Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi
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So I came up here. We scheduled this time to record what what are we talking about today?

We will have to talk about uber in a while.

Um that's really a lot has happened since we did .

the IPO episode about four years. That is crazy. All right.

Yeah, let's do IT. I ordered some food? I hope that's okay.

Oh yeah, yeah. Maybe we can eat well, we, we, dear. Oh, yeah.

that me cool.

Doesn't want in here. H was perfect.

So can I join you guys?

好的， morning.

Wait you, wait you, wait you. Who got? Easy me down story.

To this episode of acquired the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. And then gilbert, David, rose all, and we are your hosts. Today's episode is an interview with uber CEO dara cosa shai, where he joins us from the acquired home studio in seattle.

And it's been a while since we checked in on uber. They've gone through quite the transformation since our twenty nine episode on IPO day. In the past twelve months, they've done over thirty billion dollars in revenue, up from just ten billion two years ago.

And that's not G M.

V. That's revenue. That is revenue. And they have two businesses, as many of you know, that compliment each other nicely in eats and mobility.

And they've divested anything hardware international or that's too far in the future or speculative. They're even doing something we couldn't imagine at IPO time, which is profitability. Now it's very modest at this point, but we wouldn't have dreamed uber could even get to break even back when they burned. David, what was at three billion dollars the year before the IPO?

Yeah I think IT was the most capital burned before an IPO by any company in history up to that point.

Well, today's discussion, of course, is partly about uber, as we're alluding to here. But as David and I evolved the interview format, we're putting more of a focus on dara as a person and sharing some of his crazy stories from throughout his whole career. So this is a candid conversation that dies into moments like buying expedia, right? One, nine, eleven happened, how he first met very deler at Allen and company and what the financial mechanics are actually like of replacing uber entire shareholder base or close to IT anyway almost in its entirety since joining the company yeah not .

the uber C E O recruiting process, which I don't think there is talking about anywhere else before.

No, I don't think so either. Well, if you are not already in this lack, you totally should join so many smart folks commenting on episodes and bringing new information after we record that we didn't find in the research because many of you work in the fields that were actually covering on episode.

So you can join at acquired dot F, M, slash slack, listen to our other episodes on our second show, A C Q two, like a great episode we just did with take saper from emergence on A I motes in B2B cas. And without further do, this show is not an investment advice of, and I may have investments, the companies we discuss. And this show is for informational and entertainment purposes only, onto our conversation with dora.

cheers. Dara, cheers. Welcome to required. Thank you very much.

Happy to be here.

Appreciate you. Swing by the home studio on your way home from expedia board meeting. Is that right? Yes.

how I go, I can tell .

you yeah .

actually really .

is a good place to for folks who don't know about your pre uber background, you are the CEO of expedia from two thousand and 4， twenty, seventeen, thirty years.

a long time.

And when you became the CEO, your previous role was you were at iac with berrie deler, and you guys had bought a controlling interest in expedia. You took IT private. IT was a microsoft with rich barton.

He spended out and went public. You made a bid to take a private, I think, over like two tranches. There was like a controlling interest .

and then a full buyout. Yeah, we bought microsoft stick. Microsoft decided it's non core and we bought microsoft controlling stake. And expedia was a public company, but we had a control position. And then at some point we decide to hate, let's bring in the whole thing, because we loved what .

rich and team were building. So this being acquired and us wanting to dive into a story, there's one moment in particular that was pretty insane. The term sheet was signed for I A C 的 by idea before september earlier in two thousand and one。 The deal hadn't closed yet. I think there was some kind .

of material adverse .

change laws and allow to the deal.

Yes, yes. I mean, what could be more material than september eleven for travel?

But you guys didn't like take us through .

yeah we didn't and we knew we have the option to get out. Yeah and at the time, you know one of the values of an option is time value, right? You don't want to exercise an option before the last moment that you can.

And rich called, I think, barrier at the time and he said, listen, september eleven happened. Business obviously has form of Cliff. We think it'll come back, but I don't know.

And he said, the places pretty unstable now because no one knows whether the deals going to go through or not go through. There's a mac laws. So if you want to get out like it's fine.

Rich is very confident. He's a great entrepreneurs. Fine if you want to get out, but just like let us know, you know if you which way you want to go. His good and he's .

really good point about time. But he just to make a decision .

and if I kine, if you are the company ever was like what's happening, right? There's a future. Companies thrive on certainty on kind of random. It's seta and IT was a tough macro opposition to be in and in the micro position of what's gonna en a studio. So I can imagine what he was going through.

So we got together as a team, the I, C team, and all of us were kind of talking, no, there's no clear decision to be made there. But barry respected what rich asked for. And I remember the, me, I all having all these debates.

And I think he was barry who said that. He said, you know, if there is a travel, there is a life. So like you, like, looked to each other. We're like, let's go for this. Let's do IT and but after that, meaning barry called, Richard said.

game on. No changes to deal at all like exactly as .

no changes to the deal. It's like we're going to do this. But bury his passion is travelling right and I think he was right, which is just when you're in the center of the storm, IT looks like, oh my god, life is gonna over.

But things revert to norm. I be, you look at like the pandemic, and everyone is looking for all these long term changes, and everything reverts to norm. And I think that was the wisdom at the time of the year, in the middle of craziness that shirt esn feel calm. But after that we said were in, I got richest stability that he wanted. And in hindi, I was a genius decision.

Did you ever think you would then live through another moment? No.

I like this. Want to be finally last one. Never want to go through something like that again. But IT IT made as strong as a company.

ultimately good for over the past couple years.

Yeah, I think the pandemic was incredibly paintings in that sitting together as a team, eighty five percent mobility volume, which was the profit driver of the company, falls off a Cliff. And other CEO, you know, they lost the kind of business, but most of these businesses are profitable. We were were losing two and half billion dollars and then they just got way worse.

So IT was a very tough situation to be in. And we, uh, had to cut a lot of overhead. We had to cut up businesses that we thought record of the business.

We really had to bet on what's core, what's non core. But IT was a huge accelerator as a pleased to our eats delivery business. And I think that discipline on hinode has been great, but I wouldn't want that as that shouldn't been the exact right .

before I let David bring us to today already, let's go back down memory lane. So how did you meet very dealer?

So I made barry dealer when I was an analyst. Allen and company, which was my first job out of college, is an investment bank in new york city, specializes in the media and entertainment sector. Now much more tech theyve made the pretty cal transition. And I was a lovely analyst, and I got a signed to the deal where bar deler, who at the time was running Q B C, he was A C of Q V C, which was home shopping.

and he had run paramo and fox studios.

that correct parent first.

And then he ran fox for murdoch. And then he decided he want to be his own boss. And at some point, john belong, I think, have control of Q B C.

And barry got the job to run Q B. C. And have control because he wanted to be his own person who can .

blame me for that god to be in the room with those two characters .

as the negotiating there was golden for for A A kid like me. And so at the time, some, the rest stone, who was running by icon, had come to agreement to buy paramon pictures, which was barriers, old home. And barry thought that he was getting a steel. So he decided to go after a paramount in a hostile tender offer, to come in as kind of a third party. Bitter and IT was a huge move because permanent was bigger .

than q VC.

you know so was like the, uh, I was an animals on the deal and he was a whole kind of beating process, you know berry would be and then redstone would bid up inside of those multiple staff. There was a, uh, big court case that was pretty important in terms of the barry have the right come in and actually did on this thing and break apart and negotiated deal. The person who I worked for, the VP at seta SHE, got sick. And so I had to kind of step up and work with barry directly, like making these pitches.

the barry, three years out of college.

