Mudassir Sheikha
Co-founder & CEO, Careem. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutive@MudassirSheikha ↗LinkedIn ↗
Mudassir Sheikha co-founded Dubai-based ride-hailing and super-app company Careem in 2012, scaling it across the greater Middle East before selling it to Uber for $3.1 billion. Earlier in his career, he co-founded mobile testing platform DeviceAnywhere and worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company.
1shows
1appearances
30statements
8resolved
6supported
1contradicted
75%fully supported
2said about them ↓ Everything Mudassir Sheikha said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Sheikha: Careem's Board Was Deeply Divided Over the $3.1B Uber Acquisition
“And it was a contentious process where there were some investors that wanted to sell and there were others that didn't want to sell. And it ended up creating a big divide in the port that made things quite challenging.”
Sheikha Regrets $3.1B Uber Deal Didn't Financially Benefit Careem's Drivers
“I wish we could have done more for our captains. As a part of the exit process. You know, Kareem was built by these captains and we are close to many of them. And if I look at them today, they're still doing what they were doing 10 years ago. And that saddens …”
Sheikha: Lack of global and local competition creates massive startup opportunities in Pakistan
“Man, local businesses have done really, really well historically because they don't get a lot of competition outside, and even inside, you know, the competition that you get is generally not as formidable.”
Careem Outcompeted Uber in Saudi Arabia by Enabling Cash Payments
“Early in Saudi Saudi Arabia, which is of course the largest market in the region not many people at that time had credit cards, or even if they had credit cards, they were not able to use credit cards, and people just preferred paying in cash. So this was some…”
Dara Khosrowshahi Promised Careem Autonomy to Finalize $3.1B Uber Acquisition
“The thing that really made it happen at the end was Dara saying that you guys can continue, continue pushing your purpose, keep your culture, keep your org. I'm just going to replace your shareholders and become a better shareholder.”
Sheikha: Finding the right spouse is 80% of executive parenting
“You know, marry well. I think that's 80% of the problem is just finding the right person to marry.”
Sheikha: Middle East Stock Exchanges Will Resolve Regional Tech IPO Constraints
“You can see a line of sight to that problem being solved. I think in Dubai, in Abu Dhabi, in Saudi, there are local and regional exchanges that are open for business. Some ideas have happened already and inshallah more will happen. So I feel that over time tha…”
Sheikha: Emerging market graduates choose multinationals over entrepreneurship
“A lot of people, talented people, when they graduate from college, they aspire to join multinationals or leave the country and join companies outside. They don't necessarily aspire to become entrepreneurs.”
Sheikha: Low-margin platforms must stay frugal to avoid overtaxing drivers
“We're in a very low margin business. And since we're low margin, we don't want to tax our captains with very high margins. We just need to be super, super frugal as a platform so that we can be as efficient as possible.”
Careem Investor Wired $1M From Personal Account Before Signing Paperwork
“So I call our lead investor for that round and I say, Abdullah, this thing is taking a lot longer to close. We're out of money. We've already put our savings into the business. And he's like, how much money do you need? I said half a million dollars. He's like…”
Sheikha: Appoint a respected board chairman to manage investor dynamics
“But then one concrete learning for me was let's have a chairman of the board that can help us manage the rest of the board. Because it takes time, as you know, and if we can get someone that is well respected by everyone, that has got the time and the ability …”
Careem Employees Refused to Wear Black Due to Intense Uber Rivalry
“Was heading a company whose name was a four letter word at Karim. There were people at Karim that would not wear black because that color was black.”
Careem's business dropped 90% during early COVID pandemic
“I think a few months after we closed the deal, COVID happened, and as you expected our business was down 90%.”
Sheikha: Careem founders feared Uber acquisition would erase company culture
“We felt that it would be a shame to lose such a unique and special start to a competitor who's most likely going to merge it eventually, and the Korean brand, and the Korean purpose, and the Korean culture will disappear.”
Careem's $3.1B Uber Acquisition Created 75 USD Millionaires Among Employees
“I think in dollar terms, there were 75 millionaires. In that term, there were, I think, 300 plus.”
Careem reports monthly customer retention typically ranges between 60% and 70%
“In many of the businesses that we operate, the monthly retention of customers tends to be in the 60 to 70% range, and that's actually been considered okay and even good in some cases.”
Sheikha: Pakistan Had Only One Non-State Billion-Dollar Company in 2011
“At that time, in 2011, there was only one company outside of the National Gas Company and the National Oil Company that was worth more than a billion dollars.”
Sheikha: Careem originally launched as a corporate car service
“It was started as a corporate car service before it became a ride-hailing service and before it became a lot more than ride-hailing.”
Careem generated profits from corporate clients before raising VC
“We went after corporates, which was our initial business to begin with, but we made sure that they were getting the right quality of service, the right levels of reliability that ended up becoming a huge source of revenue and profits in the early days before w…”
Sheikha: Careem's B2B SaaS offering flopped because Careem wasn't built for SaaS
“We spent a lot of time building it. We spent a lot of time trying to sell it. We, in fact, even had one large demo company to buy sign up, but that was a miserable flock because we were just not designed to be a SaaS company.”
Sheikha: Elon Musk tweeted Careem's viral Dubai slingshot video
“I think Elon Musk Tweeted that as well.”
Sheikha: Careem's Fake Slingshot Video Generated Tens of Millions in Publicity
“And we ended up creating tens of millions of dollars of publicity to a very simple video.”
Careem established a joint venture with the Dubai government for taxi dispatching
“We have a joint venture with the Dubai government that dispatches taxis.”
Sheikha: Proactive board relationship building would have helped during Careem deal
“We were just so busy running the business, Harry, that we didn't spend a lot of time with our board, other than maybe a few people here and there. We could have been More proactive in building relationships, building trust. That would have then created currenc…”
The other half of the tape: Mudassir Sheikha's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 1 episode across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Dara Khosrowshahi 2
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20VC 2
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Mudassir's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Co-founder & CEO, Careem | 1 | 30 | 75% 6/8 | full record on 20VC → |