
Uber's New CEO - agandy
https://stratechery.com/2017/ubers-new-ceo/
======
dannyw
This is a thoughtful analysis into the whole Uber CEO opinion, but it is
opinionated. Aggregation theory is one way to derive Uber's value, but you can
make a compelling argument that supply drives demand.

The reason why I don't use taxis in Australia is partly because the experience
is far better with Uber and the cost is cheaper, but also because Uber is the
most reliable. Without drivers and such reliability, I can't use Uber even if
I want to.

Does demand drive supply? Yes. But does supply drive demand? Yes too. With a
two sided marketplace, you can't just focus on one.

~~~
erikb
With "driving demand" you don't mean "creating demand" but "directing demand
to my business instead of the competitors", right? Because it sounds a little
like you want to say "creating demand", but your demand to go from A to B is
already created before you choose between a Taxi and Uber. You don't decide to
go to B because Uber exists.

~~~
morgante
> You don't decide to go to B because Uber exists.

Actually, I absolutely do. I've gone on many trips that I simply wouldn't have
gone on pre-Uber. On a regular basis I'll decide to go somewhere (ex. a party
in Brooklyn) which I wouldn't have bothered with if it meant a slow and
unreliable taxi (or an even slower subway ride).

~~~
feedjoelpie
Just curious: What makes you call Uber fast and taxis unreliable in NYC? I
would agree with you in almost any other market, but I find getting a taxi in
NYC using Curb just as fast and reliable, yet cheaper.

~~~
furioussloth
Also being cyclist in NYC these yellow cab drivers are your worst enemies. I
have almost got ran over more than once. You can listen to them moan about
cyclists if you have been in enough yellow cabs. Having biked around in city
for a while I personally go out of my way to avoid them. I only use them if I
am in manhattan and have absolutely no patience or sobriety to call uber.

~~~
praneshp
I do feel like this applies to Uber/Lyft drivers also (at least in SF and bay
area). The bonus structure built on X rides per day makes some drivers quite
rash.

~~~
fstuff
More than that, it seems a lot of SF Uber/Lyft come from far away to work in
San Francisco and don't know their way around and have their eye's glued to
their phone's GPS. I ride a bike in SF and I've nearly been hit by a Uber/Lyft
driver at least 10 times this year(once the same driver cut me off 3 times on
2nd street). I keep a eye peeled for those Uber/Lyft logos when I see them
pulled over, when pull out into traffic they almost never look for bikers and
usually screwing with their phones.

~~~
praneshp
Yes. I rode in the car of a person that lives in Fresno, but drives 5 days in
SF. He and a bunch of others sleep in their cars at night. He knows the city
well enough now, but pointed out 10+ drivers in a 30min drive with cellphones
in their hand.

The only time I felt unsafe _inside_ the car was when my driver drove with his
elbows, with the Uber app in one hand and his wife on a different phone in the
other hand. He just honked and cut across 3 lanes of traffic on El Camino on
Mountain View. He told me later that he used to drive a taxi for years. I
chalked it down as a cool story to tell people.later.

------
verroq
To paraphrase George Soros here:

>The worse things look, the easier it is for it to get better

~~~
tinalumfoil
For most situations I disagree. There's a term I see floating around HN
occasionally called "incident pit" which I think sums a lot of situations. The
idea is for many situations each unit worse things get the harder it becomes
for things to get a unit better, just like getting out of a pit. Eventually
escape becomes impossible.

And i think Uber has been dealing with their own version of an incident pit
lately.

------
bravura
'Khosrowshahi will be leaving behind a ton of money at Expedia, though
presumably for three tons of money at Uber, if all goes well. But I assume
it's not just about the money. If you want to be the CEO of Uber, presumably
it is because you like the CEO game, and want to play it at the hardest
possible difficulty setting.'

[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-28/tender-
of...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-28/tender-offers-and-
ceo-searches)

~~~
FussyZeus
He should start a hedge fund called Dark Souls Management.

------
common_
> Without question Uber has been horrifically served by its board of directors
> — all of them.

Some of them are VCs. If you are raising funding, don't tell them anything
confidential.

~~~
agandy
Of course some of them are VCs. Investors generally get board seats.

~~~
common_
My point is that these are not people who can be trusted to keep secrets.

~~~
agandy
Is that the case of any board then?

------
cmurf
[https://twitter.com/dkhos/status/897660235313229824](https://twitter.com/dkhos/status/897660235313229824)

When he was 9, he fled the Iranian Revolution, and became a refugee in the
U.S.

I have more respect for Uber today.

~~~
tmh79
The CTO fled Vietnam on a boat during the Vietnam war and arrived in the US
with basically nothing as a refugee. Extraordinary circumstances can make
extraordinary people.

~~~
iamcasen
The CTO is also a ruthless, cut-throat businessman. There is a reason Travis
brought him on...

------
20170319
lol

For instance, his brother Kaveh Khosrowshahi is a managing director at Allen &
Co., the investment bank best known for its ultra exclusive Sun Valley
conference. A few cousins are Google execs. His cousin Amir Khosrowshahi is at
Intel after Intel bought the AI company he co-founded, Nervana, last year for
$400 million. His twin cousins Ali and Hadi Partovi sold their startup to
MySpace back in 2009 for $20 million and went on to become power angels
backing Airbnb, Dropbox, Uber, and Facebook and cofounding Code.org.

~~~
shostack
Wow. How does a whole family succeed at that level? Presumably some of it is
connections, but connections only get you part of the way.

~~~
mahyarm
The family was a wealthy merchant family in Iran before the revolution. They
brought money and knowledge of how to become wealthy when they left. Look at
other wealthy persians in LA and you see similar patterns.

------
leoharsha2
CEOs often lead to partnerships and strategy. I wonder what connections in
travel this new CEO is going to leverage and how that will affect the uber
operations in the short term, and the ridesharing product itself in the long
term.

Uber's success has been about evolving a core product in an emerging category
whereas Expedia is all about maximizing revenue from the existing mess of
travel product categories.

If uber starts to retain customers with miles or try to diversify revenue
sources, I think it'd be a bad sign. But, who knows.

~~~
dopamean
Are we just copying people's comments from previous threads now?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15113793](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15113793)

------
dayaz36
why they want a 98 year old running uber is beyond me

~~~
cjCamel
Age is just a number and should be meaningless in any discussion to do with
employment.

Also he's 48. Travis Kalanick is 41. Would you have preferred they got someone
in their 20s or 30s? Why?

~~~
bpicolo
If anything, age is a positive indicator of work experience

