The Exchanges

Q What of today's strategy was in your pitch to the board when you were joining as CEO, and what is an emergent thing that's happened while you're in the seat?

A So the pitch to the board was really different in that it wasn't about strategy. It was about operations and how you take the business to break even and profitability, et cetera, right? It was, it was presenting myself as a mature operator and my track record at Expedia. I think now things have changed, which is we have become much more focused on those, on those three segments. And if you look at rides, We have a number of growth bets, which is there's this base business UberX, which is like going to be 50% of our growth. Then about 15% of our growth are international countries where the business model as we had it wasn't legal. So the attitude at the time was, well, if our business model isn't legal, then like we're not coming in until we're invited in. And we took a different tack, which is, well, what business model is legal? And let's adjust our business model to the country versus have the country adjust to the business model. And once you're in you and you build trust within a country and you build a voice, et cetera, maybe then the business model can change over a period to benefit, you know, drivers, couriers, et cetera. So like we're in Germany, we're in Spain, we're in Japan, we're in Korea, we're in Turkey. There's a bunch of countries that we're expanding into with tweaks to the business model to make sure that we're Expanding into, into those countries the right w…

AI assessment note: “the pitch to the board was really different in that it wasn't about strategy.”

Q Ultimately, good for Uber the past couple years?

A Yeah, I, I think the pandemic was incredibly painful in that sitting together as a team, 85% of your mobility volume, which was the profit driver of the company falls off a cliff. And Other CEOs, you know, they lost a ton of business, but most of these businesses were profitable. We were losing two and a half billion dollars, and then it just got way worse. So it was a very tough situation to be in, and we, ah, had to cut a lot of overhead. We had to cut up businesses that we thought were core to the business. You really had to bet on what's core, what's non-core. But it was a huge accelerator as it relates to our Eats delivery business. And I think that discipline in hindsight has been great, but I wouldn't want that as, that shouldn't have been the- The precipitating factor.

AI assessment note: “And I think that discipline in hindsight has been great”

Q a long form podcast. So anybody that's still listening appreciates nuance. And so if there's something that you feel is often misunderstood or that you want to say to people that are willing to let a long form argument soak in, what do you think is misunderstood about the company or you or the industry or this time that we're in right now? Really anything you want to talk about?

A And I don't know if it's misunderstood, but, but it's certainly something that that's top of mind for us is that We ultimately, the future of the business as it stands now depends on our building the best platform for earners. And it goes to like the take rate, right? If the take rate goes up too much, then we're taking too much of the service, et cetera. And the fact is that I think Uber was guilty of taking earners for granted because when I first came in and for much of the company, like we were in a state of oversupply, we had too many drivers. It goes to, and instead of gating them, et cetera, We just didn't really invest in the driver experience and the courier experience the way that we should have. And then the way that we organize the company around the earner experience was pretty standard in terms of a B to C business, right? There's a team, you know, there's a team that runs the Uber app. There's a team that runs the Eats app and the team that runs the driver app. And you do all the typical stuff, which is analytics and measurements and A B test, et cetera. In order to optimize throughput in the marketplace, et cetera. But like, as we step back, you know, we don't AB test what the four or one K match should be for employees, right? Like it was equivalent. Some of the experimentation that we were doing on the earner side is like, you know, yeah, should we match a thr…

AI assessment note: “the future of the business as it stands now depends on our building the best platform”

Q What are some of your biggest learnings from being involved with that company?

A It was, um, definitely my favorite board to be on. It was a really interesting time at the New York Times because they were Really becoming a top technical company in terms of being a publisher. Like it's at a pretty extraordinary learning organization, and they wanted me as like the tech person. I was coming from Expedia and, you know, optimization, all that stuff, and their capacity to learn, like super traditional company capacity to learn was pretty awesome. Um, one of the fascinating parts about the company and it's both A superpower or it could be a weakness is total separation of church and state in terms of content and business, right? So like when I asked, well, what's the cost of certain kinds of content and then how much traffic, you know, Can we have the connection between cost of content and traffic? It was like, no, you cannot ask that question because the content is separate. So it's, it's just a fascinating organization and the bet that they made on subscriptions was amazing. Um, it was not obvious because the advertising business was much bigger at the time, but it was an enterprise bet based on a core identity of the company, which is we believe in quality content. And I thought that was one of the most impressive bets because it was totally non-obvious at the time. Like all, every single news organization, et cetera, was advertising, advertising. This is the …

AI assessment note: “the bet that they made on subscriptions was amazing”

Q When you're on the Expedia side of things, And then you get a fresh start at Uber. How do you take those lessons with you, and what did you learn?

A God, I learned so much. Um, Booking was an execution machine, and their focus, when we talked about focus, was hotels, hotels, hotels, and Expedia was much more, it started with air, right, and hotels was to some extent secondary, and so I think one of the lessons is like, hey, go after the larger market, and if you're a marketplace business, go after fragmentation of supply, Which is, if you think about hotels, there's so many more hotels in the world than there are airlines. So I think they focused completely in the right area and built a global business first, uh, and just were an absolute execution machine. The other area was that Expedia was probably more focused on building demand, kind of consumer demand, brand, et cetera. Booking was more supply-led.

AI assessment note: “one of the lessons is like, hey, go after the larger market”

Q Did you consider, I mean, this sort of famously was an issue in the Microsoft transition and, um, has been an issue in the Disney transition. Did you consider, hey, actually, maybe it would be better for the company if I didn't serve on the board just to give enough space for new leadership?

A I talked to Barry about it, and it's ultimately up to him. Right. And I think he decided that he wanted me there and I try to be helpful, but, but I think it's absolutely right, which is it, you know, the job of the new CEO to some extent is to be the CEO and do something different from the old CEO. Like that's definitional and the, you know, a little bit about that. Yeah, exactly. There could be hesitancy at a board meeting, et cetera, because the Old person's there, you know, and so that, it was, I think on a net net, I trust that Barry's judgment, it does feel weird sometimes, because I've moved on, but it's working. I think it's working, but it's complicated.

AI assessment note: “I talked to Barry about it, and it's ultimately up to him.”