This point I was like, two, three years out of college. And at some point, barriers. Like, you know, there all these complicated numbers that you put together.

And barry want to know, like, who is the person running these numbers? Is like, I want to talk to the person running the numbers. Herbert Allen comes and is like, print out your model. Barry wants to talk. So I like, get to print out my whole L, B, O model bidding .

model.

like, holy shit. But you know, question, my mind was, what am I gonna get fired, right? Like, this is a disaster and else is not supposed to talk to see you. But like in hindsight, i've seen this patterning with barry, which is he wants to get the real stuff. He doesn't want a version, an edited version of reality because that is just an edited version.

He wants to go to the source and he wants to know, like there are these numbers, and i'm making at the time one of the business decisions on my professional life, based on, like, these pieces of paper, who is responsible for this? And I want them to explain IT to me. So for me, I was like, you know, crazy lock. But IT was also its part of berries process, which is get the unvarnished truth, because that helps them make Better decisions. But then, I mean, and I remember thinking, hey, if if there's ever a person that I want to work with, like I want to work for that person.

do you think there was something about you in the way you presented that made her belin believe that you would be customer ready? And you could go and speak to, you know, one of the biggest media moguls of our time. You know.

herb was a big believer and MIT betting on people and not arches eeta. I don't know, honestly, I remember the device that I game is bet on people, non on companies. And that was a partner, ning, that he added through reseal career, was a very loyal, found a good person, and then would bet on that person embarras the same, which is like hill, throw a Young person off the deep band.

And you either thinker, you swim. He's selective. And who he throws off you, what depends set a but both of them were willing to give opportunity outside of, like, regular scope or regular process. Eeta and IT shows, you know, they build incredible loyalty. And most of the people who know them.

how did you find your way? Allen company, I know i'm just like in that thread .

s gone backwards, but uh I um I was a very considered decision which was I engineering at school and I actually had a engineering management um job wind up at a pint factory and then I fell in love with the commentator in new york city and at the time I like, I need a job in new city. What a job can I get and I was investing banking. My brother worked there, worked there, still works there. So I got the job and chase the woman of my dreams and broke up with six months later. But you know, I got a job and I my company, pretty career.

I have you written and thank you. Because you'd be running a .

pink fact or the otherwise a good I all to her.

But based on observing you in your history and everyone else in your family, IT would become like a paint factory that would then like by all the other paint factories that expand up and down the stack and then figure out how to add, like fifteen other businesses. And IT would become this like beautiful conglomeration of something.

I don't know. You know, you could be right or I could have just got totally lucky by following the down on the company. I really do think he was just things came together and everyone's career who's successful to combination of luck and opportunity and taking advantage of the opportunity. I just got lucky.

So that's like a nice thing to say. There are a lot of other people that could have locked their way into an alan company job, and they are not turned IT into an incredible performance with one of the most important people where your model needs to hold weight, which is very dealer in that exact crucible moment in time. What do you say to Young people when they sort of ask you this question about how much does look have to do with IT and how should I be the most prepared and how can I S opportunities when they come up?

I think I always tell people that the most common mistake that I see in Young people is that they always plan their career. And like all I want to do x or I want to be a vice president, I want to make so much money by a certain time. And when you over plan your career, you know, this is human bias, which is to look for signal that agrees with the plan that you have and ignore IT everything else that doesn't agree with IT.

So my advice for Young people's, I don't over plan. You never know what opportunities are going to come up. I planned to stay at out on company in my whole life. IT was my place, my rather wound up being there. But being open to possibilities, being open to opportunities. And then when you get that opportunity going all in, you know like it's just don't hedge if you're gonna be in something, go all in and do what's required of you and then like fifty percent more like blow people away uh and then you know tomorrow maybe something else comes up and and you will get there, but like why you're and you go all in but at the same time, I keep your eyes open because you never know.

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Yeah, so learn how you can put A I agents to work for your people by clicking the link in the show notes or going to service dot com slash A I dash agents are IT. So we're a catch back up to that expedia era. Thirteen years, you have a pretty wild competition with booking dot com. And I think you learn a lot of lessons from watching booking just crush IT top line profit margins, uh, rate of expansion, everything about IT booking built a hell of a company .

incredible when .

you're on the executive 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?

Gotto learn so much. Booking was an execution machine. And their focus, we talked about focus was hotels, hotels, hotels and expedia was much more and started with the air, right? And hotels was to sum secondary.

And so I think one of the lessons is like I go off to the larger market and if you're marketplace business, go after fragmentation of supply, which is if you think about hotels, there are so many more hotels in the world than there are airlines. So I think they focused completely in the right area and build a global business first. Um 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 is said a booking was more supply that yeah I think the states .

nobody knew what booking .

so totally but is like full for them. IT was about building up the hotel supply. And as you build up the hotel supply, every hotel became another piece of data that you could market through google or medicine.

And if you have one hundred hotels in a market and you spend that to two hundred hotels in market, that market is also couldn't convert Better. So nor only do you build kind of a new segment of demand, but then if there's a surge, you know, hotel and niece becomes a Better product. Can convert more.

If you can convert more, you can get more traffic from google altea. They play that optimization game like no one else. And for me, the biggest lesson as I came to uber was uber marketplace is business very, very fragmentary supply base, right? It's five point six million drivers and careers who or earning on our platform and a few million .

restaurant yeah close .

to million restaurants. And for us, our growth is also supply that. So if you think about post pandemic, and one of the reasons why I think generally, we're doing really well and gained a butcher category share versus lift coming out the pandemic was because we really focused on bringing those drivers back to the platform, building our service at seta. And I was a supply lead way of building the business, which definitely was a learning that .

I took from booking outcome. With working, you can build a market a of G, R graph for hotels and then use that to build work. go.

You can do the same thing at uber in a way that your competitor is on both sides of the business. Can't right? Because you can cross market exactly.

ride, eat exactly in, especially in the us. There's a much more crossover between careers who deliver food and then drivers who drive people. There's a much larger crossover, and we can actually use eats almost as a the recruitment tool in that moment when someone says I am interested in earning money, you know, gig money on demand is a with all the flexibility freedom eta.

The faster you can get that person earning money, the higher the conversion rate. And because of its you don't need to get your car inspected. You know there's a lot of steps, additional steps, background check etter that's required for a driving.

Those steps don't necessarily need to be completed to deliver food. You can get people into the food ecosystem. They can start earning on the uber platform and then you can up sell them into additional opportunities, driving people shopping at eta. It's a structural recruitment advantage we have in terms of building up supply. And as you build the supply, the liquidity in the marketplace gets Better, surge down, pricing gets Better, E, T, A gets Better, your ability Price gets Better and the demands up.

So so everything you just that always been like the story IT seems like in the past few years though, especially relative to your competitors, it's actually become more of a reality. And i'm curious, maybe he talked about booking being execution machine is like what what does the uber execution machine looked like since the pandemic to maybe make that more of a reality?

Well, I think that there is always a delay between inputs and outputs, right, which is you you can start changing the inputs in terms of how you build a system in eta. IT takes a while for the outputs to become emergent.

We did take a big step post pandemic once eats got the size to merge the teams together, the technical teams together, the marketplace teams together, uh, single earner team eeta when he was small, IT needed at his own dedicated teams. Because if you had one team doing rise and needs, like all the attention motorize, once we combine the teams that allowed, you know one technical team to really focus on the dead side, eats is the recipient, you know. So the rights business has most of the audience. And generally, we move more people from rides to eats. So it's it's a almost free customer acquisition tool for for eat.

