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Uber has: No CEO. No CFO. No COO. No General Counsel. Recent turnover at heads of business, policy and communications, engineering, and product. Amazon or Goog

Uber has: No CEO. No CFO. No COO. No General Counsel. Recent turnover at heads of business, policy and communications, engineering, and product. Amazon or Google or any other cloud provider could spin up a service that pairs drivers with ride-seekers. This kind of software is no longer a secret sauce and they have the infrastructure to scale instantly and the customer base to market it easily.

austenallred 9y ago
> Amazon or Google or any other cloud provider could spin up a service that pairs drivers with ride-seekers I'm not sure I've ever seen the difficulty of starting a marketplace company with built-in network effects so vastly underestimated.
- joshmn 9y ago
  I think OP is just talking about the service-layer instead of the rest of the business model.
- ams6110 9y ago
  They already are such companies, and have deep experience at automating all aspects of customer service.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Open google maps. See that Uber icon? Swap it out for Waymo. Done. Google could even afford to hire drivers as actual employees and properly schedule them if they wanted to.
  - tmh79 9y ago
    you are truly uninformed. There is so much more to the uber tech stack than this. Delivering rides efficiently, worldwide, at a scale of billions per year is not as easy as swapping out a button on google maps.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      It probably could be provided by a 20% free time project at Google with their worldwide infrastructure, no?
      - austenallred 9y ago
        The tech isn't the hard part
        toomuchtodo 9y ago
        The human element isn't either. Google can offer ads to acquire drivers and riders for free through its various ad channels (mobile, search). They already own the verticals necessary.
        concede_pluto 9y ago
        Google is infamously bad at resolving or even acknowledging customer service problems.
      - logicallee 9y ago
        >It probably could be provided by a 20% free time project at Google Now there's a reference I have not heard in a long, long time. Google doesn't still do that, do they?
        toomuchtodo 9y ago
        It appears it's gone now from some quick Googling (the irony). My age is showing.
        hilem 9y ago
        It still very much exists. Source: I work there
sumedh 9y ago
> Google or any other cloud provider could spin up a service that pairs drivers with ride-seekers. People said the same thing about Google Plus and yet they completely failed. Its not so easy as it looks even if you have billions in the bank.
jaredklewis 9y ago
In my experience, if there is an easy way, low risk for a company to make more money, then they will do it. So why haven't Amazon, Google, or such done so already? Do they just hate money? Reasonable answers include: - Google and friends don't perceive the ride-sharing market to be a profitable market to enter, in which case Uber may have problems, but competition from Google, Amazon, et all is not one of them. - It actually isn't so simple to just "spin up" such a service. It would require a large investment in terms of development, regulatory hurdles, and marketing just to get a foot in the door, with a high level of risk that the effort doesn't succeed (see most all business ventures ever). Uber has many problems. But competition from Google, Amazon, et all is not one of them. Lyft? Yes. Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and so on? No.
- slackingoff2017 9y ago
  I feel like the biggest hurdle these other tech companies see is a lack of "disruption" without automated driving. If a human is still driving then you can't really ever make the system more efficient. Most tech companies have made their billions by automating processes and undercutting the old school competition. If you can't automate driving you can't build a strong competitive advantage against traditional taxi businesses. Uber realizes this and they're willing to do anything, no matter how unethical, to get self driving vehicles first. That will be the true market disruption, and likely winner-take-all because you will instantly have such a gigantic cost advantage. That's why you see Ubers competitors all working on self-driving. They're trying to leapfrog the next obvious evolution of the transport business.
- petraeus 9y ago
  Why would Google Amazon enter a market with 1 massive competitor losing billions subsidizing its rides? Why wouldn't they develop their own self-driving technology while at the same time assisting in the building of using ride sharing as a habit, and simply wait until uber goes out of business or retreats even further into "profitable" markets before unleashing their low cost self-driving fleet into those markets previously dominated by a heavily subsidized uber? oh wait a minute ...
malandrew 9y ago
The General Counsel, Salle Yoo, was promoted to Chief Legal Officer.

austenallred 9y ago

> Amazon or Google or any other cloud provider could spin up a service that pairs drivers with ride-seekers I'm not sure I've ever seen the difficulty of starting a marketplace company with built-in network effects so vastly underestimated.

joshmn 9y ago
I think OP is just talking about the service-layer instead of the rest of the business model.
ams6110 9y ago
They already are such companies, and have deep experience at automating all aspects of customer service.
toomuchtodo 9y ago
Open google maps. See that Uber icon? Swap it out for Waymo. Done. Google could even afford to hire drivers as actual employees and properly schedule them if they wanted to.
- tmh79 9y ago
  you are truly uninformed. There is so much more to the uber tech stack than this. Delivering rides efficiently, worldwide, at a scale of billions per year is not as easy as swapping out a button on google maps.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    It probably could be provided by a 20% free time project at Google with their worldwide infrastructure, no?
    - austenallred 9y ago
      The tech isn't the hard part
      - toomuchtodo 9y ago
        The human element isn't either. Google can offer ads to acquire drivers and riders for free through its various ad channels (mobile, search). They already own the verticals necessary.
        concede_pluto 9y ago
        Google is infamously bad at resolving or even acknowledging customer service problems.
    - logicallee 9y ago
      >It probably could be provided by a 20% free time project at Google Now there's a reference I have not heard in a long, long time. Google doesn't still do that, do they?
      - toomuchtodo 9y ago
        It appears it's gone now from some quick Googling (the irony). My age is showing.
        hilem 9y ago
        It still very much exists. Source: I work there

sumedh 9y ago

> Google or any other cloud provider could spin up a service that pairs drivers with ride-seekers. People said the same thing about Google Plus and yet they completely failed. Its not so easy as it looks even if you have billions in the bank.

jaredklewis 9y ago

In my experience, if there is an easy way, low risk for a company to make more money, then they will do it. So why haven't Amazon, Google, or such done so already? Do they just hate money? Reasonable answers include: - Google and friends don't perceive the ride-sharing market to be a profitable market to enter, in which case Uber may have problems, but competition from Google, Amazon, et all is not one of them. - It actually isn't so simple to just "spin up" such a service. It would require a large investment in terms of development, regulatory hurdles, and marketing just to get a foot in the door, with a high level of risk that the effort doesn't succeed (see most all business ventures ever). Uber has many problems. But competition from Google, Amazon, et all is not one of them. Lyft? Yes. Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and so on? No.

slackingoff2017 9y ago
I feel like the biggest hurdle these other tech companies see is a lack of "disruption" without automated driving. If a human is still driving then you can't really ever make the system more efficient. Most tech companies have made their billions by automating processes and undercutting the old school competition. If you can't automate driving you can't build a strong competitive advantage against traditional taxi businesses. Uber realizes this and they're willing to do anything, no matter how unethical, to get self driving vehicles first. That will be the true market disruption, and likely winner-take-all because you will instantly have such a gigantic cost advantage. That's why you see Ubers competitors all working on self-driving. They're trying to leapfrog the next obvious evolution of the transport business.
petraeus 9y ago
Why would Google Amazon enter a market with 1 massive competitor losing billions subsidizing its rides? Why wouldn't they develop their own self-driving technology while at the same time assisting in the building of using ride sharing as a habit, and simply wait until uber goes out of business or retreats even further into "profitable" markets before unleashing their low cost self-driving fleet into those markets previously dominated by a heavily subsidized uber? oh wait a minute ...

malandrew 9y ago

The General Counsel, Salle Yoo, was promoted to Chief Legal Officer.