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"uber is the most important and promising company of our generation" If that's true, I'm scared.

caser 9y ago
It makes more sense if you replace "our generation" with "our portfolio."
nostrademons 9y ago
The audience of this letter is Uber employees, and the context is that the faceless VC who just pushed out their CEO is trying to gain their trust. I think a little flattery here is in Benchmark's interest, true or not. FWIW, Uber is very far from the most important and promising company of our generation in my mind.
curiousDog 9y ago
Most Uber employees I've talked to think Uber is the next Google.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
notyourday 9y ago
It is the most important company in their portfolio and they are afraid that should their investment in Uber not payoff int he most spectacular fashion, they themselves would find out just how difficult it is to raise money after being labeled as a failure. [edit: Payoff in a most spectacular fashion here means "exited at nearly the top of the valuation"]
hsod 9y ago
It's probably the company that has had the most concrete impact on my life and the lives of my friends of this generation (depending on how you define generation).
- throwaway0071 9y ago
  Could you elaborate how exactly? What would you rank lower than Uber?
  - hsod 9y ago
    Before Uber, getting around the city was a huge, huge pain in the ass and the logistics of it often curtailed plans before they got off the ground, or added tons of friction and wasted time. Now there is an easy, cheap, fast, and reliable way to get anywhere in the city, any time I want, without planning ahead. That bar my friends are meeting at that was two busses away and not worth the hassle on a Tuesday? I'll be there in fifteen minutes for the price of my first beer. For those who drive: no more worrying about parking or how many drinks you had. Ranking companies which had less impact on my life than Uber seems like a strange exercise.
    - yladiz 9y ago
      More impactful companies, both direct and indirect, include any company that produces food, oil, or computers, especially cloud computing or mainframes for enterprises. Beyond that, Uber's usefulness really depends on locality. There are some places in the world that actually have functioning, acceptable taxi systems, like Seoul, where the prices are reasonable and the drivers are generally fair.
- evanlivingston 9y ago
  I'll reiterate my point: if getting to the airport a little bit faster or not having to drive home after getting drunk is the most important thing that happened to our generation, well then that's a problem.
  - hsod 9y ago
    You haven't really made a point, just made a few vague but very strong statements. Uber impacted my life by vastly increasing my mobility. Can you give an example of what you think should (???) be the most important company of a generation?
omarforgotpwd 9y ago
The upcoming and currently unfolding autonomous transportation revolution (self driving cars + drones) is definitely a "shit your pants big" shift that's going to change absoloutely everything in our economy. It's the internet scale shift of this era. Uber may or may not be of the many companies to capitalize on this shift, but his statement makes sense to me on that level.
- polemic 9y ago
  Utter rubbish. Even at it's most absurdly promising, it's a relatively minor change in how we move and transport people and goods. Maybe fewer people required, maybe cheaper. To compare that to "the internet" -- a technology that eliminated and created entire classes of industries, fundamentally changed the way we interact at almost every level, how society operates, how economies are built and run? No. Not even close. Not even in the same order of magnitude of significance.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    I just figured I am a part of a different generation. Über doesn't even service my area and I've never used their service while traveling. So, they didn't impact me at all. I'm a member of an older generation.

It makes more sense if you replace "our generation" with "our portfolio."

The audience of this letter is Uber employees, and the context is that the faceless VC who just pushed out their CEO is trying to gain their trust. I think a little flattery here is in Benchmark's interest, true or not. FWIW, Uber is very far from the most important and promising company of our generation in my mind.

curiousDog 9y ago

Most Uber employees I've talked to think Uber is the next Google.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

notyourday 9y ago

It is the most important company in their portfolio and they are afraid that should their investment in Uber not payoff int he most spectacular fashion, they themselves would find out just how difficult it is to raise money after being labeled as a failure. [edit: Payoff in a most spectacular fashion here means "exited at nearly the top of the valuation"]

hsod 9y ago

It's probably the company that has had the most concrete impact on my life and the lives of my friends of this generation (depending on how you define generation).

throwaway0071 9y ago
Could you elaborate how exactly? What would you rank lower than Uber?
- hsod 9y ago
  Before Uber, getting around the city was a huge, huge pain in the ass and the logistics of it often curtailed plans before they got off the ground, or added tons of friction and wasted time. Now there is an easy, cheap, fast, and reliable way to get anywhere in the city, any time I want, without planning ahead. That bar my friends are meeting at that was two busses away and not worth the hassle on a Tuesday? I'll be there in fifteen minutes for the price of my first beer. For those who drive: no more worrying about parking or how many drinks you had. Ranking companies which had less impact on my life than Uber seems like a strange exercise.
  - yladiz 9y ago
    More impactful companies, both direct and indirect, include any company that produces food, oil, or computers, especially cloud computing or mainframes for enterprises. Beyond that, Uber's usefulness really depends on locality. There are some places in the world that actually have functioning, acceptable taxi systems, like Seoul, where the prices are reasonable and the drivers are generally fair.
evanlivingston 9y ago
I'll reiterate my point: if getting to the airport a little bit faster or not having to drive home after getting drunk is the most important thing that happened to our generation, well then that's a problem.
- hsod 9y ago
  You haven't really made a point, just made a few vague but very strong statements. Uber impacted my life by vastly increasing my mobility. Can you give an example of what you think should (???) be the most important company of a generation?

omarforgotpwd 9y ago

The upcoming and currently unfolding autonomous transportation revolution (self driving cars + drones) is definitely a "shit your pants big" shift that's going to change absoloutely everything in our economy. It's the internet scale shift of this era. Uber may or may not be of the many companies to capitalize on this shift, but his statement makes sense to me on that level.

polemic 9y ago
Utter rubbish. Even at it's most absurdly promising, it's a relatively minor change in how we move and transport people and goods. Maybe fewer people required, maybe cheaper. To compare that to "the internet" -- a technology that eliminated and created entire classes of industries, fundamentally changed the way we interact at almost every level, how society operates, how economies are built and run? No. Not even close. Not even in the same order of magnitude of significance.
- KGIII 9y ago
  I just figured I am a part of a different generation. Über doesn't even service my area and I've never used their service while traveling. So, they didn't impact me at all. I'm a member of an older generation.