It's your largest customer acquisition channel for eats, right?

Yeah we we get more new customers from arise than we do from google, meta, instagram, all of these other channels .

comes prety nice to .

a yeah at .

a quarter of the cost. So was like it's a property channel and is cheaper .

and i'm the charge internally for toh.

Yeah, I told .

an even advertising business.

So exactly and have to start .

charging each other for plugs on IT. O.

we can tell you little Better internal pricing mechanism, but you know all of IT sounds great, but the fact is that whatever pixel that you put on the rides APP to promote eats is taking something away from the ride at right. So there's there's a bunch of experiment that had to be done, which is what are the right surfaces, what are the right messages? How do you target IT, how new targeted set or so there.

There's A A bunch of machinery they have to build to do this stuff successfully. And for the benefit that eats gets to be significantly larger than the detriment that rise gets until not get in the way of the rise experience. You know, like you don't want to grow up that experience.

So to the question of like why is this happening now? Is one illus in on paper, but then to build the machinery to actually do IT effectively takes time. And then you know if eats has this new customer acquisition, uh, source every year, new customers for eats account for less than ten percent of the business of the overall business because it's a big repeat business.

So on year one, hey, isn't I Y, it's nice. But IT doesn't really show up to investors, external investors. But then once you know, it's a the the same compounding is the seventh wonder, the world, eight wonder of the world.

What happening now as the compounding is happening, right? So we've had like three years of the machinery working. So one year may not be noseless.

Two years may now be possible with three, four years. What we're doing is essentially margins are growing faster than a competition does. We have a bunch of preparatory traffic that's coming over. And then on the right side, there is a party supply coming over from eats again. Compounding is IT .

still that um supply acquired cost is bigger than to be an acquisition for you guys?

yes. I mean, IT is we are supply that business at this point. Um probably two years ago, we could have added uh twenty five percent more drivers and careers into the platform. They would all be like super busy instantly right now.

Our supply generally growing fascination demand because is catching up to demand and the average driver who's on the platform is working more because experiences Better earnings levels are are pretty are really good. So this point probably supplies still trAiling demand by, you know five percent or so. But the marketplaces now getting to a point where is baLanced, but the is that compounding that really starts working.

I was reading through the most recent earnings and you have a chart were on average, over the last five years or so, drivers make poor money per hour if we entered some economic environment where a whole bunch of people were out of work and they wanted to become uber drivers. But that would make IT so that the average earnings across the whole platform at plunge because you have a whole ton of new drivers coming on. Would you guys sort of gait and be like, hey, we want to like make sure that we don't sort of flood the the supply side of the marketplace?

No, because one of our core philosophies, this is an open platform. And if your background check comes in, okay, it's said, uh, then you can have access to earnings opportunity is that's a core belief for us. The economics take care themselves, right?

When you look at mid d cycle, long cycle, if earnings come down on the platform, then IT becomes a less attractive platform to drivers and they will do something else. There is this counter sickles about our marketplace, which is doing really good times. IT becomes harder for us to recruit drivers.

So the cost of supply goes up so wild, revenue and gross bookings are growing and the volumes are strong. Our supply base becomes more expensive. During softer economic times, you get more drivers coming into the platform.

E, T, S, come down. Prices come down, the Price becomes cheaper. So actually, our unit volumes accelerate. If you look like our q one univocal, they are grew twenty four percent for is nineteen percent and four. So we accelerated you know trip growth, which is not something that you see at our scale, but it's it's some of this stuff working out, right?

So of the invisible hand of the market theory that sort of self regulates this for you?

Yes, not a theory happened.

Yeah I guess like.

yeah, is this very cool experiment?

Yeah economists like to talk about like things in theory, but like you actually have a one of the largest data sets in human history of you know people doing work and other people consuming service.

Yes, if you ask top economist at uber, he would say that we actually don't control the Price to the consumer. That is actually the spot Price for this kind of labor. The marketplace sets based on the supply of labor coming in, in the demand for transportation. And so there's this, you know, people say like uber setting Prices, he said setting Prices, the marketplace setting some Prices.

So what do you do then? Like you have to have some levers you're disposal. You're getting a lot more profitable. I mean, certainly, I think in twenty, whenever we did the IPO up, so uber had lost like close to three billion dollars the .

year before going public in episode that IT was the most that the company had ever lost before going public. yes. And that's true attributed making that's true depending on what profitability .

metric you look at. You guys are breaking even or slime positive business and increasingly getting more profitable and looking like a self sustaining business. So what can you do then if you aren't in the business of deciding what a ride should cost?

Well, I think we're in the scale business, right, which is we centrally wie up every form of transportation of whether it's people or things and you know it's increasingly people and then shared, uh, taxes and set right there four and half million taxes in the world. Who would imagine that uber will be working on taxes, but we're going to wear up every single taxi in the world, right?

And then on the curbs and the cubes and the fly wheel.

and by the way, we work with them, right, a lot of times we will connect through them as intimately, again, to wire up these taxes. And then we've gone from food to uh alcohol to groceries at ta and we have afraid, uh, business as well. So the more we ride up, the more demand, i'm sorry, boats.

We have a boat on attempts to know he just like if that moves and IT Carries people on things, we're going to worried up and make IT available on demand that usually brings in the demand for transportation, the seta. And then it's like math. We have to do IT in a more and more efficient way.

I think one of the secret sauces that we have is we have a very large and capable marketplace team. These are ml engineers who are building other systems that match Price all of this connectivity. And when your you know working over uh an ecosystem of two billion transactions a quarter, the data sets that that we have, the experimental that we can do in terms of what's the most optimal match, how do you Price eeta is just the bigger data abase than anyone else.

So every year when I can speak to her competence are matching and pricing. But every year, matching and pricing probably improves by five percent a year. So you improve your the marketplace throughput by about five percent, everything else being the same.

And that's like free growth. And when it's on top of you know told one hundred and two hundred and thirty billion dollars, unit gets big. And again, it's compound. Like every year, this machinery gets Better.

So then just to make sure i'm understanding right, the reason why because you talk to anybody and they are you're like, of which I ask star and they're like asking why uber are mersenne than they used to be because is a good business now. But actually, I I don't think that sounds like that's not actually the right answer, that the reason rides have gotten more expense over time, a inflation, but b just that there is more demand for those rights than there is supply to serve them.

correct? The cost of labor's gone up, right? I mean, how you have to pay for any kind of blue color job, you know everybody y's talking about IT, right? The bunch of retailers or having trouble hiring enough people, uh, restaurant at a and then I did become more expensive to bring drivers into the bertie system. Morning's expections have gone up.

And by the way, I think that's a healthy fit, right? It's if you gna step back, you know, the increase in salary and wages for blue color jobs hasn't kept up with the salary of like tech workers or you know, capital a. So I think the catch up is a really healthy catch up.

That is the reason why we were some more expensive now. Now in this environment where we are adding supply faster than demand because the supplies were really coming into the marketplace Prices in uber, now you're on year or down. So this .

specifically not thank you.

Thank the invisible hand of you.

mr. market.

Yes, exactly how has .

the complexity of uber relative to expedia matched up with your expectations coming in?

