> Our proposal avoids the potential harm of forcing drivers to be employees, whether or not they want to—and the vast majority tell us they don’t want to be.
> Contrary to some of the rhetoric we’ve heard, AB5 does not automatically reclassify any rideshare drivers from independent contractors to employees.
This may seem like an immediate contradiction, but I guess they've reframed it so their proposal is actually in line with AB5?
great pr-speak
> But just because the test is hard does not mean we will not be able to pass it. In fact, several previous rulings have found that drivers’ work is outside the usual course of Uber’s business, which is serving as a technology platform for several different types of digital marketplaces.
Also seems like they will continue to thwart where they can (which I can't blame them for really) but seems aggressive to note. This reads more like a shareholder update, which makes sense.
> Governor Newsom has already committed to sign AB5, which would go into effect in January 2020. Because we continue to believe drivers are properly classified as independent... drivers will not be automatically reclassified as employees, even after January of next year...
> Uber and Lyft together have already transferred $60 million into a campaign committee account, and we are open to investing more to put us in the strongest position possible to run a winning campaign... We are confident that California voters and the millions of riders and drivers who use Uber will step up to protect these important work opportunities.
Translation: "We're betting that we can get a ballot initiative passed legalizing what we do faster than the State of California can bust us for violating AB5."
> Importantly, our ballot measure will not ask voters to exempt us from AB5, even though nearly every other industry in California that works with independent contractors received an exemption from the ABC test through special amendments I mentioned earlier. Instead, we will ask voters to support the pro-driver policies we have advocated for: giving drivers access to benefits and an earnings floor and retaining the flexible access to on-demand work they enjoy today.
It doesn't sound like the proposal is intended avoid compliance with AB5 but to create conditions where new bills that make the ABC test harder pass will have less support.
Harsha from the Stripe Capital team here. Access to capital has been one of our top user asks, and users were excited about the possibility of Stripe leveraging our knowledge of their business to offer them an integrated solution for their capital needs.
As for pricing, the cost of the loan is a single fixed fee that adjusts to the loan amount, and it is paid over the course of the loan—there is no interest rate or additional fees. The effective APR is dependent on how long it takes to repay the loan. We’re priced very favorably compared to alternative lenders.
The rates don't seem extraordinarily high to me. What would you consider reasonable? It's not trivial to get an apples-to-apples comparison since loan rates are usually given as an APR, not a flat fee. Also, don't confuse their "% of sales to loan repayment" number with a rate - that just determines how much of your revenue they hold back until the loan is repaid.
IMO using the effective APR doesn't make a lot of sense in #2, since a business which isn't doing as well will be repaying more slowly and therefore see a lower effective APR...
The world needs to pay Brazil for management of the Amazon. If the Amazon is truly (and it is) this important to the planet, then they should be paid to not destroy it to earn a living.
Our government is short sighted so even if you all chipped something, our current president would rather have it burned to the ground to allow illegal mining, wood cutters and cattle raising on the burned ground.
> SAO PAULO, Brazil — First, Brazil announced it would take foreign aid away from projects to protect the Amazon rainforest and give it instead to cattle and soybean farmers.
> Next, Germany and Norway froze tens of millions of dollars in planned assistance.
I don't necessarily disagree, but this feels like a diplomatic nightmare. It would encourage the rest of the world to threaten to burn their resources too, in order to extract payment.
Perhaps we should be paying the rest of the world too, but what if there's a disagreement about how much a resource is worth? And remember, this is all money that could be invested in solar panels, or carbon capture, or countless other things.
That'd be great, like you can see how good Brazil is at managing its resources, so let's all pay them, they surely will not spend it on their 5th megayacht.
Very true. Unfortunately there is no way to put a value on the environment until it needs to be fixed. In reality its value is infinite but current economics can't place a value so we don't. But I can imagine a system where the world's large economies start paying to save it.
This is already being done. Germany and France are paying Brazil 1.5b to keep the forest safe but Balsinaro is unwilling to curb the illegal logging. This is making the Europeans wonder why they should be investing this 1.5b into something that will clearly not be respected/carried out.
> I love the food in question, fried chicken sandwiches, and I was fairly disappointed with my first Chick-Fil-A sandwich, it was fairly lackluster.
I think this is enough of an indicator that your experience is atypical. perhaps you'd recommend some of these non-chain restaurants with great chicken sandwiches tho? i have yet to have any that are as good per $
For example, Kogi is not authentic but does an amazing and non snobby approach to fusion of korean and mexican food.
Meanwhile Boba Guys is also not authentic, but they rub many asian americans the wrong way because of their branding. the lack of drink customizations and strong handedness to "we do tea the RIGHT WAY and CLEAN WAY" plus a history of putting down mom and pop boba shops as "dirty" is the wrong approach. but ofc they attract many white people and thus many asian americans that seek validation by mainstream
“but ofc they attract many white people and thus many asian americans that seek validation by mainstream“
This sounds very harsh and it almost sounds like you’re projecting here. I’m speaking as an AA who 1. Loves boba and 2. Cares about the quality of ingredients in their food. I don’t go eat out to “seek validation by mainstream” but I do care about the ingredients in my drinks.
Boba guys uses high quality ingredients and even sources their own boba and tea using their sister companies (unsure of the exact corporate structure), which is why many people enjoy going there despite the lines. This is in comparison to some boba shops that just use various powdered drinks and who knows what for their boba. I don’t go there as a way to white worship, which is what you’re insinuating here.
