# Uber: "We under-invested in technology" - The reason Uber has no future



## jocker12 (May 11, 2017)

https://www.zdnet.com/article/uber-we-under-invested-in-technology/
*The ride-sharing service was focused on adding people quickly to its platform that its business suffered.*

Uber VP and global head of community operations Troy Stevenson has said his company focused too heavily on adding people to its platform, rather than investing in a long-term business model when the startup thrust its new ride-sharing concept into the world back in 2009.

"The tech team that supports my organisation -- when I started three years ago, was maybe a dozen people -- our ability to kind of build what we needed into the apps and build little integrations with it was was pretty scant."

According to Stevenson, what Uber has since done to rectify this over-eager attitude to scale its platform was invest in its teams, as well as its agents.

"We've also found great tech partners to work with," Stevenson said, pointing to Salesforce as one example. "We realised that we don't need to be the expert on everything and our tech stack. You know there's parts where we think it is a unique competitive edge, and that's what we want to focus our resources, and there's other parts where we don't need to reinvent the wheel on every aspect of the experience."

Stevenson said in the early days of Uber, the startup was "very reticent" to work with partners outside of its ecosystem.

"That probably slowed us down more than we needed to, and I think as we grew and as we scaled -- enterprise sales or knowledge basis and things like that, when it's not a proprietary part of the company but it's a really critical part of the experience -- [we] pooled together partners to help us with that," he said.

Uber, he said, is now giving thought to the future when building new capability.

"We have to try to make them fulfill the needs of the future, we're not going to invest lots of people's time and lots of money into solving yesterday's problems, we have to kind of look forward to where the puck is going," Stevenson said.

According to Stevenson, as Uber was growing, the company looked at its operation as a very "one size fits all model".

"That is the reality of a much more complicated segmented customer base we've really been trying to be able to differentiate a lot more," he explained.

"It works the other way, too, we've got markets and products where the average fare might be 50 cents and what we're really competing against is a subway or a bus, and it just wouldn't be economically viable to provide the same type of support experience for that as we do for UberX in San Francisco."

Stevenson said this is where Uber is trying to make a more deliberate decision on how to enter markets it isn't already in.

With the vast majority of the world's population not having access to Uber currently, Stevenson said solving the most economically viable way to make that happen is "just as innovative a problem to solve as is the flying car problem ".

"For that to work *we need to really just be incredibly focused on automation and efficiency and low costs*," he said.

On the future of Uber and pipeline of transportation services the company is looking to launch, *Stevenson said Uber is not that far away from autonomous battery powered human-carrying drones*.

"Most innovative technological barriers around sound and safety and redundancy are very close to being solved," he said.


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## 1.5xorbust (Nov 22, 2017)

Drones will save the company. Of course there will be some collateral damage.


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

" TECHNOLOGY COMPANY "!


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## Lowestformofwit (Sep 2, 2016)

tohunt4me said:


> " TECHNOLOGY COMPANY "!





jocker12 said:


> "just as innovative a problem to solve as is the flying car problem ".


A prototype Uber flying car, photographed today. Note the recesses for the retracting rotor blades.
Project code name: "Pie in the Sky".








Where can I buy (laughing) stock in this project?


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## Yam Digger (Sep 12, 2016)

Sounds like they STILL don’t have any clear plan to profitability.


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## jocker12 (May 11, 2017)

Yam Digger said:


> Sounds like they STILL don't have any clear plan to profitability.


Yup. 
Instead of investing in people, idiotic Uber wants to increase its push for flashy screens and flying pigs.


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## Lee239 (Mar 24, 2017)

Uber has no future because they stole from the drivers. They were not happy with their 20% than raised it to 25% but then if you did a short ride for $6.50 they took almost 66%. Then on longer rides they would still overcharge the customer and keep 50% or more of what the pax paid. Had they kept rates at 75% of taxi rates and took 25% and let the driver keep the rest and not stolen from the driver and the pax they would have been successful and made billions from running an app.; But they didn't want billions they wanted to be worth $100 billion or more and the revenue is not there to support that.


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## Bob Reynolds (Dec 20, 2014)

jocker12 said:


> https://www.zdnet.com/article/uber-we-under-invested-in-technology/
> *The ride-sharing service was focused on adding people quickly to its platform that its business suffered.*
> 
> Uber VP and global head of community operations Troy Stevenson has said his company focused too heavily on adding people to its platform, rather than investing in a long-term business model when the startup thrust its new ride-sharing concept into the world back in 2009.
> ...


So they admit that they are tech deficient. The technology is probably their strongest asset.

I would take the side of the table that says they simply don't know how to run a business. Did any of these geeks take any business classes in college that teach how to price goods and services?


