Success Story: Uber
The biggest contribution to the future changes in the job market will be the ‘gig economy’.
Essentially, the ‘gig economy’ refers to a labor market where people work on short-term contracts or freelancing instead of permanent jobs.
Success Story: Uber
Currently, the gig economy market is hundreds of billions of dollars. And more than 7.8 million people are expected to join the gig economy by 2023.
Uber is one of the companies that have contributed the most to the expansion of the gig economy around the world. This one company alone has popularized the concept of ride sharing across the globe.
Over the past few years, Uber has contracted millions of drivers. Around 3.5 million drivers are currently associated with Uber worldwide. By the end of 2022, the company had 122 million subscribers. And the Uber service is used an average of 21 million times per day worldwide.
However, Uber has had to overcome many ups and downs to come so far. The company’s success story was not built in a day. Let’s know the decisions and actions that Uber has become one of the top companies in the world since its establishment almost 1 century ago.
The story of Uber began in 2008. That year in Paris, two friends named Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick attended a tech conference called ‘Le Web’ (French: LeWeb). Contributors in the field of technology from all over the world come to this conference every year. And the previous year, i.e. in 2007, both of them separately sold their two startup companies for a huge amount. Travis sold his established file sharing company ‘Red Swish’ for $19 million. And Garrett sold his start-up ‘StumbleUpon’ for $75 million.
However, the two friends were having trouble finding a taxi after the conference. That’s when Garrett Camp thought of creating a ride-sharing platform. And after returning to the United States, Garrett Camp decided to name the company: Uber Cab.
What you think is what you do. After deciding on the name, he bought the domain name ‘UberCab.com’. At the same time, Garrett prepared with friends a draft of how the company could operate.
Uber officially started in 2009. At that time, Travis Kalanick also joined Uber by responding to Garrett’s call. However, no car to serve Uber has yet hit the road. At the beginning of 2010, Uber put 3 cars on the road experimentally. Then in May of that year, the company started commercial operations in the city of San Francisco. Later that year, Travis Kalanick was appointed CEO of Uber.
But Uber’s operations were different at first. Customers could only ride in luxury vehicles through Uber. And its activities were limited to a few areas like San Francisco.
In 2011, taxi cab operators in San Francisco sued Uber for misusing the term ‘cab’. As a result, the company’s name was changed from ‘Uber Cab’ to ‘Uber’ that year.
In the same year, Uber began operating on the streets of Paris, where the idea of Uber first took off. However, Uber has not yet started operations in all areas of the United States.
Meanwhile, it is difficult to predict how much response will be received from customers when starting a business through ride sharing, or how many drivers will join such an initiative. Therefore, Uber hires people from various professions in their company to get an idea of what the future will be like before starting the business in full swing.
A nuclear physicist, a computational neuroscientist, and a mechanical engineer were initially hired to estimate market demand and potential.
In 2012, Uber started offering low-cost services. The service named ‘Uber X’ is very popular. On the one hand, drivers could connect with Uber to work at their own convenience, so customers could also see information about the driver and his car. At the same time, the location of the car could be seen through GPS. Also, for the first time, Uber brings the facility of paying the fare through bank card without the hassle of boarding the rental car. Due to such various facilities, the company became popular within a short period of time.
By early 2013, Uber was operating in 35 cities. That year, America’s best-selling magazine USA Today named Uber as the technology company of the year. And now Uber is operating in 10,500 cities in 72 countries around the world.
In 2014, the company started a food delivery service called ‘Uber Fresh’, which was later renamed to ‘Uber Eats’. Uber Eats currently operates in 6,000 cities across 45 countries. However, among the countries where Uber is operating, ‘Uber Eats’ has not gained popularity in all countries. As a result, this platform has to close its operations from many countries. For example, ‘Uber Eats’ announced the closure of their business in Bangladesh in 2020. In the same year, the company sold all the operations of ‘Uber Eats’ in India to a company called ‘Zomato’. But in the same year, Uber started a new business of grocery delivery service in South America, Canada and America.
How much the fare will be if you share a ride through Uber depends on various factors. The amount of fare depends on various factors like how many drivers are around, how the road is jammed or what time of the day the service is being taken. And the whole thing is calculated through artificial intelligence or AI.
Uber bought a startup called ‘Geometric Intelligence’ in 2016 to run Uber’s operations more precisely through AI. The 15-employee startup researched AI technology. After buying ‘Geometric Intelligence’, its operations started as ‘Uber AI Labs’. 15 employees of ‘geometric intelligence’ initially started working in this lab of Uber.
However, in the same year, Uber lost a large part of the international market. Uber was forced to close its ride-sharing business in China in 2016 due to various reasons, including competition.
In 2017, Iranian-born businessman Dara Khosrowshahi was appointed as Uber’s new CEO. Before becoming the CEO of Uber, Khosrowshahi was the CEO of the online travel shopping company ‘Expedia Group’. He is currently the head of the company.
In 2017, a controversy started about Uber. Allegedly, the company keeps track of its customers even after the ride ends. After this controversy, Uber was forced to change its customer tracking policy.
Uber was listed as a public company in the US market in 2019. However, at the end of the same year, the pandemic Covid-19 hit. Uber suffered more losses in 2019 and 2020 than any previous year due to the pandemic and other factors. In 2020, the company laid off many employees in two phases. Uber laid off 3,700 people in the first phase and another 3,000 later. At the same time, 45 places announced the closure of their offices.
However, the construction of Uber’s new headquarters in San Francisco was completed in 2020. Consisting of multiple buildings of 6 and 11 storeys, the complex has garnered much praise from architects and critics alike.
By the end of 2022, Uber announced that by 2030, its vehicle fleet in developed countries and regions such as Europe, Japan, South Korea, the United States or Canada will be fully electric. Uber took this decision as a responsible company mainly because of climate change. The company claims that by 2040, all of Uber’s vehicles will be electric in every country.
Uber is currently the 260th top company in the world. In this journey of more than 1 decade, Uber has had to merge or merge with several companies, and have to buy many companies. Some of the notable ones are the Russian company “Yandex Taxi”, Singapore’s “Grab”, Dubai-based Middle Eastern company “Kareem”, USA’s “Postmates” and “Drizly”, Australia’s “Car Next Door” and Italy’s company “IT Taxi”.
Currently, the word ‘Uber’ has become another name for ride sharing. Even though the company is still making losses, many people from all over the world are investing in it. According to Uber, their business is still in the expansion phase. That is, if all goes well, we’ll see Uber get richer over time.