It's interesting that you recite this talking point by them of
> powdered drinks
What tea shop uses powder? I honestly have not experienced one. Even places that boba guys likes to look down upon like Quickly's (an honest logistical marvel: 2 immigrants that know no english serves 300 menu items) don't use "powder". At the worst they use fructose while boba guys itself uses (they use a mix of brown and white sugar to make their syrups). is that really that much of a difference? especially when boba guys oversteeps there tea and warns people against getting 0-25% sugar?
I'm not insinuating it's "white worship".
1. you are a 16 year old AA not in the SGV and you and your AA friends manage to find a boba place to hang out.
2. it's hard to offer this experience to your non AA friends as they would never go there because it's "dirty" and most importantly unknown. and so your network is smaller, your experience more alien
3. this makes boba guys so easy to go to now and then mention to your white friends, who love it because it's an aesthetic they know and a marketing copy their moms can get behind.
This is not a priori the wrong way to approach this problem. However, when this leads to claiming only your way is right and perpetuating racist stereotypes that if a boba shop does not LOOK clean, it must NOT BE clean.
INSTEAD what boba guys needs to do is be honest (rather than perpetuate untruths about other boba places). do everything to get your nut, but not at the direct expense of others.
These are an aside, but Andrew Chau has a history of making cringy semi-racist statements in addition to lying about their sources of funding and their margins.
White guy occasional boba tea drinker here. Never knew anybody that avoided "dirty" boba shops.
In the South Bay I have never heard of anybody, white or otherwise, judging boba tea places by anything else other than drink quality/taste. The #1 complaint I have heard is places not taking Credit Cards for < $6 orders.
However, I have heard some people question what the boba is made out of, but that never stopped them from enjoying their drink.
Saying that white mom's will trust boba guys over other places just seems silly. Pretty much all these places are equivalent to coffee shops and are pretty tame to allow a teenager to go to. Maybe I live in a bubble, but the racial overtones is completely lost on me.
Plenty of tea shops use powder. First of all, most places in SF use non dairy powder. There are exceptions and some places do allow you to pay extra for real milk, although my preference is oat > real milk > non dairy powder.
Then there's the flavoring powder. For instance, most places use powders like "taro" powder, although Plentea is a notable exception for having real taro based drinks. I do agree with you that not a single place use tea-based powder but again, this isn't what people are referring to when they mention this dislike for powder in their boba drinks.
I don't understand why you're associating "dirty" boba shops with racism. AFAIK Boba Guys is confounded by two Asians and has mostly Asian clientele AND is run by a diverse but largely Asian group at every store. It also happens to be clean and shows off the fact that it's clean. Please tell me how this is racist (presumably against Asians)? It looks like you're associating "dirty" shops with immigrants (won't get into how that's wrong of you as I'm already writing an essay).
> this leads to claiming only your way is right and perpetuating racist stereotypes that if a boba shop does not LOOK clean, it must NOT BE clean.
You're putting an undue burden on consumers. If a sushi restaurant smells like rotten fish, I shouldn't have to go in there, order some fish, taste said fish, and THEN determine if it's in fact rotten or not. I can just not go and frequent other restaurants that do not have that smell. Same goes for other establishments like boba shops!
I have no context regarding this Andrew Chau person but I'm assuming he's 1) one of the co-founders of Boba Guys and 2) potentially mislead his investors?
Overall, I think you harbor some resentment over Boba Guys being 1. white friendly and 2. contesting market share from immigrant-run stores which may or may not be dirty. I have no problem with the first point and neither should you. Regarding the latter, isn't the solution for these stores just to clean up their place and improve on marketing? What do you expect? Stores like Boba Guys to turn down the marketing? I just don't understand your rationale here.
I cannot wait to read this. I have no formal education or experience with pigeons, but they are the most fascinating thing to me on most city streets.
Their tireless and perfect vision systems are astounding (cue the typical stories of pigeons being used for pharmaceutical QA and research into using them for missile guidance).
I'm honestly surprised Scale.ai doesn't just train pigeons for their labeling problems.
There is a fenced off parking lot in the Tenderloin where some kind soul has placed a few rudimentary waterbaths and will occasionally dump grains of some kind. Because it's walled off, it's a perfect pigeon sanctuary. Locals may know what I'm speaking about, but if you haven't taken at least 30 mins on a sunny indian summer sunday to just watch them, i'd highly recommend it. even just watching the males endlessly court the females as they eat. tail down, chest up, chasing for 10 mins at a time with no end in sight.
imo part of the problem is our liberal arts influenced college education system.
because college has moved away from being a luxury of broadly educating landed gentry to being a signaling of "i can be employed and responsible" the train a generalist approach doesn't really work.
To be specific, there are two types of journalists/writers
1. domain experts that are good writers/communicators
2. good writers/communicators with an ability to pick up domains quickly
at some point the 2nd type of person will be out of their depth. but the 1st type of person is expensive.
Why are Matt Levine and Adam Minter (even Krugman sometimes) such great journalists? All were domain experts first.
Great journalists that were not domain experts still exist, but they are more of the investigative variety. the ones that win Pulitzers.
i think those reduce to the first two types. paid shills is subjective and can be a domain expert. some even think krugman is a neoliberalist shill.
many hacks are also the first type. see degrasse tyson, jared diamond, malcolm gladwell, arguably pinker. very little substantive base, but great storytellers
activists reduces to the second type imo. if you have domain expertise, you usually hold a more nuanced view and don't come off as an activist even if you are very active. those with a preconceived notion are typically not a domain expert and just use their superior communication ability to prove their axe