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## peteyvavs (Nov 18, 2015)

Bob Reynolds said:


> So they admit that they are tech deficient. The technology is probably their strongest asset.
> 
> I would take the side of the table that says they simply don't know how to run a business. Did any of these geeks take any business classes in college that teach how to price goods and services?


Uber and Lyft were started by gamblers.


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## nonononodrivethru (Mar 25, 2019)

Uber isn't very smart. Instead of buying Doordash, they created UberEats. 

Facebook at least understood to buy Instagram rather than trying to create Facebook Pictures.


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## Yam Digger (Sep 12, 2016)

jocker12 said:


> Yup.
> Instead of investing in people, idiotic Uber wants to increase its push for flashy screens and flying pigs.


Not to mention autonomous death-mobiles like the one in Arizona.


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## Johnny Mnemonic (Sep 24, 2019)

jocker12 said:


> *Stevenson said Uber is not that far away from autonomous battery powered human-carrying drones*.


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## Lowestformofwit (Sep 2, 2016)

nonononodrivethru said:


> Uber isn't very smart. Instead of buying Doordash, they created UberEats.


That's because they want to be one of THE big names on the world stage, and for people to think of them as THE premier supplier of everything in everyday life.
Obviously, this includes supplying cheap laughs and schemes that have people sniggering behind their backs.


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## got a p (Jan 27, 2018)

he forgot the part about how he will not be able to keep his fleet from getting hacked for nefarious purposes, as in killing a million people in a few minutes. i'm sure americans will look back at the WMDs these companies unleashed wittingly all across the country with admiration for guys like this who were so eager to push it out as fast as they can. their tech dept cant even push out an app update without proper beta testing. have you guys been enjoying the new bugs since the update a few days ago?

greed and automation trumps integrity and human decency.


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## peteyvavs (Nov 18, 2015)

nonononodrivethru said:


> Uber isn't very smart. Instead of buying Doordash, they created UberEats.
> 
> Facebook at least understood to buy Instagram rather than trying to create Facebook Pictures.


You know Uber eats was established way before DD came into the market.


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## nonononodrivethru (Mar 25, 2019)

peteyvavs said:


> You know Uber eats was established way before DD came into the market.


You really should do some research before you make a fool of yourself online.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoorDash
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_Eats


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## troothequalstroll (Oct 12, 2019)

90% of their "technology" is useless criminal bloat & games designed to trick drivers & gouge rides

No algos needed
Closest driver gets contract they ignore or cancel it next closest driver gets it & repeat if it gets back to original driver $5 added to drivers pay & riders charge & that repeats

None of this is rocket science they don't care about efficiency or if rider gets a good experience or if driver profits their "tech" is only interested in seeing how big a cut they can take for doing nothing

Imagine how much better the app would work with 90% of the garbage stripped out of it, I haven't once used or xaredtabout any of the things they added to it but tips & 45+ minute notifications which should be 30+ minute notifications, the Geo filters were nice but of course they took those away to, destination filters are nice but if you're only driver they don't work they'll still send you opposite of where you want or need to be



Lee239 said:


> Uber has no future because they stole from the drivers. They were not happy with their 20% than raised it to 25% but then if you did a short ride for $6.50 they took almost 66%. Then on longer rides they would still overcharge the customer and keep 50% or more of what the pax paid. Had they kept rates at 75% of taxi rates and took 25% and let the driver keep the rest and not stolen from the driver and the pax they would have been successful and made billions from running an app.; But they didn't want billions they wanted to be worth $100 billion or more and the revenue is not there to support that.


The people at the top did make billions Travis k just cashed out 1.5 billion & has a 34 million dollar condo with hundreds of millions more in property, g camp has a 77 million dollar mansion with a billion more dollars, the CEO & cfo been making 50+ million per year with billions more in the bank

They're not losing money their laundering it from the skim from human trafficking & wage theft

1 billion + rides or 250+ million hours of labor went to 3 people


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## peteyvavs (Nov 18, 2015)

nonononodrivethru said:


> You really should do some research before you make a fool of yourself online.
> 
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoorDash
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_Eats


In most markets DD hadn't existed, Uber eats only competition was PM. You need to do more research.


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## Fozzie (Aug 11, 2018)

jocker12 said:


> According to Stevenson, what Uber has since done to rectify this over-eager attitude to scale its platform was invest in its teams, as well as its agents. *IN INDIA. *


Fixed for clarification purposes.


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## The Entomologist (Sep 23, 2018)

Alas Uber comes out of the closet.


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## goneubering (Aug 17, 2017)

jocker12 said:


> Uber VP and global head of community operations Troy
> 
> "It works the other way, too, we've got markets and products where the average fare might be 50 cents and what we're really competing against is a subway or a bus, and it just wouldn't be economically viable to provide the same type of support experience for that as we do for UberX in San Francisco."


