-consumer, and regulation is in many ways the only defense. It's generally not possible to find a new ISP, and even if I could find an ISP that didn't do this, they would be competing with the many that do.
This is more common in dry climates where shoes don't get as dirty/muddy. Notably, this describes California, where most TV shows and Movies are produced. It's not as widespread as it would seem from American media.
I would be interested to learn more about those concerns. My "default" setup these days is HTTPS & gzip everything, but I can't say I've read any white papers on the security implications of that.
If the attacker knows or controls any part of the data then the compressed size leaks information about the unknown data because the compressed size will be smaller if the known data shares bytes with the unknown data.
All that to say, the conference was a fantastic time, even with the fewer people. We went in with the expectations of a much more intimate event than pre-covid, and we were totally energized and ready to kick it off next year. None of the people there complained about the groups being too small. The conversations that happened were the right ones; the people that had them were the right people.