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I generally view these moves as simply a soft layoff to cut down on costs. Uber doesn't really have any way to grow. They can't exactly start charging more. Th

I generally view these moves as simply a soft layoff to cut down on costs. Uber doesn't really have any way to grow. They can't exactly start charging more. They can't pay their drivers less, who already are paid poorly. The market for expensive taxi rides isn't going to expand, either. So now they have to be in a cost-cutting mode. The app already exists, so they don't need a large staff of highly-paid technologists.

_mlbt 2y ago
Uber bet incorrectly that we would have widespread self driving robo-taxis by now. The idea was to lose money gaining massive market share and then replace the human gig economy workers with AI.
- trollbridge 2y ago
  Which seemed like an iffy bet. Someone who invents self-driving robo-taxis isn't going to want to give away their profit margin to Uber. Why would they? You can just open up the Waymo app and order, well, a Waymo.
  - dymk 2y ago
    Uber, for a long time, was trying to build their own, not buy third party
  - trollbridge 2y ago
    Yeah, and building their own... seemed like a classic mistake where they confused the talent to replace the taxi dispatch telephone number with the talent needed top make a self-driving car, which are two very different things.
    - radlad 2y ago
      I missed that Uber sold off ATG in 2020: https://www.reuters.com/article/world/uber-sells-atg-self-driving-business-to-aurora-at-4-billion-idUSKBN28I0A3/ https://www.reuters.com/article/world/uber-sells-atg-self-dr...
  - _mlbt 2y ago
    I suspect the plan was just to buy, merge, or partner with whatever company succeeded in self driving first. For a lot of startups, acquiring market share is the hard part, the technology is relatively easy. Obviously that’s not the case with full self driving vehicles, but the rest of Uber’s technology is fairly straightforward.
  - itchyjunk 2y ago
    Why would Waymo want to maintain a large fleet when they want to focus on the technology? Self driving != self maintaining. Isn't Waymo and Uber partnering? [0] [0] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/09/waymo-and-uber-expand-partnership https://waymo.com/blog/2024/09/waymo-and-uber-expand-partner...
    - chimtim 2y ago
      Uber currently doesn’t maintain a large (or any) fleet either. I wonder how much the marginal gains from not paying drivers is shaved off by fleet maintenance of expensive cars.
      - trollbridge 2y ago
        Nope. They shift all of the costs of owning a vehicle onto their drivers. They will be happy to lease a vehicle to you as the driver (with a predatory, abusive contract), but even this is almost entirely operated by third parties.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    Well this doesn’t jibe with the current reality that Waymo is teaming with Uber right now. To make Waymo economically viable, it needs to be almost 100% utilized. Also because people hate using multiple apps, you need an “aggregator” (see Stratechery). If I go to a city and I need a ride from the airport, my default is going to be to open Uber - not to say “oh yeah, Waymo is available when I fly into ATL but not when I fly into JFK”. Uber was even available when I flew into QXP from San Jose Costa Rica (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quepos_La_Managua_Airport https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quepos_La_Managua_Airport). Also many businesses have “Uber for Business” where business travelers can automatically get their Uber rides charged to the company instead of having to do reimbursements. How many companies are going to establish relations with Waymo to and tell their sales people/consultants - “use the Waymo app in cities where it is available otherwise use Uber”? Just like