So there's complexity in terms of all of the stakeholders that you have to think about. And that's like it's a difference between chess and like four dimentia chess IT is like a media travel agency. Your bring demand to your supply bases at at a and and you have to think about the travel ecosystem with with uber. Uber like a incredibly important service to the cities of .

the world. And also, if you weren't providing .

the service .

to the place layer, you're not Operating the exact you're not know making up the hotel rooms exactly.

You know the drivers are providing the service, right? But it's we're much more responsible to end, but you know you're responsible for your customers. We have a very, very important responsibility to driver current communities, over five million people who are making in earning or making kind of a side earnings on on uber.

And then the responsibility in terms of like regulators and governments seta that consideration that is is just is so much bigger. So from that time point is tough, but also really interesting and satisfying in some ways. Ready for IT? Was I ready for? Yeah no. Is this one if you knew you wouldn't have done IT.

but now you've done IT. And so all this value been created and like, great.

I'm so glad I did IT IT IT was a friend of music here. You have fun up. Like, no, i'm not having fun.

I love IT. You know, like, the jobs is too hard to like. It's not fun, but it's so cool. It's such an interesting space.

You really feel like you're having impact everyone at uber that we always talk like you don't come to uber for easy. Like you don't come here for an easy job. It's complicated.

It's hard. Core people work their asses off. But like you love IT and and is not fun, but any fun, but people love being at the company.

That's something I don't know. And then and then the the dynamic, real time nature of the marketplace and how we baLance the marketplace and the pricing eta IT is unique, right? It's thursday night. There's a Taylor swift concert all hands on deck. We got to figure things out that Operational nature, but how dynamic and fastest .

IT does a hubert q plan for Taylor concerts ahead of their happening and H Q dozen.

But there are ops teams on the ground and you know, there the heroes, like they're on the ground, city by city, work there as often. And they they are, they are kind of where the rubber meets the roads, so to speak, to use a, to use the transportation.

And for so, David, is this interesting question that I want to dig able a deeper on that. The were you ready for IT? What kind of diligence did you get to do on the opportunity when this job came on the market in the national news in very prominent way .

in a very short time of first? When did you first get contacted? How did you how did you enter the uber orbit?

So um I was reading about the news just like everyone else was right. I was just all over the place .

and I was I was make sure .

everything going on and what LED to you know, the battle between travis and benchmark and all that stuff. He was, he was fascinating. As an observer.

I never, ever, ever imagine that I would then play a part. And a headhunter call me about this role. So not a board member, directly a headhunter.

Una, all me IT was structure, process. And like, no way. Like, no, thank you.

Good bye. Thirty .

years.

I.

I love working for barry. Like, I was, I was good. This is fun.

yeah. And then then we, exactly. He was fun. And then I I was at the sun valley conference, Allen and company sun valley conference and um having drinks with Daniel luck and is like, you know did you get the call from the hand hunter about the uber job?

Uh, I think you'd be perfect for the job and I didn't know what the head hunter why the head hand cut through out, Daniel, I do. Why would I ever do that? Like, i'm happy. Like, why? Why would I ever jump in to that mess?

So then you'll give the head hot your number?

yes. And and I like, no way, no way. And he looks, he looks at me like with those like peering scan in navy and eyes like dara, since when is life about having fun? It's about having impact. There's important like you can do this. And i'd had a couple of drinks and the alcohol flowing and we were having fun and my wife is like, yeah, you can do this i'm like, yeah, I could do this so um the next day I call, they had hand back and I said, let's talk and the next step was for me to meet at a board member and we had dinner and he was very charming uh and he kind of started the the rupture .

was critical and how long between them and when you .

accept the job god I think he was about two months was over the summer um and it's .

secret nobody knew.

I told them I said, listen up front um I have a job and it's a great job so the nano second that my name shows up in the news, i'm out of here. So I just want, you know, like the nano second shows up in the news, i'm out here. But I had to be realistic that I could show open. This is amazing that that I did. So actually at that point I call the barry, because I couldn't put there in a situation on myself, in a situation like i'd work with them thirteen years party, twenty years and ice, and then even before as a banker like he and I have an incredible relation I was like so much to him I couldn't take the risk of his seeing IT in the press and you know the consequences of that um and the loss of trust I call them up as a barry I don't call me about uber um i'm gna talk to them and is like U F. And crazy hung up on me and I will say like, oh my god, i'm gna get fired and nothing that silences you were going to get back because .

what was very going to do, like a step in in B. C. O. Himself, he wasn't really.

I didn't know. We work to go for a long time, called the next day, he said. A, speaking as the chairman of expedia, IT will be a real mistake. But speaking as a friend, I understand why you're interested. I would be too.

How can I help and that's the definition who is ah you know because we worn in the news that was like we gossip about this, I go, did you hear like mag is this and so IT was a fun thing that we got of IT about, but he actually there was a pointing time when I had to make a presentation to the uber board. This was like my big presentation and and I heard that the other candidates were coming in to present as well. So this was a big day, and I told him, I think I was a saturday, sunday that i'm coming in making presentation.

Show me the presentation. He was a powerful, so I show them power point. And he actually helped me in the powerpoint is like, this is good. This is good, you have to at this page. So the issues that shows you the kind of person he is, which is he put friendship in that case, over his own business interest, may maybe he was sick in yet to know.

but IT was calculated. That is first yale, yes. And there's an element to IT too.

where if he got to collaborate with you wanted, then there was a chance you would stick around on the expedia board and and remain in front of the company even though you're on the seat.

Yes, and I still am on the board. As you know, I love the company, but is we're being on the board as a former CEO like it's it's a strange experience.

Did you do anything to prepare for that?

No, like usually my life is like stumbling something and .

the busy yeah .

but I was I wanted stay on the board. I wanted to help and other companies going through its own journey now. So hopefully the greatness .

did you consider I mean, this sort of famously wasn't issue in the microsoft transition and has been an issue in the disc transition. Did you consider, hey, actually maybe I would be Better for the company if I didn't serve on the board just to give enough space for new leadership.

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 yet you the job of the new CEO to some extent is to be the C E O. And do something different from the old CEO like that's definitional and the yeah exactly there could .

be hesitant y at .

the board meeting seta because the old person's there you know and so that IT was I think on a net net I trust barriers judgment IT IT does feel weird sometimes because i've moved up, but it's working. I think it's working, but it's complicated.

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sort of departing leadership? Well, I taught to travis couple times. I talk with ryan and gare, who were the other founder.

I talk to couple of other board members. I did financial diligence eta. And you know, for me, I was ultimately about the opportunity is such an important company.

I was tell people like I like for three things, right? It's do you work with people whom you like and you can learn from um can use an individual, make an impact and then is the place for the company that you're at going to make an impact? I wasn't sure a number one, but I was a CEO so I could build my own team.

And as I turned out, they're like great folks there who have stayed who were there before me and then new folks like. Ah you know tony west and now son che, that we brought us that. So the new teams like a combination new and all, which is great and definition ally as a leadership team, we can have an impact on uber.

And uber is a company that is unique in terms of its impact on the ground in the city. So IT all checked off in the financials. You know IT was still a really Young company. So the financials for .

me yeah can I do .

do yeah what's them probably yeah was .

just about years OK. Yes.

there you Better than idea.

I imagine you had to have been feeling like got if we can make this work, the opportunity here is .

just like the alterations are hard, tech turnaround are specially hard. But I think uber had a global position, a talent pull, a brand that was absolutely exceptional, that was just gone through really, really hard time. There was a verb, yeah, exactly.

