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"Uber is the most important and promising company of our generation." That is a totally delusional statement. The current status of Uber's decline is a direct

by AJRF 9y ago

"Uber is the most important and promising company of our generation." That is a totally delusional statement. The current status of Uber's decline is a direct contradiction to this very line. Uber isn't anything special. A case could be made to say that Travis is special, an exceptional force that bulled his way through red tape and created a lot of value for shareholders and users of Uber, but Uber, as a company is nothing more than a very nice brand, which has now turned bad. You can see this in every market they try to capture, fail and end up partnering with others in. These kind of statements are why people take the piss out of the Silicon Valley thought bubble. Uber augments the middle class by providing convenience functions on their phone. That is not going to change the world. Not one bit.

elmar 9y ago
> Uber isn't anything special. A case could be made to say that Travis is special in my opnion a very strong case, if you compare it to a proxy like Lyft, very competent funding team they preceded Uber by several years [1], add access to the same pools of capital and talent and probably are worth 10% of Uber and only have a regional impact on US not the rest of the world. So what is special about Uber? Travis is. ------------------------------------ [1] The first company with the ability to get everyday cars with drivers was SideCar, Lyft copied SideCar, Uber copied SideCar. Paul developed his concept for mobile ride-hailing over a wireless network, applied for a patent in 2000 and was granted U.S. patent 6356838 “System and method for determining an efficient transportation route” in 2002. Paul turned his idea into reality. He co-founded San Francisco startup Sidecar, which offers paid rides by private drivers in their own cars, summoned by passengers over a wireless network. http://www.google.com/patents/US6356838 http://www.google.com/patents/US6356838
- elmar 9y ago
  quoting Greylock here: If we rewind the clock to 2012, Lyft launched a peer-to-peer ridesharing service and Uber was a black car marketplace. Lyft and Sidecar’s P2P taxis were a bigger idea in a bigger space. And like most marketplaces, it was a winner-take-all opportunity, or at least a winner-take-most. At the time, all three companies were only in SF and everyone was racing towards liquidity, with sights to have a right of first refusal on every other city in the country thereafter. Lyft had a big head start, but Uber was trailing right behind. Uber began to aggressively put its war chest to work to achieve liquidity as fast as possible. This meant enabling ~5 minute pickups for riders and ~$25 hourly earnings for drivers. First, it guaranteed drivers hourly rates and spent money to acquire drivers. With drivers on the road, Uber focused on filling their cars through paid channels and incentivizing referrals. In a nutshell, the company subsidized fares and gave away free rides until there was enough demand and drivers could earn enough on their own. City by city, Uber implemented this playbook — buying drivers, buying passengers, subsidizing rides — to shave minutes off the pickup SLA and increase driver earnings, propelling Uber to liquidity. In short, Uber burned cash to get more drivers and more customers on the road. As availability went up and the marketplace became stable, Uber got closer to profitability and could scale faster. ----------------- Sidecar: ‘We failed because Uber is willing to win at any cost’ (2016) https://venturebeat.com/2016/01/20/sidecar-we-failed-because-uber-is-willing-to-win-at-any-cost/ https://venturebeat.com/2016/01/20/sidecar-we-failed-because...

by AJRF 9y ago

elmar 9y ago

> Uber isn't anything special. A case could be made to say that Travis is special in my opnion a very strong case, if you compare it to a proxy like Lyft, very competent funding team they preceded Uber by several years [1], add access to the same pools of capital and talent and probably are worth 10% of Uber and only have a regional impact on US not the rest of the world. So what is special about Uber? Travis is. ------------------------------------ [1] The first company with the ability to get everyday cars with drivers was SideCar, Lyft copied SideCar, Uber copied SideCar. Paul developed his concept for mobile ride-hailing over a wireless network, applied for a patent in 2000 and was granted U.S. patent 6356838 “System and method for determining an efficient transportation route” in 2002. Paul turned his idea into reality. He co-founded San Francisco startup Sidecar, which offers paid rides by private drivers in their own cars, summoned by passengers over a wireless network. http://www.google.com/patents/US6356838 http://www.google.com/patents/US6356838

elmar 9y ago
quoting Greylock here: If we rewind the clock to 2012, Lyft launched a peer-to-peer ridesharing service and Uber was a black car marketplace. Lyft and Sidecar’s P2P taxis were a bigger idea in a bigger space. And like most marketplaces, it was a winner-take-all opportunity, or at least a winner-take-most. At the time, all three companies were only in SF and everyone was racing towards liquidity, with sights to have a right of first refusal on every other city in the country thereafter. Lyft had a big head start, but Uber was trailing right behind. Uber began to aggressively put its war chest to work to achieve liquidity as fast as possible. This meant enabling ~5 minute pickups for riders and ~$25 hourly earnings for drivers. First, it guaranteed drivers hourly rates and spent money to acquire drivers. With drivers on the road, Uber focused on filling their cars through paid channels and incentivizing referrals. In a nutshell, the company subsidized fares and gave away free rides until there was enough demand and drivers could earn enough on their own. City by city, Uber implemented this playbook — buying drivers, buying passengers, subsidizing rides — to shave minutes off the pickup SLA and increase driver earnings, propelling Uber to liquidity. In short, Uber burned cash to get more drivers and more customers on the road. As availability went up and the marketplace became stable, Uber got closer to profitability and could scale faster. ----------------- Sidecar: ‘We failed because Uber is willing to win at any cost’ (2016) https://venturebeat.com/2016/01/20/sidecar-we-failed-because-uber-is-willing-to-win-at-any-cost/ https://venturebeat.com/2016/01/20/sidecar-we-failed-because...