Troy says a few good things but then he talks about markets where the average fare is 50 cents. A smart company would get out of those cities.


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

goneubering said:


> Troy says a few good things but then he talks about markets where the average fare is 50 cents. A smart company would get out of those cities.


A smart Company would have a $10.00 Minimum !

( just like the Cheap Roulette wheel. Wheel wont Spin for under $10.00
Our Wheels shouldnt spin either for LESS !)


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## jocker12 (May 11, 2017)

goneubering said:


> Troy says a few good things but then he talks about markets where the average fare is 50 cents. A smart company would get out of those cities.


Priority #1 - make sure you create a solid base of drivers by raising the rates to the 2015 levels, drivers interested to drive under Uber's (or Lyft in Lyft's case) logo as partners. Make sure those drivers are well trained in customer service (something that all cab companies completely ignored) as long as those drivers would interact with customers that are ignorant of the different services offered and/or of how the entire rideshare process works - see this). Technology won't replace the drivers. Trying to replace the human operators from rideshare (*under the illusion that technology would save costs and generate trillions in profits*) would only create huge safety issues and distrust for all the products on the customer's side in addition to the inevitable reliability problems generated by a transition to a primitive system of unpredictable, independent, underdeveloped, very limited robots.

Priority #2 - educate the "entitled" riders about *the commodity of rideshare* they want to use and abandon the delusion of transportation dominance. Uber and Lyft could only be a part of the system of transportation and not the entire body of it. The pursue of dominance is the dream of a madman, and consequently is completely paranoid.

Priority #3 - tell and EXPLAIN the truth to the investors, the public, the drivers and the customers, because "respect" and "trust" are 2-way roads. As long as the lie continues, both companies, Uber and Lyft, are doomed to collapse under the weight of their own incompetence.

And then, rescale and reorganize the entire business on a simple and realistic sustainable frame. The success comes from the simplicity not from an increasingly cluster**** generated by daily corporate useless, costly and painful brainstorming masturbation.


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## 2smart2drive (Jul 9, 2019)

Lowestformofwit said:


> That's because they want to be one of THE big names on the world stage, and for people to think of them as THE premier supplier of everything in everyday life.


"THE premier supplier of everything in everyday life" is China )

China owns 1,5B Chinese ants.
Uber will own 2M drones, Made in China - not 2M UBERing ants, independent constructors )


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## Wolfgang Faust (Aug 2, 2018)

jocker12 said:


> https://www.zdnet.com/article/uber-we-under-invested-in-technology/
> *The ride-sharing service was focused on adding people quickly to its platform that its business suffered.*
> 
> Uber VP and global head of community operations Troy Stevenson has said his company focused too heavily on adding people to its platform, rather than investing in a long-term business model when the startup thrust its new ride-sharing concept into the world back in 2009.
> ...


What a crock of shit.
Who works for half of what they did four years ago?


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## Damn Boy (Jan 28, 2019)

jocker12 said:


> https://www.zdnet.com/article/uber-we-under-invested-in-technology/
> *The ride-sharing service was focused on adding people quickly to its platform that its business suffered.*
> 
> Uber VP and global head of community operations Troy Stevenson has said his company focused too heavily on adding people to its platform, rather than investing in a long-term business model when the startup thrust its new ride-sharing concept into the world back in 2009.
> ...


Now a days a kid from slums of 3rd world country can write ride share--apparently taxi app--app. That's how good technology company Uber is.


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## Bubsie (Oct 19, 2017)

goneubering said:


> Troy says a few good things but then he talks about markets where the average fare is 50 cents. A smart company would get out of those cities.


With Uber pool express and constant rate cuts they are well on the way to that fare in the US.

Also those markets are probably where they got their ass handed to them on a platter by local competition and ended up pulling out/selling up (Grab, Didi).


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## Eddie Dingle (Sep 23, 2019)

Damn Boy said:


> Now a days a kid from slums of 3rd world country can write ride share--apparently taxi app--app. That's how good technology company Uber is.


yeah what's the part of their tech stack they're claiming is superior? My guess is they're talking about the matching algorythm. Big ****ing whoop. You can do matching with the most basic algorythm. Uber's algo is just making for warm fuzzy feelings in the marketing department.


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## Damn Boy (Jan 28, 2019)

Bubsie said:


> With Uber pool express and constant rate cuts they are well on the way to that fare in the US.
> 
> Also those markets are probably where they got their ass handed to them on a platter by local competition and ended up pulling out/selling up (Grab, Didi).


Yes, I am pretty sure they will exit India too. They are already in discussions to sell uber eats to local competitor.


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## Youburr (Aug 22, 2019)

I’ll tell you one thing—Made In China ain’t never getting me from point A to point B. Period.


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