And so that that was actually advice on my dad. Give me, like when a company who's a very best to run IT just say, yes. So my god, so sometimes you can over complicate things.

And it's, I K, do you? Do you want to take shot? I want take shot. It's so funny you say.

turn around. I literally IT never occurred to me that you could construe uber as that. But IT might be the only turn around in history where IT was growing incredibly fast, had ten billion of revenue, had some of the smartest people in the world working at IT, had all this momentum, of course, burning money, catastrophe in the board room, catastrophe in the sea weed. So IT is a turnout in that sense.

And I was losing a bunch shared to lift so that, that was moment a so .

that .

was a tough thing, which is you are burning a bunch of cash and at the same time, you are losing category position to you know what's a tough competition and and a strong brand.

Tell me if you agree with the statement in the U. S, you no longer really have a formidable competitor in ride sharing. But in food delivery, you have a tremendously formidable competitor.

I didn't lift is stronger than people give a created for, yes, definitely going through tough time. I in the new CEO, as you know, he's like moving is he's making more. He's super aggressive.

We'll see where that ends up. I feel way Better today. Then I did five years ago, but I wouldn't count them out.

They lifted such a great example of a story we see over and over again and acquired only it's .

never over till over.

IT was over for lift yeah .

and then making not over. And you know now there having a tough time, we will see. But door dash is a tough competition like ash is larger than we are in the U.

S. We are focused on keeping share in the U. S.

And then gaining a bunch of share outside the U. S. And then over per of time, using the structural advantage.

One build profit ples out. U. S. Use that to attack the U. S.

Over per of time and then use the structural advantage we talked about in terms of customer acquisition over a period time to hopefully gain category position against dora h. But there are tough competitor. We we respect them. We don't like him.

but we respective there is something in particularly that you think they've I mean, what I think about that I think about what you were saying about booking, just like being an execution machine. I have curious from your perspective.

I think IT comes like his company buses, which are pretty in uh which are pretty important. They made a bet on the suburbs um and they made a bet on selection, restaurant selection. Uber was an urban company. We Operate the big cyc transportation that said, where the business and suburb as much lower. So we want to leverage a customer base that was an urban customer base.

So we went after the urban restaurant, eeta, and uber was about cheap and fast, right? So the if you think about IT, if what you're trying to do optimize for speed as they deliver in fifty or twenty minutes the radius of restaurants that you can deliver front is smaller. So you make a you make a sacrifice in terms of selection in order to optimize for speed, as I turned out, one, the suburbs in terms of food are bigger. Uh, families, cities, yeah big families is a big demand is at a so we because of our urban vices, we didn't look at the overall market or like what's our market, how can leverage our demand is at a that I think in handset was a mistake.

And this is like a twenty thirteen to sixteen decision that everyone still sort of living with.

Now I mean, we ve got, yeah, but listen, I was I was running the same playback, twenty eight, twenty nine, two. So I don't want to blame IT. No, no. IT was having along. It's just like usually focus on the things that you're good at.

And we are really good to urban and we really good to fast and cheap, right? And uh, we now are much more focused about building our selection as we built that selection in urban centers. Our category position where his dota h is actually quite constructive, really strong.

We are looking to break into the suburbs a and there we got somewhere to do. And and the suburbs are a very, very strong position. It's kind of their profit pools, right? And then we're building our profit bills outside in international. And you know kind of the the battle is happening in .

the big I would imagine the suburbs there are so much more waited to food delivery than rideshare total that .

you totally now we are expanding water to the suburbs now, and it's a pretty fast growing part of our business. So maybe like we'll get there over time, but definitely IT wasn't an early aim of the business. We we now specifically are aiming and certain suburbs and you know you have to build out your career base, your restaurant supply demand.

So all of IT has to come together, which is difficult. And door T H has done a good job. Yeah not the end of the story that .

i'm curious um there's so much of this strategy that if you connect this the dots looking backwards and to use the Steve jobs parliament IT just makes so much sense this uh expanded to nationally leverage the fact that you're sort of the leading global player, generate cash, use IT to compete domestically. Eats feeds, right? Showing which feed.

You know you can sort of use this fly. Will we have to talk about free yet? But i'm curious like of the three pillars today of ride sharing routes and freak and divesting everything else, all the autonomy, all of the .

over eleven .

year.

what of today's strategy was in your pitch to the board when you were joining A C E. O? And what is an emergent thing that happened? You're in the city.

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 eat and profitability at at a right. He was IT was presenting myself as a mature Operator and my track record at expedia.

I think now things have change, which is we have become much more focused on those on those three segments. And if you look at rides, we have a number growth bets, which is there is a base business, uber acs, which is like can be percent of our growth. Then about fifteen percent of our growth are international countries where the business mile as we had IT, wasn't legal.

So the attitude time was well, if for a business mile is illegal than like weren't not coming in until we're invited in and we took a different tag, which as 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 is set a maybe then the business model can change over period to benefit you know drivers careers that are 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 country is that were pounding into with tweet of the business power to make sure that we're expanding into those countries the right way. And then there's a whole host of new beats that we're making in terms of transportation, taxi, which is huge low cost herbs, two wheel lers, three wheel lers, uber for business, health, uh, transportation, um all of these different segments. That whole kind of the new best portfolio will be thirty five percent of growth.

So if we do IT, right, we will fifty percent of our growth will come from these new initiatives that really didn't exist. And on the each side, obviously, was about food and kind of the general expansion of that business, but is really about getting into the other category is getting into grocery list eta. And one of the parts that i'm super cited about, as we've always had kind of um called IT integrated offering.

If you think about eats, there's a marketplace offering. You come to uber eats and eats is bring your demand, and then there's the fulfillment of that demand, right? The my brain wine here and delivering IT, right? This that has nothing to do with them and necessarily, but is film.

These are two of our businesses. They got stabled .

to exactly so. So we have now we're separating the text tack, right? So now we can offer we can go to merchants y say, if you want mark place, great, but if you want fulfilment, we can offer you fulfillment in a separable way.

So for example, walmart isn't in our marketplace because they're walmart. They have an incredible brand eeta, but they use our fulfillment services. And more and more that our vision is we sensually want the local grocer to out amazon.

Amazon, like every single local business, can deliver same day, which is Better the next day. Um if we can connect that to marketplace, that's great. But that can also be a separate part of our business that can a grow through.

So funny how much this goes back to the the original ten years ago, fifteen years ago. Vision for uber IT just takes so long .

to realize these are complex IT looks great on paper, then you know real life is a lot more difficult, right?

Are there activities that you've sort of thought about where you you used to need to do something different to our account position the market in order to be successful, where now you think of look around, you're like actually in this area, you were the incumbent. So there's a different strategy that we need to lean into as an incoming.

Our working with taxi was was an interesting twist, right, which is the summer tent. They have been definitely the competition or we have been the competition or the um chAllenger to those incumbent. Um at some point we became much bigger than taxi.

But in the end, if you remove yourself from the emotions, is that a work people against X, A Y. We're the job of worrying up, you know, vehicles and drivers who wanna drive people to places and then includes that you like there are four and a half million of them. And if you take the hypothesis, which is the the days of old where you wave your arms to, you know, wave a taxi down, like things are a changing, then IT was a move that was obvious.

But at the same time, like the beauty of uber, when you get into the actual chAllenges, like, for example, we launch and the way that we match, generally uber one to one, so you are hail for over, we will match. You make an offer to a specific driver. Drivers says, yes, driver can pick you up at at a what we found in taxi markets is that when we waited the one to one match, if we weren't integrated into the taxi meter, and that's something that we will build over part of time, the taxi might be full, but the acceptance rate of the taxi was much, much lower, and we didn't know why.

