
Uber’s C.E.O. Choice Faces a Question of Ambitions - elsewhen
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/technology/uber-new-ceo.html
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pcurve
No new information for HNers. 90% is about his seemingly risk averse nature
solely based on his decision to stick to merchant model. Pass on the article
if you already know the story.

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matt4077
This may be the CEO most deserving of whatever he is paid, ever.

He's tasked with righting a ship that's leaking everywhere–a board embroiled
in litigation, a former CEO still in a position of power, and resenting his
ouster. Employees who, by now, are self-selected to consider any moves to heal
the toxic culture as assaults on themselves.

Meanwhile, they've spent $1200 of investors' money on every user they
currently have (including the expensive failed adventures in China and
Russia). It isn't quite clear if they're profitable anywhere, or if they're
continuing to be a program to distribute wealth from the bottom (drivers) and
top (investors) to the middle class rivalled only by the New Deal.

What's still ominous is the complete lack of a moat around their business.
Every driver and every customer is a free app install away from giving any
competitor a shot. Their autonomous car project is in deep trouble–even if the
Waymo lawsuit doesn't kill it, it now seems certain that a lot of assumption
were optimistic–exemplified by Apple's demotion of its competing project, and
the fact that the far superior technical effort by Google hasn't produced
anything market-ready, yet.

But even if, it was always counterintuitive for autonomous driving to be a
driver (heh!) for Uber's future: if there is one hard problem that Uber has
arguably solved, it's managing a fleet of drivers and their cars, with all the
trouble such a huge workforce of mostly low-income people with low job
attachment brings. It is this core competency of Uber that would be rendered
worthless by autonomous vehicles.

Instead, car rides in such an environment will be bare-knuckle fight,
requiring efficiency in the face of barely-existing margins, and deep pockets
to survive phases of intense competition. There is nothing that could stop any
business with money to burn to put a few dozen cars into whatever happens to
be Uber's most profitable market at any given time and reduce their margins to
0 or less overnight. After all, it doesn't take that many cars to provide
service within the not-that-large area people spend their daily lives in, and
any number of competitors can create beachheads by convincing a local
community to give their app a try. The competitors start $1200 ahead, which
translates to two years of free service at the $50/month the typical Uber
customer spends.

As long as personal car ownership is still a thing, autonomous driving will
actually turn every owner into a competitor. Your car sitting around uselessly
during your workday is suddenly just a click away from going to work itself,
thanks to the car manufacturer's preinstalled sharing network. They'll take
15% to process payments, but it'll be insured, cleaned after every 5th ride,
and back at your office fully charged at the preselected time. Of course the
manufacturers will also just let their inventory loose in any area that is
potentially profitable. Their capital costs are lower than Uber's, they get
the cars at internal prices without dealer markup, they have access first to
any new car that people may want to try–oh, and they'll even accept running at
a slight loss when they can convince themselves that taking a ride in their
new car may convince people to buy it.

Meanwhile, what is Uber but a bro-themed map app with a balance sheet in
Ferrari red?

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math0ne
Where's the competition then? Uber's platform is miles ahead of everything
else, Lyft included so if its just a map app with balance sheet where are the
competitors?

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curiousDog
Umm, there's a reason they've pretty much exited every other international
market. Russia - Yandex, China - Didi, SE Asia - Grab, India - Ola, Germany,
Uk etc. Lots of competitors. It's only NA where they're a clear leader.

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malandrew
You're grossly overstating things.

17.5% stake in Didi Chuxing is nothing to scoff at, especially considering
that Uber has done better than both Facebook and Google as far as China is
concerned. Apple is the only US tech company that is really succeeding in
China.

33.6% stake in YandexTaxi and international Uber users can continue to use the
app to hail Yandex drivers when visiting Russia. That's also far far better
than Facebook and Google have fared in Russia.

In India, Uber is beating Ola. In Latam, Uber is easily beating both 99Taxis
and EasyTaxi. In the Middle East, Uber is beating Careem. Uber is absolutely
dominating in Mexico and other Latam countries.

Besides Didi Chuxing and YandexTaxi, the only international competitor doing
well relatively against Uber is Grab, and AFAICT, Grab's success relative to
Uber is largely isolated to Grab's home country Malaysia and Indonesia where
they have invested most heavily. If you take all of Southeast Asia, it appears
to be neck and neck.

Uber is doing well in relatively well in Europe all things considered, and
winning in Europe is just a matter of time. I highly doubt the local taxi
offerings will survive autonomous vehicles.

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0xB31B1B
Gojek is also crushing Indonesia. They started a bankless payments system and
are expanding beyond just rides now, pretty cool stuff that dominates in their
own market.

