SHUT IN 2017 DRIVERS

Uber’s biggest advantage over incumbents was in using ordinary vehicles with no special licensing or other formalities. Ultimately, most of Uber’s technical advances were ideas that competitors would have devised in short order.

SHUT IN 2017 DRIVERS

Uber was wise to use smartphone apps (not telephone calls) to let passengers request vehicles, and it found major cost savings in equipping drivers with standard phones (not specialized hardware). Nor was Uber alone in realizing that expensive taxi medallions were unnecessary for prebooked trips - a tactic already used by other entrepreneurs in many cities. In those respects, Uber was much like what incumbents had and where they were headed. But by the company’s launch, in 2010, most urban taxi fleets used modern dispatch with GPS, plus custom hardware and software.

Uber brought some important improvements to the taxi business, which are at this point well known. And having grown through intentional illegality, Uber can’t easily pivot toward following the rules. The company’s cultural dysfunction, it seems to me, stems from the very nature of the company’s competitive advantage: Uber’s business model is predicated on lawbreaking. Kalanick and other top executives signal by example what is and is not acceptable behavior, and they are clearly responsible for the company’s ethically and legally questionable decisions and practices.īut I suggest that the problem at Uber goes beyond a culture created by toxic leadership. These have certainly contributed to the company’s problems, and his resignation is probably appropriate. Some people attribute the company’s missteps to the personal failings of founder-CEO Travis Kalanick. Yet the company’s mounting scandals reveal something seriously amiss, culminating in last week’s stern report from former U.S. From many passengers’ perspective, Uber is a godsend - lower fares than taxis, clean vehicles, courteous drivers, easy electronic payments.

Shut in 2017