And if the acceptance rate is lower, you might wait for a long time to get math because we're going offer, offer, offer, offer before you get a match. So the team built a technology blast. This batch, which is instead of a one to one match, is a, you know, we'll make a dispatch, ten different tastes.

one of them access to .

really like, you know, there's a pick up fifty four land street and someone says, joe says, yeah, I get so like, what's old becomes new? What's new becomes old. But IT, what's been interesting is there's a simple idea, but then building out the tech infrastructure to be able to fit to that particular market becomes a chAllenge.

But also it's an opportunity which is now for some more competence to copy that. What one is, is taking a lot of tuning to actually get that experience to be excEllent. Um there are some markets were were mixing demand. You know you might click for reax a taxi might show up. Is that a good thing? There are bad thing, improves marketplace liquidity and things that seem very simple on the surface to actually make the magic happen of pushing a bun in a car shows up in five minutes and you get great service is actually pretty difficult tech to build on the ground.

It's really cool. Let us cool. I have another um corporate structure question that i'm curious about. I think you guys between when you took the job and today turned over basically the entire uber shareholder base, i'm sure they're some people still hold their shares from those early days. But what is that like at the scale of a seventy, eighty billion dollar market cap company turning over a shareholder base in its entirety?

Very painful IT was the displacement in terms of shareholders. IT was tough, right? And there's a certain cohort of shareholder gone after hyper growth is at a especially in this marketplace where it's much more about discipline growth, profitable growth, eta.

That, that change over has been difficult, but we now have a set of was like the faculties of the world capital, Morgan stan inside a that have the capacity to own a lot of shares way more than they do today. And there's consistency about IT as we keep delivering, they keep upping their stake. And we're now seeing a stock Price that generally is is working. But i'll tell you when we're in middle of IT like IT was IT was tough. You know after the IPO, after the lock up, state travel sold shares and those days like those were not days.

probably teen percent of the company was a lot.

There moments when you .

remember that stock places are a function of supplying to. And when fifteen percent of a company's outstanding shares hit the market, once two person or two percent or what yeah right like that.

I mean, like I think in hindsight, I think IT was a good move by ham because IT create a separation. He wanted move on. And so I in high insight, I respect what he did.

And I I like, I didn't see IT at the time. I was like pest, right? And were panic. Oh my god, service is selling. What does that mean? It's like and and you know there is everyone wants to create drama around uber.

So difficult as a leader to keep the team focus on believing, right? Because it's very easy to keep score based on the stock Price and still definitely the wrong direction. And travis, you know, whether you are like to or not, you respect them.

He's a really smart person, is a founder of the company. I was tough time, but I think we're now a good place, which is the shareholding is moving from either some of the start of folks or hedge funds to fundamental long only players. Hopefully, we'll share the holders for the .

next ten years. One of the things that we heard from many people as we are researching that time period was just the immense, a degree of the stakes involved for the whole egos, and way this went beyond the drama in the press. That's one level, right? But like the number of university and downs who throw the venture, funds that were invested in uber had large portions of their whole university and downe that were dependent on the private mark of uber and and fun of funds where .

the compensation already been paid out as if this was a liquid security.

But it's not a little ID sovereign tions that were you know not dependent, but like pay attention to that. sure. Were you aware of that? Did you feel that?

H obviously, benchmarking, travis were in this power struggle, but there was this heavy feel like when you talk to the benchmark folks, there's this responsibility, which is this was one of the hits of the century, like this is a category defining a company and investment and benchmark had a lot of goals, but this this one was a great one.

And while I won't say I was a probability, there was a much more than non zero possibility that IT could all go IT could all go proof. So I think that was a very, very heavy weight um on benchmark and and some of the other startups in which which LED to all events that ultimately had to like their bringing in an unknown outsider like that, that those are some heavy decisions to make. I was in there. I was yeah at the tail end of all that drama but then .

you had to deal with the shareholder base turnover, which was like the real the unwinding of those that .

expectation one cool kind of um IT wasn't cool the time but but one one really interesting kind of DNA ic that that played up. What when I got in was there was all the stuff happening, like IT had to go to london. Tfl, they revoked our license, and there had been a da breach me to deal with.

And just IT was craziness, right? And at the same time, soft bank was looking to invest in the company, right? And this is the vision fun days. And you know south bank, the only way they came in was heavy like that. There is no take less thought here.

And um the the issue that we had to deal with was one where benchmark and travis and and the founders, they all had high road shares and they both wanted to control the company. And if you sold your shares, they will flip into low. So there is this game of chicken, which is saw tank wanted in and in typical mother fashion.

IT was like, k, if you don't let us invest in you, we're going to invest in that pink company, right? And it's billions of dollars. And so we had to gets off bank in and they want to invest in uber because was top brand, had top ticket seta.

But the same time, none of the shareholders want to sell because there's this game of chicken. Whoever sold might lose control at sara. And so we had to go around to all of the high vote shareholders and we literally had to like get everyone to agree to blow up the high vote share.

I think it's is actually the only time when tech company like they blow up all of the high votes. And so every like we literally have to go shareholder, shareholder and like ban said, he would say yes and George, like like everybody. And if anyone said, no, none of that would work and no, so bank would go to game to you could pink, which will be a disaster.

So that was a really interesting kind of this. IT was like all or none, right? And in the end, we got everyone, including travel benchmark, everyone agreed to essentially switch over high vote to low vote and that when I got sofa can, but IT stopped the power struggle because then no one could control the company.

And that was actually real secondary ary benefit, which is then IT became like, how do we build a great company versus who is going to get control and who going to have more impact that that like we did IT for sap bank. But in hindi, IT was a really important move, which is okay. No more board control like this is no longer to be control company. Let's go built.

This was an eighty billion dollar prisoners, dilma. If anyone said, actually i'm going to move in my own self interest here, actually long term everything .

would have blown up and and you might have to lift who was getting category position against us? The ten billion dollar investment from south bank was billion. IT was actually fifteen and some second and some primary.

Well, IT been like that would be maybe IT would have been life for death. Who will help? And any uber had raised the most money of any company and started up at that point.

Just IT was a very, very high sake game IT IT was we had a deal person camp who like, did heroes work? Like, just taught to everyone and then he would like, kind of bring me in as a nice guy and say of the nice things. And but you know, in the end, in the end, like IT works, IT was a big and everybody, everybody .

covered IT, which is pretty awesome. Wow, this is a little bit echoes .

red stones. I love the the Operating side. The business attack is said like that's a stuff that I love. But I just say the investment banking background that I had help, like even the concept of hey, how do we get out this issue, the way to get out this control issues, everyone blows up the shares and something like wait like that work or like yeah like that could work. No then like going after like that and call people, wow.

humility is great now. But you know where you proud yourself when that went through?

No, because the next day there was another crisis, like I was like, you know, breathe for two minutes, you don't drink more wine and then off to the next battle.

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Head on over to vantage outcomes sh required and just tell them that then and vid, thank you, and thanks to friend of the show Christina anta CEO all acquire listening ers get a thousand dollars of free credit vet 点 com slash acquired。 And very curious about how you Operate your twitter account. On the one extreme, there's like an elon musk type, uh, Operating a twitter .

account where this only one elon musk type Operating like there is there are yeah it's it's a singular point.

