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"The same people that would reject you for having bad grammar are effectively racists."

Now, how exactly did you arrive at this conclusion? This just might be one of the most, if not the most, ridiculous statements I've ever seen on here.


The poster was probably just drawing an equivalence between people who operate on simple stereotypes. In some sense, both the grammar Nazi and the racist accept the same fallacy.

However, if your grammar is so poor that I cannot easily read your sentences, there is a good chance that I will not try further to read them.


I don't think any business that achieves that sort of valuation should be considered a "startup".


It'll be worth even more in the coming years, which is not hard to fathom when you look at Uber as a logistics company rather than a taxi-replacement.


I agree. I know people who crunch data for Uber and some of things they're doing are really valuable. All these rides - pickups, dropoffs, times of day, routes, etc. And this is just the tip of the iceberg what they're doing. These kinds of basic projects inspire more complex analysis I'm sure.

The information gathered will allow them to move into new phases of development. The cab hailing service is not the end game here.


Great point!


Ditto


Salves were usually forced against their will to do arduous tasks, which I'm sure none of them quite enjoyed nor voluntarily signed up for. I understand that some employers may treat their workers poorly (and some may even think of themselves as actual slavemasters) but this is a very poor comparison.


This is exciting news - great work! Look forward to seeing more smart people collaborate around speech technology in the coming years.


And I believe there is also a huge difference between someone signing up for your product and someone actively using it after signing up. In my experience, I found that many people will sign up for a product out of general interest, but won't do much beyond that stage.


I agree. Signing up for free, then actually using, THEN using it when it has a fee. All of those are additional levels.


Very interesting merger of social and e-commerce here. I'd expect other players in the space to follow suit, or at least discover new ways to engage their clientele via social channels.


We gotta stop using the word "engage" so much.

There's a myth among social media marketers that their worth is measured by how much they "engage" users. Problem is, the word "engage" is vague enough to cover any action. Liking is engaging. Clicking is engaging. Commenting is engaging. So companies post crap on Facebook that does nothing for their bottom line, but justify it by the number of times it was liked or shared. That's how we get all this clickbait nonsense. It doesn't actually "engage" anyone, but it gets clicked.

So lets be specific. This is not "engaging clientele via social channels". This is using twitter for window shopping, not to mention free advertising. And I for one think it's a terrible idea. Twitter an unsuitable interface for shopping, and I don't want the whole world to know what I'm buying on Amazon.

Sorry to flip out on you. It just seemed like the ideal place to criticize the breezy, bs-filled lingo of the tech industry. Likewise, I'm annoyed by "other players in the space". You could have easily said "other online retailers."


I would not be surprised if they scoop up and acquire Postmates in the next 12-18 months.


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