The Exchanges

Q So you started school here. Where in America?

A In Westchester County, New York, about an hour of New York at a wonderful school called Hackley School. And then I went to Brown University and studied engineering at Brown University. And then I was going to an engineering management program and I met a commodity trader, a woman in New York City who I completely fell in love with. And I had to find a job in New York City, and the only jobs available in New York City were investment banking jobs, and so that's how I got to Allen & Company that you just talked about, and I worked at Allen & Company for, I think it was like eight years or so, um, and one of my clients there was a gentleman named Barry Diller, who's this legendary, um, uh, figure in media and, and then, uh, very much And it, within the internet, and I, he was a client of mine, and I remember, like, my intention was to stay at Allen & Company forever. It is a great family-run business. Uh, really look out for your clients. You know, it's not the kind of investment bank that's looking for fees. They want to help you build a business, so I thought I was going to be there forever. But then I saw Barry, I say, if, if, if I ever get a chance to work for that guy, I'll take it in a second.

AI assessment note: “In Westchester County, New York, about an hour of New York at a wonderful school”

Q Ultimately, so much will come down to taste, right? In this world.

A Well, listen, taste, convenience, price, right? I mean, you and I may be lucky enough where taste is the overriding factor, but there may be context for you, right? If you're, um, coming to San Francisco and it's midweek, you may want a cheap, decent place close to the Uber offices, right? And that's a different context than if you are going to Go to Napa for the weekend where you want an experience either for yourself or yourself and friends or loved ones. So I do think that it's not as simple in terms of taste. It's based on the context of what the, what, what you're, um, what you're solving for, you know, your objective function. And your objective function is going to change, uh, based on the context of what the goal of that trip is.

AI assessment note: “So I do think that it's not as simple in terms of taste.”

Q Is there an arbitrage there because you're Drivers are not essentially employees. Is there a labor cost arbitrage? Because they're gig workers, they run their own cars, they don't need to be paid benefits, insurance.

A Yeah, there's, there's a trade-off there, right, which is we can't tell our drivers when and when to work, right? So imagine if Starbucks is hiring a barista, they don't go to the barista, hey, show up whenever you want to, and you know, we'll pay you however much a Starbucks barista makes per hour. So, You could call it a labor arbitrage. I, I call it a trade-off, which is the driver and the courier can decide when and where they want to work. That creates cost for us. We then have to build liquidity of, of, of supply and demand, and sometimes we will Use incentives and or algorithms. For example, surge are circumstances when, ah, when demand exceeds supply, and in those cases we have to actually raise prices for that demand in order to attract enough drivers to get out into the market to pick out, to pick up everyone, you know, arriving at seven p.m. on a Thursday night at the airport. Or, you know, when, when, uh, the Warriors, uh, game is, is done.

AI assessment note: “You could call it a labor arbitrage. I, I call it a trade-off”

Q Does it get in the way in any way today, the fact that your origins are there, while the countries where you live today, and that might be in conflict?

A Not, not a conflict in my life. Um, you know, there's a sadness in leaving your home country. I mean, my country's now the United States, and we got to rebuild in the U.S., and I'm so thankful for it. But, would I love to go back? I would. Uh, but to some extent, the, the culture of Iran matches the Western culture. It's a group of people who want to build. It's a group of people who value education, who are ambitious. Um, so I don't find it a conflict with who I am now, but there's a part of me that I feel is incomplete, and will be incomplete if I never am able to go back to Iran.

AI assessment note: “Not, not a conflict in my life.”

Q I've never met him, but I suspect he is, he's much bigger than me too. With everything you're building, Dara, uh, is there a super app coming? Is that the eventual outcome?

A I think that, um, Super apps seem to be particularly relevant in, uh, in, in Asia and China, etc. They've been quite successful there. They've had less success in Western markets. So I don't know if we will get to what you would call a super app, but we certainly want to be a connected family of apps. So if you, if you go on Uber now, Uber Mobility, we have Uber Eats available to you, and, and people are Are transacting billions of dollars of Uber Eats on the Uber Mobility app. And on, on Eats, obviously we have grocery, we have retail, you'll know next time you need a travel, uh, adapter. And so the, the, we, we have, I'd say ecosystem that is making it increasingly easier for you to work from surface to surface or with, with a membership, uh, plan Uber one that gives you discounts on, on both. So, I absolutely know that we are building kind of this local ecosystem, that local OS of yours. Um, whether the physical manifestation is a super app or not, I don't know. Uh, and my, you know, kind of the way I view it is I'm gonna, I'm gonna let our engineers and our product folks kind of innovate, come up with the next idea, and then we'll go kind of one step in front of the other to, to get to that outcome.

AI assessment note: “I don't know if we will get to what you would call a super app”

Q Travis, they say that in, in society today, as a leader, you're either awe-inspiring, dogmatic, uh, or you're somebody who builds consensus is more relatable per se. Have you had to project a more relatable image because you have to overcompensate for what Travis was projecting?

A I, one, one thing that I really believe in is, um, I don't think it works if you're trying to be someone other than who you are. You know, people come to me and they, they ask me for leadership advice, and the first piece of advice that I give them is, be true to yourself. Because the minute you're not true to yourself, people will smell that a mile off if you're not authentic. You know, this is a word that people mean authentic, et cetera, what does it mean? It's just like, be true to who you are. I am, ah, the youngest brother of a really big family. We have, like, thousands of cousins around, and in Iran, community and family is so important. Nobody's the star, and if you're the star, you're going to be putting your place. You know, I'm a fancy, fancy CEO here, but when I go to my family, I'm just one of the younger cousins, and I'm no big deal. And I love it. It's such a relief to be that person who, I just, that's my comfort zone. So I tend to be more collaborative. You know, I, I, when I played sports, I, I would play defense. I always played team sports. I didn't want to win as an individual. I love the feeling of winning as a team. I, I, you know, I don't want to be there celebrating by myself. I want to celebrate with my team.

AI assessment note: “I don't think it works if you're trying to be someone other than who you are.”