There is one in arona many em hours they have but one in one hundred million uh data point of tweet whenever comes to your mind, no matter the consequences.

So much so that he bought the yes.

And then on the complete other side, there's like barack obama and tim cook. And i'd say you're like one click from the barack obama, tim cook. And i'm .

curiously to thank like you .

definitely Operate your public persona with sort of a head of state Grace and i'm curious if you never think about let me fly a little bit more. Do you have a full draft folder? Like do you ever .

wish you could .

explain?

So I tweet mostly myself there's some stuff that folks say we did this. It's it's me. I onna have someone to running the account and you know I mix that up with some personal stuff and then some business stuff because um you want to keep up entertaining.

But the same time i'm not using twitter to express myself. I'd rather have a long form discussion like this like this is to me much more interesting and so twitter twice can be taken out of context at eta. So OK i'm not there.

Stir the pot right? Um so maybe that's what comes out in terms of my twitter persona. I'll take about my asar clean yeah that's that's quite a component.

Next I there were kind like a lighting round here. So next random late round topic. You are on the board of the new york times. yes. What are some your biggest learnings from being involved with that company?

IT was um definitely my favor board to beyond. He was a really interesting time at the new or times because they were really becoming a top technical company in terms of being a publisher like it's a pretty extraordinary learning organization and they want to me is like the tech person. And I was coming from the speed on you know optimization, all that stuff and their capacity to learn, like super traditional company capacity learn was pretty awesome.

Um one of the fascinating parts about the company and as both a superpower or could be a weaknesses, total separation of church and state in terms of content business, right? So like when I asked, well, what's the cost of certain kinds of content and then have a traffic you know can we have the connection between the content and traffic is like, no, you cannot ask that question because the content is separate. So IT is just the faster organization and the bet that they made on subscriptions was amazing.

Um IT was not obvious because advertising business was much bigger 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, but because I was totally, none of you at the time, like all every single news organization, and said I was advertising, advertising this, the bus fee days, right? That was quick contents eta. But I I think that the bet that they made and quality was very much a bet on a their identity that wasn't backed up by data and certainly wasn't backed up by their financials. But the company went all in and um they've really benefit.

Do you think that could have happened in a company that wasn't family controlled like that, that have something to do with how they could make a bet like that without the data to support them?

Yeah, I think they're very sure of that core, the quality of the content that they are building and that allows them to make those kind of business pets because in the end of that, the content is going absolutely little bit like network, still like quality content. Focus on subscriptions. Now they are going to advertising, right? So you can have a forever strategy. You be so dogmatic as to not to understand that markets change, strategies have to change at the time. But I was absolutely the right Better at the right time.

I'm curious how much this was an explicit bodrum conversation. The times also made a very explicit bet on scale of quality content. You could argue maybe while street journal, but other than maybe then maybe, maybe the post, maybe nobody else is is aggregated quality content at scale globally. Know people might think of the political stuff for the new stuff, like the new york company covers every vertical, every geography, has at least twice as as many reporters employed as any other news organization in the world. I think, how much was that a discussion in the world room?

There was absolutely of you of the management and the board agreed, and have to be careful, because he was the board room and is confidential sea, which is if there is going to be a top global brand for quality news, that should be the new york times. Like why why would IT not be in york times? They're very clear out about that and and they're quite determined to achieve that. I think they'd doing a great job.

Yeah and it's just like the company called in the new york yeah times and yeah, it's a global IT really was a in a way that no in in video and with netflix, I think that was a more easier leap to make for news. I think that was a really unique leap that the the the times made.

Well, IT will be interesting to see, which is they your netlik is is building like korean content that then extends globally. Your time is unnecessary doing that right? It's english language content that is relevant to the world but is probably relevant a special international to sub segment, right? It's it's higher and consumer setter who can afford the Price. But again, it's been in an absolute winner of strategy and has been a tough business.

Yeah I mean, there's a graveyard in the middle tween, the independent publisher with a low cost structure and the new york times.

And there's not much in between the dis where to die.

more lightning round. Uh, I remember hearing in twenty thirteen that I was cool that I was in twenty thirteen is twenty fourteen one year away was going to be the year of self driving cars. Here is next year, the year. How close are .

we know that is it's an unanswerable question. And IT is because there is the last two percent of use cases, the tale use cases. IT is unnoted.

What i'll take to get past that last two percent, and there's this pretty interesting physical hc question, which is how safe does the robot have to be in the U. S. In there? Forty thousand, debs, as a result of car accident. Lets say that robot cars, but ten times safer.

So and I think the highway accidents are one of the top two or three causes of death in the united states period. So like something ten times safer yeah.

if you're ten times safer, you know fast forward twenty five years from that, like who as well be four thousand six year, right? So look more more than ten a day. And like if you have four companies that are responsible for for the marketplace, five five companies, right? And there ten times a day, like a good day is, hey, we only had one fatality.

That's a good day. Like it's just I can't imagine that. And so there's this well, does that actually ten times Better? Nothing is good enough. They have to be a hundred times Better that maybe that's not enough.

So like from a societal standpoint, of course, if it's one hundred times Better, uh, we should go forward with IT without mean there four hundred fifty thousand a year, one every single day. And I don't know how society would deal with that. Society is very well call forgiving. But like they understand humans are human, and humans make mistakes.

You must have experiences with this already with yeah.

And we have this unbelievably unfortunate circumstances. And phoenix and IT causes us to completely redesign how we built for safety first at that are ultimately because the pandemic would decide to get out of self driving, which I think is IT was a good decision because our core skill set is like building this demand that were connecting demand to supply in a dynamic way. eta.

And we now get to work with a bunch partners and like emos partners or ros, a partner and seta. So we get to work with a much larger ecosystem. But I think the question of that, that last two percent, and then what is society ready? You know what? What safety will society? And right to those two questions, you know, are for me unanswered. My instinct is that you will see small scale continued to uh, experiments kind of get bigger over the next five years, but it's gonna take a good ten years for IT to be a material part of our networker transportation at large.

But that's a guess. I'm curious to also I want to ask, given both your job and unite both live in separate cisco, something crazy has happened in the past six, eight months that like is now happening in that we went from for fifteen years. Everybody been yeah driving cars are happening tomorrow.

Ah have you ever taken around?

And I haven't yeah but like every day he walked on the street year like those cars go and buy with no driver in the seats and it's become just so common place think IT anymore but friends come go on a .

but still like that. The service for certain originations and destinations that works, the the pick up, you know, again, it's is okay for a human driver to double park for a pick up now okay for a robot. So this is like again, when you get into the detail, if you look at our right chair service, for example, if we fulfill rate, which is the percent of time someone asked for a ride and then there's a car available, if that's less than call in ninety percent, that's like all hands on deck, like it's a disaster. So like we are available all the time everywhere seat on, there's a lot of worth that goes into that for any singular righta provider to provide that kind of coverage is can be really, really difficult.

Which while ultimately we think the Better solution is for the way most of the world, the words of the world, seta mobilize to work with us so that you have this kind of hybrid transition state, where you can still have this ninety eight percent coverage everywhere, no matter what, whether IT is is a, but we have a small kind of switching layer. Sometimes human should come pick you up. Sometime the robot should come pick you up, but the transitions gna take a while. But IT is happening.

It's cool. Alright, last lighting around question. And then I have a closing segment. If you could only own uber eats or uber the transportation business, which one would you rather own?

Also eats is a transportation business, is just a transportation of stuff. You can have like like choice between your children, like as a georgis a doni like come on, you .

can be serious.

