
What Makes Uber Run - doppp
http://www.fastcompany.com/3050250/what-makes-uber-run/
======
gozo
I guess this isn't the intended message, but whenever I read an article like
this I'm happy to be nowhere near SV. I can see myself waking up after ten
years realizing how I wasted my life on pretending that crude forms of desktop
publishing and business intelligence is somehow the bleeding edge of
technology.

~~~
chadillac
What, you don't have all night jam sessions at your 3 bedroom house in San
Fran? Just picking yourself up by your bootstraps, struggling to make it, in
your 3 bedroom house in San Fran. You know, down in the much and the mire,
busting out LoC tirelessly while worrying about how you're gonna keep the
lights on, in your 3 bedroom house in San Fran...

This reminds me when I asked a person who is now a "worlds youngest self made
billionaire" club member how they possibly built paid their bills while in the
early phases of their startup, that time when you're too small to even
consider funding, but big enough to warrant a couple hires to help lay a
foundation. The reply, "Ha! [founder's name]'s family is loaded...".

That's when I realized I had worked on the underlying skills, I had ideas, but
I missed the most important part... money and/or rich friends.

~~~
puranjay
This is true for many entrepreneurs. Evan Spiegel's dad is a rich lawyer, as
is Mark Zuckerberg's and Bill Gates'

Travis doesn't fall in this category though. He got his 3 bedroom house with
his own money

~~~
arbuge
I believe Mark Zuckerberg's father is a dentist.

~~~
presty
and his mom is a psychiatrist, so they're both "doctors"
[http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerbergs-dentist-
dad-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerbergs-dentist-dad-is-now-
worth--60000000-2012-2)

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mariusmg
What a useless, devoid of content, self wanking article. I guess the Uber CEO
write at least half of it.

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steffandroid
> _Uber—the first company since Google with a service so popular that its name
> is in regular use as both a noun and a verb_

Skype?

~~~
netcan
I think "tweet" should count. People say "Facebook me" too. I hear both more
regularly than "uber," in fact I can't remember a anyone using it as a verb
but that's just because an uber is something you get rather than do. I don't
taxi over to your house either.

~~~
icebraining
_I don 't taxi over to your house either._

Well, not unless their house is at the end of a runway :)

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sinzone
I was part of the jampad era and slept there several nights and even tho the
article mentioned good facts I think I will have to write some more
interesting ones on a blog post. He also helped our startup many times and we
closed our angel round at his house.

Travis deserves all the success.

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SandB0x
> Although Kalanick had been a startup guy since high school, he was a
> grinder, not a mogul. He had made enough on his last one, RedSwoosh, to buy
> a house and do a bit of angel investing.

Oh no big deal, only enough to have complete financial security at the age of
30.

~~~
chinathrow
Did you read the article? He nearly didn't manage to grow RedSwoosh and then
sell it.

No defense for him or Uber - I'm not a customer and have no plans to be one.

~~~
SandB0x
I did read the article. I find it incredible how it pays absolutely no
attention to the fact that he became a millionaire through RedSwoosh and how
this allowed him to invest in your startup and "show up at your office one or
two days a week" if he felt like it.

My issue isn't with him specifically, more the sense of entitlement of the
industry and the press.

> Kalanick came away from the experience with a profound sense of relief and
> also a bit of a problem with authority

...and a huge amount of money. For most people in the developed world, buying
a home and having enough money left over to even _think_ about angel investing
(or other expensive pastimes) at a young age is an absolute dream.

Many people see personal wealth as a pre-requisite for being able to found a
startup. A little more focus on this side of a founder's story would be
welcome.

~~~
dylanjermiah
I love how you start to story in the middle, as if he were rich since birth.
How do you think he earned his first(keyword) millions in the first place? Not
through inheritance.

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sas1ni69
Missed an opportunity for a good pun. "What drives Uber."

~~~
vicbrooker
And did so in favour of a forced one - I think the title is meant to reference
the whole track runner thing.

------
andor
...venture capital?

~~~
tonyjstark
and ignoring local laws?

~~~
puranjay
When local laws are outdated and don't serve the interests of the population,
do they really deserve to be followed?

People have voted with their wallets - they'd rather take an Uber than an
outdated taxi with bad customer service.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _People have voted with their wallets_

Uber is clearly a better service than your average taxi experience. But we
also don't know the true price, since most drivers are skirting insurance
requirements and the like.

It is difficult for me to imagine how a service like taxis can integrate a
middle man like Uber, which everyone assumes will be massively profitable,
compensate the drivers fairly _and_ be cheaper than the current system. The
math doesn't add up.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Sure it does. Current taxi system is screwing everybody. Break their monopoly
with competition, and fairer prices result. Only traditional taxi drivers
suffer, if they don't join the new competitive system.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _Current taxi system is screwing everybody._

This implies that there are some taxi companies out there that are worth a
massive amount of money, since they are capturing all the profit. Can you
point to a single company worth even one tenth of what Uber is worth? I'm sure
some companies do very well, but I don't think there are any taxi billionaires
out there.

But it matters little anyway. The pie is divvied up so many ways. You pay the
fare, some goes to the driver, some goes to the middle man. When you pay a
smaller fare, there is less for the driver, middle man, or both.

How much of Uber's valuation is based on that pie (the number of people
desiring taxis) growing?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Lots of ways to get screwed. Underserved population/demographic. Unreliable
cars. Bad experiences. Taxes and fees double the overhead. Astronomical
Medallion costs benefit only the banks (interest on million-dollar loans). And
so on.

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theworstshill
The article implies that its the people, and thats partway true. For customers
- its mostly a review system. Uber destroyed its competition with 2 simple use
cases - the ability to rate your driver, and for the driver - the ability to
rate their passenger.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> Uber destroyed its competition with 2 simple use cases - the ability to rate
> your driver, and for the driver - the ability to rate their passenger.

If that's all their moat is, they don't have much of a moat.

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tomjacobs
yay they mentioned my name in the article

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PhasmaFelis
> _[Travis Kalanick] wore a cowboy hat and referred to himself as the Wolf,
> after the cold-blooded, coolly rational fixer played by Harvey Keitel in
> Pulp Fiction._

It's generally a bad sign when you meet an actual human being who refers to
himself as "The Wolf."

~~~
bryanrasmussen
especially when it's a 'cooly rational fixer' who does such smart things as
discussing murder over a portable phone, speeding to the site of a crime he
needs to help cleanup, and leading the two idiot assassins involved in the
crime to his dumping place for bodies and introducing them to the future owner
of the site.

~~~
dylanjermiah
Thankfully he wasn't being literal.