I’m not going to open some taxi app when I fly into DCA. But I will open the Uber app and choose a taxi (with the standard taxi regulations) if it is more convenient. Business travellers is a lot more lucrative for companies than consumers. But getting back to Waymo and utilization, if you know you need both enough capicity to handle peak utilization and want to have capacity to handle steady state, you are going to have Waymo as a baseline and people that will come out when they think it is worth it based on current surge pricing. Having enough Waymo cars available to handle peak capacity would be about as dumb as Intuit having enough server capacity in a Colo to handle tax season instead of using AWS and autoscaling. Uber is also managing maintenance for Waymo in the cities it is available.
    - trollbridge 2y ago
      When in Israel some people insisted on using the Uber app. Well, all Uber did was dispatch a Gett taxi.. with a 15% surcharge. And it turns out they also de-prioritised Uber's requests. So anyone who actually knew what they were doing would just install the Gett taxi app, which was cheaper and better than Uber. If such an app existed in DCA, I would certainly install it. But I wouldn't bother with an app at all in DCA, since they already have an excellent and affordable taxi system. (Taxis in DC are cheaper than Ubers, particularly during surge pricing; if you want an app, install Curb.) "Uber for Business" is an even more giant scam, where it costs more than Uber does personally. At the last place I worked, employees were advised to go ahead and set it up but switch to Personal and just request reimbursement because of how large the price difference was. But you're right, Uber will always have a niche of people who are unable to install or use anything other than the Uber app and want to be blissfully unaware that better alternatives exist.
- candiddevmike 2y ago
  Uber sold to investors that we would have widespread self-driving robo-taxis.
esafak 2y ago
They do: logistics, and robotaxis. They're already doing food delivery. There is a lot of room for growth.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
  Sure, next they can corner the lucrative home improvement supply home delivery market. $50 to pick up a load of lumber from Lowes and deliver it to your back yard.
  - scuol 2y ago
    Very small TAM because most people who are DIY, ya know, like to do it themselves xD
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - trollbridge 2y ago
    Pretty much every hardware store already offers delivery and doesn't need a middleman with Big Tech cost structures.
  - jjkaczor 2y ago
    Home Depot has pretty cheap truck rentals if all you need is to take a load home in under an hour... $20 IIRC.
- trollbridge 2y ago
  Why on earth would I hire Uber for logistics? And why would I look to them for robotaxis? Waymo seems way ahead of them.
  - esafak 2y ago
    If you wouldn't, that means there is room for them to grow ...
    - 2y ago
aomix 2y ago
I wonder if you plotted layoffs cycles you’d see a big gaps for tech companies for the last couple years since RTO orders will have the same effect. Reading about the different RTO rebellions is interesting. I know multiple people who have ended up in a half day schedule that they really like. All meetings scheduled before noon-ish, then head home to focus on work. These are all kind of against company policy but there’s a shield of willingly ignorant managers between the executives and workers. As long as the managers can say “as far as any metrics I have access to tell me my people are in the office the required days per week” they’re ok with it.
jsnell 2y ago
> Uber doesn't really have any way to grow. That's demonstrably not true. Their latest earnings (Q4 2024) showed a 20% growth in revenue, an 18% increase in trips, and a 14% increase in the number of monthly active users (all numbers YoY).