So I will answer uh someone seriously, which is um high takers are dangerous. So our job as a company is to grow volume as much as we can, as fast as we can and make your shareholders happy enough minimizing the take rate, which is taking as much of that dollar and and giving IT to drivers and careers like lass quarter growth bookings grew um you know over twenty two percent or so, which is really good.

The money that drivers and careers, including tips mate on the platform grouped by thirty percent higher. And at the same time, we're able to expand our margins f free, casual, positive. So like the design spect that we're building is how do you like torture the organization? Because sometimes IT is torture.

Like watch every single Nicole die. Incredibly efficient. Everything that you do on everything get fraught out the system eeta, so that you can actually Operate a business at scale as the lows take great possible.

Like talking about booking out common. One thing that we learn when I started speedy, expected take rate was twenty five percent and bookings take rate was fifteen and over. Like a tortuous thirteen years, we took expedia degree from twenty five percent to the teens.

IT was like seventeen, I think, or so when when I left. And those are like pure margin dollars that if you're taking out like there's no goodness that comes out of that. And so is just really hard work to do. And as a result, we're pretty hard core, which is any quarter I can deliver anything on the bottomline if I can love my take rate up a little bit. But like it's too easy, it's too tempting yeah and we're very hard core about like you to keep take great low and you to do the hard work to be able to keep take so I take the twenty percent take business like it's it's more lasting. The ground can go on for much.

much longer. Yes, I ask the time and cheek way but I completely understand that um it's the N Z S capital thing. It's the drop years ago.

But the right, yes, you build .

more durability .

by leaving more on the table for ecosystem partners .

or maybe more accurately, you make yourself .

too vulnerable if you like what's saying, uh, fat pigs get slaughter.

right? Yeah, yeah. Ah pigs .

get fat. And like you can you don't want to put yourself in my position. It's very tempting, is very, very easy. This is temptation.

Obviously, this quarter tread ml at iran is a there is like you can make someone happy by increasing take rate and for the balm line. And we we really, really culturally to resist that notion. cool.

What the last segment that I have here is giving you the floor. We're at the end of a long form podcast, so anybody that still listening appreciate nuances. And so if there is something that you feel is often misunderstood or that you want to say the people that are willing to let a long form argument, so in what do you think is misunderstood about the company or you or the industry or this time that I run right now, really anything you want to talk about?

I know it's misunderstood, but but it's certain ly something that that's top of mind for us is that we ultimately, the future of the business as a stands now depends on our building of 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, a tetra.

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 our supply, we have too many drivers. IT goes. And instead of gating a mazda, we just didn't really invest in the driver experience, in the career 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 the B2C bus iness, right?

There's a team. There's a team that runs the uber up. There's a team that runs, eats APP and the team that runs the driver APP. And you do all the typical stuff, which is and little tics and measurements in A B test eeta in order to optimize fruit in the marketplace eeta.

But like as we step back, you know we don't A B test what the four one k match should be for employees, right? Like IT was equivalent. Some of the experimental that we were doing on the earner side is like, you know yeah should we matched three percent or six percent? And let's look at employee turn over cool experiment.

Maybe you could optimize, but when you're building a product that people are making a living off of or are earning money that they have to earn with, there's a different duty of care. And the amount of time that they're spending on the APP, most of you burn employees myself too, like water rides all time or eat all time. You know you get in, get out of seta, but a driver will be spending four hours, five hours, six hours with the APP every single day.

So the consequence of like all of this coming together and are building for drivers the way that we essentially build for consumers, which is like pretty cool. And Tessa, you know, one is like the p ninety five experience. Usually you like you build, you don't look at p fifty because averages lie. And then you look at p ninety five. Well.

that's the worst .

experience probability. You know drivers and every driver is driving a week experience like A P ninety five circumstance every single week, multiple times, times a week ers. They spend a lot more time on that. So there's been a pretty important culture change of the company, which is like higher duty of care actually slowing down in terms of how we built for earners being a lot more humble listening to them, their experience eeta.

The fact is that when you have five point six million earners on the platform, there is marketplace, which is a works for some earners and a dozen, right? So there's always can be ten percent, which is like half a million people who are not happy with experience. But we ve got to make sure that ninety percent are we're getting more uh, people who like the experience into the platform.

But because of where we came from, it's actually pretty new muscle for us to like build this, earn experience. And and I do think like as I step back and I think about like what am I going to be proud of at the company? And like there's lot to be proud of in terms of turning around the business, like the team that we built in the service that we built, I think there is a sense which is like tech is out of touch with the real world.

And it's a lot like teis, you know your building for the virtual world and and uber is unique in that is a technology company that like built for the real world and the impact that we have, especially as a released earners, like it's real people. And so what I would be most proud of one is there's a practical reality, which is that we build a company that is. Has the best products and experience for earners, we're going to win long term. But if were that technology company that's like very much connected not with elites but with you know an earner base and the broad population, not just in synthetic go but all over the world, like that's a company be proud of. But at the same time is like we I think that the muscle we've been developing in the last two to three years, we have a long .

way to go is you put the largest earner platform in the world?

Yeah, I think we're the largest source of work anywhere. But for and growing prety fast.

that's a crazy statement. yes. yeah. Because the largest companies who like even if if you just look at employees, companies that employ people employ max like two million back. And uber has how many ads? Six .

years as of the last. So what is the federal .

government employee? It's on part with the part.

the vast majority, but it's still the scope is pretty wow and is everywhere cool.

Thank you. Are very welcome.

Most pleasure .

of you gave me a good .

tip all over .

that, David.

that was a blast. So fun.

funny. It's like you are just here next to me and add one. Now you're there in a go. The magic internet.

I'm really missing that delicious one. The dark a brought us.

I know missing you. Tell us if you like that bit or not, if IT was too campy, if you want more of David and ee. Weve recently did an episode on my first million, and IT was really fun.

We went behind the scenes of acquired, and we sort of talked about acquired business, our journey, turning IT from a podcast into a business, why we think the podcast works and listeners, you might have your own ideas, but where our differentiation is in the market of content out there today, and I know is just a blast. Sam shonna really fun to talk to. So if you are interested in hearing that, you click the link in the shower notes to specifically go to that episode or search any podcast player for my first million. They also did episodes recently with couple friends of the show, David cena from the founders podcast, and actually, David, one of you and my favorite youtube is, yes, dug the miro in the car category. For anyone .

interested in cars, dug is such, such a nice go. Yeah.

check out A C, Q. two. It's our interview show where we talk to folks who are on the cutting edge of what's next, figuring out things like where is the defensively in A I for B2B sas com panies or you int erview wit h the CEO of Ang els tal king abo ut how the y're del ay AI a t the com pany.

I know AI is a buzzword, but like IT is just dominating how every company is making moves these days. And it's great to talk to the who are actually in the arena right now making all of these moves. So that's on A C Q.

two. Check out the slack is what we're talking about this episode and every other acquired FM slash slack. And if you want to come closer into the kitchen and h be a part of what David are building here, become an L P.

Acquire that. F, M, slash, lp. Current benefits include, once a season, you guys will pick an episode.

You all picked lucky Martin, which is shaping up to be one of our biggest episodes ever. So thank you. And I had a blast researching that once. Thanks to our LPL and David, we will get a schedule.

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Yeah month. So on the books with that listeners.

thanks so much.

We'll see next time. See next time. Easy you, busy you, wait you. Who we got to.