_mlbt 2y ago

Uber bet incorrectly that we would have widespread self driving robo-taxis by now. The idea was to lose money gaining massive market share and then replace the human gig economy workers with AI.

trollbridge 2y ago
Which seemed like an iffy bet. Someone who invents self-driving robo-taxis isn't going to want to give away their profit margin to Uber. Why would they? You can just open up the Waymo app and order, well, a Waymo.
- dymk 2y ago
  Uber, for a long time, was trying to build their own, not buy third party
- trollbridge 2y ago
  Yeah, and building their own... seemed like a classic mistake where they confused the talent to replace the taxi dispatch telephone number with the talent needed top make a self-driving car, which are two very different things.
  - radlad 2y ago
    I missed that Uber sold off ATG in 2020: https://www.reuters.com/article/world/uber-sells-atg-self-driving-business-to-aurora-at-4-billion-idUSKBN28I0A3/ https://www.reuters.com/article/world/uber-sells-atg-self-dr...
- _mlbt 2y ago
  I suspect the plan was just to buy, merge, or partner with whatever company succeeded in self driving first. For a lot of startups, acquiring market share is the hard part, the technology is relatively easy. Obviously that’s not the case with full self driving vehicles, but the rest of Uber’s technology is fairly straightforward.
- itchyjunk 2y ago
  Why would Waymo want to maintain a large fleet when they want to focus on the technology? Self driving != self maintaining. Isn't Waymo and Uber partnering? [0] [0] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/09/waymo-and-uber-expand-partnership https://waymo.com/blog/2024/09/waymo-and-uber-expand-partner...
  - chimtim 2y ago
    Uber currently doesn’t maintain a large (or any) fleet either. I wonder how much the marginal gains from not paying drivers is shaved off by fleet maintenance of expensive cars.
    - trollbridge 2y ago
      Nope. They shift all of the costs of owning a vehicle onto their drivers. They will be happy to lease a vehicle to you as the driver (with a predatory, abusive contract), but even this is almost entirely operated by third parties.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Well this doesn’t jibe with the current reality that Waymo is teaming with Uber right now. To make Waymo economically viable, it needs to be almost 100% utilized. Also because people hate using multiple apps, you need an “aggregator” (see Stratechery). If I go to a city and I need a ride from the airport, my default is going to be to open Uber - not to say “oh yeah, Waymo is available when I fly into ATL but not when I fly into JFK”. Uber was even available when I flew into QXP from San Jose Costa Rica (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quepos_La_Managua_Airport https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quepos_La_Managua_Airport). Also many businesses have “Uber for Business” where business travelers can automatically get their Uber rides charged to the company instead of having to do reimbursements. How many companies are going to establish relations with Waymo to and tell their sales people/consultants - “use the Waymo app in cities where it is available otherwise use Uber”? Just like I’m not going to open some taxi app when I fly into DCA. But I will open the Uber app and choose a taxi (with the standard taxi regulations) if it is more convenient. Business travellers is a lot more lucrative for companies than consumers. But getting back to Waymo and utilization, if you know you need both enough capicity to handle peak utilization and want to have capacity to handle steady state, you are going to have Waymo as a baseline and people that will come out when they think it is worth it based on current surge pricing. Having enough Waymo cars available to handle peak capacity would be about as dumb as Intuit having enough server capacity in a Colo to handle tax season instead of using AWS and autoscaling. Uber is also managing maintenance for Waymo in the cities it is available.
  - trollbridge 2y ago
    When in Israel some people insisted on using the Uber app. Well, all Uber did was dispatch a Gett taxi.. with a 15% surcharge. And it turns out they also de-prioritised Uber's requests. So anyone who actually knew what they were doing would just install the Gett taxi app, which was cheaper and better than Uber. If such an app existed in DCA, I would certainly install it. But I wouldn't bother with an app at all in DCA, since they already have an excellent and affordable taxi system. (Taxis in DC are cheaper than Ubers, particularly during surge pricing; if you want an app, install Curb.) "Uber for Business" is an even more giant scam, where it costs more than Uber does personally. At the last place I worked, employees were advised to go ahead and set it up but switch to Personal and just request reimbursement because of how large the price difference was. But you're right, Uber will always have a niche of people who are unable to install or use anything other than the Uber app and want to be blissfully unaware that better alternatives exist.
candiddevmike 2y ago
Uber sold to investors that we would have widespread self-driving robo-taxis.

esafak 2y ago

They do: logistics, and robotaxis. They're already doing food delivery. There is a lot of room for growth.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
Sure, next they can corner the lucrative home improvement supply home delivery market. $50 to pick up a load of lumber from Lowes and deliver it to your back yard.
- scuol 2y ago
  Very small TAM because most people who are DIY, ya know, like to do it themselves xD
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- trollbridge 2y ago
  Pretty much every hardware store already offers delivery and doesn't need a middleman with Big Tech cost structures.
- jjkaczor 2y ago
  Home Depot has pretty cheap truck rentals if all you need is to take a load home in under an hour... $20 IIRC.
trollbridge 2y ago
Why on earth would I hire Uber for logistics? And why would I look to them for robotaxis? Waymo seems way ahead of them.
- esafak 2y ago
  If you wouldn't, that means there is room for them to grow ...
  - 2y ago

aomix 2y ago

I wonder if you plotted layoffs cycles you’d see a big gaps for tech companies for the last couple years since RTO orders will have the same effect. Reading about the different RTO rebellions is interesting. I know multiple people who have ended up in a half day schedule that they really like. All meetings scheduled before noon-ish, then head home to focus on work. These are all kind of against company policy but there’s a shield of willingly ignorant managers between the executives and workers. As long as the managers can say “as far as any metrics I have access to tell me my people are in the office the required days per week” they’re ok with it.

jsnell 2y ago

> Uber doesn't really have any way to grow. That's demonstrably not true. Their latest earnings (Q4 2024) showed a 20% growth in revenue, an 18% increase in trips, and a 14% increase in the number of monthly active users (all numbers YoY).